Is There a Place for Me?

by Tyler Perry

It’s 6:30 AM. The alarm sounds. I hate that alarm. Even though I went to bed at 10:30, per the rules, I just couldn’t manage to sleep very well. Weird dreams, stress, a flurry of idle thoughts. These kept me from finding rest. I roll out of bed, groggy, and immediately kneel at the side of my bed to offer up a morning prayer. The prayer itself lasts about a minute before I fall asleep again for a few minutes. Honestly, these few minutes are how I am going to make it through the day.

Finally, I get up. My exercise period is spent now because I slept through the morning prayer, but that’s okay. I shower, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and dress in a white shirt, charcoal gray slacks, and a tie. One of the cheap ones. This isn’t a Sunday, and I don’t want to get one of my good ties ruined. Breakfast is next. Cold cereal and milk. I’m on a shoestring budget, which I am good at making last. $140 a month is getting bankrolled and carried over, and right now I am sitting pretty at over $300 in my coffers, and the month is almost out. This may call for an ice cream run tonight when our appointments are finished.

Breakfast is paltry but satisfying. Mom sent snacks in a care package, so things are pretty good there if I need a little extra charge. It’s 9:00 AM now, and I am sitting at my desk with scriptures open. I am burning through reading them again. How many times is this now? I’ll have to check later. I spend the whole hour of my personal study in the scriptures, pouring over new insights and details. I may not be the best at this, but my scholarship of scripture is pretty elite, a point of pride, even.

Yes, I am aware of the irony.

It’s 10 now, and it’s time to actually talk with my companion. This one has been tough. Frankly, I don’t like him. But I am stuck with him. All day. Every day. For at least the next three weeks. I don’t tell my family about how hard it is to be with this one, because I am trying to be charitable. But this is burning me out. I’ve worked on a few clever ways to avoid talking with him during the day, but this hour is specifically set aside for us to talk and study as companions. It sucks. Even with a good companion, this hour is a rough one. This is not a good companion. This hour is my own personal hell.

When the clock strikes 11, I go back to studying on my own. This time, though, it’s language study. I just switch my scriptures from English to Spanish and call it good. As far as I am concerned, I have mastered the principles of the language, and I am just trying to refine vocabulary and other techniques. That is going to come from practicing, not from reading books, I’ve convinced myself. Regardless, I am actually rather proficient with the language and no one questions me on my study.

Noon. Lunch. Just like breakfast, but lunch-themed instead. Ice cream at the end of the day? Definitely, I muse. I do spend some of this hour looking over the appointments and watching an approved movie. The library is small, and I’ve watched this one a thousand times already. Yeah, I can quote the whole thing. English or Spanish. Doesn’t really matter.

Lunch ends, and it’s time to go knocking on doors. No one is home at these hours, and the knocking is useless, but it makes us feel productive, so we do it anyway. Keeps our leadership off our backs.

We knock doors until dinner. Dinner is with a family from the congregation. It’s delicious, of course. The highlight of my day. For a little while, I even forget how painful it is to be stuck with the current companion. There are a couple of older kids in this family, about my age, a boy and a girl. The boy just returned from doing what I’m doing now. I like talking with him. He gets what I’m dealing with, and, I don’t know, there’s just something about him that draws me to him. Hard to explain, I guess.

In the evening, we have two appointments. Dinner runs late, but that’s fine, it doesn’t interfere with our first appointment at all. We convinced the son of the family to go with us on these appointments. He seems happy with reliving his memories, and I’m just happy to have someone to talk to. The first appointment is fine. A pretty standard affair with a simple invitation. I’ll be surprised if there’s follow through on that invitation.

The next appointment is with a family we visit about four or five times a week. They are awesome. Young family with two kids. They are very receptive to us, and they seem really excited about what we are sharing with them. Today is a big day.

