Openly Gay Aussie Senator Opposes Gay Marriage

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/wong-backs-labors-antigay-marriage-stance-20100725-10q37.html


Senator Wong, Minister for Climate Change, is openly gay. However today she's recorded in the press as being opposed to gay marriage. The hypocrisy drives me mad.


There are those who oppose gay marriage on the basis that it's a heterosexual arrangement. I see marriage as the hallmark of western society (I can't speak for the rest of the world). Marriage is the institution by which we generally measure the seriousness of a relationship, many of our laws are pinned to this arrangement.


It's seen as so serious within our culture, we have to apply to the government for permission to do so. The Birth, Deaths and Marriages agency of the NSW, Australian government says the following on their website:


"Once you decide to marry, you are required to give a marriage celebrant at least one month and one days notice (not more than 18 months notice) of an intended date of marriage. Once you choose a marriage celebrant, they will ask you to complete a Notice of Intended Marriage form which they will provide or you can download."


In my reading on the issue, one of the reasons Church's are so opposed has more to do with their fear of being forced to perform same sex marriages within their Church's. Even if the law forced Church's to concede, I can't understand why a gay couple would want to have such a special day take place in an environment of open hostility.


Aside from all the arguments I've read, the core argument I believe rests on equality for all citizens. As long as gay members of the community are restricted in their ability to be married, they will be second class citizens.


One of the most interesting views I've read on this issue is that government should step out of the institution of marriage all together. I read this idea in: http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=3543


I think he's onto a good idea.


Interesting note, the day the Penny Wong article was posted at the www.smh.com.au, they ran a poll. "Are you for or against gay marriage?" With 2 hours to go before the poll closed, they had 19,634 people respond. 65% for and 35% against.

Coming Out to Family & Friends

My decision to “come out” happened in two parts. In chapter two I talked about the three stages I went through exploring my sexuality. The first coming out was really for me, perhaps you could say this was me opening the door to the closest, just a little. The second was coming out to family and friends, or taking a step out of the closet.

This second coming out is probably the hardest for any gay person. It would probably make this chapter a little more engaging if my coming out had been difficult or traumatic. It was not, I was almost ‘outed’ by my mother more so than me choosing to come out. However, I was in control of another aspect of coming out and that was being prepared emotionally to come out. 

Soon after my first sexual experience I knew wanted to come out, but knowing how or when was the hardest step. I spent a lot time on self talk, that is, talking to myself about why I was the way I was, how I was going to come out and to whom. While self talk can tend to lean towards the negative, I found the process to be helpful. It forced me to think at times, out loud, about how I was going to come out. In addition, I kept an extensive journal, which I found beneficial reading again and again.

Another question that I found myself trying to answer was “why do I need to come out?”. Whose business was it anyway? Whom I choose to sleep with is my business and no one else’s. Perhaps you’ve had this discussion with your self, if so, here’s the answer I arrived at.

I decided I had to come out for my own sanity, to not come out was for me, hiding. It was taking up residence in the back of the ‘closet’ so to speak. It meant juggling two lives, with two sets of friends and two sets of events constantly jumping between the two. I’m not a good lier, I knew I would be ‘found out’ or ‘revealed’ at some stage. Being LDS there was the added complication of being an endowed High Priest. I had made commitments and covenants, I was not abiding by them and I felt a responsibility to step up and take ownership of those issues. At the time of writing this book, I’m only part way there with the Church. I’ve not had a disciplinary council, although my Bishop knows the choices I’ve made. He did take my temple recommend, which I took with me to the meeting because I knew I had to surrender it. He released me from my priesthood callings and called me as the ward website coordinator, a calling that does not require me to use the Priesthood.

A Little More About Michael

Some of the gay LDS men I know have been excluded from family activities and in some cases excluded from the family home. In some cases they believed this was the counsel from Church Leaders,  my research shows quite clearly that is not the current counsel. I believe there exists among some local Church leaders a disconnect between their counsel and the counsel from the “Brethren” i.e. the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It’s the nature of any world wide organisation that the local implementation of certain doctrines may differ slightly from “head office”. 

