Playgroups

One day my husband comes home with the children in tow, and announces to me that he just had the weirdest conversation. We had recently moved back to a small suburban neighborhood and were eager to ease our children's readjustment by involving them with old friends. My husband, J, had just come from the church where most of our neighbors congregate on Sundays, so I was eager to know how things had gone.

Apparently the odd conversation happened with a woman I'll call C. Now, every neighborhood has a group of parents that seem to be at the center of all the planning in the area. They know about every birthday, every soccer game, they are in the PTA, and they usually have a hand in every play group. My neighborhood is no exception to this rule. C is a major player in our local group.

After service she approached my husband, commented on how the children had grown, made polite conversation and then asked if my children and I would be going to the weekly play group because, "we would so like to see the kids there."

My husband politely explained that I wouldn't be doing much of that sort of thing because I was now working full time, but that he would be the one primarily taking care of the kids. Before he could ask any more about the play group, what time it was or where, she quickly lamented how it was just "too bad" and "I guess we'll just have to see the kids some other time." She didn't stick around to say much after that.

I was dumbfounded. I knew it was an overwhelmingly conservative neighborhood, but I never thought we would be dis-invited from a playgroup because we had a stay at home dad instead of a stay at home mom! It didn't take long to remember old conversations about how uncomfortable these women felt if a man was in their home if their husbands weren't present, cautionary tales of old neighbors who had had affairs because they had served on the same neighborhood board, and flippant observations that they won't speak to long to male neighbors at neighborhood parties because who wants the hassle of dealing with a jealous husband. I realized that it all came down to SEX. Men and women can't be together because , well ... Sex.

This is concerning on a number of levels. Under that umbrella of thinking, I can't be alone with the men because God forbid one of them want me. But I can't be alone with the women because God forbid I become sexually attracted to one of them!

So where does that leave me? Where dose that leave any of us who identifies as something other than a sig-gender heterosexual. Hell, where does that leave our families? This woman (as well as, I assume, the other parents since no one has broached the topic since) was more than willing to through my husband and my children under the bus for her "propriety." What would happen if they knew I wasn't the "safe" option to be alone with.

I'm the one that is more likely to find any of them attractive. I'm the one more likely to get turned on by a room full of women. I'm even the one that is most likely to sleep with one of them, given the chance. Would my children loose ALL of their friends if these people knew? Would our young family loose the few contacts that are still willing to say hi to us in the grocery store or on a walk? To be honest the list is short enough as it is.

I vented my worries and concerns to my husband. After my energy was spent I stood in my little green kitchen wondering if I was ever going to live a fully authentic life. J came up and wrapped his arms around me. After a moment he said with a smirk, "So, hypothetically, which one of our neighbors would you do if you had the chance?"

I swatted him playfully and said, "Well none of them now!"

Dissection

Matt here.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about the weakness inherent in using "God wouldn't . . . " as justification; it seems there's rather little that God wouldn't. Today I want to explore a thing that Ditto brought up in a post of his own: Would God send some percentage of his children to Earth pre-damned? He says no. I say no too! It seems we've found a thing that God actually wouldn't, unless I'm seriously misunderstanding things, do. The conclusions we draw from that base are wildly different, though, and of course I think mine make more sense, so rather than unload in the poor man's comment section, I wrote a post.

Ditto starts out with a lovely scripture, Moses 1:39. I'm not convinced that the LDS cannon as a whole is inspired (large swaths of the D&C come to mind), but this particular scripture has worked its way into my personal theology. "This is my work and my glory," God says, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." I love that. A vision of eternity where God is on our side, where what's best for us—what helps us become eternally alive—is what he's all about. Love it. So when Ditto concludes that God "does nothing to keep us from progressing to eternal life," I agree with that. God's whole point is to bring as many of us up to his level as possible. We've found a thing God would not do. (Unless it were necessary to damn one to bring up more than one? After all, the scripture talks about the immortality and eternal life of man as a group, not of each individual man . . . But that's a thought for another day.)

Soon after that, though, Ditto's argument makes a few assumptions that I don't think are reasonable. He says "The Lord created every one of us. He created every aspect of our very being. And thus he created me and all his LGBT children with homosexual 'tendencies.'" Coming at this from a Mormon perspective (because let's face it, somewhere not so deep inside that's what I still mostly am), that doesn't hold water. Mormonism says clearly that God did not create our spirits, or "intelligences"; those have always existed (Abraham 3:18). They will always exist. If homosexuality is part of one's spirit, as many people (but not the Church) believe, then it's not something God makes, and if you claim that God made you gay, then you can't be referring to your spirit.

Given the uncreated nature of the spirit, we would need to refine Ditto's statement to something like this: "The Lord created our bodies. He created every aspect of our bodies. And thus he created me and all his LGBT children with homosexual 'tendencies.'"

