Church drama (Long, but totally worth the read)

The past two months have brought a maelstorm of Church-related drama. After some hesitation as to whether or not to make this story public, I have decided that I want to do so. What follows is a time-line of events as they have occurred over this past year.

July, 2010

Several few months ago, we had a Facebook (FB) friend from the ward visit Mister Curie's blog. She is not someone I had ever met, but was added on FB because we had mutual friends in the ward. Shortly thereafter, she emailed us to let us know she had found it. We were very appreciative of her email. We were also wary of watching our visitors to ensure that the blog was not made public knowledge to the ward. Since no new influx of Philadelphia-area visitors immediately occurred, we brushed it aside.

October 22-28, 2010

At the end of October, I wrote a review of the movie Arranged for Doves and Serpents. In the review, I mentioned obliquely my experiences with the garment as a religious covering, and my feelings both taking on and casting off the garment. This review was linked on FB to my account.

In response to my (very well-written, if I do say so myself) review, I received around five FB message inquiries into my belief status, usually presented in a way that I knew what they were really asking was, "Why the hell are you wearing tank tops?". I should note that I had already been fielding related questions from distant friends for several months. None of these individuals had had in-person or in-depth contact with me over the past 2-3 years. They were casual acquaintances.

Annoyed by constantly having to field such questions, I posted a "Note" on Facebook entitled, "Taking off the Band-Aid: My Relationship with Mormonism." (Click on the link to read the letter). The letter was also emailed to 32 people in my ward or who might particularly want to know where I stood. At the time, I had ~ 760 friends on Facebook, most of whom were disaffected Mormons, internet friends, family, high school or college non-Mormon friends, and friends from the local Catholic retreat center we go to. Perhaps 150-200 of the "friends" were people that I had once roomed with; friends of friends in my ward; acquaintances; or Mormon friends that I had not seen in a number of years. This smaller group also included two members of our Stake high council, and the wives or children of several others.

I used my privacy settings to hide the letter specifically from my husband's family, who already knew most of it and for whom it would just be adding salt to old wounds. I also hid the letter from anyone who was 17 or younger; it is not my right or responsibility to influence their religious beliefs. I took my influence in this matter very seriously.

After I was certain that everyone who needed to see the note had seen it, about a week later I removed the note from my FB wall and, using feedback from the note, consolidated my friends list to ~ 250.

Early November, 2010

A week or so later, I randomly ran into the missionaries on my way home from taking Le Petite to school. I had stopped at the store on the way home, and had about 4 heavy bags of groceries in my hands. They asked why they hadn't seen me in church in a while. I replied that church wasn't doing it for me lately. They then kept prodding me for answers for close to an hour, all the while not offering to carry my bags for me (It was very, very rude).

A few weeks after that, the missionaries started stopping by our house. I didn't give them our address - I can only assume they got it from the ward. They stopped by four times in 2 weeks in early and mid-November, never coming inside because Mr. C was never home. Then on a Sunday in November, just two weeks before Thanksgiving, they caught us all at home.

Meeting with the Missionaries - Nov. 14, 2010

The missionaries more or less invited themselves in, and we all sat down in the living room. At the time, I was in the middle of a major winter cleaning, so most of the main bookshelf in our living room was covering the floor, along with random cleaning supplies. But I set it aside to talk to our guests.

The missionaries spent a short period of time shooting the breeze, before getting to the essence of their visit: Why weren't the Curies at church today? Mr. C flippantly replied, "Because we were here." We answered their questions by stating, repeatedly, "We aren't interested in attending anymore. You will be unable to address our concerns in any way that is satisfactory to you, but thanks for your time." However, after about 45 min of being asked the same question in various forms, I finally caved and shared with them my reasons for my disaffection. You all know them; I won't reiterate them.

The poor boys tried hard to "address my concerns," even after I made it clear that it wasn't possible. After sharing stories of their own mothers and how wonderful they are, at one point they tried to argue that gender roles aren't really eternal, and that the Family Proclamation is not doctrinal. Mr. C politely reminded them that we aren't new converts, and that they can't just parse words into new meaning to convince us to come back to church. They bore their testimony, and I was hopeful that meant they would be on their way.

And then... Mr. C decided to share his concerns. Let me simply summarize by stating that I don't think they expected to be told,

Its ok that Joseph Smith had 33 documented wives, translated the Book of Mormon using a rock in a hat, and made magic circles around the site where the plates were buried, but I really think the Church should own their history.

The missionaries stared at each other with a look that said, "Satan is HERE!" and quickly left with protestations that they had another appointment.

I am relatively sure that they dusted off their feet on the doorstep.