Perhaps if your family feel their faith requires them to exclude you from the family home and other family activities, you could gently make them aware of Elder Oaks’s comments. 

While the idea of love can be difficult in the face of such opposition to our choices, perhaps we can take the high road when dealing with people who would persecute or belittle us because of our sexuality. In most cases, those men I spoke to have been able to reconnect with their family. That reconnection is generally built on a mutual respect 

Of the men I interview for this book, none have met with a Priesthood Leader to confess their homosexual activity.

How else do I find love in my life?

This question presupposes that a person wants to find love in their life. I’m confident that all men and women want to find love at some level in their lives. However I’m not sure I can answer this question because a person can find love in so many ways. The best conclusion I can come to is that love for others is perhaps best begun with love of self. I suggest it makes life easier for a gay person if they first come to terms with who they are so they can develop a love not only for themselves but for those around them, family, friends and lovers.

If your relationship with Christ was or is one of great depth, I would encourage you to do what you can to maintain that. While the Church teaches this is best done through the scriptures, prayer and service, I found a change of focus helped me. King Benjamin

 taught:

“And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

There are many opportunities to serve in the GLBT and wider community. I found opportunities to serve others which made my challenges diminish as I buried myself in others problems and issues.

Exploring a Relationship With a Partner.

Exploring your sexuality, coming out and then perhaps finding a partner or lover can be an overwhelming process. The upside being that the intimacy, support, friendship and happiness that can come from a relationship makes the bumps along the way a little easier. 

My experience dating a girl is minimal with only a few years under my belt. At the time of writing this book, my experience dating a guy was even more limited. I don’t profess to be the Dr. Phil of gay dating, I’m just sharing my own experience.

From the point of starting to explore my sexuality, I didn’t really want or desire a partner. I was happy meeting guys, having some fun and perhaps moving on or maintaining a relationship which brought about ‘friends with benefits’. I found it a really empowering process, I met some great guys who wanted the same thing - its’ called NSA sex, “No Strings Attached”. It’s common in the gay world, the key is to ensure that you and these guys are always safe and clean. 

I had probably been having ‘fun’ for about two years when I met a guy one evening at a bar. He was about five years younger than me, handsome and I thought beautiful. I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, I hadn’t made a conscious decision that I wanted to commit to a relationship, but there he was. Now I had to work out how to date a guy, I’d never done this before - are the rules different? Who takes the lead? 

I hinted that I’d like to see more of him, he agreed but only wanted to be friends at this stage. There were worse responses he could have given me. For about four months we had dinner and saw each other from time to time and got to know each other. He’d recently come out of a relationship and didn’t want to get into a serious relationship in a hurry, so I hung around waiting and hoping. I knew that pressing the issue may just push him further away, given I’d waited 38 years for this I figured I could wait a little longer.

My patience paid off and I got an SMS from him one Sunday asking if I was dating anyone, I responded telling him that was a stupid question! He came back and said if I was ready, he’d like to start dating. My heart skipped a few beats and I felt like jumping for joy. It’s been about five months since that point and we’re progressing really well. I’ve found it a whole new experience, with unknown steps around almost every corner.

The comfort and joy that comes from having a partner makes me feel whole, it makes me feel like I believe we’re supposed to feel. The sacrifices we make for each other, being there for each other and caring about the other person helps to build a relationship that will hopefully stand the test of time.

4 - Coming Out

Making the Decision to Come Out

“Hope will never be silent” Harvey Milk

For any gay person the “coming out” process is possibly the hardest one to make, but at the same time it can be the most invigorating and exciting. For me, understanding that I liked boys as a high school student and then knowing I was gay as a young adult male was something I didn’t want to deal with.

