Insights about Bisexual General Authorities

The following chat from Vatican City to Salt Lake City was recently intercepted and decoded. 

VC: As Mormons you agree with us that same sex marriage should be fought. You, too, see that gays really are one of the problems we need to deal with. Why's that?

SLC: Well first of all, we really appreciate your support. But I do need to let you know that we don't like to use the word "gay". We prefer to call it SGA or Same Gender Attraction. And we do know that SGA can often be cured or at least suppressed well enough that no one would ever know. We have lots of strugglers who have wives and children. They've overcome it and we know others can, too.

VC: How do you know that?

SLC: Well you've seen our missionaries walking around Italy, right?

VC: Many times, yes, many times.

SLC: We send these young men out to serve two year missions when they're 19 years old. They're paired with a male companion 24/7 for months at a time.  They walk together, preach together, share meals together. They learn to share a kitchen and much more, each morning and night the get on their knees and pray together. Why in the early days of the church they even slept in the same bed together.

VC: What does that have to do with homosexuality?

SLC: Well we know very well that some of these young boys are attracted to each other. But it's OK because we also know that most of them have the self-control not to act on it, and when they return home, they'll marry sweet young women, have wonderful families and put their homosexuality behind them for good.

VC: How do you know that?

SLC: Well, confidentially, I can tell you it has happened within the highest ranks of the church.

VC: You mean some of your leaders are gay?

SLC: No, I wouldn't put it that way. Like I said, we really don't like the G-word. I would say they had same gender attraction, but they overcame it.

VC: But what about the scientific evidence that homosexuality is immutable?

SLC: We don't buy it. When science and the gospel disagree, we tend to go with the gospel. Besides that, when some of our highest ranking leaders say that they've overcome this weakness, then we can count on that as the truth.

VC: Isn't it more likely that these men who say they can overcome homosexual feelings are actually bisexuals who are choosing to bond with women because their bisexuality gives them that option?

SLC: Well I hadn't thought about it quite that way. We don't like to use the word bisexual very much. I guess we could refer to it as OGAASGA, or simply OGASA, opposite and same gender attraction. But I think that sounds too much like Obama and we certainly don't want that.

VC: Wow and I thought we were homophobic. It would be tough for an openly gay member of your church to rise to the level of a Cardin---uh---General Authority. But a bisexual member of your church who could pass as straight could certainly rise up through the ranks, couldn't he?

SLC: Well I suppose it's possible, and to be honest with you, I have wondered about some of the men I work with.

VC: And then when discussions about the fluidity of sexual attraction came up, they would be able to say "I know this can be overcome" because they've overcome it. What these bisexuals doesn't understand is that they never were homosexual to begin with. The bisexual has a choice. The homosexual not so much.  We see the world not as it is, but as we are. So the bisexual church leader assumes that because he had a choice, others do, too. That's probably why some of your leaders and our leaders are so fearful of gay marriage. They really do think that lots of people could change teams because they have and they see others like themselves.

SLC: Interesting thoughts.

VC: Got to run. I've got meetings. Next time you're in Rome, let's have lunch and I'll give you a personal tour of the Vatican.

SLC: Hey, I've also got meetings, morning noon and night, but thanks, my friend, and the next time you're in Salt Lake, I'll buy you lunch and give you a personal tour of Temple Square. Incidentally, please don't mention this exchange to anyone, it could cost me my job.

VC: Not a problem. I won't say a word, and of course this chat is encrypted. Even if someone intercepted it, they'd never be able to decode what we've said.

SLC: Ciao.

VC: Ciao.

House episode on MOM engagement

Thanks to Into the West I watched an excellent episode of House last night. It deals with the wedding of a young couple. She is straight. He is dealing with SSA from which he says he is "cured." The episode helped me understand the sense of betrayal my wife felt when I finally came out to her after coming out to myself many years into our marriage. The ideal that child should be raised by a committed mother and father is also something I've pondered since watching the episode. A mixed orientation marriage is not only difficult for the wife and husband, but it also has implications for the children that may be brought into the union. True, no marriage is perfect, and I don't know if there is any data on the effects of MOM relationships on children in those families. If you are aware of any information on this, please let me know.

One Hand One Heart

(photo from Beck's blog)

Make of our hands one hand,
Make of our hearts one heart,
Make of our vows one last vow:
Only death will part us now.

Make of our lives one life,
Day after day, one life.
Now it begins, now we start
One hand, one heart;
Even death won't part us now.

Interesting, isn't it how Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein captured the essence of both mortal and eternal marriages in this classic from West Side Story. It's a beautiful, emotional song and yet I wonder, based on my own experience, how many MOMs (Mixed Orientation Marriages) achieve this ideal.

My dear wife and I are of one heart on many issues, particularly concerning our children and our pride in the way they treat others and their varied accomplishments. However our lives are not one, but multiple lives. We have different views so many things, different approaches, varying tastes, divergent opinions. Most of the hours of our days are not spent together but apart. Even much of our leisure time is spent in proximity to one another, but not in close physical or emotional contact.

Much of this is healthy. I agree with Kahlil Gibran: "...let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls." Nonetheless I am bound. I have chosen to be. I am bound by commitments and covenants, days which have stretched into years, months which have morphed into decades.

The spaces in our togetherness allow for friendships. Married women usually have their intimate girl friends. They may greet with hugs and kisses. Their supportive touching may include handholding. Some married men have their trusted business associates, their fishing buddies*, their racketball partners, those whose company they enjoy as they train together for a marathon or serve together in the neighborhood, church and community. While these relationships vary in the level of their intimacy, they tend to be platonic--even so the men may testify of the love for each other and kid each other about their bromance.

The dynamics are more complicated when one of the two buddies is gay or bisexual, but there remains a safety net. In a MOM male friendship, the straight man's orientation provides a natural barrier to convenant-breaking. The friends may be physically and emotionally close in many ways. They may share doubts, concerns and joys. They make greet and depart with the embrace of whiskered bear hugs. They may inhale each other's unique scent of sweat not entirely overpowered by deodorant. Hundreds even thousands of times over a long term freindship they may dress and undress together. They may stand naked, talking, laughing, shaving in the all-male bastion of the locker room and its showers. Sexual contact does not occur. It is not desired by one or even both of the men.

But when the males in a friendship are married men who are both SGA or SSA or bi-sexual or gay, and when the friendship includes playful, brotherly touch and mutual desire for more, what barriers protect that friendship from escalating into convenant-breaking? Is the covenant the safety net? What can they do to create appropriate spaces in their togetherness? How can their relationship help rather than hinder the vows they have made to their wives, the commitments they have made to their children, the chaste friendship they wish to sustain?

*usually, not, I presume of the Brokeback Mountain genre. ;)