After the visit, Mr. C and I were shaking. Mr. C assured me that we wouldn't hear from the ward until after the new year, since Thanksgiving was so close. But then the following Sunday, we had an urgent call from the bishop requesting to see us in our home ASAP.

Meeting with the Bishopric - Nov. 23, 2010
We had expected that the visit would be about our lack of church attendance and the missionaries' reports. On the contrary, the Bishopric insisted that they had no idea that the missionaries had even stopped by. Instead, the stated purpose of the visit was that the bishop had received a tearful phone call from someone "a thousand miles away" who had read my FB letter. I replied, with a nod, "Oh, was it my mother in law?" since, frankly, I can think of no one else in Utah or Idaho who might have been surprised by the letter. He responded that it wasn't family, and he didn't remember their name or how they knew me, and that, oh, just forget about the individual in question, but I got a copy of your note and was concerned.

Specifically, they were concerned about who the note had been read by, how my privacy setting had been set, whether I had posted it on my blog, and how "public" I had made it.

And all for the "good name of the Church".

Now, let me make it abundantly clear - this letter was not disparaging of the Church in any way, and I stand by everything that I wrote in it. In fact, I painstakingly took the time to word everything in that letter such that it was clear that I was not an enemy of the Church, merely that I no longer believed and was tired of nosy people wanting to know my business. I stated as much to the Bishop

Now, I am from the Philadelphia area. The people on my FB friends lists who are active Mormons are largely congregated in the Philadelphia area. I have NO CONNECTION with Utah apart from my in-laws. In other words, with regards to the "teary call" from Utah, I call bullshit. Far more likely, someone in the Stake high council had read the note and was concerned, especially since FB has been on the Stake's hit list for the past few years.

The Bishop mentioned that I had a blog, and their concern for what is written here. I was willing to share the location of this blog, but refrained as it did not seem necessary. And there is no point in outing Mister C's "gayness" to the universe.

At that point, discipline was hinted at, in terms of the need to "protect the good name of the Church" from those who publicly disparage it. I stated that while it was true that in their words, I was in a state of "personal apostasy," it was not my intent to lead others from the Church if it works for them. I do not carry signs at anti-Mormon rallies. I do not seek to destroy others' faith. And, as Mr. C commented,

My influence was being far, far, far exaggerated if they thought that a blog following of 20 fellow disaffected Mormons in any way constituted a threat.

I stated categorically that if discipline was being considered, I would gladly resign. The only reason I have maintained my membership is for Mister C's family's sake. However, I would definitely resign before submitting myself to a Church court of discipline. At that point, the Bishop stated he was just visiting "as my friend," and the conversation was changed to the upcoming Ward party. We asked if they had any questions for Mister C. They did not; they stated they had only come to talk to me.

The meeting ended congenially with an invitation to the Ward Christmas show.

December 7-8, 2010
Last night, I checked my Stat Counter account to check who had been reading my and Mister C's blog. Neither of us checks these religiously, since we don't care so much about traffic. But, I was struck by an influx of Philadelphia-area visitors, to my blog specifically. The visits were from an individual who first visited my blog on Oct. 11-12, 2010, and who comes to my blog through a link on Mister C's. The visitors never stay for more than a few seconds on Mister C's blog before coming here. There are two main IP addresses, and both start off as searches for "mister curie madam curie" or "curie us blogspot" on search engines.

Interestingly, the visitors only read my Mormon-related posts, spending about 20 min on each visit. Whether it is the same person or several is unclear. It is certainly not the person in our ward that we know has our blog address, since her IP is tagged. Whether this increased activity is connected with the Church inquiries surrounding my FB and blog messages, I cannot say. However, after over a year of having no Philadelphia activity on our blogs, suddenly having 4 separate IP addresses from Philadelphia in 2 days is a little disconcerting.

That's the whole saga.

On Prop 8 and apologies

A recent post on Mormon Matters by John Dehlin reported a 3rd hand account of Elder Marlin Jensen's "apology" for Prop 8 pain in a closed meeting in the Oakland, CA stake. The crux of the message was an email of an account of someone who attended this stake event. Here is an excerpt of the main message of the email:

[A]fter everybody got up, and told of the suffering that Prop 8 had caused – the division, heartache, anger, frustration and pain – and when the last guy who spoke told him that the Mormon church owed the gay community an apology, he [Elder Jensen] stood and said, “To the [extent that] it’s within my power to apologize, I want to tell you that I am sorry. I am very sorry.” People were audibly weeping. Paul sobbed. I put my arm around him. It was very, very powerful. It felt very healing.

