It is rare for me to give up on a book
half-way through, but the following has that (dis)honour:
Benjamin J. Schilaty, A Walk in My
Shoes: Questions I'm Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint (Deseret Book,
2021).
Here are some quotes from the book. Some
may seem innocent, but you will see that the author tries to downplay how intrinsically
sinful homosexual behaviour and “marriage” are, and even imputes to the Holy
Spirit deception. TL;DR: shame on Deseret for publishing this crap. The
following are taken from the Amazon Reader version. Comments in square brackets
are added for clarification/commentary:
I was working as a
Spanish teacher at the Missionary Training Center. I had a small class with
just six missionaries who were struggling with their teaching. They would give
the same lesson every time without taking into consideration the person they
were teaching. I and a bright idea to have them all teach me the plan of
salvation . . . The next lesson was completely different. One of the elders
began, "I feel prompted to ask you why you came to BYU."
I replied, "To
be honest, I came here for all the girls. It's the best place to get
married."
He then asked,
"And how is that going?"
"Not well,"
I admitted. I told them that I hadn't been on a date in months. but didn't tell
them why. This gave them the direction they needed. They then taught me about
the plan of salvation focusing on eternal families. One of the missionaries
boldly told me that marriage was the next step in the plan for me and that I
needed to be working hard to make that happen. The elders all got really
personal and shared some deeply intimate experiences. Five of the six cried
during the lesson as they opened up their hearts to me. At the end of the lesson
they invited me to make marriage a priority. The Spirit in the room was
palpable, and I committed to follow their invitation. Before the lesson I had
given up on dating, but as the missionaries talked, I was promoted to do a 180
and reverse my course. The Holy Ghost impressed upon me that I needed to make
dating and marriage a priority. I felt heavenly confirmation that that was the
course God wanted me to take. I had seen a piece of His map for me. (488-505;
pages 29-30)
I had felt that there
was no way to do life right, and that meant being married to a woman. Emma [a
girl he had a failed relationship with] and I were each other's first kiss,
which led me to believe that our relationship was meant to be. I was stuck
believing that she was the way to do God's will for me. I hadn't yet
understood what Sister Craig ["Spiritual Capacity," Ensign, Nov.
2019] taught, that the Lord can use many means to bring us to the promised
land. Emma was part of my map, but not my destination. (608; p. 35)
I have pondered why I
felt the Spirit tell me to pursue a heterosexual marriage during that lesson
with the missionaries when I was twenty-three. I believe that I needed to go
down that path to learn that it wasn't for me. I don't believe that the Spirit
was inspiring me to marry a woman, but that He was inspiring me to _pursue_
marriage to a woman. There is a difference here. You see, when I came out, I
not only gave up trying to get married, but I lost a lot of hope for the
future. I thought that I was designed to a life of sadness and I just needed to
hunker down and white-knuckle my way through life until I died. That was not
the kind of life God wanted me to live. And so, God spoke to me as the
missionaries were teaching me so that I could begin to have hope in the future
again. Feeling inspired to pursue marriage led me to build a life that is
turning out to be quite beautiful, even though I'm still single. Right now my
life is just me. I'm the only person I need to take care of. But I don't know
what the future holds. I want to be prepared for any future that God has
prepared for me, and that might include a future in which other people are in my
care.
Life is about growth
and working to become like the Savior. Sister Craig taught, "As His
faithful disciple, you can receive personal inspiration and revelation,
consistent with His commandments, that is tailored to you. You have unique
missions and roles to perform in life and will be given unique guidance to
fulfill them" (Spiritual Capacity," Ensign, Nov. 2019). (626-643; pp.
35-36)
As I watched two of
my best friends kneel at an altar and make sacred covenants with each other and
with God, it felt like the veil parted and we were all in heaven
together--actually in heaven. I had a powerful feeling that this was all real.
The promises they were making and receiving were real. The priesthood power
that was sealing them was real. The potential to be together forever was real.
The whole restored gospel felt real and tangible, and i didn't want to give it
up. I was in a sacred place with people that I loved, and it felt like home.
(707; p. 39)
One evening Jordan [a
homosexual male the author was crushing on] got really honest. He told me that
he wasn't sure that he could stay in the Church. I distinctly remember lying on
my bed holding my phone to my ear, staring up at the ceiling while we talked. I
told him that I just wanted him to be happy, whichever path he chose; that I'd
support him in whatever decision he made. I was surprised by how emotional I
got when I said, "I love you, Jordan," because I felt it so deeply.
It wasn't an infatuation kind of love, but the kind of love that made me want
the very, very best for him. The kind of love that wasn't about me, but was
about him . . . Now here I was sitting next to someone whose hand I desperately
wanted to hold, and I was politely declining. I wondered what it would be like
to hold hands with someone that I was so completely drawn to. So I made a
choice. Ten minutes of saying no, I held Jordan’s hand.
That night I pulled
out my journal and addressed the future reader. I felt the need to explain to
whoever read the account of my life why I did what I had done. I wrote:
"Whoever reads this (if anyone ever does), I want them to know that I love
Jordan. He is a wonderful man and he makes me so happy. I loved the feeling of
being near him and holding him close to me. It felt so good and it felt like
home. Cuddling with girls has always felt a little forced, but with Jordan it
just felt so natural and easy . . . Two nights later we kissed . . . Kissing a man felt so different from kissing a woman. Instead of feeling obligated to do
something that felt uncomfortable, this felt so comfortable and natural.
Kissing Jordan felt on some level like what I imagine Eve must have felt when
she partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. My
innocence was replaced with experience.
Previously, when I
saw people kiss in movies, I just didn't get it. When I saw romantic reunions
at the airport and people would kiss, I didn't get that either. This thing that
humans do made no sense to me, because I never wanted to kiss a woman. But when
I kissed Jordan, suddenly everything made sense. I understand why someone would
want to kiss a person they loved and why it was such a meaningful act.
(774-808; pp. 43-45)
As a gay person, I
express love in the same ways that heterosexual people do. I hope that instead
of tiptoeing around this realty by using the euphemism "acting on
it," we can just use the words we would use when discussing any other
relationship: dating, holding hands, kissing, falling in love Not using those
words doesn't prevent people from acting on it. It just increases the distance
between action and compassion. (892; p. 48)
After listening for
some quite time, my mon seemed to grasp how hard the last seven years had been
for me. She promised, "Ben, we're not just on your side. We're with you
one hundred percent. If you choose to marry a man, you and he will always be
part of your family" . . . I had felt trapped in a doctrine and culture
that seemed to have no place for a gay man like me, wedged between wanting to
be in a same-sex relationship and wanting to say in the Church. Hearing my mom
tell me she that she would support me in my choices set me free. She honored my
agency [to engage in homosexual behavior and "marriage" if needed!],
just as my Heavenly Parents do . . . The Lord revealed to Joseph Smith,
"All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to
act for itself" (D&C 93:30). My mother acted within her sphere of
influence, as the matriarch of our family, to let me know that I would always
be part of the family. She used her agency to honor mine. (921; p. 50 [notice the pro-LGBTQ-driven eisegesis of D&C 93])
[Our Heavenly
Parents] gave us existence . . .They gave us power to act for ourselves. I
think of Them observing me during those weeks I spent with my earthly parents,
weeping with me and pleading me to use my agency wisely. I imagine them
cheering for my family members when, like Them, they promised to always honor
my agency [which includes a promise to support him in a homosexual
"marriage" if he entered such!]. (1023; p. 55)
Robert A.J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press, 2001)
Some thoughts based on Elder Oaks' Recent Talk at Conference