I understood, through Church, that being gay was not what the Lord wanted me to be. I didn’t so much struggle with this doctrine because I believed it to be true. I struggled to understand why Heavenly Father had chosen to impose this temptation on me, what had I done to deserve this? I’m not sure I had done anything nor do I really believe now that this was a temptation that was imposed on me.

As far as the “nurture or nature” debate goes, I think they’re irrelevant. They seem to me to be an intellectual debate by heterosexuals to try to explain why I am the way I am. I believe I’m simply the way I am because I am, it’s as simple as that. As I started to associate with more gay men I began to understand that there are as many individuals within the GLBT community as there are within the straight community. Labeling people serves little purpose or benefit.

My first interaction with gay men was a job when I was about 26. I was working in a call centre with about 110 people, at least 10% of the staff were gay men. The thing that struck me was the variety of guys from the ‘screaming queen’ through to guy you’d get changed with after a football match in the locker room. You would have had no idea he was gay. I became friends with a number of these guys, they knew I was LDS and were respectful of my faith and values and I of their lifestyle and their choices.

It was an interesting two years working with these guys. I had been curious about what a gay man was like for years, I knew I was gay but really didn’t know what that meant. 

I was active in the church until I chose to stop attending in 2009, so the idea of coming out didn’t really enter my mind as I worked with these guys for almost two years. I’m fact, during the time I was there I took two weeks annual leave to travel to the US to propose to a LDS girl in Salt Lake City. We’d met when she was in Australia. I even took a ring with me, within the first week I realised this was not something I could do. I knew it wouldn’t t work because I was gay, however that reason was buried deep inside me. I didn’t consciously think about being gay as a hurdle, I just knew getting married couldn’t happen.

One of the managers at the call centre was an ex US Navy nurse. He was about 6’3”, African American and very handsome. For some reason his ‘gaydar’ was fixed on me. We would discuss many topics, usually religion and the gay community. I was always respectful of his lifestyle choice and he was generally respectful of mine.

All of these interactions helped me understand that gay men were quite normal, they weren’t weird, they wanted to same things as most people. Some even talked about having a family with their partner and children were a part of that plan. If they were able to have what appeared to be a normal life, perhaps I could also. Again, the idea of me coming out was not a conscious thought at this stage.

I was now in my mid to late twenties and coming to terms with who I was as a gay man, although I didn’t think about it, like that, at the time. I would pray about being gay and plead for Heavenly Father to take this temptation away from me, it never happened, but I found the process of articulating out loud during prayer how I felt, a healthy process. What was perhaps less healthy was asking for forgiveness of the things I’d done. It got to the point where I felt demoralized constantly seeking forgiveness for the things I enjoyed and knew that I was never really going to stop doing. Eventually I stopped asking for forgiveness and changed how I spoke to Heavenly Father in prayer. I decided that I was who I was and that wasn’t going to change.

Gay Marriage

Ok, I have to interrupt the flow of my blog based on Australia's new Prime Minister and her personal views on gay marriage.


Here we have a women raised a Baptist, although she has publicly said she's not practicing as an adult and will not participate in religious ceremonies to pander to voters. By this I assume she means we won't have photos of her and her hair dresser defacto coming out of Church on Christmas Day. Hooray, the Canberra press gallery can spend Christmas day with their families.


I applaud her for that statement, she is who she is, she's not performing for the electorate. Give her time.


Her statement about gay marriage was following party policy, I get that, it's Labour heaven forbid she'd have her own opinion on anything. Shock horror, her personal view is the same as the party.


If Australian same sex couples were ever to have a chance of legally recognized marriage, I have always thought it would come from a Labour government and their socialist leanings. That's a whole other article.


What I struggle with most, is Ms Gillard's hypocrisy. She lives in sin, she's 48 and has no children and perhaps doesn't want any. Her own lifestyle is at odds with the ultra conservatives she's pandering to.