I freely admit that initial response to the story was one of incredulity, followed by wariness. A 3rd-hand account? I rank that up with a faith-promoting rumor. And unlike the title of the Mormon Matters post and John D's Facebook status, it didn't sound like Jensen was apologizing for Prop 8 at all, merely that some people were hurt by the Church's role in it.

Its like an abusive spouse saying, "I'm sorry you are hurt." That isn't ownership for one's role in the pain; its avoiding taking blame and indirectly blaming the abused.

So, I wasn't too surprised when Carol Lynn Pearon's first-hand account of the meeting did not quite match up with John's hopeful summary of the event. Reading through Jensen's remarks, c/o Pearson, the following stood out to me:

I have heard the calls for change in our church’s policy on this subject [homosexuality]... I don’t think the evolution of our policies will go as far as many would like. Rather I think the evolution will be one of better understanding. I believe our concept of marriage is part of the bedrock of our doctrine and will not change. I believe our policy will continue to be that gay members of the Church must remain celibate. However, I want you to know that as a result of being with you this morning, my aversion to homophobia has grown. I know that many very good people have been deeply hurt, and I know that the Lord expects better of us.

This is a far cry from the Church "apologizing" for Prop 8. This is a recognition of hurt, a statement that Church policies and doctrines remain as they are, and a statement of an "increased aversion" to hate. A statement of an aversion to hatred is not the same as taking ownership of one's role in spreading hate!

The Church's role in the same-sex marriage debate is not one that came about hesitantly or abruptly. Internal letters and emails within the Church have shown that Prop 8 merely represents one battle in a long-planned, highly structured campaign in the war against "Traditional Marriage". Campaign "strategery" is present in the literature as early as the 1970s, during the Church's fight against the ERA. Any thoughts that the Church might "apologize" for its casualties such a long-standing public fight are pipe dreams.

That said, what the Church CAN do is to be more open with its campaign. Much of the way that the Church acted during Prop 8 was in secret. Secret calls to individuals to donate 5-figure sums to the cause. Secret meetings with the First Presidency organizing ward and stake teams, so that it did not appear that Mormons were "running" the show. Lies in monetary contribution values. Manipulation of workers' hours so that the Church could maintain its tax-exempt status. (For a citation to these claims, I recommend that readers check out the audio for Laura Compton and Joseph West's excellent talks at the Sunstone Symposium 2010, specifically "Mobilizing the Saints: Behind-the-scenes Strategies on Same-Sex Marriage" and "Responses to the Documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition".

Holly Welker published a great post in the Huffington Post today where she discusses this sort of desired "transparency". When pressed on FB as to her rationale for writing this piece, she states:

I wrote this piece at John's explicit request that I hold the church's feet to the fire, which is admittedly what I am trying to do. He sent me a link to the Mormon Matters blog post and asked me to write something for the HuffPo. I was happy to oblige.

I am not trying to " validate my perspective that the Mormon church as somehow more broad or liberal than it actually is." I think the church is incredibly narrow. When I posted a link to the story on my own page, I included this passage at the beginning of the comment: "absence of malice is not a high enough standard for judging or excusing the actions of men who claim to be singularly empowered and authorized to lead God's one and only true church on earth. If these men want others to forgive or excuse the harm they do in the world because they acted 'without malice,' then they need to stop claiming that their actions are guided by divine inspiration that enables them to know God's will, and start admitting that what guides their actions instead is their own biases, prejudices, ignorance and fear."

That is what I would really like to see happen here: that these men admit what so many of us already know: that the campaign against gay marriage has nothing to do with a righteous attempt to follow and enforce god's will, but is instead plain old nasty homophobia.

The key point I would like to stress here is that Holly wrote the HuffPo piece at the request of John. Many Mormons from the conservative end have given John a lot of grief for trying to "change" the Church, or force the Church's hand. The same criticism has been leveled against Tresa Edmunds and her work with Mormon feminism via LDS WAVE. On the opposite side are people like myself, who feel that the efforts are futile.

Personally, I am mentally and emotionally exhausted with the Church's policies. However, I profoundly respect people like John and Tresa, who are able to stay and try to enact change. Each of the people mentioned in this post - John, Holly, Carol Lynn, Tresa - has developed a strong public status within both Mormon and Mormon-cognizant communities. As a result, their words have weight. Within the LDS community, their tactics scare some and frustrate others. For my part, I do respect their efforts and understand their motives and techniques, even when I disagree with them.

Some thoughts on the RS General Broadcast

I somehow got roped into attending the RS General Broadcast last night. I had a decent time at the pre-conference social and was able to chat with some old friends I hadn't seen in a long time, as well as make some new friends. 

