A Preventable Mess! How Families Become Divided.

Well, as I knew it would, an email that I sent out last night to my immediate family members has hit some raw nerves. That email was a personalized version of my post from earlier today that is entitled, "Religion - the root of MY Evil".

This is an email that I got back from one of my most favorite nieces. She is married and in her early 30's and has a brand new baby.

Quoting: "I have never before responded to any of Lester's letters. I likely never will again. I love him and respect his opinions and the decisions he has chosen for his life. However, in return I expect that same respect. My beliefs are mine, and they tend to follow the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not the culture and not what other people in my church believe, but I follow the doctrine and that includes the First Presidency and anything they sign in accordance with their callings as Prophets of God! I will never walk out of a church meeting because of something they ask to be read over the pulpit, and I am offended that anyone would ask of me to do so! I have never asked you [Lester] to go against your beliefs, I expect the same respect!! My religion has stated its beliefs. How individuals choose to portray those beliefs is something that they will have to discuss with God, whom I believe is a loving, just and merciful Being! I have never been cruel, mean or judgemental to any homosexual, however, I also do not condone that lifestyle. This is my belief. This is a personal opinion! YOU have yours and I have NEVER judged you for it! Do not judge me for mine! You can still love and care for someone and disagree with their beliefs and their lifestyle!! I enjoy receiving emails and news from you, I do not enjoy being lectured or being told I am wrong in my opinions or beliefs. And I definitely do not appreciate being grouped into a category of Mormons who are cruel! My judgement is reserved for a session between me and my Lord and Savior. Do not presume to tell me how He is going to judge me!!" (End)

This is my reply:

"Thanks for taking the time to respond. FYI, you and [your older sister] were the only ones to do so, but at least [she] sees the church leaders for who they really are. In your email you wrote: "I have never asked you to go against your beliefs, I expect the same respect!!" Well, one of us has to be wrong, because if your prophet gets his way, I lose my right to equality, not only as an American, but a human being. I am an atheist now (well, maybe a hopeful agnostic at best), so by demanding that I afford you the privilege of blindly following your prophet, you are asking me to forfeit my belief that I was born gay and am entitled to a full, happy, authentic life as a gay man. A life, which I might add, will have no impact on how happy your marriage to [your husband] is and how you will raise your child. Please try to break away from the mentality that, "When the Prophet speaks, the thinking has been done." You are more intelligent than that. Take a step back and take a serious look at what the prophet is really asking you to do. He is telling you that your fellow human beings, (your gay "brothers" that you claim your God created,) really are not "equal" and that their homosexuality is a weakness in the flesh (a mental illness?) that must be endured alone and in sorrow. The problem here is your Bible...there is really nothing in the Bible that states that women or slaves were ever equal. It took the founding of a New World and some creative writing by the American Founding Fathers (several of whom were atheists) before modern liberals determined that they could ignore the writings of the Bible and free the slaves and let women own property and vote. These photos to the right are taken from above the doorways in the Capitol. Don't give any church the credit for doing that. Christian fundamentalists fought those changes every step of the way because they claimed then (and your prophet still wants to claim now) that the Bible had to be interpreted literally. Only in the New World, with an effective separation of church state, could this degree of equality have been accomplished. Your prophet is now asking California to once again merge church and state and take us backward toward the a selective interpretation of the Bible, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Holy Wars.

Just so you know, if the government were to implement a policy tomorrow restricting the Mormons from "sealing" their own dead ancestors, I would protest in the streets on your behalf so that you have your freedom of religion.

What the Mormons are doing in California (and what they did in 2006 with me), is telling me that now that I am an out gay man I am worth less in this country than I was 4 years ago while a hypocrite and lying about my authentic self. By obeying your prophet you are trying to tell me that I am expected to take a demotion in my status as a human being after accepting my birth as a gay man.

All I'm asking is that you (as a family member) leave religion out of this. It is a question of civil rights. I didn't ask to be born a gay man just like Mickey did not ask to be born a negro and you did not ask to be born a woman. You enjoy freedoms that were earned on the backs of women before you. Your children will see your prophet and other Christian fundamentalists as people who saw others as undeserving of equality under the law; exactly the same way as you yourself now see those who kept slaves and treated women as chattel only a few generations ago. As the Republican chief judge in California wrote when he struck down the ban against gay marriage; "I did not want to be seen as on the wrong side of history with this issue." Take a closer look at the stand your prophet is taking and re-evaluate your thinking.
I hope you can now see where this letter from the prophet has led us in our own family. Because I cannot stand down and ignore this (because it affects everything that I am and my right to the same happiness that you take for granted), and because you cannot opt to disagree with your prophet (because you will be labelled "apostate"), we will now have a very deep divide in our family; a divide that will likely be insurmountable for the rest of our lives, but what choice did I have? To remain silent? I tried that for over 35 years, it didn't work, so I will not allow you all to fool yourselves into thinking that this isn't important to me. It is important enough to me that I will risk alienating myself from my family because to do anything less than defend myself on this issue would be to go back into the closet and deny my authenticity!

Don't blame me for having an opinion. Blame your prophet for putting you into a "no win" situation. Because of what your prophet did, there are only losers on all sides of this whole, preventable, mess.

Sincerely,
Uncle Lester (End)

I'm going to end this post with the quote I posted earlier today from Stuart Matis. It was written to a friend a few short days before he commited suicide after the letter from the Prophet was ordered read early in the year 2000 during the California Proposition 22 debate: "The Knight Initiative [Prop 22] will certainly save no family. It is codified hatred. It is anti-family, anti-love and it is wrong."