Don’t faint, because I’ve posted — and posted twice in the same day. Sometimes, you just have to get stuff out.
I stumbled across a mention of Carol Lynn’s new Web site (sorry, I don’t remember where, or I’d credit the blogger, as I always do), “Proposition Healing,” which, in essence, is an effort to bring Mormons and gay people together to talk. Just talk.
Carol Lynn welcomes comments from people who have attended these meetings. Although I have never been to one of these meetings (and, I’m sure, never will), I felt the need to contact her about her idea, because — well, I hope I make myself clear below.
Mind you, I think her idea is wonderful. Really, I do. And I encourage anyone even vaguely intrigued or inspired to get in touch with her.
But enough introduction. Below is the letter I sent to Carol Lynn this afternoon. It is the longest thing I’ve written in many months — and, yes, I know I stopped posting, but here I am, posting. So sue me for changing my mind.
It’s not the most eloquent letter I’ve ever written, but I had to write it, and I had to share it with you.
Settle in for a long one.
Dear Carol Lynn (I hope you don’t mind my familiarity),
I read with interest your new Web site, “Proposition Healing,” and feel compelled to comment. Perhaps what I have to say will provide you with some fodder for future Mormon-gay discussions — perhaps not. For what it’s worth, here goes — and I apologize in advance for what I know is going to be a very lengthy letter, but I do hope you will find the time (and endurance) to read it from start to finish; I would consider it a great favor to me.
If you decide to quote anything I write here publicly, you have my permission to do so, on the condition that you conceal both my email address and my last name. I’ve never hidden my real name in association with my Web site, but in this case, I don’t want to provide any extra help to anyone trying to track down my home address or phone (which has already been done, on several occasions).
A little background: I am a native Californian, looking down the barrel at age 49; I have lived most of my life on the S.F. peninsula. A cradle Catholic, I knew I was a lesbian since… always. I was three years old when the Beatles arrived in the U.S., and all I knew is that I wanted to be one of them, because I saw the way my older sister’s friends reacted to them — as only dreamy-eyed, thoroughly infatuated teenage girls could. I knew what I was long before I knew there was a word for what I was, and long before I knew there was anyone else in the world like me. After many years of angst (which I’ll save you the monotony of reading a story you’ve read a thousand times before), I finally came out publicly after high school, a few years after I left the Catholic church (but quite a few years before I realized I was a full-fledged agnostic; these days, I might just be an atheist who’s not ready to admit it yet).
Fast-forward to May, 2008. My then-partner (now wife) and I were floored when marriage equality was finally recognized in California. We had never seriously discussed the idea of marriage as long as we were living in California — it just wasn’t an option; we thought we would have to wait until we moved back east (a plan still in the works but indefinitely on hold; it’s a long story) and settled in Massachusetts. But there it was — marriage — and so I dropped to one knee and asked her to marry me. She didn’t hesitate to say yes.
We probably would have waited a little longer than we did to get married, as planning even a small wedding (I soon learned) was a vast undertaking. (What did I know? The only reason I had never paid attention to what went into planning a wedding was that I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be allowed to experience that joy, too.) But the spectre of Proposition 8 was already hanging over our heads, and so, in August, our families — now one family — and friends gathered to witness us pledge our lifetime commitment to one another. No matter how much it sounds like a cliche, it really was the happiest day of my life.
My wife and I worked like dogs throughout the summer of 2008 to prevent Prop 8 from passing — save for the single week of our honeymoon, when, deliberately and gloriously, we cut ourselves off completely from communication with the outside world. We couldn’t have given ourselves a better wedding gift; while we grow every day in our love, our commitment, and our happiness with each other, that week was truly the last time we were simply happy, without a care in the world, because we had temporarily retreated from the war being waged on gay Californians.
If we thought things were tough before we left, it was only after we returned that we learned about the sudden rush of donations supporting Prop 8 — and only then did we even begin to perceive the massive weight of the Mormon church behind the crusade.
