Dear Dad,
Yesterday when we talked on the phone I told you – somewhat haltingly – about the intense week it’s been for me emotionally. I can’t tell you how much it has meant to me, these conversations that you and mom and I have been increasingly willing to have. In the past we have agreed to disagree, and left it at that. In an effort to avoid conflict, we’ve also avoided topics that hold a lot of meaning and importance. I’m glad that for the sake of closeness and connection that we are willing to talk more, to hear each other, stretching ourselves where we have different points of view.
Writing the letter to mom a couple weeks ago, and writing this letter to you now helps me clarify my thoughts and express things in a way that will (hopefully) not seem as confrontational as if I were to tell you these things on a phone call. In the past I have not shied away from confrontation, but I found that between us, as father and daughter, confrontation did not cultivate the kind of relationship I want to have with you. There are challenges and drawbacks to every form of communication, and it’s my intention to draw us closer, rather than create distance, by these letters. I am hopeful you will accept it in the spirit it is intended.
On Tuesday night, I was a wreck. My chest was tight with nervousness. Although I jumped around my house laughing and dancing and crying with joy as Senator Obama became President-elect Obama, and although I watched his sober and inspiring acceptance speech with rapt attention, I was really waiting for news from California. At some point, late into the night, I went to bed, hopeful that the numbers on Proposition 8 would shift as I slept.
But when I awoke, the results were clear. In an effort to override the California Supreme Court’s ruling in May, which held that sufficient justification did not exist for the state to deny the fundamental right of marriage to same-sex couples, the people of California decided to amend the constitution. I was heartsick.
For two days I cried often and spontaneously. I needed to protect myself from this sorrow, and I came up with the following scenario:
Looking at the map of the United States, county-by-county, at the huge swaths of so-called “red” areas, I think about the people who are horrified about who we elected to be president. If California voters had confirmed the CA Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage by refusing to change the constitution, I think there would be evangelical churches and households convinced that this country had gone the way of Satan. I don’t think that would have been good for this nation as a whole. We need unity, I told myself, not further fracturing.
I probably told myself that so I could withstand the emotional meltdown I was experiencing. The beach wedding to my sweetheart I had envisioned wouldn’t include a marriage license. At least not anytime soon. Thousands of marriages performed this summer were now in murky legal legitimacy, including my friends’ and my cousin’s. My devastation was palpable.
In an email to a friend, I wrote:
When schools were desegregated in Brown v. Board of Education, the language about integration was “all deliberate speed.” I’ve read that the actual literary meaning of that phrase means slowly, not quickly as many have assumed it means. When it comes to equal marriage rights, perhaps the same approach is right. A friend told me, “The dinosaurs will be extinct soon. Things will be made right, eventually.”
Though these things may be true, that the country needs unity right now and that things will change, probably in my lifetime, it doesn’t change the here and now. It doesn’t change the stark reality that second-class citizenry is considered acceptable to more than 50% of those voting in California last week.
Last night someone asked for my “thoughts about the Mormons and Proposition 8.” My response didn’t at all capture my thoughts and emotions on the subject. I think what I said in the moment was that there were individuals prominent in the LDS church on both sides of Prop 8. I was thinking of Steve Young, whose family gave $50,000 to fight the amendment. What I really wanted to say in response to the question was that my feelings overshadowed anything I was thinking about it.
And Dad, yesterday when we talked, you were dismayed that the LDS church was attracting so much ire from those who had hoped to preserve the rights of same-sex couples to marry. “There were lots of churches involved,” you said. “Besides, the Church didn’t tell anybody how to vote. They told people to vote their conscience.”
Today I went to the official church website to see what I could find. Rather than look only at analysis or opinion or response from others, I wanted to see what the church itself was saying. It had a lot to say. It’s been over sixteen years since I’ve regularly attended an LDS church service. During my childhood and adolescence, my impression was as you described - that the church would never tell a person how to vote, but would encourage careful study and prayerful consideration before making a decision. So I was surprised when I saw what was read from the pulpit of every congregation in California. The church acknowledges that it does not endorse specific candidates or platforms, but will not hesitate to urge its members to support the California amendment with their means and their time. They even created a video, instructing members how to help destroy the marriages of thousands of people.
A friend of mine, living in Salt Lake, wrote the following in response to reports of people reacting violently toward individuals and places of worship:
I also wanted to point out that not all [M]ormons supported the proposition. In fact there are shattered wards and neighborhoods all over California, and even some in Utah. Those people are appalled at what the leadership of their religion chose to do, what their neighbors chose to do, and are shaken to their core. Some of them are leaving the faith they grew up in. Some of them are desperately trying to remain in their churches to keep the conversations open and work at change from within. . . . Does every Mormon deserve our hatred? No. And their religious symbols do not deserve desecration. If we do so we become what their leadership has painted us as being.
There are those who are calling for restraint, for bridge-building, for communication. Dad, I do hope you are correct, that the church will not excommunicate its members who opposed the amendment. Nevertheless, I must admit I was troubled by the extent to which the church of my upbringing went to such lengths, under a banner of freedom of speech. Along those lines, I think that the peaceful protests at church headquarters are appropriate. We are blessed to live in a country where exercising our rights to speech, to vote, and to protest are still mostly available. But it is imperative that speech and protests be kept civil, for so many reasons. I am disheartened by reports of “bigot” being spraypainted on donors’ cars and homes, and of personal attacks, verbal or otherwise. I can’t imagine that anyone’s mind will be changed or heart will be softened by such behavior.
Gratefully I am past my long-standing and utterly debilitating anger at the church, in a general sense, although perhaps not past the hurt. The anger did not serve me, and ultimately caused me personal harm. My emotions are now in a few places: squarely in sadness, sure, but also in cautious hope and in deep gratitude for the family relationships we share. Families are forever, after all.
You have always disparaged those who took the gospel to be a sword, a tool of condemnation. Those who “threw away” their kids would find themselves surprised at judgment day, you said. I am blessed to have been raised by parents who taught me that relationships are the only thing I will take with me from this world, including my relationship with God.
In my despair, I remind myself that my parents and my sister love me, that they try to understand me, that my partnership is valued and honored within our family unit, if not by the social and legal institutions from which I, and others, long for recognition. Dad, though our mental understanding of God may differ, I firmly believe that the divine force that underlies our beliefs is One. So although I am in despair, I also remind myself that my relationship with and knowledge of God is boundless, is pure Love, and is ultimately beyond description.
The tears come at seemingly odd moments, especially as I address the painful irony that as an adult-child, I did get married, bought a house, and was legitimate. Now that I’m finally in a relationship that is one I can and want to sustain with integrity for the rest of my life, it’s unsanctioned. I was finally honest, and as a result, lost the privileges I enjoyed from having a partnership that was acknowledged, supported, and protected by law, culture, and society.
I didn’t write this letter to try to convince you of anything, or to somehow show you that the church is bad or wrong. I wrote it because I wanted you to know how I felt, and I wanted you to see what I saw when I went to the church’s website.
I’m looking forward to seeing you at Thanksgiving, Dad. I love you dearly. And although my heart aches at this current setback, I pray that one day you will once again be the father of a bride at my wedding.
Love,
M