I Was Never “That” Mormon

Today’s post is  short and a little rambling, but just some thoughts I’ve had recently.

In the past 24 hours, I have come across two pieces that address the extremist culture of Mormonism, both of which I recommend:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mette-ivie-harrison/the-impulse-to-cultism_b_9190028.html

http://www.saltyrachel.com/blog//im-not-a-mormon-anymore-but-im-still-a-member-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints

Reading these posts I’m struck once again with the realization I’ve had over and over and over again at various moments in life – childhood, grade school, high school, my mission in Brazil, college, adulthood – especially while navigating the difficult terrain of being a gay Mormon:

I was never “that” Mormon.

How to explain what I mean by that? Well, perhaps some examples will help:

• My best friend for the first eight years of grade school was one of only a couple non-LDS peers in my grade.Since then, I can’t think of a single point in my life to date where my closest friends were exclusively LDS. And I don’t just mean inactive or formerly LDS or ended up converting – I’ve always had at least one close friend who was not born LDS nor has any intentions of investigating the Church and becoming a member.
• The Word of Wisdom was never taken in my home to the extremes it often was/is in many LDS households, because my mom was and is an avid Diet Coke drinker.
• I never have choked up or become teary-eyed speaking or testifying of Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, or current Church leadership, something I saw almost every day at the MTC.
• Scouting was never my bag; I only ever made Tenderfoot. Even as a child I thought the Church’s ties to it were ridiculous.
• My family made allowances for the occasional R-rated film.
• With a bit of help from my sisters, I never had any desire to attend BYU, despite being accepted for admission.
• I never really socialized much with my peers from my ward growing up. I didn’t know what that was like until college. Granted, my ward growing up had at most one or two active young men and about as many active young women, but still.
• I never went to EFY, even though I grew up in Utah.
• My family growing up always had a democratic/liberal leaning to it, making me at times the only 6th grader at Morgan Middle School in 2000 who thought Gore should win.

I guess my point is that so much of Mormon culture was never a part of my life. Don’t get me wrong, my family has always been and is devout to the Church, but so much of what made members of the Church “peculiar” was lost on us.

From a young age, I learned that people can have a different way of living and still be good, happy people. I learned that people who drank wine or coffee were not bad people or even necessarily wrong. I learned that not every practice or institution of the Church is a requisite for salvation or exaltation. I learned that hypocrisy and self-righteousness, sadly, are alive and well in the Church. Most of all, I learned that I was ultimately a Christian first and a Mormon second, and that at the end of the day, all men, regardless of position or calling, are fallible beings, each of whom is probably guilty of at least one terrible thing.

But please don’t misunderstand. I don’t say these things because they make me feel superior to others. Quite the opposite, actually. You see, growing up, I always thought it was being gay that made me so different from others. But, having interacted with countless gay Mormons and gay ex-Mormons and gay post-Mormons and gay whatever-Mormons, I’ve realized that no, being gay is not what made me so different from others.

Many of the gay Mormons I’ve encountered were once as entrenched in Mormon culture as any of the looking-beyond-the-mark members I’ve met. One of the greatest and saddest ironies of my life is that had I wanted to have a lot of gay friends in college that could have formed my post-college social circle, then I made an enormous mistake not going to BYU.

Many, many times I have wished that I could have grown up as “that” Mormon. That I could have found a home much more easily in the Church than I ever did. Not just so I could fit into it now, but because of how “not-fitting” has affected the rest of my life.

My theory is that people who live on the fringe, in those liminal spaces, as it were, grow accustomed to being in that place, even subconsciously. The space between becomes their home, even if they consciously yearn to be in the village, at the tribal fire with all the others. That tie to their home out on the edge is so strong that even when they summon the courage to approach the fire, or even when they encounter someone who has left the village to find a different one elsewhere, something about them screams that they’re out of place, both internally to themselves and to those they encounter. The people at the fire may be as friendly as can be, or those passing by those on the edge as they venture off to find a different village may be decent, wonderful people – but they can sense it. They can sense that those they found on the fringe belong neither where they are nor where they’re going.

So I’m left asking myself, have my early experiences poisoned me from ever finding my village? Has not being “that” Mormon set me in a state of perpetually never feeling at home? Will this post only further alienate me from others?

I sincerely hope not.

My apologies for the rambling.

– Blake L.