Throughout those horrible days and weeks, we did everything in our power to stop Prop 8, including making hefty monetary donations (which we really could not afford) to No On 8, and knocking ourselves out to help our readers (my wife and I both have relatively popular blogs) grasp what we were learning, as we learned it.
In doing so, we learned more about Mormonism than either of us had ever cared to know; up to that point, as far as we — a peace-loving, live-and-let-live atheist and atheist-leaning agnostic couple — were concerned, the Mormons believed what they believed, and did what they did, and as long as they didn’t bother us, we didn’t give them a second thought, and we were as cordial as we could be when saying, “No, thank you,” to the missionaries who kept insisting on ringing our doorbell. (My biggest annoyance about Mormons pre-Prop 8: the idea that a 19-year-old kid has the audacity to think he’s going to teach _me_ about God. These boys — for they are barely out of childhood — have no more business assuming the role of a religious “authority” at that age than they do of trying to write the next “War and Peace”; they have not yet lived anything even remotely resembling _life_.)
Now everything had changed. I had been aware, albeit peripherally, of the Mormon church’s involvement in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment, but I had had no idea that the church was, for all practical purposes, singlehandedly responsible for maintaining the second-class status of women in this country.
I had heard rumblings about the church’s involvement in the 1998 campaign to stop civil unions in Hawaii — now I was seeing the donor rolls for that campaign, reading strategy letters between Mormon leaders sent more than a decade ago, and finding long, detailed papers describing the Mormon battle plans, often written by Mormons themselves.
Meanwhile, I was no stranger to the cause of equality and other progressive issues, and the consequences of standing up for my rights. I was there for ERA rallies, and Take Back the Night marches, and more pride parades than I can count, in more cities than I can count, since the late 1970s. I wasn’t yet 20 years old when I led a boycott of a local restaurant openly hostile to lesbians. I was hassled, followed, and threatened with physical violence in the street just for looking gay (and for having a very pretty, feminine girlfriend who, many men stated outright, thought should belong to them). So, anti-gay animosity was nothing new to me. But this time, it was different; I had never before been the direct target of such powerful, well-funded, institutionalized hatred (yes, I’m sorry, but that’s what it is: hatred) like that fueling Prop 8.
Early on, along came came Nadine Hansen — who, I know now, was involved with Sonia Johnson and the ERA fight, but of whom I had never heard before she began documenting Mormon donations to Prop 8. A few ex-Mormons (all straight), appalled by the actions of their former church, found me, and filled in many blanks.
It all became clear: The Mormon church, its followers included, had insinuated itself into my life — and had been doing so, thanks to my own ignorance of their machinations — for far longer than I had ever imagined.
The Mormons had declared war on my family, and on my extended family of LGBT brothers and sisters. And they were lying about it, and about us.
Now, it was personal.
At some point, while poring over the tens of thousands of anti-gay donations to see who I knew*** — my wife and I were, of course, going to boycott every last anti-gay business in our area — I realized there was no single, easy-to-navigate resource that would help others identify (and if they liked, avoid) businesspeople who had donated to the California hate campaign. And so I began building a searchable database, first of Prop 8 donors, and then public records for donors to other anti-gay initiatives — Arizona, Florida, Maine… all the way back to Prop 22 in California, and “Save Marriage Hawaii” in 1998. My target audience is the LGBT community, and my purpose, and message to them, is simple: It’s up to you if you want to patronize businesses that use your money against you; for our part, we refuse to continue funding our own oppression.
I created Base8 (http://base8.lavenderliberal.com/) with the goal of identifying anti-gay donors more accurately than had ever been done before. I use only publicly-available information from the Internet, synthesizing many disparate bits of information into a single database entry that gives the reader a far clearer picture than a simple list of names and donation amounts. (That’s it in a nutshell; if you’d like the full explanation of Base8’s raison d’etre and my methodology, here is the FAQ: http://news.lavenderliberal.com/base8-faq/)
A lot of people — anti-gay donors, of course — don’t like what I do, or how I do it. I receive plenty of hate mail, some of which makes it to publication, and some of which I ignore. The bottom line is: What I’m doing is perfectly legal — and if a person doesn’t want to be associated with anti-gay bigotry and anti-gay activism, then the solution is simple: Stop donating to anti-gay campaigns.
