I've been thinking a lot about gays

(Great title, right?  Right.  Hang with me.)

Granted there has been more direct reason in the past three or so years, and really one could go back to circa 1995, but for me, it has been somewhere in my mind for about 11 or 12 years.  That's when the campaign for Prop 14 started, which was the original law passed by California voters in 2000 defining marriage as between a man and a woman.  Who remembers that?  It kinda sorta hit the back burner from my POV until... what was it, 2004?  2006?  When Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco basically said to the majority of the state's voters, "Screw all y'all, I'm authorizing same-sex marriages in this city!"  (And the now-famous line "It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not!"  Thanks Mr. Mayor.  Voters FTW.  Oh wait.)  Then there was bickering and repeals and appeals and blahblahblah--Prop 8.  So for the second time in a decade, we were asked to get involved.  And I did.

And it sucked.

California is a pretty blue state, and I can be a very shy person, and the 50+% of voting residents as of 2000 and 2008 still opposed gay marriage do not live in my calling area.  There's areas of the state that are fairly red, or at least magenta.  The county I live in is maybe half a shade less blue than San Francisco itself.  I carried a lingering uncertainty for my safety having a yellow Prop 8 sticker on my bumper... right next to the other yellow one that said, "Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else."  (I got into a brief discussion once about the apparent incongruency between the two.  I'm still surprised it was only once and that it was brief, because believe me, the difficulty of holding both of those as true did not escape me.)  The night of the election, all the bumper stickers in my family came off for that reason.  I'm sure many people elsewhere in the state with blue stickers did the same thing for the same reason, and really it's just a tiny taste of the fear LGBT people live with around the world.

Anyway, I did most of the stuff I was asked to do.  I made phone calls.  (I would have rather eaten escargot.  I hate phones and I hate potential confrontation.)  I stood on street corners with signs.  I may or may not have contributed money; I can't remember.  I got a balloon at a street fair in my grandparents' hometown, and walked around with that for a while that night.  I had conversations with a few friends that I didn't especially want to have, but I did it out of a feeling of obligation and duty.  That didn't mean I was especially happy about it.

The subject was inescapable one way or another.  Every.one.was.talking.about.it.  It was on the news, on the street, in businesses, at church, in the grocery store, in my college classes.  Posters and bumper stickers and banners and mediamediamedia.  (This was also the year I got royally fed up with both major political parties--I was raised Republican--and registered as an Independent.  I was sick and overwhelmed by the political madness of that year.)  And at last, I voted the way I felt I should, while secretly envying my newly baptized friend who told me straight-up she was voting no.

While all of this was going on, my family was estranged from my gay brother and his partner.  There had been a series of incidents over the years (actually very few of them directly to do with his orientation) and things just got awkward and silent.  Occasionally gifts would go one way or the other but we just didn't really communicate.  I wanted to be his friend on Facebook but felt like that was disloyal to my Dad, who was the one particularly mad at him.  We saw them at a family wedding and maybe a reunion, but... yeah.  He was still my brother, and he was still gay, and nothing was going to change that.  I wanted to know him, and his partner.  It took two and a half years after the '08 elections for that to happen.  Now we're all friends on Facebook and Words With Friends and we comment on statuses and photos and it's a grand ol' time!  The family feels whole without this weird gap because they'e not there.

Fast forward to this summer or even the whole past year.  We got back in touch with my brother and his partner as mentioned.  I became friends with a lovely lesbian couple who are my business neighbors.  (I'd link to their store--which is fantastic--but it would destroy what anonymity I maintain.)  I attended their wedding reception last month.  And beginning to learn about Carol Lynn Pearson and her life story with her gay ex-husand.  And the Daughters of Mormonism episodes immediately after mine.  And... I don't know, it has just been on my mind.  The publicized accounts of people committing suicide because of bullying, the ongoing hullabaloo of post-Prop 8, my friends; all of these things just kept it coming back up, and honestly, I'm not sure exactly where all of my opinions and beliefs sit anymore.  However, I do know where a few sit.

No one should be bullied for being LGBT, or any other reason.  No one should end up feeling like death is the only way out of their suffering.  I've rarely seen two people more in love than my neighbors.  I don't think everyone who identifies as LGBT was born that way... but prob-ssibly a lot--maybe most!--were.  I don't know why.  I don't know how that fits into my view of the purpose of life and eternal progression.  I do believe people when they say that they love a person of the same sex, and that they belong together.  (At least as much as I'd believe a heterosexual couple.  Being one or the other certainly doesn't guarantee good relationship skills or a good match.)  I believe people when they do say they've gotten a feeling from God that they are just the way that they're supposed to be.  I have no reason or right to doubt another person's spiritual experiences, even when they don't mesh with my own.

I believe that God is love, and that love is a fruit of the Spirit and when you feel love (or peace, kindness, long-suffering, etc.) that's a sign of the Spirit's presence.  (Once I put  that idea together in that manner--thanks to a Sunday School lesson no less--it blew a gigantic hole in my ideas about homosexual relationships.)  I believe everyone deserves at least a chance at love and happiness in life, even if some of us never find it.  I believe every soul has great intrinsic value, no matter what shape it's in.  I believe everyone should be treated with fairness, kindness, and respect.  I believe we all have our sins and our struggles and things that other people don't like about us: some of them we can change in this life, some of them we can't.  I don't believe being homosexual in and of itself is a sin;  I don't know where I think it goes from there, especially in context of things I've already said about love and happiness.

I wish no one would ever feel like they could not come unto Christ, partake of the Atonement and the blessings and ordinances of the Gospel, be washed clean, and believe and worship in full fellowship with all the saints because of their sexual orientation.  I wish something--whatever it is--would come to be so that no one would ever have to leave again in order to live with integrity about who they are and whom they love.  I've personally known three people (maybe four but I lost contact with him years ago) in my life who have left the LDS church at least in part because they are gay.  They've all gone on to continue being God-loving, spiritual, religious people... just not in the Church.  I wish it wouldn't be that way.  I hope someday it won't be.

I think there must be enough room in all eternity for our LGBT brothers and sisters.  I hope someday we'll find it.