Of course I personally have no issue with her living arrangements. I actually think it's cool that our PM is shacked up with her man. Wouldn't be every women's dream and some mens, to have a live in hair dresser? I'm bald, so no advantage for me unless he knows how to wax!


Ms Gillard, I just don't feel you're being very authentic on this issue.


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Michael's Story

When I spoke with Michael about Christ and the Church, his feelings were dominated by his thoughts as a youth growing up in the Church and the guilt of his behaviour and thoughts. From as early as five he realised that he found men more interesting than women. He said he knew that sneaking a peak of men while in change rooms as a kid was inappropriate, but he found it intriguing and exciting. 

As a 13 year old he connected his masturbation and thoughts of men and believed this was something he shouldn’t do. The guilt of masturbation was enough, but to combine this with his thoughts of men and thinking he was the only man in the Church who masturbated, came together to place a great deal of stress on a young boy who should be enjoying all the happiness that comes from being a kid.

Like most boys that age, I was masturbating more often than not. To stop that behaviour when I joined the Church was incredibly difficult. Let’s just say I never really succeeded. One of the most humiliating things I’ve ever done was to confess to my Missionary Training Centre (MTC) President, that I masturbated. He was kind and counseled me with strategies to avoid such behaviour in the future. The mind and soul were willing but the body was weak. Of the 35,000 plus Elders serving in the Church in the early 1990’s I’m confident I was not alone in my struggle.

I think it’s important to point out why I felt compelled to confess my behaviour to the MTC President. I had decided to serve a mission, I’d prayed about that and knew it was something I had a responsibility to do. During the MTC training, a teacher presented a class on the need to be “clean” and “worthy” to “bear the vessels of the Lord”. Repentance, and where appropriate confession, had to take place before getting into the mission field. 

You could argue my confession was perhaps partial, however I had not been involved in any homosexual behaviour at this point. My mind was a playground of ideas and thoughts that hadn’t turned to behaviour, except for masturbation. So, I chose to confess that one point.

Michael was aware that his masturbation required confession, but he was unsure about where that information would go. Would the Bishop tell his parents, would the Stake President find out? He didn’t want either of these things to happen. His other concern was that his masturbation was connected to his thoughts of men and he didn’t want to share that with anyone as a teenager. 

Such burdens of guilt, feeling unclean, unworthy or even does not create an environment for a child or teenager to really understand or learn of the love of the Saviour. I learnt that many of the men I spoke to felt little of the love the scriptures speak of. The teachings of Church leaders and family suggested their feelings were sinful and in their most aggressive, sinful.

In an address to the Church at the October 2009 Worldwide General Conference, Elder Oaks counseled parents with wayward children as follows:

“If parents have a wayward child—such as a teenager indulging in alcohol or drugs—they face a serious question. Does parental love require that these substances or their consumption be allowed in the home, or do the requirements of civil law or the seriousness of the conduct or the interests of other children in the home require that this be forbidden?

To pose an even more serious question, if an adult child is living in cohabitation, does the seriousness of sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage require that this child feel the full weight of family disapproval by being excluded from any family contacts, or does parental love require that the fact of cohabitation be ignored? I have seen both of these extremes, and I believe that both are inappropriate.”

For those members of the Church who choose to exclude a gay child from the family, this counsel from Elder Oaks states clearly such behaviour is inappropriate for an LDS family. He goes on to say:

“Where do parents draw the line? That is a matter for parental wisdom, guided by the inspiration of the Lord. There is no area of parental action that is more needful of heavenly guidance or more likely to receive it than the decisions of parents in raising their children and governing their families. This is the work of eternity.

As parents grapple with these problems, they should remember the Lord’s teaching that we leave the ninety and nine and go out into the wilderness to rescue the lost sheep. President Thomas S. Monson has called for a loving crusade to rescue our brothers and sisters who are wandering in the wilderness of apathy or ignorance. These teachings require continued loving concern, which surely requires continued loving associations.”

God Loves All His Children

Finding Love from God and Family?

