OPEN LETTER TO MORMON GAY COMMUNITY
[To be widely circulated]
NOVEMBER, 2008
Many of you may know of me and my efforts 30 years ago to assist the church in having a new "revelation" concerning the granting of priesthood to Black male members. I began it in 1976 after a period of some three years in which I did all I could to have meaningful dialog with church leaders. They were advised in early November 1975 to respond with an agreement to meet with me before January 1, 1976 or I would thereafter proceed to do what my conscience told me to do.
While the leaders continued their usual code of deathly silence, I kept my promise of acting out my conscience by publicly ordaining a Black man to Priesthood. Many church members thought I sprang out of nowhere yet the truth is that I had patiently followed all appropriate avenues of approach to church leaders to no avail before I acted! For two years thereafter I kept up the struggle with attempts on my life and character but in the end they capitulated on June 9th, 1978.
It was no secret that I had hunches and premonitions all of my life in which I felt predestined to challenge authority. The records in Church archives will attest to that. It has also been chronicled in an autobiography, UNDER THE MORMON TREE, digitally published in February, 2001. In it I have disclosed that more service is expected of me by the Cosmos. Some of the how but not all of the what has been understood. Adepts of Quantum Physics may understand that statement.
This letter is in part to give notice to Mormon leaders (Thomas Monson on down) to discontinue their war on gay and lesbian members of the church. And even more importantly to back off their misguided goal of suppressing the civil rights of a minority section of the world's population by unwarranted political interference! The source of my enlightenment and energy in the early seventies is now putting them on notice that what was predicted in an open letter published in Oped News in December, 2007 is now upon them. And just like in 1975 I didn't know exactly the what but it is unfolding daily.
According to America's Declaration of Independence, "all men are created equal by their creator." Therefore all men are equally deserving of the full rights of civil law. The right of pursuit of happiness as an inalienable endowment of God and under the U.S. Constitution is equally afforded to all men or women without regard to sexual orientation.
As the Black priesthood ban was the result of historical mistake and error of judgment on the part of Church leaders, so too is the war they wage on gays and lesbians. They lack understanding and education on the realities of mortal gender self identity. They are guided by the common misinformation that a conscious choice has been made to be "Straight" or "gay" and that the latter is a choice of sin. Where in all creation did they get that notion? Perhaps it arises from the phallic nature of Mormonism itself that justification of constant sex requires a moral and legal goal of multiplying and replenishing the earth thus creating an expansion of the heavens by daily intercourse with plural wives!
Marriage is not a religious creation that a church can create. Nor can it be created by the state. It is a creation of the will of two people to be protected by civil law. To say that a spiritual union is only legal between a man and a woman is to deny the very existence of spiritual unions of same sex couples that have existed upon the earth millenniums before and since the stories of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah out of which "religious" prejudice against same sex coupling has arisen giving rise to unequal and illegal treatment of such persons. Further confusion has been provided from the story of the Garden of Eden with sexual intercourse as the forbidden fruit and its practice gave rise to the doctrine of original sin. Both stories written by the writer of Genesis infer that sexual intercourse is sinful in the absence of procreation as a legitimate goal. Since same sex coupling can never procreate it is improperly regarded as fundamentally sinful! Recreational sex while openly practiced even by church adepts often results in "accidental" pregnancies. While both the Catholic and Mormon churches advocate letting "nature take its course" (no family planning, no contraception), the practice is overpopulating earth and aggravating it's limited resources.
It can never be said that homosexuality contributes to overpopulation of the earth! Nor can it be said that homosexuality is responsible for earth's continuous wars and human conflict as is heterosexuality. Gay people have no quarrel with straight people other than the refusal to realize gays do not fit within the standard packaging of the sexes and can only act out who they really are. If there is a sin involved in this confusing (to straights) condition, the sin is on the part of self righteous "straight" people who refuse to consider alternative life style. The urge to judge is much greater than the urge to consider. Walking a "moon" in different moccasins might just bring a different attitude.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
