from homophobic to pro-gay marriage, or thinking for myself

When I was a believing Mormon, I accepted the church's stance on homosexuality. I am now ashamed to admit it, but that's who I was then. That is, I let the church do the thinking. I remember first hearing about the idea that a man could love a man and being utterly shocked. How old was I, third grade? As I grew into a teenager, I remained homophobic, and was confused when I heard of a school-mate coming out of the closet. My thoughts about it evolved over time to the point that I thought homosexuality was not a choice, that it just happened. But I was dead set on the idea of man-woman marriage, and that any sex outside of marriage was wrong. Therefore, any homosexual sex was wrong, too. Until about a year or so before I left the church, I still thought that it was okay to be homosexual, but not to act on it. That asking homosexuals to be celibate was a reasonable idea. I remember hearing one of my non-orthodox Mormon friends voice her support for gay marriage, and being shocked. But I also thought, I should look into this some more.

I have since changed my mind about homosexuality and gay marriage.

Last summer when the nation was embroiled in the debate about a marriage amendment, a Mormon once commented to me "Can you believe that people think homosexuality is natural?" I answered, yes, that homosexuality is natural is completely believable to me. It's just as believable as the naturalness of heterosexuality.

Read anything written by a gay Mormon, and you will see the utter pain and suffering they go through believing the way they are is condemned by God. There is no way choice was involved there. If they chose to be gay, why all the pain and guilt? Why have so many gay BYU students committed suicide? Wouldn't they have just chosen to be straight instead? I don't believe seeing it as a non-choice interferes with Mormonism, either.

Being gay comes just as naturally as being straight. Did straight people choose to be straight? I myself was attracted to boys since about kindergarten, and I imagine attraction comes about in most people sometime during childhood as well. I know gay people whose realization for attraction for the same sex came about in early childhood.

I work with two different homosexual couples who are engaged to be married [one of those couples has since married]. They are in love and as excited and as giddy as any heterosexual couples. I applaud them and support them. The amendment would force them to get married only in their hearts; shooting down the amendment would not force any church to perform the marriage for them.

The church can continue to make its stand as outlined in the proclamation. But please don't try to enforce those standards on others or on the nation.