I don't often post about being a lesbian. It's no secret, of course, and I'm not ashamed or uncomfortable. It just doesn't come up as a subject in ways that make interesting posts, at least compared with life with twins or the craziness that was our summer. I can only tell you for the umpteenth time that Mama was mistaken for my son--happened at the Ren Faire on Monday when a booth staffer tried to get my young fella to try his hand at a tomato-throwing game--or that I had to correct someone about the kids having two moms and not a dad--happened recently when a cashier remarked that the kids should tell their dad.
And I can only rage about the homophobia of the Boy Scouts so many times. (Though, I could tell you about the young man who realized he was gay and came out, only to be denied his earned Eagle Scout award! Or about the Greenwich, CT den mom who was kicked out when news got out of her den that she was a lesbian! It's a discriminatory organization--if you support it, you support and encourage its discrimination against me. Period. Don't tell me it's convenient or a tradition or your den isn't like that. Because that doesn't change that the Boy Scouts have fought all the way to the Supreme Court to be able to discriminate against me.)
But I've recently been confronted with a new kind of challenge: love the sinner, not the sin.
Yep, I have a Mormon friend.
I don't want to go into it too much, as we have a delicate friendship built on mutual interests and tolerance, but will say that my friend absolutely believes and agrees with her church's stance against same-sex relationships and also practices the LDS stance of tolerating--but not condoning, accepting, or approving--LGBTQ people--you know, that whole love the sinner, not the sin teaching. I guess I do something of the same--tolerate her faith while recognizing her own inherent worth and dignity (UU principle #1)--just like I love my friends even though their sons are Scouts. I should say that, while I knew she was a Latter Day Saint, until recently I figured she might be like my Catholic friends who are fairly "cafeteria" in their selection of the Vatican's (happy 50th anniversary, Vatican II, by the way!) teachings, supporting women priests, married priests, same-sex marriage, birth control, and abortion while still taking communion and sending their kids to CCD. Or like the liberal Mormon feminist Joanna Brooks, author of the Book of Mormon Girl, which I am reading for insight into the faith and its followers and those who have trouble following some of it (see her blog here.)
It all reminds me of the recent NYTimes Op-Ed, "We're Here, We're Queer, Y'all!, which made me mad, or sad, or a combo of the two. Essentially, the author, Karen L. Cox, said that being LGBTQ in the rural South was okay . . . because they don't beat you or burn your house down.
They only call adults by silly terms like "Uncle Poodle" to denote their "light in the loafer"-ness.
And refuse to openly or publicly acknowledge your relationships by calling your long-time partner just your "friend."
And disagree vehemently with the concept of same-sex marriage.
And think your homosexuality is an abomination.
I'm pretty sure I could not live somewhere (read Texas) that the majority of people felt like that about me. It's challenging enough to have one person in my life that I know feels like that (my in-laws are a complicated, different story), though I can't articulate why or why I do it. And I think I feel guilty, hypocritical, surprised, upset, incredulous. It's very personal. Which, as we all know, is very political.
Maybe, beyond the ordinary pleasures of friendship, I had hoped that I could facilitate some kind of teachable moment.
Is that how LGBTQ people in the South feel, how they get through it? There just aren't many easy answers.
Sometimes, coming out is the easy part.
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