“So, we are going to teach them the Plan of Salvation,” I explain to the member assisting us. He knows right away what a big deal this lesson is going to be. “We have already taught them about the premortal life and up to the Atonement. I think we should talk about the Atonement again, and then get into the Spirit World and the Three Degrees of Glory.” I may be calling a bit of an audible from what we discussed in companionship study. I also don’t care that it deviates. Just following the promptings, I justify.

We go into the home and teach the Plan of Salvation. It is incredible. They even accept a baptismal invitation, which we plan for three weeks from now. A little bit of a selfish move on my part, just in case I am the one who leaves in three weeks, but I believe that this is good for them too. I’ve been told to be aggressive like this. Get those commitments moving.

After the lesson, we go get ice cream. It wasn’t too hard to persuade the member to accompany us, and the extra conversation is nice. We get back to our apartment at just a little before 9:30 PM, just like the rules say. I immediately take off my tie, unbutton the collar of my shirt, jot down some notes in my planner, and make token conversation with my companion about tomorrow’s plan. I get ready for bed, and, by 10:30 PM, I’m asleep.

Tomorrow, I will do it all over again.

JUST A RETURNED MISSIONARY

For two years, that was my story. I served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Texas Dallas Mission. It was a wonderful and a miserable experience. Even now, though, I wouldn’t change it. It was a net positive for me. I learned how to communicate better. I learned more about how others think and approach the world around them. I became empathetic, caring, and understanding. And, yeah, I could Bible bash with the best of them. Come on Joel Osteen, what you got? That’s right, nothing!

Two years of preaching the message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Two years of quoting the First Vision of Joseph Smith, of declaring that true prophets of God were on the earth once more, in these, the last days before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Two years of testifying that if people would follow the teachings I had to share, they could be with their families for all eternity.

And that’s the irony, really. You see, I was in denial about this at the time, and I would continue to be in denial about it for a few years after, but I was preaching in favor of a doctrine that I would never be able to enjoy the blessings of. Two years of my life spent teaching people to yearn for something that, even if it is true, I will not receive. How’s that for irony?

Despite the challenges and the cognitive dissonance, I am grateful for my missionary experiences. I am grateful for all the positive skills and attitudes that I developed as a missionary and as a member of the church. I do not believe that the church, however, is, or should be, above criticism and scrutiny.

It is with that attitude in mind that I approach this essay. In this essay, I am going to deconstruct what is perhaps my greatest challenge with the LDS faith. We will discuss recent events related to policy and examine doctrinal shortcomings. As with most of these types of essays, my intention is to offer a voice to those who are struggling with the same things, but who feel that they cannot yet speak up. It is for you that I write this essay, and it is to you, beautiful stranger, that I dedicate this work.

BYU – FEBRUARY 2020

I want to start this discussion at the place where my confidence in the church began to truly collapse. Understand, it had been wavering for some time, since I felt continually distanced and unneeded by the wards that I lived in. But, until this point, I had this idea that I would always return to full activity at some point in the future. Not sure when. Not sure why. But some day, it would happen. It was the pattern that my life had taken to this point, so it stood to reason that this would be no different.

At the end of February 2020, that perception changed.

Those who know me know that I have no love for Brigham Young University (Go Utes!), and I am not afraid to speak out on things I think are asinine or outdated (e.g. the “beard rule”). The university is owned and operated by the church. It is not the same entity as the church, but BYU is a Church Educational Systems (CES) entity. BYU’s mission statement tethers the university and its goals to the church. To contend that BYU’s official policies and rules do not reflect the mind and will of the General Authorities of the church would be a tenuous argument at best. BYU and CES list on their Board of Trustees the entire First Presidency and many other General Authorities and Officers of the church [1].

The church and the university are inextricably linked. The president of the former is the chairman of the board of the latter. I am focusing on this point for an important reason. You cannot rightly dismiss what BYU did in February 2020 as being the actions solely of the university, in no way, shape, or form influenced by the church.