That is a bit more solid, but it still needs clarification. Science in general holds that homosexuality is the result of a combination of environment and genetic factors. (The Church has no opinion on that.) I think twin studies are the most interesting and bluntly informative ones—the high correlation between gay twins shows that there's certainly some genetic component, but the fact that the incidence is far below 100 percent shows that there are other factors involved too. If we accept science's working conclusion, it's entirely possible for God to create a body with the genetic portions of same-sex attraction without actually creating a 'gay body.' The body doesn't become gay until after the environmental factors jump in there, which are the result of human agency, not God. Or, I suppose you could blame those on God too, but if you do that, why not blame everything on God?

Now, an omniscient God like the God of Mormonism would know that the body would eventually become gay, but providing the circumstances in which a thing can happen and making a thing happen aren't the same. The fact that people are gay is not proof that God created them that way.

Ditto continues: "Heavenly Father creates perfection. He did not accidentally create me gay or forget to turn on my 'I like girls' switch. No, he created me perfectly the way he intended, one of his male children who will one day love another perfectly created male child of his." There are more problems here. First, God does not create perfection. The purpose of life (according to Mormons) is to become perfect, a task which wouldn't be necessary were we created that way. Utter ignorance is perfect? Cleft palates? Deafness? No. God doesn't create perfection. However, he also doesn't create people who are unperfectable.

Second, I don't think anyone in Mormondom is saying that homosexuality is an accident, or due to divine forgetfulness. Those things are impossible with an omniscient God.

Third, it doesn't follow that just because God created us or allowed us to become attracted to our own sex he intended us to love (in the sexytimes sense) another man or another person, and every single person should know that. Why? Take the argument apart. "Because X is the way things are, X is the way God wants it to be."

Yes, that's right—it's the same argument used by the South for keeping slavery and by the Christians for keeping gays from marrying each other and by men for keeping women from voting. Or working. Or owning property.

This is a logically bankrupt argument that always fails, and it is not worthy of us.

Moving on. "Because he created me [gay] and wants nothing more than for me to be happy and obtain salvation and eternal life, how could he then tell me, 'if you choose [sexytimes], you will not be able to obtain eternal life.'" Does the Church say God says "if you choose [sexytimes], you will not be able to obtain eternal life"?

No, the Church doesn't say that, and if you know of a place where it does, please share. It does say some pretty harsh things, but it doesn't say sexual sin disqualifies you from eternal life. To quote the missionary I asked on mormon.org, "Repentance is available to all. That shouldn't be taken cavalierly; repentance is never easy and can take years of consistent effort before forgiveness is given. But sexual sins, as far as I am aware, if repented of fully, will not keep one out of the celestial kingdom." We also have Mosiah 26:30, which plainly says "As often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me," and also the whole lovely chapter of Alma 42, which talks about how justice is balanced with mercy. Mormon doctrine is pretty clear about everything except murder itself--not its next door neighbor—being repentable, if you choose to repent of it.

So when Ditto continues to say "No, Heavenly Father would not do anything of the sort," I agree insofar as he means God would not do anything that would impede his work and his glory. However, I'm not convinced that making or allowing people to be gay and commanding them not to have gay sexytimes would be an impediment. I see no reason why God might not do exactly that, especially since, as Mormons believe,  the laws of right and wrong are not malleable. If gay sex is inherently wrong and gettin' it on is inherently an impediment to God's work, how could he not command us to avoid it?

***
Good to review: Bill Bradshaw on nature/nurture and Bill Bradshaw on Mormon Stories
Funny, but crude, webcomic. (This one I linked to isn't particularly crude, though, and I relate.)

Righteous Indignation Doesn't Excuse Hypocrisy.

Some people have a problem with the phrase “I love you, but [any non-gay-affirming thing].” Not only do I not have a problem with that sort of phrase, I think that having a problem with it shows a lack of empathy. My next few posts will examine why I think that.

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I established last week that “but” does not generally negate what comes before. When people say they love LGBT people and then say “but,” they are in fact saying (1) that they love us, and also (2) some other thing that contrasts with that love. However, even though no one has shown any hole in the reasoning from my last post, it seems pretty evident from the responses to Clive (and those who’ve preceded him) that, reasoning aside, quite a few people think it’s impossible to say “I love you” and “I don’t accept your lifestyle” and mean both.

I thought about why this might be, and I think I know. And as we leap into the meat of things, a question: is it really a question of being loved, or is it a question of feeling loved?

Because “but” can, certainly, be used to make one clause negate the other. It’s raining, but it’s clear. It’s 110 degrees, but it’s cool. I love you, but I don’t love you. The thing about these sentences is, they’re nonsense statements. It can’t be both raining and clear, and it can’t be both 110 degrees and cool, and a person can’t both love and not love you, because the meaning of the two clauses are opposites on the same scale, whether weather conditions, temperature, or degree of love, and (outside quantum things, I guess?) we can’t have a condition from one end of the scale and another from the opposite end of the same scale at the same time.