There is no question that I get quite snarky in some of the entries, but I make no apologies. As I often write: These people have had their say, and now I’m having mine. It’s all I’ve got left. (We are outnumbered. Our votes do not count. And, stupidly, our side made the mistake of believing that the truth would outweigh the vile smear campaign of lie-riddled fearmongering. Our side was wrong. The only option we have left is to vote with our wallets, and try to starve the beast that is destroying our lives.)
It was (and is) also important to pick up where Nadine Hansen left off in identifying Mormon donors. Why? A number of reasons, all involving the lies that continue to be perpetuated by Mormons themselves — not the least of which are 1) the lie that the church itself never donated a dime to Prop 8, and 2) the fallacious strawman that Mormons only make up 2% of the population of California, and so cannot be held responsible for the passage of Prop 8.
And — I won’t lie — the more Mormon blogs I read (sometimes, that is the only sure way to identify a Mormon donor), the more important it became to me to expose the other lies individual Mormons were spreading, and continue to spread to this day — that their freedom of religion is threatened, that “gay marriage will be taught in schools” — all the garbage I’m sure you’ve heard a thousand times. (I thoroughly debunked the infamous, reportedly Mormon-issued, “Six Consequences” propaganda in August, 2008, in excruciating detail: http://news.lavenderliberal.com/2008/08/30/six-big-lies…)
What got to me — gets to me — is how, in regurgitating the talking points issued by LDS, Inc., there is a distinct, predictable pattern in the way these Mormons write, revealing undeniable hostility (born, I suppose, of “we’re going to the celestial kingdom and those filthy gays are going to hell” arrogance).
Worse, they’re absolutely joyous about hurting us. Oh, they don’t think they are — I’m sure most have convinced themselves they’re obeying some righteous, God-mandated mission to purge the world of us dangerous, evil homosexuals — but after reading literally thousands of pro-Prop 8 posts on “Mormon Mommy” blogs, nothing on earth could convince me that they do not thoroughly enjoy inflicting pain and damage on us, and then rubbing our noses in it.
I have been called many things in my life, and I have even taken physical abuse — but I have never been so cut to the bone by the sheer glee demonstrated by Mormon bloggers and Yes On 8 sign-wavers as they turned this crusade of hatred into a party atmosphere. They have made it clear this is _fun_ for them. (”Awesome!” is the most frequent word they use to describe their days of sign-waving. “It was so much fun!”)
I would rather be physically beaten than experience the mental and emotional anguish of knowing there are people who take such delight in my very real, very raw pain, which will not abate until the day I am recognized as a full citizen in this society (which I do not expect to see in my lifetime).
Right now, I’ll give you just one example, from this very morning.
Again, sometimes the only way to ascertain a Mormon donation is by reading the donor’s personal blog — and since I am absolutely pedantic about citing sources (you may have noticed Nadine Hansen being accused of not backing up her identifications of Mormons — and I certainly don’t want to be caught unable to “show my work”), I always include links to the sources of the information I am putting forth. If someone alerts me to a factual error, I will be quick to correct it — but so far, no one has alerted me to a single factual error in any of the many thousands of records in Base8.
Rather, I get hate mail or comments raking me over the coals for the very existence of Base8 itself, or — as I found this morning — for the most minor editorializing, such as calling a blog “aesthetically challenged.” I kid you not.
For that, and that alone, a lovely Mormon family called me “some freak of nature pro-gay person,” among other endearing epithets, and “anti-heterosexual,” as well as labeling my gayness a “sickness.”
And these people call themselves “Christians”? This is the modern Mormon church?
I hope you will read the exchange — it is not at all atypical of the mail and comments I receive from Mormons (both listed in Base8 and not) on a regular basis — I don’t even get so many nasty missives from Catholics (and you can be sure that I, as an ex-Catholic, feel free to criticize the Catholic church, often, and mercilessly):
http://www.lavenderliberal.com/cgi-bin/base8v2/linfo.cgi?id=5871
All this brings me to the reason I am writing you. (Again, I apologize for the length of this letter, but I felt it necessary to give you some context.)