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” John 4:7-8

The idea of love is fairly broad. Some love their X-Box, others love their dog or cat and others love to possess beautiful things. For most, at some stage in their life, they will love another human being, a partner, a child, a sibling and at least hopefully a wonderful friend.

The idea of love, as I’ve learnt within the LDS Church, is a broad and all encompassing love, we’re taught to love even as Christ loved. In Ephesians 5:25 husbands are taught to “love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it”. 

“There are several Greek words for love, as the Greek language distinguishes how the word is used.  Ancient Greek has four distinct words for love: agápe, éros, philía, and storgē. However, as with other languages, it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words. Nonetheless, the senses in which these words were generally used are given below.

Agápe (αγάπη agápē) means "love" in modern day Greek, such as in the term s'agapo (Σ'αγαπώ), which means "I love you". In Ancient Greek, it often refers to a general affection rather than the attraction suggested by "eros". Agape is used in ancient texts to denote feelings for a good meal, one's children, and the feelings for a spouse. It can be described as the feeling of being content or holding one in high regard. Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love.

Éros (έρως érōs) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. 

Philia (φιλία philía) means friendship in modern Greek. It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity. 

Storge (στοργή storgē) means "affection" in ancient and modern Greek. It is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring. 

Thélema (θέλημα thélēma) means "desire" or "will" in ancient and modern Greek. It is the desire to do something, to be occupied, or to be in prominence.”

The Greeks arrived at these definitions hundreds of years before Christ walked the Earth. I think they were onto something. The English language can be restrictive and limiting when it comes to expressing how we feel. As a person of faith, the knowledge that God loves me is key to my faith. I know that regardless of my behaviour, I will always be loved by Him. He can separate my behaviour from who I am and in the case of me being gay I believe he doesn’t love me any less, but perhaps he’s not happy with my behaviour. 

Deciding to step away from the Church afforded me an opportunity to do things that full activity would not allow. More specifically, I felt that my doing them made it difficult for me to attend Church and be authentic in my behaviour. That included drinking of alcohol, smoking and sex. While I may feel justified in my behaviour as a gay man in a relationship with my partner, the alcohol, tobacco and multiple partners is a little more difficult to justify.

Why do I break the world of wisdom as well as the law of chastity? I’m not really sure, I think part of me believes I’m in so much trouble anyway I may as well maximise the experience. As far as the atonement is concerned I feel far and removed from it’s reach, through my own behaviour. Of course, the atonement is further reaching than I can ever understand and forgiveness is always available to all of us.

Do I want to repent and will repentance be available to me? I believe it will be available, but wanting to repent may take some time. As I wrote these thoughts for this book, I really found it difficult to express how I felt on this issue. The Lord says:

“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

The Lord does not exclude people from this statement, it seems to be an all encompassing expression. I believe that God loves all of His children and he desires they all return to live with him at some stage, perhaps the journey will be longer for some than for others.

The ideas expressed above are based on the premise that homosexuality is seen by the Lord as wrong or sinful. Many Churches teach that if a person is involved in an intimate relationship with someone of the same gender or someone of the opposite gender and not married, they have committed a sin which must be repented of. 

It’s this point which caused me to step away from the Church. While the Church so aggressively supported the ban on gay marriage in California during the second half of 2008, they provide me no option other than to live a life of celibacy away from gay friends and surrounded by married heterosexual friends and their children. I can’t imagine a more empty and lonely existence void of any affection or intimacy which we all crave, gay or straight.

Do I need to know that god loves me? I don’t think a person needs this knowledge, but it provides a warmth and comfort that I believe little else can. Some may see it as an anchor to my guilt, but as I’ve shared in this book I don’t feel guilt in the sense that I dwell on it every day and night. I do acknowledge that my actions are not in line with the current teachings of the Church and there may be consequences for them. I’m comfortable with that and look forward to one day being held accountable for my actions. I have a few things to share when that opportunity presents itself.