The speakers were (in order), Pres. Beck, Allred, Thompson, and Monson. Generally speaking, I felt that the talks improved over the course of the night, although everything said in the first 3 talks I felt I had heard 10,000 times before - do your VTing, its important to strengthen families and be in the home, people sacrifice alot to go to the temple, pray, read scriptures, be obedient, serve, etc. Nothing new. Although Monson's talk was good, a friend best summed it up best as "good topic, wrong venue, poor delivery, horrible examples". More on this later.

Onto specifics. . . 

The first speaker was Pres. Beck. The first half of the talk focused on how we are in the last days and evil abounds, but how Mormon women are blessed with the knowledge that we should accept our female identity (she used the word "identity" in ever other sentence) and embrace our "divinely female role" to strengthen families. Some ways in which we embrace our rightous roles: we love our husbands (WTF??), teach our children the primary songs, teach YW to be chaste, attend the temple. She did not mention any other examples of our roles, except to say that the world would have us "mistaken our identity" or distract us from our responsibility to "strengthen families in Zion" (In other words, marry a Mormon, pop 'em out, and stay at home, woman!) 

She gave two examples of righteous Mormon women who were notable for having Church manuals and materials in their home, on their walls, and on their bookshelves (which I am sure the COB was glad to hear - free advertising for Cobbage!). 

She made some comments about how changing the name of "Enrichment" to "Relief Society Meetings" strengthens member's testimonies and helps women know their divine purpose - Um, bizarre. How does a name change do that, exactly? 

Also, I swear she must have ass-kissed the first presidency more times than I could count. Some examples: how since its organization, the RS has "always" been under the direction of the PH; stating that Pres. Monson asked her to speak first (because, you know, you really need to point that out. And women can't handle those scheduling things); stating that all changes to the RS are "primed" (??) by the First Presidency; etc.  

The main point of her talk seemed to be that we should study the history of the RS to better understand ourselves, our righteous roles, and our identity. (As I said - female identity was an obnoxiously resounding theme). She stated that RS will have a new manual on the History of the Relief Society that we will be studying from in the coming year. I have to wonder how much actual RS "history" will be reflected in the new History of the Relief Society manuals she mentioned.

Will we discuss more than one wife of each prophet, or will all of those faithful second, third, fourth, etc., wives be thrown under the bus?

Will the book mention how women once gave blessings to each other?

I agree that the history of the RS can be empowering. But a white-washed, correlated history? Not so much.

Her final tid-bit also annoyed me. She talked about how "the world" does not value what Mormon women do, and would teach us that we are undervalued in our Church (which, in my mind, we are). She states that the scripture of how we "pray in secret and are rewarded in secret" applies here. We should not be expecting rewards of the world or others, but that God will reward us for our sacrifices. I find this sort of thinking really damaging. Only Satan would have you be unhappy with your "divine role". If you don't find satisfaction, its not because you need something else or that the system is fucked up, its because you are being led astray by "the world". Sigh.

Next, Pres. Allred spoke. She started her talk by asking, "What helps you to be steadfast and immovable in righteousness," thus conjuring wonderful thoughts of Pres. Beck's "Mothers Who Know" and "What Latter-day Saint Women do Best" talks.

In case you missed it in the first talk, Allred makes it clear from the get-go that the "divine attributes" of women are to bear and raise righteous children (I am not sure how a role is the same as an attribute, but whatev'). If you aren't married or don't have kids, just keep trying to find a man and God will bless you in the next life. These sorts of condescending messages are so damaging to a woman. They teach her that to be of ultimate worth, of greatest joy, they MUST have the approval of a man. I can't overestimate how incredibly powerless this concept makes women. We are never enough, unless we have the approval of another mortal, specifically penis-bearing, person. As always, the things women who are unmarried should do are relegated to second-tier status. Women are increasingly being taught at Church that all of their personal achievements, unless they are aimed at marriage, children, or service, are of no worth.

Next, Allred shared a absolutely horrifying story. A family of mom, dad, and two infants had gone on an arduous 27-h trip (each way) to be sealed together in the temple. On the way back home after the temple, the couple's two young children got sick and died. The parents were not sad, because they knew that they would have their children in the next life. My immediate thought was, "Perhaps if you didn't take a rough 27-h trip, you would still have your children in this life, too." However, that was probably wrong of me to think. It may have been a complete fluke that the children died en route, and had nothing to do with access to health care, hard conditions, sanitation, etc.

Pres. Thompson spoke about the importance of visit teaching. I didn't take many notes on this talk, except that she noted that early in Nauvoo, the sisters acted as visiting teachers and took food to one another and had compassion on them. I kept wanting her to say something about how they administered to them when they were sick, giving healing blessings. But of course, she did not. 