I applaud what you’re trying to do, Carol Lynn. It’s admirable. It’s noble. And in a world before Prop 8, I would have been the perfect addition to your cause; I would have been writing a much shorter email to the effect of “Great idea! I’m all for finding common ground! Where do I sign up?”
That will never happen now. Now, I’m the sort of person you wouldn’t want within 50 miles of one of your meetings; nor would I want to be within 50 miles (which, come to think of it, is about how far I am from you).
I’m of no danger to anyone — I pride myself on my unwavering commitment to peaceful, nonviolent, legal action. But I am a different person than I was prior to Prop 8; if there is one thing I have learned, it is how naive I was, even at this stage of my life: With each new assault on my rights, my dignity, and my very humanity, my childlike desire to believe that there really couldn’t be anyone so hateful, so bigoted, so blind, or so willing to hurt strangers for their own gain (be it monetary or, as the Mormons believe, spiritual) shrinks by half. Today, my faith in humanity is dead, buried, and turned to dust. Yes, I blame the Mormon church, and its followers who carry out their anti-gay orders like mindless drones — and then scream bloody murder when somebody calls them on their most un-Christian actions and their mindboggling hypocrisy.
I also no longer believe that “reaching out” and “winning hearts and minds” — with Mormons or with anyone else who’s decided I am their inferior — is worth the time or trouble. As far as I can see, there are only two kinds of Mormons I could ever abide speaking with: ex-Mormons, and Mormons who were never bigots in the first place (many of whom were on the fence about the church anyway, and were pushed over the edge by Prop 8). As for the rest… Well, I wasted a lot of hours, a lot of words, and a lot of tears trying to communicate with Mormons determined to vote yes on 8, and my most sincere efforts didn’t change a thing. They believe they have the right to run — and ruin — my life, and force me to live as a Mormon, too. It seems that “free agency” applies only to Mormons.
There are some people who cannot be reached nor reasoned with, and I do not intend to waste any more of my life being patronized by smug, holier-than-thou believers, who can’t wait to post to their blogs the most despicable anti-gay screeds — yet say they “love” us while simultaneously plunging and twisting their knives in our chests. (Are they really as deeply in denial as they seem, or are they just “lying for the Lord”? I suppose it doesn’t matter, as the end result is the same.)
The “freaks of nature” comment I received this morning is only the latest in a long line of such remarks to confirm my solid belief that they know what they are doing, and they actually enjoy the power they hold over us, ruined lives be damned. The younger Mormons, especially, are so self-absorbed, they think no one else is watching, that the real world works like their narrow little existence of funeral potatoes and green Jell-O. As I’ve told more than a few: Enjoy that narrow little world, but when you step outside it, you’re in _my_ world — and if you think I’m not going to react to your unwelcome interference in my life, you’re in for a very rude awakening.
The solution, again, is simple: If you can’t take the consequences, from criticism to boycotts, then stay in your own world, and out of mine. But they refuse to hear that, or understand it. They are truly theocrats, determined to mold the rest of the world to their liking.
This mindset makes it easy to congratulate themselves on fulfilling the church’s latest edict and finding better favor with their god — but poke one of them, no matter how lightly, and they show their true colors. Seriously — attacking someone as a “freak of nature” for calling your blog “aesthetically challenged”? Isn’t that just a wee bit over the top? (Yes, it is — but it’s not unusual.)
How do I reason with people who live in such a sheltered, insular little fantasy world? Rhetorical question; the answer is: I don’t.
As Bishop John Shelby Spong wrote in his wonderful “Manifesto”:
“I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is ‘an abomination to God,’ about how homosexuality is a ‘chosen lifestyle,’ or about how through prayer and ’spiritual counseling’ homosexual persons can be ‘cured.’ Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate ‘reparative therapy,’ as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality ‘deviant.’ I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that ‘we love the sinner but hate the sin.’ That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.”