This is why so many gay people find “I love you, but I don’t support your lifestyle” -type statements so frustrating: they are clumping “support for lifestyle” onto the continuum of love. As a result, “I don’t support your lifestyle” is synonymous with “I don’t love you,” and obviously “I love you, but I don’t love you” is crazy making. In their minds, loving someone without supporting their lifestyle is as nonsensical as claiming it’s both raining and clear. The problem with this is that accepting someone’s lifestyle is on a completely separate scale from loving that person. You can love a son away at college without loving his lifestyle, which burns through your money. You can love a friend who cheats on her husband again and again, even though he’s your friend too. You can also support a lifestyle without loving the liver, as we all do for (almost) every elected official. “I don’t support your lifestyle” is not synonymous with “I don’t love you.”

But the homeless kids!

I’m not a heartless bastard.

However, Clive said this: “Rather than try to understand, support, and accept these young men for the sons of God that they are, their fathers and mothers demanded conformity as a pre-requisite for granting parental love.” This as an unjustifiable claim. Of course parents are wrong to put their children on the streets. Some of the demands Clive attributed to them were stupid ("I love you and want you to stay, but you can't keep thinking you have same sex attraction"), and some were reasonable ("I love you and feel your pain, but you better not bring your gay friends into our home"), but not a single one is a sign that those parents don’t love their children.

This was impressed on me by Misty, the same Misty Clive mentioned. In fact, my comment on her post and her response come just after Clive’s comment. If you read her post, brace yourself. It’s awful. It’s offensive. It’s infuriating. Yet in it, Misty is adamant about the fact that she loves gay people. I wracked my brain over how I could prove her wrong, and I came up with . . . nothing. I can’t prove that her mother heart isn’t full to bursting with love for the gays, just as you can’t prove that those parents who kick their children out don’t also love them, because it’s impossible to prove that a person doesn’t feel what they say they feel.

This should be a very familiar concept to gay Mormons, because so many of us have been in this situation with the roles reversed. How many times have you heard that gay love isn’t real love? “I love my wife, but what you have with yours? That’s just lust.” Though this happens less as the years go on, it still happens all the time: people try to tell us what we feel, and we dismiss them as ignorant patronizing hicks who literally don’t know what they’re talking about. How can we possibly justify using the same (failed, faulty, stupid) tactic on people who say I-love-you-but?

We can’t. Every time we do, we leave ourselves open to charges of hypocrisy.

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Tangential: "The underlying issue is that these parents do not or cannot accept the fact that their sons are homosexual males, no more afflicted than any of their heterosexual children. They believe that in the end, their SSA-behaving sons have a choice."--Clyde, same post I linked to in the middle

I shake my head in wonder. We don't have a choice? You sure 'bout that?

Now, whether it's ever, ever, ethical to pressure or guilt someone into "choosing" a life they don't want, that's a different question.

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Related:

“If language is not correct then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone. If this remains undone, then morals and acts deteriorate. If morals and acts deteriorate, justice will go astray. If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything."--Confucius in The Power of Words

"Aristotle is only warming up to his main theme, which is the study of sentences that assert or deny something . . . He says that one statement is contradictory of another if it is an exact negation of it, and, as he points out, it's a matter of some subtlety to determine this. For instance, the contradictory of 'all humans are white' is not 'all humans are not white,' but rather 'some human is not white.'"--Peter Adamson in The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Episode 35

“Offence-takers win by society’s choice of appeasement as its response to their unreasonable demands and incessant agitation. The agitators will generally present themselves as people of peace. They have no desire to start a culture war. All that society has to do is to accede to their – perfectly reasonable! – demands and peace will prevail. . . . Offence-takers consistently lament the belligerence and intractability of their opponents.” --Alastair Roberts in On Triggering and the Triggered, Part 4

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There’s no call for butchering innocent conjunctions and denying the feelings of our straight family. Leave the hypocrisy, the faulty logic, and the victim cards to the small-minded Christians. We don't need those things to win, and in fact, they're only bogging us down.

Next week I’ll explore the concept and consequences of feeling love without making that love felt.

Contrast Isn't Negation.

Dear readers, this is a post I’ve wanted to write for a while. At first I wanted to write it because I’m Right And He’s Wrong, and for a while after that I wanted to write it because He’s Giving Us Gays A Bad Reputation, and then I forgot about it. And then I remembered, and I found that I didn’t really care like I did before. I still think I’m right and I still think what I’ll take issue with today gives us gays a bad name, but that doesn’t seem like the big deal it did when it was fresh. I hope that means I can keep from stepping on toes, but if I can’t, well, if you care enough to comment, I hope you can comment with something substantive.