Finally, Pres. Monson. Ah, Pres. Monson, can't you realize how incredibly sexist all of your jokes and stories are? If you take out all of the horribly sexist stories and comments (nice one, throwing his mom under the bus), I actually really liked his talk, which was about not judging based on outward appearances. I think we need MORE talks like this. However, I did feel like this talk would have been better at General Conference, directed at both men and women. His stories all reiterated this idea that women are the only ones doing the judging, which is a sexist assumption in itself. 

But I'm a Cheerleader!

We watched a hilarious movie recently, But I'm a Cheerleader!, which is a satirical comedy about the ex-gay movement. Megan is a closeted-to-herself lesbian who comes home from cheerleading practice one day to find her family has set up an intervention on her behalf. She, they inform her, is a lesbian, and she is being sent to a rehabilitation retreat center to "convert" her to heteronormality.

At the retreat center, she is retrained in gender roles (like that shown in the vacuuming picture above), and practices being submissive, weak, and soft. She is taught to embrace her role in washing dishes and diapering babies. . . all while being forced to wear and sleep in ridiculous fuscia fru-fru attire. Oh, and the kicker? Being paired off with other girls to learn appropriate same-gender interactions.

Sex means being kicked off the island, girls, so don't even think about it.

(Extra points if you can guess which of the four girls shown above I think is cute)

What was so fascinating to me was seeing conversion therapy from the female perspective. At least in the LDS Church, I am accustomed to only hearing about conversion retreats for men - teaching them to be more assertive, more domineering, etc. What made the movie horrifying for me was seeing those gender roles be enforced on women. The satirical nature of the film also made the whole concept of reparative therapy appear ridiculous in its very nature. Women don't become lesbians because they don't like vacuuming or baking bread. Hell, NO WOMAN enjoys picking up after toddlers or messy spouses.

While at the retreat, each of the girls has to identify her "root" - the root cause of her homosexuality. Megan's root? Her mom went back into the workforce for 9 months when she was a child. This "role reversal" between mom and dad triggered gender role confusion within herself.

Personally, I fail to see what gender roles have to do with sexual orientation. But then again, I am a lesbian who enjoys her career.

On Losing Faith

Reina wrote a post recently on her experience with losing faith in God, in which she described her faith as being ripped from her. Mr. Curie described it as something that suddenly disappeared, as if in a cloud of smoke.

My loss of belief was much more a process than it was a sudden event of ripping or evaporation. It wasn't as though one day my faith was there, and the next day it was gone. Obedience to the cultural and doctrinal rules and expectations of Mormonism actually caused me a great deal of pain. Trying to fit myself, round peg that I am, into the square hole of Mormonism got increasingly more difficult the further along in the Plan (TM) that I progressed.

Some of the things were small and seemingly insignificant. For instance, a fair amount of my money was spent on new clothes. When I was baptized, I was informed that my "Sunday best" of slacks and a blouse was inappropriate for church. I didn't own any dresses, and bought 2 over Christmas break. Likewise, when I spent a summer at BYU, I had to replace my entire wardrobe before I could step foot on their hallowed ground.

Other insignificant things, too, were changed. My language underwent an overhaul. Saying "Oh my god" had to be replaced with "Oh my heck." Hell and damnation were only acceptable when reading the scriptures aloud.

Some things. . . were not so insignificant. My idea of marriage morphed with my baptism - it wasn't a nice ornament to life, it was a necessity, and it had to be with a man. Furthermore, I learned that not one of my personal accomplishments mattered, so long as I didn't have a husband or children. I started hiding my professional accomplishments for fear of, yet again, being asked if I understood the Proclamation on the Family. Attending ward parties for the men who graduated from dental/law/business/graduate school, while no one noticed my own graduation with my PhD. Those things stung. Alot.

But it was hardest after my marriage, when the pressure was on to have kids! Have more kids! When are you quitting your job! Why are you still working, if you can afford to stay home?

Perhaps this would not have stung for someone made of stronger stuff than me. But my spirit was weak and my self-esteem too raw to continue where I clearly was second-class.

For me, my loss of faith was an extraction process, such as when a dentist removes a caried tooth. The pain of the tooth is unbearable, but you put up with is as long as possible. The pain of having it removed is even worse. But once it is gone, and you are free from the pain, how wonderful! The tooth was doing more harm than good, yet I still find myself searching for it, surprised when I find a gaping hole. I hang on to the roots, to a belief in God in absense of Mormonism, even when the x-rays insist that it is all gone.