Bishop Spong speaks for me. (And if more Christians were possessed of the the moral clarity of Bishop Spong, I might be spending tomorrow in church, rather than researching the next thousand records for Base8).
I’ll stop here long enough to apologize for anything I’ve written which might be hurtful to you, as (I understand) you are still a believing Mormon. I don’t say these things to hurt you personally, nor dismiss what you are trying to do. I admire your efforts, and your optimism, but I don’t believe it will result in changing any hearts or minds — and the bottom line for me is the question: Will this person learn from his past actions and commit to never again harming me — or will he patronize me with empty words of “love” while continuing to press my neck under the heel of his boot?
As you might guess, I take a rather dim view of what Equality California is doing right now, too — canvassing anti-gay strongholds with the goal of “changing hearts and minds.” That’s all fine and good in and of itself — but if they think they’re going to change enough minds to support a ballot repeal of Prop 8, well, frankly, they’re nuts. Too, I don’t want to see Prop 8 overturned by initiative, partly because the losing side will keep going back to the ballot every two years, but mostly because civil rights should never be put to a vote. (I hope the current Olsen-Boies suit results in overturning 8 once and for all, and, ideally, has a ripple effect throughout the nation, even though my hopes are very small indeed — nearly nonexistent.)
Making nice never won anybody any rights, and it’s not working for gay people. The only thing that talks is money, or the lack of it; the Montgomery Bus Boycott teaches us that.
In the end, I’ve stopped caring if my self-sworn enemies “understand” me or not, or “approve” of me or not (to paraphrase Francis Maude, disapproving of homosexuality is as pointless as disapproving of rain); my value is not based on what others think or want — especially those so arrogant, they’ve convinced themselves they’ve cornered the market on morality and eternal happiness, and that I will burn in hell forever.
And as far as understanding Mormons, there’s plenty I have yet to learn about Mormonism, but I “understand” all I need to know about the rank-and-file Mormon mindset that makes common ground impossible. You show me a Mormon who was gung-ho for Prop 8 — donations, sign-waving, phonebanking and all — and then made a complete one-eighty and committed him- or herself to fighting for gay equality for the rest of his or her life, and I’ll change my tune. I would probably die of shock if you could produce that Mormon, just as I would die of shock if you could produce a real-life unicorn wearing the certified Shroud of Turin and carrying the Holy Grail while emerging from the genuine remnants of Noah’s Ark.
Seriously, I wanted to say something more positive to you, Carol Lynn, because I know of your work, and have great respect for you.
And I wish I could I could contribute in a positive way to your Mormon-gay meetings, but as we both know by now, I’m the last person you’d want involved.
Still, I hope this letter gives you some food for thought — even though, considering your ground rules regarding talk of Prop 8, I doubt any of what I have written here would be suitable for your discussions. On the other hand, you want open communication between Mormons and gay people, and that is what I have given you — only outside the boundaries of your “roundtables.”
I realize you may ultimately dismiss me as just another angry, bitter lesbian (well, of course I’m angry and bitter — who wouldn’t be?), but, somehow, I don’t think you will.
I wish you all the best of success with your Mormon-gay meetings, and with what tiny, dying, ragged shred of hope there is left in me, I wish your meetings would effect real change — the kind of change that would dismantle the anti-gay Mormon monolith and make equality a reality rather than an evil to be feared — and prove me dead wrong about everything.
I really do.
If you’ve made it this far, you deserve a medal. All I can offer is my sincere thanks for listening.
Very truly,
J—
LavenderLiberal.com
*** I did, by the way, find a few anti-gay donors I knew personally, or had had the misfortune of coming into contact with. The biggest (local) thorn in my side was (and continues to be) Ron Packard, perpetual city council member, to whom I directed some pointed words about the suicide of Stuart Matis some years ago. Packard doesn’t care; he continues, as he has since Prop 22, to cough up tens of thousands of dollars to ensure that gay people never have equal rights. (Here is what I said at a city council meeting in 2006: http://news.lavenderliberal.com/2006/02/25/…). And he continues to spread damaging misinformation, most recently on television (detailed here: http://news.lavenderliberal.com/2009/05/24/…).
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