In February 2020, the university issued a change in policy that appeared to permit LGBTQ students to date while studying at the university. While it certainly would not have condoned sexual activity, it did appear to permit dating and non-sexual intimacy, such as kissing, holding hands, or cuddling [2].

A friend of mine attending BYU had made comments to a social media post that had ironic approval of the apparent change in policy. Speaking as a BYU-Idaho graduate, I expressed my incredulity respecting the apparent policy change to my friend. He responded that he had spoken with the Honor Office director, and he had received assurances that LGBTQ students would be allowed to date. I reasserted my doubts, and our conversation ended.

A day or so later, the letter from CES commissioner Paul V. Johnson was released, stating that LGBTQ students would not be allowed to date [3]. My friend expressed his feelings that this was one betrayal too many, and I was disheartened at being proven correct.

As the saying goes, this broke my shelf.

To heteronormative members of the church, Johnson’s letter may seem like pretty standard language. You saw something similar when the policy respecting the baptism of children of LGBTQ parents was released and defended [4].

But to LGBTQ and ally members of the church, this was just one more notch in the totem chip of being one of the least LGBTQ-friendly schools in the country for BYU [5]. This was another instance of the church using doctrine as a cudgel to beat in its idea of what a family ought to look like.

"FAMILIES CAN BE TOGETHER FOREVER"

And that’s the key to this whole conversation. From the perspective of the church and its members, this debate is centered around the doctrine of the family, particularly the eternal family, which is central to the Plan of Salvation. A plan that I taught to people for two years of my life. A plan which seems to have forgotten about people like me.

There’s a hymn I would sing in Primary and in other church meetings called “Families Can Be Together Forever”. It’s a pretty popular one, known for its melody and hopeful lyrics. Hopeful, that is, if you fit into the mold of a “typical Mormon family”.

Imagine a child, about 9 years old, sitting in Primary. This child seems like your typical LDS child, dressed in Sunday-best with an innocent face. But behind that innocence, this child is hiding the signs of abuse. These acts of abuse are carried out by their father, who, right now, is attending his priesthood meeting and probably offering a moderately incoherent answer to a simple, but poorly framed, question offered by the instructor. The child, meanwhile, is about to sing “families can be together forever, through Heavenly Father’s plan. I always want to be with my own family, and the Lord has shown me how I can” (LDS Hymns, 300). This child does not want that. But everyone else does. The child is supposed to. What’s wrong with them? Why don’t they feel the way that everyone else does?

I want you to keep that in mind, because abuse of LGBTQ youth is horrifically common in the church and among its members [6] [7]. Though LGBTQ kids may share the feelings of the abused child (they may, in some cases, even be the abused child above), they have other reasons to find the words of “Families Can Be Together Forever” less than hopeful. This is because they have another question to grapple with in God’s perfect Plan of Happiness (another name for the Plan of Salvation). That question: is there a place for me?

GOD'S "PERFECT PLAN OF HAPPINESS"

Before the beginning, we existed as spirit children of Heavenly Parents. We possessed intelligence, agency, and gender. We enjoyed the presence and teachings of Heavenly Parents. But, as Preach My Gospel notes, we were not entirely like Them, nor could we be, because They have bodies of flesh and bones, and we were just spirits. Also, God had experienced stuff, and we had not experienced stuff. We needed to experience stuff if we were to become like Him. So, God devised a plan, and it was a perfect plan that was designed to maximize the happiness of all His children.

God’s plan involved us coming to earth, gaining a physical body, experiencing things, dying, resurrecting, and returning to His presence. To that end, He created the heavens and earth, in the beginning. When the earth was given form, the stars and the moon set in their places, the seas and the land divided, the plants planted, and the animals given life, with all living things given the command to multiply after their own kinds, God made man in His image. He placed the man in the Garden of Eden and said to Jehovah (Jesus Christ), “Is it good that man should be alone?” To which Jehovah answers, “It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18, KJV).

