Surprise, it's a gay post!

But there’s kind of a twist, so if you're rolling your eyes at me already, hang in there.

So somehow I totally missed this. I must have been living under a rock. But I bet most of you missed it too, so there.

Just a little over a year ago, a man named Josh Weed came out as gay on his blog. Not so exciting on its own, but Josh happens to be a Mormon man, married with three children. Again, not particularly groundbreaking if he had announced he was tired of living a lie and he was getting a divorce. But no. Turns out Josh was not living a lie – his wife knew he was gay from the time they were teenagers, and they both voluntarily entered into the marriage knowing he was gay and that it wasn't going to change. They’ve now been married for 11 years and claim to be very happy, with a robust sex life, despite the fact that Josh states he feels no sexual attraction to women. 

Whaaaaat…..?

Go read it for yourself. It’s kind of fascinating. And then you’ll inevitably get sucked into reading the comments, even though they’re mostly very positive and drama free. Just eventually come back here so you can read my thoughts on both Josh’s announcement, and the reaction he received.

Josh's coming out post

Welcome back!

So if you read through the comments section of that post, you probably noticed a person with the username "Alder" who was the Voice of Reason. I don't know this Alder person or even whether this person is male or female, but I kind of want to marry him/her and have his/her babies.

So here's what I think about this.

If Josh and Lolly are happy, then more power to them. I have no reason not to take them at their word. If their marriage works for them, then that's great.

However, I do think it's a little dangerous to have their story out there, because for those of us who came around to loving and supporting and enthusiastically embracing the gay community early in our lives, it's just an interesting anecdote. But for people who are just now starting to accept that homosexuality is a thing and it might be time to try to understand it a little (which, among Mormons and Christians in general is far more common than the former), this story suddenly becomes the "See? You have a choice!" example and completely smothers any further dialogue.

I don't find any evidence that Josh is advocating his lifestyle choice, but it seems inevitable that a swarm of  other well-meaning but ignorant people will, and that can lead to a lot of heartache. So let me set the story straight (ha ha!): Mixed orientation marriage might be possible. It sure seems to be working for Josh. But Josh and Lolly are the exception,  not the rule. For most people, this path will lead to a lot of ruined marriages, devastated families and long term psychological damage. For every one story of a successful mixed orientation marriage (and so far I've only found the one), there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of stories of gay Christians who took their own lives because despite their extraordinary efforts at obeying the commandments and doing what their leaders or families suggested, it didn't work. They then felt like God didn't love them, that they had failed, that there was something wrong with them, and there was only one way out. It's truly, truly heartbreaking.

So if you are a devout Christian and have a loved one who tells you they're gay, please, please, please don't pressure them into a mixed orientation marriage. Our job is to love and accept, not to pick anyone else's path for them. By all means, point them to Josh's blog because I'm all about everyone having as much information as possible when making their decisions, but please make it clear that just because Josh and Lolly seem happy, the majority of people entering into that type of situation will not be. For most people, choosing this path will only compound their feelings of guilt and failure when it doesn't work. That's not going to help anyone.

And while, again, I must take them at their word, I do have a hard time believing that their sex life is really that fulfilling. I think that Lolly deserves to be with someone that finds her truly sexually attractive, and I also think that if Josh had the chance to have sex with a man, he might sing a different tune about how much he enjoys sex with his wife. But what do I know? That's just my opinion; I'm not in their marriage and it's really none of my business.

And that brings me to what really got me all worked up about this whole thing, and that is the reception that Josh's announcement got.

VH1 recently featured Josh and Lolly on an episode of their series "I'm Married to A...". Looks like you can watch the full episode on hulu. I haven't yet, but I did watch this clip on the Huffington Post, that shows Josh and Lolly having dinner with a gay couple and how totally douchey the gay couple was to them. I shouldn't be surprised by their reaction but I am. Surprised and just very very disappointed. (But Lolly, man. I could be friends with that girl.) K, go watch the clip and come back.

Alright, did you read the comments? Gah! Comments sections never lead to anything good, but I'm going to respond to some of them a little bit here.

This is probably the comment that got me the most inflamed:        

"The fact that they're mormons makes me kind of enjoy watching the hurt on their faces when they say "you're gay but you're not one of us." But ultimately... they're right. He's gay but he isn't one of us and never will be. Those of us who live on our own terms are not the same as people who follow the rules of some imaginary magic man in the sky."

Is there any part of this sentence that is not just unbelievably offensive? Let’s pick it apart, shall we?

"The fact that they're mormons makes me kind of enjoy watching the hurt on their faces” – uh, wow. Let’s replace the word “Mormons” in that sentence with any other group of people. Like, Jews for example. Mexicans, maybe? How about Muslims? How in any way is that an acceptable statement to make? I get it, Mormons have been seen as being primary aggressors against the gay community for a long time. It's become personal. I understand there's a lot of anger. I've felt it too, guys. For rizzle. But you simply cannot advocate inclusion for all, which is something the gay community does and which I wholly support, and then turn around and make exclusionary comments like that about someone else. That's serious hypocrisy.

Which leads me to the next hugely hypocritical remark in this comment: "Those of us who live on our own terms" - I doubt the poster has any idea of the rich irony here. Josh is living on his own terms. He's just not living on yours. Another commenter helped to restore my faith in humanity by saying: "I am also gay and lived in the closet for many years, and sadly this is the type of "acceptance" a lot of gays promote, we accept you if you do things the way we believe them to be correct. For a group clamoring for others to accept us, we make it very difficult for others to feel included." Thank you, internet dude, for saying it so I didn't have to. There's enough ranting in this post already.

And the final piece: "some imaginary magic man in the sky". I will eventually devote a whole post to this, but here, just a plea to the whole internet: mocking the beliefs of others is not a good way to get them to hear your point of view. Please stop.

I also saw many comments expressing displeasure that Josh seemed to be asking for acceptance from others but that he didn't even accept himself.

I think he does accept himself. He's just choosing to live in a different way. If he didn't accept himself, he would never have admitted his sexuality to anyone, especially not his wife. He never would have come out to the whole world. Josh accepts himself. He doesn't say that he tried not to be gay. He doesn't express any self-loathing (another word all over that comment section), he doesn't muddy the waters with words like bisexual. It's only other people that have shoved that label on him. He doesn't pretend to be anything but what he is - a gay man. He simply chooses not to engage in sexual relations with men. Whether you or I can fully buy into the validity of that choice is completely irrelevant. 

Ultimately my frustration boils down to the refusal of people to look outside themselves and accept others who are unlike themselves. Of all the people in the world, the gay community should understand the concept that we don't need to be the same as someone, or even agree with their choices, in order to accept them. That is the whole message, right? So when I see the gay community rejecting one of its own because he hasn't chosen to follow the same path the rest of them did, I get really really angry and I start blogs.

From a Mormon perspective, our call is to love and serve our brothers and sisters. Today in Sunday School, my brother in law Adam said something that struck me. He said, how can we serve someone if we don't  understand them? I would encourage everyone to just take a deep breath every once in awhile, step outside yourself and try to see things from someone else's point of view. It's hard, especially since people's points of view are shaped by their experience and so if you haven't had their experiences, you don't have the frame of reference to ever truly understand. But you can try, and you can get closer. That's what I would ask of you.