Lead, Kindly Light - One Mormon's View on the Issue of Gay Marriage

People outside the LDS faith have little idea how pervasive our culture is in our lives. They know about Jews and Catholics because there have been umpteen million movies centered around a jewish person or catholic person trying to rectify their belief in their religion and the culture that comes with that religion with the difficulties of living in a secular world...and many mormons identify closely with these characters because our lives are similarly enmeshed and entangled with the culture that comes with our religion.

For the record, there is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as preached by my church and there is the culture of mormonism. Any intersection between the two is purely coincidental and as likely to happen as an asteroid the size of Texas hitting the earth...we know it's happened before because we can see the geological evidence and we know it can happen again at any time.
People are rarely indifferent to mormons. They either hate us or they love us. If they hate us, it is a safe bet that they've had a past interaction with someone of our faith who focuses less on The Gospel and more on the culture.

I guess that's why I wanted to write about this particular subject; because, although I am steeped in the culture of my religion, I am constantly holding it up to the filter of The Gospel and, like Tevye, I frequently find myself saying, "on the other hand"

All during the Proposition 8 campaign in California, I was saddened by the accusations of hatred hurled at my religion. When it passed, I watched in tears as people who demand tolerance spray painted grafitti all over our most sacred structures. I was moved to tears again by pictures of people who were not members of my religion trying to scrub the offending spray paint from our temple walls.

The issue of marriage rights for homosexuals is something I've struggled with for many years and, to be honest, I'm still struggling with it. The evidence shows that blacks and hispanics overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 8 and yet, it seems that only my religion was vilified for its passing. It would be too prosaic to claim that the members of my faith were singled out for displays of hatred because of religious intolerance. The simple fact is that we were singled out because we were easy targets. Like homosexuals, there are many false assumptions made by people outside our religion about us. Like homosexuals, the lack of understanding, coupled with a fear of the unknown, sometimes leads to violence.

If you let yourself dwell upon the parallels here, the dichotomy of a group long persecuted and hated visiting violence upon another group long persecuted and hated is mind-boggling.

And yet, I understand. The simple truth is, were I not LDS and were I gay, I would probably react the very same way. I would be incensed beyond reason at my not being able to participate. I understand the reasons behind he actions against my religion because I've taken the time to try and understand the issue from the other viewpoint.

Sadly, I don't think that the people standing outside our temple with cans of spray paint have spent the same effort I have. It is too easy to assign a motive of hatred to people who do not agree with us. It requires no intellectual effort on our part. It is also, the very epitome of hypocrisy. Because, when you think about it, we assign the motive of hatred to a group of people who do not think like us so that we can then more easily justify our own hatred and violence towards them. So I would like to lay it out, from my perspective, as to why two groups of people with similar experiences of being the victims of bigotry and persecution could find themselves at this crossroad.

For the longest time, I was a proponent for gay marriage. My reasoning was that I saw no special lines in my tax forms that said if you're gay, you don't need to pay as much tax as the rest of us. When I got my jury summons, I never saw a provision that excused me from serving if I was homosexual...and, although I've looked, I have yet to see any speed limit signs that allowed people who had same-sex attractions to drive faster than the rest of us. If gay people are expected to shoulder thier fair share of being a citizen, I saw no reason why they should not enjoy all of the rights and priviledges of citizenship that I have. I still don't

And yet, my religion has taken a stand on this issue. My religion that goes out of its way to not take a stand on anything political, that every election time sends us a letter to be read from the pulpit in essence stating that political discussions are not to take place from our pulpits and that we are to prayerfully consider and vote for the candidate that we believe will serve us best, they have come out and said that the position of the church is to not support gay marriage rights.

And so, I had to make a choice...do I trust my own wisdom or do I trust the wisdom of men I believe are prophets of God?

Let me take a moment and explain faith as I understand it. Faith is an experiment very much like a scientific experiment...only you can only prove it to yourself. You can never prove it to another. I think that's the way it's always supposed to have been.

I never much understood Paul's explanation of what constitutes faith and I think too many people bandy about the word when what they really mean is that they believe. But faith is different from a belief because faith is a belief that you put your trust into.

A trapeze artist climbs to the top of the tent and swings out on that trapeze because he believes that when he lets go, the other trapeze artist on the recieving end will be there at the precise moment and place to catch him...he does all of that because he believes...but he doesn't have faith until he actually lets go of his trapeze.

The thing about faith in God is that the more you put your trust into it, the more it proves you right. I never have been able to understand why paying a tenth of my income to God assures me that I will somehow manage better but it does. I don't know why reading my scriptures with my family every day seems to cause all of the pettiness and bickering to end and for us to have greater calm in our lives...but it does. I don't know by what means people are healed when hands are placed upon their heads and they are blessed...but I've seen miracles time and time again. It seems that every time I place my trust in my beliefs and act as the men I sustain as prophets say I should act, the scattered pieces of my life oddly seem to align themselves.

And yet, on this one issue of gay marriage, I held to my own wisdom for the longest time because, it just didn't seem right. And then one day, in church, we sang a hymn that we'd sung countless times before and, for some reason, its meaning slammed into me with such a force that I knew I had to abandon my own wisdom and trust in what has never failed me before.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.

So long thy pow’r hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

To my friends who are gay and to their friends who have taken the opposite side of this issue, I can only say I hope that you understand that I had to make a decision and again, like Tevye, say to myself, "there is no other hand...if I bend that far, I'll break"

I do not come to my stand on this issue lightly, nor is my stand on this issue motivated by fear or hatred. I am simply choosing to place my trust in my beliefs. They have never failed me before and though I know that many will read these words with bitterness, I truly hope that the day will come when we can disagree without being disagreeable.