One of the most frustrating things people in the LDS church say is that they understand gay people, when they clearly don't. Perhaps my favorite of these has come up several times recently with the church's recent statements about homosexuality. When asked about gay individuals living a celibate lifestyle, there's a response that really irritates me. It goes something along the lines of, "Many people won't get the chance to marry in this life, same-sex attraction isn't different from those circumstances."
No. No. No. It is different, and don't try and pretend that it's not. Even if individuals don't get the chance to marry in this life, they're allowed to imagine the perfect person coming in, and taking them away from their life of miserable solitude. It's not the same for gay Mormons. My image of a happy marriage is me and a husband working things out together. Until recently, every time that image would come to mind, I would be attacked by waves of guilt and regret. Single heterosexual people who simply cannot get married don't experience that, because when the human tendency to escape into dreamland comes, there is no guilt attached to fantasies of marriage, because it is what the church asks them to do. It's different, so don't try and pretend that it's not.
Rant over.
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