God’s earliest concern about the condition of man was that he have companionship. And so, He formed Eve.

After Adam and Eve frolicked in the Garden of Eden for some time, they decided to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 2 Nephi 2:25 teaches that this was done explicitly so that “man may be, and that men are that they might have joy.” The purpose of the Fall was ultimately to bring about joy, but its immediate impact was to bring death. In fact, death came in two varieties, spiritual and physical, with spiritual death being separation from God through sin, and physical death being the separation of the spirit from the body. In order to overcome death, Jesus came, he saw, he wept (John 11:35, KJV), he atoned, he died, he told death “not today girlfriend” (not a direct quote), and he resurrected. Through his death and atonement, he overcame both varieties of death, and now we can too.

When we die, our bodies go into the ground, but our spirits get to hang out in a spiritual rest stop as they wait to be resurrected. Then resurrection, judgement, and we get one of three Kingdoms of Glory. But any good Mormon knows that there is only one Kingdom of Glory worth discussing: the Celestial Kingdom. In the Celestial Kingdom, according to Doctrine and Covenants Sections 76 and 130-132, people will receive a fulness of the glory of God, as well as many other blessings and rewards. This kingdom has three degrees within itself, but we only have details about what happens at the top, because that is where exaltation occurs.

It is important to define exaltation and how it relates to salvation. In fact, one could reasonably contend that the “Plan of Salvation” is a bit of a misnomer because salvation is going to come to anyone who accepts Jesus (hey, by grace we are saved!). It just might take a bit longer to roll out for some than for others. Calling this plan the “Plan of Exaltation” would probably better emphasize the strong value Mormons place on the doctrine of exaltation.

What does exaltation look like? In short, an exalted being has a body of flesh and bones that is perfected, is married, by necessity, to an opposite sex spouse, and has lots of spirit children that they will send on their own mortal journeys. They become gods (Doctrine and Covenants 132:20). Mormon children are taught from a very young age that anything less than exaltation is basically hell. The promise that they who do not attain exaltation will not be able to increase their station is seen as miserable. And I can understand why. Eternity is a very long time.

The problem is that the conditions of exaltation would not make every one of God’s children happy, regardless their obedience to the laws and covenants prescribed. Remember, God’s plan is also called the Plan of Happiness. Men are that they might have joy. It is not good that a man should be alone. If God’s goal is to maximize the happiness of His children, then there is a real problem where His LGBTQ children are concerned. For them, His plan kinda sucks. Not to sound flippant or dismissive of any deeply held beliefs, but this perfect plan fails to account for the LGBTQ members of the human family.

WHERE CAN I TURN FOR PEACE?

Under the church’s current understanding of the plan, there are essentially three options for an LGBTQ member. The first is celibacy. Just deny yourself that desire for companionship your entire life and be celibate. This runs afoul of one of God’s first observations about the condition of man. It is not good that a man should be alone. I would also note that the Book of Mormon teaches that all good things come from God (Moroni 7:12). So, if it is not good that a man should be alone, this idea that a gay man should be alone is, definitionally, not good and not of God.

The second option, though not as encouraged today as it used to be, is to marry someone of the opposite sex and just do with it the best that they can. This is dishonest to oneself. This requires one to live a lie, to feign emotion that one does not feel (admittedly, this option may work for some, usually those on the spectrum of bi- or pansexuality). Am I mistaken, or is one of the temple recommend interview questions “Are you honest in your dealings with your fellow man”? How could such a person be worthy of admission to the temple, let alone worthy of exaltation? By compelling them to be dishonest, the compelling agent (the church) would be the one to answer for the transgression.

The third option is to “sin”. This can come in a variety of ways. Premarital sex, extramarital sex, and same-sex marriage are frequent answers. There is another possibility, and it happens all too often. Suicide. And yes, holding other variables constant, religious conservatism and fundamentalism causes LGBTQ youth in those communities to attempt or commit suicide at a much higher rate than their peers [6] [12]. These are the real and tangible consequences of this doctrine. These are the fruits by which we can judge this counsel (see Matthew 7:15-20, KJV).

