Music Friday - 6/28/2013

I meant to post this yesterday, so just... pretend I did, kay?

Happy Friday, everyone!

Since this is my blog and I can do what I want, I've decided to borrow a feature from another blog I visit occasionally. Every Friday(ish), I plan to post a couple songs that are getting heavy rotation. Feel free to listen, comment, make suggestions, whatever.

This week, I present to you the following:

So I download a lot of indie rock sample playlists and that's how I discover some of the music that I like. Last year, on one of those playlists, I discovered a song called "Wichita Lineman" by a band called The Feeling and fell in love with it. I was like, "Wow, this song sounds so 70's!"

Well, I later found out that's because it is from the 70's (er, 60's). Embarrassing! The track I had downloaded was actually a cover of a Glen Campbell song from 1968. Turns out even I don't know everything.

But then this year, I discovered this song! This one also sounds very 70's, but this time I'm pretty sure it's new. If I'm wrong I'll eat my hat.

Someone on Youtube (do as I say, not as I do, and never read comments on Youtube) said this about it, which is dead on: "this song feels like the eagles, fleetwood mac and steely dan all in one!!"



I don't have a fun, funny or interesting story for this one, it's just awesome. Straight up pop and catchy as hell. Enjoy bouncing about to this one! Enjoy your weekend, y'all.

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.

Blog Post the First

I’m starting a blog, yo!

I’ve toyed with the idea of blogging before. I have a lot of Opinions, guys. Capital O intended. And the comments section on the Huffington Post isn’t cutting it. I need a space where I can say what I’m thinking, unencumbered by character limits and without the inborn bias and prejudice found on the comment sections of most news sites, etc. But I’ve always fizzled in the past, before even starting. I really hope I won’t be one of those people who only blogs 3 times a year, because I think if people will actually read it and even engage, that it could lead to some very interesting as well as important dialogue. But I have a tendency to flake out. A lot. Or, you know, maybe I’ll be totally awesome but no one will read it. So I guess we’ll see what happens!

My blog, as is the case for most people, is going to be mainly whatever I’m thinking of at the moment, which could really be anything, but the primary focus will be me trying to reconcile two seemingly incompatible parts of myself  – my Mormon faith, and my liberal political views.

So to start out with, here’s a little bit about me:

My name is Nichole, I am 31 years old, a single female living in Centerville, UT. I grew up in northwest Montana, and was born into the LDS church. In fact, I recently did a little genealogical research and can trace all four of my family lines back to the very beginning of the church. I’m as “ethnically Mormon” as it is possible to be. My great great grandfather on my father’s side was Joseph Bates Noble, who has the dubious honor of being the priesthood authority who performed the very first plural marriage ceremony, when Joseph Smith took his first second wife. (Yeah, I know.)

My point is, I was raised Mormon. Like really, really Mormon. Although I wasn’t raised Utah Mormon, thank heavens.

I was a very happy Mormon. My testimony was strong, and I loved my ward. Growing up in a small town like that, your ward really is your family. Those were (and are) people who watched me grow up, people I’ve known my whole life. It was, on the whole, a very positive experience.

When I graduated, I moved to Provo, Utah and attended BYU. I was active in my student ward, as were my roommates and our friends, and that was also a very positive experience. I really enjoyed BYU, especially my religion classes. One in particular left an impression, a really awesome class focusing on the second half of the New Testament. Man I wish I could remember that professor’s name.

But around the age of 21, I stopped going to church regularly. Mainly it had to do with my job, I started having to work a lot more Sundays, and also I had to move out of my apartment complex and going to a new ward with roommates I didn’t know was less than motivating, especially since I couldn’t go every week.

I then moved from Provo to Farmington, then to Salt Lake, and then back to Farmington. My experience with the various wards I attended during that time grew increasingly negative, until I finally decided I couldn’t do it anymore. That was 2007. I was 25. Up to that point I had still been going to church sporadically (though not often), but after that I stopped entirely and was completely inactive in the church up until a couple of months ago.

That was when I had a huge change in my life. I was going through a big event that was causing me every negative emotion in the book – fear, doubt, hopelessness, despair. I have struggled with depression all my life, and this event seemed like the last straw to me. I just couldn’t handle feeling that way anymore, so I had two choices. I initially made the wrong one, but due to what I believe to be the intercession of my Heavenly Father, I was given a second chance to make a better decision. And so with nowhere left to turn, I found myself on my knees.

I do not have words to explain the feelings of peace and love that came over me. My Heavenly Father reached out to me immediately. Throughout all my years away from the church, I had never stopped believing in God, but having knowingly turned away from His church, I felt that it would be hypocritical of me to pray or attempt to have a relationship with Him. It was very hard for me to turn to Him; I felt that I would not be heard. Why would He listen to me, or answer me, when I had been so willingly obstinate?

So to feel that immediate outpouring of love was something very special. And all of a sudden, I felt something that just moments before had seemed impossible – hope. The world was suddenly full of possibility again. Through consistent prayer, over the next month I was able to make incredible changes in my life that I know I could not have done on my own. I know because I had been trying for years.

I started going to church again, and have been reading the scriptures and other doctrinal books. (I’ve linked to some amazing ones in the sidebar of this blog.) I was surprised by how quickly my testimony started to come back to me. I am in awe of the love of Christ and so thankful for the gospel in my life.

But the bottom line is, there are reasons that I did not want to go back to church, and those reasons didn’t just go away. I won't get into to detail about those reasons here, since they'll all probably get their own post at some point, if not several. But anyway, my faith tells me that this is where my Heavenly Father wants me to be, so I have to figure out a way to make it all gel.

One day, early in this new journey, I sat alone in relief society feeling like a square peg. It wasn’t that anyone had made me feel unwelcome. But I didn’t feel like I belonged. Like the lesson didn't really pertain to me. Being an “older” single woman with no children and liberal beliefs, little to no interest in canning, food storage or vinyl lettering, and (ideally) a full time job makes me Different. As I was sitting there stewing in all that dissonance, I felt like the Lord was speaking to me, telling me that it was okay that I was different – in fact, it was good. That I was the person that I was meant to be, and that I didn’t have to be anyone else in order to belong. Not only that, but that because I am different, I have something special and important to contribute. It was a powerful feeling for me.

So here’s one way for me to do that. If I can help anyone look at a topic in a way they haven’t thought of before, then I will count myself as successful. I believe that being a Mormon liberal allows me to walk a mile in the shoes of both sides of many debates, in a way that most people can’t. In most polarizing political issues, it can become very difficult to understand why the opposing side thinks the way they do – our position is so obvious to us, why is it not obvious to them? It’s like we’re speaking completely different languages.

I have very strong opinions about many issues and fall into that trap easily, but I think that my background allows me to step back, if I choose, and have an understanding of the opposing side that most other people don’t have. Maybe that gives me the ability to translate for some of the more heated debates? Maybe help us understand each other a little better? That’s my hope for this blog. Oh, and the ranting. Never underestimate the healing power of a good  rant.