What would you have me be?

Today I'm writing about a question that I am posing to the LDS Church and Culture:

What would you have me be?

You see, I was born with the "wrong" sexual orientation.  I refused to admit it for many years, and hid it from the world until I was 39.  It was the hidden secret.  I lived with a "dress" on to hide my true self from my family, friends and acquaintances.  I knew the truth, I just couldn't share it.  I built my life around that "dress," because I believed at the time that it was right to do so.  I failed to tell my ex wife that she was marrying a gay man.  Simply put, I built my world on a fake foundation.  The Church wanted me to be straight, and made that perfectly clear in all its manuals, teachings etc.  Past teachings included concepts that just being Homosexual was a terrible abomination, worthy of condemnation and exclusion.  Admitting that fact meant excommunication from the institution, and ostracism from the larger community, and so I kept up appearances until it all fell apart. This degree of severity has changed, especially in the last few years, but the fundamental belief that homosexuality has no legitimate form of expression lives on.

When I was 39 and my marriage was falling apart because I admitted I was gay to my wife, my Bishop told me to stay in the closet.  He is a good man, and did so out of a sense of fear of the reaction from the Church community. I was, simply put, to be seen and not heard on this topic.  There was to be no active or public disagreement with the church on the issue.  His advice is very representative of what the Church Institution and the culture of the church would have us be.  Seen, but never heard.

The Church does not want to admit that we are 2nd class citizens, in their view placed here on earth to live affection free, intimacy free, and love free lives.  They would prefer we just bear our burdens silently, endure 75  years of loneliness, die, and have it all resolved on the other side.  They offer no explanation of why God would send us to this earth to perform this "duty," and expect us to accept this fate on faith.  .  They don't want to deal with the harsh reality that something about this "fate" just isn't right.

But today, its all falling apart.  We've said too much, refused to be hidden, we fight for our civil rights to love and marry, we push for acceptance in the community.  We resist their gender specified roles in society, and more and more of us refuse to be silent about our feelings about their past and present treatment.  The larger culture of the church would have all of this rolled back in time to the point when it was all a big hush hush secret.

In short--they would have us be quiet, docile, accepting of their view of our fate, in-authentic to our true feelings, and actively striving to create that idealized life (despite the fake foundation).

I'm sorry, but this will never be possible again for me, and frankly, it will never be possible again for the larger community of Homosexual people in this country.