The promise for those who take options 1 or 2 is that your queerness will be stripped away in the resurrection (that’s part of the promise of having a perfected body, and since queerness is only a condition of the Fall, it will not be present in the Kingdom of God), and you will be given an opposite sex spouse to enjoy eternity with and to reign with as gods. Who is this opposite sex spouse? Someone you could have fallen in love with in this world? Who knows? But it will all work out, don’t worry. This is the promise. And you can trust this promise. For sure.

If you are LGBTQ, I am reasonably sure that you would not have chosen to be. Consider the lack of acceptance, the feelings of isolation and wrongness that are all too common in our community. If you have accepted that part of yourself, however, I imagine that you would not want to be made straight. I think you probably just want to be able to love someone like how the straight folks do. I think, in your heart, you yearn for the love of someone of your own gender, and you just want to be accepted, whether in the church or out of it. Where do you find that acceptance, I wonder?

IS GOD GOOD, OR IS THE CHURCH RIGHT?

For the sake of this discussion, let us assume that the Gospel of Jesus Christ as restored by the prophet Joseph Smith is true. I suspect that there are readers for whom this assumption is easy. For others, this assumption may seem impossible. Nevertheless, let us all take on this assumption and reason together.

If this is the case, Almighty God, who created a perfect plan, is either a sadist or the church, His restored church on the earth today, is wrong (this does not necessarily equate to the church isn’t true, this statement would mean that, on this issue, the church espouses an incorrect view). Both possibilities are troubling in their own way.

In the first case, God is being sadistic by creating a sizable portion of His children to be LGBTQ, commanding them to deny themselves, and teaching that He will give no commandment save He shall prepare a way for them to comply with the command he has given (1 Nephi 3:7; see also Ether 12:27)[8]. Efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation, such as conversion therapy, fail and are extremely harmful [9]. An LGBTQ identity is a natural characteristic of an individual, like eye color or handedness.

Recall that the only promise for obedience to the doctrines of the church would fail to maximize the happiness of an LGBTQ child of God. Such a sadistic God is not worthy of worship.

Or, perhaps, God is not sadistic. Perhaps, as Preach My Gospel teaches, God is your loving Heavenly Father, and He wants all His children to be happy. Seems to fit the motif of a Plan of Happiness. If this is the case, then it would make sense that, God, a being of perfect wisdom (2 Nephi 2:24), would think, “Well, if it’s not good that a man should be alone, and there are gonna be some men who are just attracted to and love other men, it makes sense that there should be a place in the plan for them too.”

But is there? Is there a place for me? The teachings of the Brethren about God’s plan seem to say no. If God is not sadistic, then the only conclusion that I can draw is that the Brethren are wrong.

A PROCLAMATION

In my essay, I have cited scripture to support my arguments. These scriptures have been taken from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. But astute members of the church will be readily armed with a retort. And that retort is going to come from a document entitled “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”. If you cite that, it’s pretty much checkmate. You’re right. That is a teaching of the church that makes it clear that marriage is the only place where sexual relations are permitted under the eyes of God, that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman, and that gender is an eternal characteristic and does not change.

Except, this document is problematic for a few reasons.

As Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught in the Oct 2013 General Conference, church leaders have made mistakes. How are we to determine what is a mistake? Personal revelation, of course. What should we check personal revelation against? The scriptures and the teachings of modern prophets. What do the scriptures say about homosexuality? Well, not much. Leviticus calls it an abomination, but that word, in the Levitical law, is reserved for discussions of idolatry, and homosexual acts were used in certain idolatrous practices in the region [10]. And, while Jesus, the Son of God, who gave the perfect example, is silent on the subject, Paul did speak against homosexuality (Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10). Or did he? There are issues with the translation and context of Paul’s teachings that indicate that Paul may have been speaking about pedophilia or other power disparities and abuse [11].

Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon is “the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (History of the Church, 4:461). The book was written for our day (Teachings: Ezra Taft Benson, 140). So, what does the Book of Mormon say about homosexuality? Even if we use the somewhat liberal connections of the Topical Guide, nothing. Not one reference. The Book of Mormon’s silence on one of the most challenging subjects of our day speaks volumes. Mormons have four books of scripture, but no substantial teachings on homosexuality within.

IS THERE A PLACE FOR ME?

For two years of my life, I woke up at 6:30 AM, studied the scriptures through lunch, preached the doctrines of the Plan of Salvation, and went to bed by 10:30 PM in devotion to the church. I sat with families, in their homes, and bore witness of how wonderful it would be to enjoy the blessings of eternal families that God had promised to His faithful. For two years, even if my companion in that effort was unbearable, I found the strength and vigor to go out and preach the word. I did this because I had confidence that what I had been taught and what I was teaching was true and correct. A conviction that I carried when I transitioned from missionary to returned missionary. A conviction I held until I finally grappled with a question that whispered in the back of my mind. Is there a place for me?

I hope that President Nelson and the Brethren will one day walk back the hurtful and damaging teachings and doctrines the church now espouses. I hope they will do the right thing and give LGBTQ members the recognition and love that they deserve as children of God. The statements of “compassion” and “love” they have given so far have been, as Paul put it, as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1, KJV). Such recognition should also come with an apology, a genuine, sincere apology for the harm that these teachings have done and continue to do to LGBTQ youth around the world.

While I feel very strongly about these points, I want to reiterate something that I said earlier. I am not angry at or bitter with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or its members. My intent here is not to bash on the church and its truth claims. In fact, whether the church is true or not is frankly irrelevant to the points raised in this essay. What is relevant is that there are children who believe that the church is true, who cannot reconcile who they are with what the church tells them that they must be to be members in good standing. And the social pressure to stay in good standing is immense. Anyone who has had to refrain from taking the sacrament knows just how hard it can be to not conform all the time and to still show up.

These kids are grappling with a question, perhaps the most important question that a person grapples with in their life. Is there a place for me? If I do not conform, if I feel sick every time we sing “Families Can Be Together Forever”, if I just want to love and to be loved, if I just want to be who I know that I am, who God made me to be, is there a place for me?

For so many of these children, because of the teachings of modern prophets, and because of the culture of the church, the answer seems to be no. And so, many of these kids choose the quick way out. And that is an absolute tragedy, every single time.

References

[1] (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church-education/about/ces-administration?lang=eng, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[2] (https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2020/02/23/byus-lgbtq-students-feel/, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[3] (https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/3/4/21163585/byu-honor-code-lds-mormon-church-gay-marriage-lgbtq, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[4] (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/policy-changes-announced-for-members-in-gay-marriages-children-of-lgbt-parents?lang=eng, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[5] (https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=lgbtq-unfriendly, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[6] (https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/2/10/21131800/utah-suicide-lgbtq-gay-youth-suicidality-behavior-study-pediatrics-cdc-yrbs-data, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[7] (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/is-the-recent-rise-in-uta_b_10798286, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[8] (https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx, retrieved 15 May 2020, note: these results are most likely heavily skewed since many LGBTQ people do not feel safe identifying as LGBTQ, and increased acceptance of LGBTQ people is positively correlated with increased self-identification)

[9] (https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/news-releases/apa-reiterates-strong-opposition-to-conversion-therapy, retrieved 1 June 2020)

[10] (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/opinion/sunday/bible-prohibit-gay-sex.html, retrieved 1 June 2020)

[11] (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-bible-does-not-condemn-homosexuality_b_7807342, retrieved 15 May 2020)

[12] www.thetrevorproject.org