"erase my name, or write it as you will/ so i be written in the book of Love"

[aillychan]

My apologies for the length of this post. I cannot bring myself to cut this -- it is too important to me.

This is in response to a friend of a friend, whose journal I do not feel comfortable commenting on. This person, a young Mormon lady, read of the protests in California and Utah at temples this week, and felt hurt, shocked, and angered by

Comments

[aillychan]

I, generally, use this young lady's arguments in FAVOR of equal rights to gay marriage.
IT IS SO FRUSTRATING. We have the same arguments. We have similar approaches. And yet she and I (and you and she) arrive at such vastly different places, and it is hard to trace the split.

There's no logic to it. Just hate.
Hate, and fearmongering, and the perpetration of ridiculous illogical arguments against it. (Next we'll have to marry our children to dogs!)

To go on a bit of a tangent, she also says "I don't think that it is fair that [Mormons] be singled out like this, but who said life was fair." Before I read her post, I had planned on making a post with a similar starting point -- there were so many political factors that went into approving Prop 8, to some degree it is quite unfair for the protests to center on LDS. But as Rachel Maddow said tonight, there was a $30 million campaign for Yes on Prop 8, and an estimated 40% of the personal donations for that came from Latter Day Saints. How many homeless families could that money have fed, clothed, created homes for? How can a Christian church, of any denomination, decide that fighting a declaration of love is more important than caring for the needy?

aforementioned comment 24

[anduhm_yeah]

I think comment #7 hits it on the head. Pain occurs all the time in (and out of) the church because of sin and incompliance with church teachings.

I don’t know what it is about gay marriage that makes it seem like exclusively a civil rights issue rather than an issue of whether or not we are in favor of people keeping the commandments (as Elder Oaks(?) called it: the teaching function of the law). Gay marriage goes a long way to normalizing homosexuality, and I don’t want that for my children.

Perhaps it is that gay marriage (as opposed to promiscuous homosexuality) is an expression of love and commitment, and it is hard for us to see love as a bad thing.

I was in a homosexual relationship at BYU 13 years ago. I was in love; I still feel reminiscent/nostalgic sometimes over that time in my life. The heady feelings of first falling in love are unlike anything else on earth.

At the time I wondered - how could Heavenly Father not want me to feel love? To not love and know another person as I was loved and known?

But, - being in love does not make sin okay. My repentance process was painful and hard. My parents, very conservative, sheltering, SURPRISED parents, were amazing. I know they would vote against Prop 8 or 102 or whatever, but they would do so remembering the pain I went through, and they went through, and also the joy that we all feel now that I am married (happily) to a wonderful man and the mother of three (often wonderful) children.

If I had not felt the pain (Godly sorrow) of repentance, perhaps I would now be feeling the pain of not being able to marry my first love. Either way, pain exists where there is sin. Especially if there is love there also.

If gay marriage had been legal at the time I was exploring my sexuality for the first time (see Kathryn Soper’s recent post on T&S and my comment there), I might have had a much harder time thinking of my love as not justifying my sin.

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=2106

Re: aforementioned comment 24

[aillychan]

For a moment, I was really confused and thought this was you "speaking" instead of quoting. And then I got to "I was in a homosexual relationship at BYU 13 years ago." and went OH OKAY. D'oh!