Option Two: live a celibate life in the church

I've started this post over and over again, but somehow I just can’t manage to put all my thoughts on celibacy together.  In short, I don’t like it.  I don’t want to be a Mormon monk.

For a while I tried to convince myself I could do it.  It’s no different from what the church expects of single straight members, is it?  Well, no, not really.

In Sacrament Meeting yesterday I hopped off the fence.  That doesn't mean I’m going to take my name off the records and move to San Francisco.  In fact, I’ll probably keep going to church for a while.  It does mean, however, that I will date guys and stop feeling bad about it.

Ironically, it was a talk about the Law of Chastity that convinced me.  It’s not that I disagree with the doctrine on the Law of Chastity; I believe it is divinely inspired, and in general a good idea.  However, as the speaker mentioned in her talk, the Law of Chastity doesn't exist because sex is dirty and evil; it exists to ensure that sex occurs under the proper circumstances.

As a gay Mormon, though, there never will be a proper circumstance for me, at least according to the church.  I don’t buy it. 

The speaker compared the Law of Chastity to the parable of the talents.  According to her our bodies are like the talents in the parable; they are given to us with the expectation that we marry and have kids.  Violating the Law of Chastity is like burying your talent—instead of expanding and developing it you fail to live up to your divine potential.

I sympathize with the servant who only received one talent.  Just like him, I have been handed a different set of circumstances in life.  I have been blessed with the ability to love and form relationships with men.  I could deny that part of myself and bury it, but what happens in the end when I’m called to account for my life?

I buried this part of me for most of my life, and it made me miserable.  I’m done with that.  I’m ready to dust off my talent and take it to the exchangers.

The closing hymn was “Oh My Father,” one of my all-time favorites.  I was struck by the line “for a wise and glorious purpose Thou hast placed me here on earth.”  I don’t know why I’m gay, and I don’t really care, either.  I trust that God has a wise and glorious purpose for making me this way, and at length, when I've completed all He sent me forth to do, with his approbation He will let me come and dwell with Him.