A couple of weeks ago, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (referred to in this post as the Church) held a Press Conference. This press conference coyly called itself a press conference in support of LGBT rights in housing and employment, 
and religious freedom. If the Mormons know how to do anything it’s to present something the appearance of home-cooked warm, patriotic apple pie. So what was this all about? The last time the Church held a press conference, the President of the Church had died, and his successor was being presented (kind of like when Pope Francis walked out on the balcony, but with much less fanfare and pageantry). This one was supposed to be, or at least optically presented to be about the Church calling a truce in the culture war. But, as a post-Mormon, this press conference left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and the feeling that I had there had been a bait and switch.
If you didn’t read my previous post, and you’re curious as to what “post-Mormon” means, please check out my previous post here. This will give you some idea of where I’m coming from.
Rights and Freedoms
The olive branch being offered by Church leaders to LGBT people and their allies was: we believe that LGBT people should be respected and not face discrimination in employment and housing; in exchange, we ask you to respect our religious freedom to believe and practice our faith as we wish to. On its face, it seems reasonable. As a believer in pluralistic society, I believe everyone has the right to practice their faith however they see fit, as long as it does not endanger public safety, physically or psychologically abuses or harms people, etc. However, the Church, being an ever anonymous and quiet patron of Republican politics, utilizes the term “religious freedom” as code. Religious freedom is an optically great word. I mean, freedom, human rights, who wouldn’t want that?
The “religious freedom” that the Church espouses is the “religious freedom” of “religious freedom” protection acts that are being proposed in legislatures around the country. These acts would give an EMT freedom to decline providing emergency care to a gay person on the basis of a sincerely held religious conviction; a county clerk would have the freedom to not issue marriage licenses to couples he/she does not feel are fit to be married according to his/her sincerely held religious convictions; a pharmacist would be allowed to refuse to dispense medicine that he/she finds morally objectionable (I find it ironic that these upstanding, generally “Christian” folk find the Morning After pill objectionable, yet find not the least moral objection in dispensing Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, or any number of “male enhancement” drugs, but I digress). This, I would argue is license and protection to discriminate on the basis of one’s “sincerely religious belief, and not religious freedom. Let’s not forget, that white supremacists in the Civil Rights era also tried to advance “religious freedom protection acts” to protect their ability to discriminate on the basis of a person’s race. Let’s also not forget, that in the Civil Rights Era, it was God’s unchangeable scriptural command that the races be separated (and in the LDS Church, it was the law, and black men were barred from the Priesthood).
Knowing the decoded message of Church leaders leaves one with the distinct feeling of a non-offer. It was a statement without honor, honesty or integrity. I mentioned in my previous post that one of the reasons I consider myself a “post-Mormon” and not an “ex-Mormon” is that my Bishop in my 
discussion with him showed me respect, honor, honesty and integrity of his position. I felt that the tone and message of the Press Conference held by the Church was the exact opposite. It was a dishonorable, dishonest statement in which the Church attempts to deceive people at large. Far from being an olive branch, what was being offered by the Church was a venomous serpent. The bargain demanded by Church leaders is they will “allow” LGBT people to be employed and have housing, but should that LGBT person want to obtain anything else, he / she / ze is at the mercy of the sincerely-held religious beliefs of the vendor. Little does the Church recall the persecution it faced for its support and perfection of polygamy. Little does the Church recall that it once was living an “alternative lifestyle”, and that it suffered and paid dearly, and in the end was co-opted, and suppressed in to silence and conformity by the majority. So the Church asks the same thing of the LGBT people. Do as we did in 1890 to obtain Statehood for Utah. Cease and desist your homosexuality as we ceased and desisted from polygamy. What a bargain.
Intentions and Meanings
The people of the LDS church are by and large people that I respect and people who have convictions they stand by and at the same time are respectful. However, for the leadership of the Church, I perhaps would have wished for more integrity and honesty. I don’t place responsibility on LDS people as a whole, but I do place it squarely on the shoulders of the General Authorities and the General Relief Society, Young Women’s and Primary Presidencies. The General Authorities and the General Presidencies have to answer for the countless suicides, rending of families, “kicking out” and banishment of LGBT children, as well as for the spiritual destruction of countless LGBT people. This is serious. This isn’t just a soundbyte or inflammatory rhetoric. It’s the reality of the LDS response to LGBT people. People have died. Physically, and spiritually. Without using the literal words, the General Authorities’ position is that if your children persist in their “lifestyle choice”, they should, for all intents and purposes be dead to you, and, if they committed suicide, it would be no big loss, and is preferable to them “defiling their bodies (this position is well hidden in a book published by the Church’s semi-official publication, which would require at the bare minimum tacit consent by the highest levels of the Church hierarchy). 
A shout out to an LDS friend of mine, who said: “There is room in the Gospel for all people; but in practice there is not. I have faith that things will change for the better.” Though I don’t share her optimism for the Church, I do believe this to be true for the LDS Church. The LDS Church’s gospel borders on Universalistic, and is one that gives up on no one. However, the Church in its current state is not in a place where an LGBT people could be safe. The message to LGBT people who are not called to a life of celibacy, is that there is no place for them in the LDS Church, and this is a message that ought to be heeded, and one that ought to be made very clear by the Church. Instead of couching their true positions in the flower Mormonese of pious devotion to God, and the Mormonese of such documents of the “Family Proclamation”, I wish that the hierarchy of the Church would simply say this, and part ways peacefully with its LGBT members, much in the same way that my Bishop allowed me to part ways with the Church, and make very clear to Missionaries and Members that the Church should not seek to convert LGBT people as they would not be welcome and there would be no feasible, meaningful way of life for them in the Church community.
I know God (whether that’s Emptiness, Buddha, or God) loves me for who I am. My Bishop gave me that as perhaps a parting gift from the LDS Church. I pray that the LDS Church will be able to live up to its image of honor, honesty and integrity by speaking honestly, and not deceptively so that we can ensure that God’s children are loved and accepted by their families, that they stay alive without ever going into the dark depths of contemplating suicide, that families are not rent asunder by pretext of maintaining purity and obedience to God’s commandments, that we can have honest conversations and where needed, part peacefully, while maintaining respect for one another, and celebrating God’s creation in each other.
Phos Zoe 