Without further ado:

***

“I love you, but . . . "

Some gays hate to hear this phrase. Hate it. When they hear it they go blind with rage. They are offended, often loudly, and they lecture the person who said it. If they don’t lecture in the moment, there’s a good chance they will lecture later, in writing, through Facebook or email or a blog. If they don’t do that, they’ll just let the rage boil in their spleen.

Today I want to talk about Clive’s discussion about this phrase. Clive, and many others in this community, have a problem with the phrase “I love you, but [any non-gay-affirming thing].” Not only do I not have a problem with that phrase, I think that having a problem with it shows a lack of empathy. My next few posts will examine why I think that by looking at at Clive’s words.

First: “But” is as foul as “any of the four letter words that I try sometimes unsuccessfully to avoid.” Points off right out the gate for outrageous hyperbole. You think “but” is as foul as “shit,” “fuck,” or “cunt”? Maybe you avoid different words than I do.

Second: “When I was young, I learned something that has stayed with me my entire life ... a little insight into English grammar. I learned that when we use ‘but’ in a sentence, we in fact generally negate most of what we have said before the ‘but’.”

***

Let’s test this!

“He would have protested but he was afraid”

Negation? No. Exception.

“There is no doubt but he won”

Negation? No. It’s a synonym for “that.”

“It never rains but it pours”

Negation? No. Requirement.

“No sooner started but it stopped”

Negation? No. It’s a synonym for “than.”

“he was called but he did not answer”

Negation? No. Contrast.

“not peace but a sword”

Contrast.

“poor but proud”

Contrast.

***

"But" does many things, but to say that it generally negates is just not true. Back when Clive’s post was fresh, I mentioned this in a comment, and though three people responded to that comment, no one disputed the point—they just considered it inconsequential. I got very frustrated then, because how can the fact that the underlying assumption of the series is obviously faulty be inconsequential?

Clive responded by telling me that “The point of this series is to help those who are Mormon and really want to build bridges to the gay community understand that communication for communication’s sake is worse than meaningless. If Mormons want to build bridges, they have to be willing to actually open their hearts, reach out, and show a little understanding on OUR terms, not theirs. That’s what reaching out is all about . . . Moving from a safe space to the place where you feel a little discomfort.”

I have all sorts of problems with that (next week we’ll explore them!) but for now I just want to say that if you get to your conclusion via faulty reasoning, then you leave your conclusion wide open to claims that it is faulty as well.

Suppose that some Mormons who really want to build bridges to the gay community read this. Perhaps they, like me, will notice right from the start that something is amiss and so will be skeptical of everything else in the post, right up to not believing the series’ conclusion, not necessarily because it’s a bad conclusion, but because they don’t trust the source. Or perhaps they’ll agree with the argument right up until the conclusion, which challenges them in uncomfortable ways—then they back up until they find this flaw and say “Ah ha! I knew it. The foundation is wrong, so the conclusion is wrong, so I don’t have to change.”

In the end, the people who will agree with Clive after reading the “I love you, but . . . “ are the same people who agreed with him before, but worse: all of those people are now more strongly confirmed in their belief. In their minds they’ve just experienced a well-thought out argument supporting their beliefs, despite the fact that the argument really supported nothing at all, because it was based on faulty assumption. Whatever the intended point of the series is, the result is that no hearts or minds are won and everyone is just convinced more strongly that they are right.

Now. Next week I’ll talk about the circumstance in which “but” statements actually are negation markers and what that means to this argument (hint: It includes the word “hypocrisy”).

***

In case you’re not yet convinced that that thing Clive learned in grammar school has been corrupted to suit the speech he wanted to give, here is the definition M-W gives for ESL learners (all examples in this post are taken from m-w.com, the editors’ preferred dictionary!): 

1 — used to introduce a statement that adds something to a previous statement and usually contrasts with it in some way 

• I don't know her, but my husband does. 
• He wants to go to the movies, but I want to go to the museum. 
• He plans to visit Boston and Chicago, but not New York. 
• The book is not a biography at all but (instead is) a fictional account. 
• It's not the music I don't like but (rather) the band themselves. 
• She got the promotion not by luck but by hard work. 
• The fighting has been going on for years. But to really understand the current situation, you have to look at the history of the region. 
• She called his name, but he did not answer. 
• He fell but (he) wasn't hurt/injured. 
• I told him to stay, but he refused to. 
• It might have been raining, but it was still a nice wedding. 
• I'd love to come to the party, but [=however] I'll be away that weekend. 
• I'm sorry, but I won't be able to help you. 
• The dress is quite plain but (it's) pretty. 
• They were polite, but not really friendly. 
• Not only was it quite cold on our trip, but it rained the whole time too. 
• I can't do it—but neither can you.

Look at all that contrast.