It's "Okay" to Say You're "Gay"!

There are reasons why an LDS homosexual (male or female) may be the best friend you'll ever have (if you're "worthy" to have such a friend). 

Such a person knows that heterosexual conduct within marriage between a man and a woman is the only sexual expression permitted by LDS doctrine and practice. (All other sexual conduct is proscribed, including heterosexual conduct.) Inasmuch as sexual orientation is interstitially and involuntarily woven into the fabric of every human soul -- Examine your own heart: Are you "naturally" heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual? Is your proclivity a "choice" or rather an overwhelming natural compulsion? -- anyone who would voluntarily embrace and practice such a religion must have one damn good testimony of the LDS faith! 

Legion are those who don't uphold their religion's sexual mores. The LDS homosexual's only "choice" -- if he or she is to remain in "good standing" in the faith -- is to not give expression (by conduct) to any sexual desire at all. This is not just a call to chastity, but a life-long call to celibacy. It is a demand few, if any, (LDS or otherwise) are willing (or able) to fulfill. Many rationally condemn the Catholic Church for requiring celibacy of its priesthood, viewing such as an "unnatural" (and ultimately unsustainable) inhibition on, well, human nature. Many  reasonably suspect that Catholic priests act out sexually in "unnatural" and unlawful ways simply because they have no other venue or opportunity for "acceptable" sexual expression. 

While we are all called upon to observe chastity (no sexual conduct outside of marriage) at some point in our lives, most of us look forward to getting married -- with the prospect of "having sex" and doing what we consider to be natural, wholesome, divinely-ordained and culturally approved. LDS homosexuals (or "Latter-day Saints who experience same-sex attraction") have no such hope or prospect. They are "doomed", as it were, to never have the opportunity to express themselves sexually in any manner that is either ecclesiastically or culturally endorsed. They are "trapped" in their own orientation. Any "acting out" for them -- in any fashion with anyone of any age in any context (even with themselves) -- is considered by the LDS to be "sinful". For such persons, the only "acceptable" choice is complete, absolute, life-long celibacy.

These people -- who confess both their proclivity for the same sex and their determination to keep their commitment to observe celibacy -- should be celebrated, not condemned. They should be lauded as heroes, not shunned as villains.

We all ought to be "celibate", to some extent. The single woman ought to practice celibacy before marriage. The married man ought to practice "celibacy" after marriage -- by not having sex with the single woman! We all practice "celibacy" by degrees. For the LDS homosexual, the only celibacy that is authorized and accepted is life long and absolute. 100%. For some, this must be a horrible burden to bear.

Jesus referred to this matter when He said:

For there are some eunuchs [those who do not have sexual relations], which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. (Matt. 19:12)

By and large, we have little power (over ourselves) to change our sexual orientation (to whom we are attracted). "We are who we are." People have been sexually attracted to [fill in the blank: whites, blacks, both, neither, children, adults, fat, thin, males, females, animals, door knobs, etc.]. We may be "straight". We may be "gay". We may be "natural", "normal" and "healthy" or we may be "unnatural", "perverted" and "messed up". But we are who we are. Without conscious, persistent effort (and maybe even despite it), no one is going to change their sexual orientation very much, any more than you're going to change your sexual orientation. (Have you tried doing that? Would you ever want to?)

Can people who have been strongly attracted to the opposite sex all their lives at some point experience overwhelming conscious sexual feelings for the same sex? Absent any environmental or cultural influences that would impose homosexual arousal and thus induce homosexual feelings, I think not (for most of us). I leave open the possibility that some may be ambiguously or strongly attracted to both sexes, for various reasons. (But this is rare.) Conversely, those who experience same-sex attraction are likewise unlikely to develop heterosexual feelings -- unless, as postulated, heterosexual arousal is culturally or environmentally imposed and heterosexual desires and fixation are thus induced. 

This latter hypothesis was the historical impetus for encouraging homosexuals to marry: to make them "straight". I understand that such attempts at sexual "reorientation" have proven to be mostly dismal failures and that the practice is now roundly discouraged by both psycho-sexual professionals and leaders of the Church. (My own "best friend" at BYU was "gay" -- I didn't know it at the time -- and his marriage, even after three children, proved insufficiently "reorienting" to dissuade him from wanting to have sex with men.)

We frankly have no other choice than to embrace and support our LDS friends and family members who "suffer" from same-sex attraction. Being "gay" certainly isn't a "choice" that any practicing, committed LDS person would "make". We ought to uphold and sustain them in their valiant quest to uphold chastity (and life-long celibacy). How will our own heterosexual ethics, honesty and comportment compare with what homosexuals are required to do? How will our faithfully "having sex" at some point -- with all its attendant comforts and blessings -- compare with their faithful abstinence -- with all of its attendant miseries and misfortunes? Can these two efforts even compare? How can the man who satisfies himself, if only occasionally (by "eating" just a little) ever compare with him who (although he has both "food" and appetite) chooses never to "eat", but rather starves himself (making himself a "eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake")?

Well did Jesus condemn those who require that great burdens be lifted by others, but who nary lift a finger themselves!

"But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for [homosexuals] in the day of judgment, than for thee." (Matt. 11:24)

Anyone shouldering the burden of the "gay" person (by not "giving in" and by endeavoring to "endure to the end") deserves a hero's welcome at the finish line! Anyone bearing such a burden has trod depths of despair, loneliness, longing, and pain that few otherwise can know. Abstinence-practicing gay Latter-day Saints lose not only their loved ones for a time -- indeed, they lose every loved one with whom they might ever feel the desire to "marry" -- but they also must lose themselves completely, by giving up every opportunity to please themselves, to do their own will, to satisfy their own desires. They effectively take up their cross -- a "cross" far heavier than most of us are ever called upon to lift. In so doing, they may develop divine strengths and sensitivities, compassion and empathy, tolerance and loyalty, unselfishness and discretion -- traits to be highly appreciated in any friend.

For facing this challenge forthrightly -- and for lifting this burden with faith -- "gay" Latter-day Saints ought to be respected, loved, and welcomed into the family of God.