Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-hosts: Gerardo Sumano, Kyle Ashworth · Guests: Julia Sanders, Maven
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Welcome, Introductions, and Episode Overview
John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast and a joint production of Mormon Stories Podcast and Latter Gay Stories podcast. I believe we're streaming to Latter Gay Stories as well. It is January 26, 2023. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. And we are super excited for what I believe is potentially a historic or watershed moment in the Mormon Church. Maybe not. We'll see. But today we are here to talk about what we are entitling potentially a gay Mormon rescue. And I'm going to explain the use of that term rescue and what it, what it means in a Mormon historical context in just a second.
John Dehlin [00:00:51] But we are here with an all star panel. We are going to be talking about a recent training or stake training that was held in Canada with, with Ben Shilotti and Charlie Bird training, not just one stake, as I understand it, but potentially multiple stakes around how to treat and handle and love and deal with LGBTQ members. And for me, it's something that I not only have never seen before, I didn't even think would be possible even in, even in 2023, but it happened. I'm just going to say I'm super excited about it. I'm super inspired by it. I'm very optimistic about it. So in no way is this a takedown or a criticism.
John Dehlin [00:01:46] It's a. For me, it's a cautious moment of excitement or optimism about something that I think is potentially historic. That's what we're going to be covering today in depth. We have an all star panel, I'll call it that, here to discuss it with us. And we're going to be reviewing video from these trainings this weekend, training with Ben and Charlie. And we're going to be commenting on it as sort of part of the historical record. And joining us today are several amazing humans. I'm going to have each person kind of introduce themselves and I'm going to start with my. My good buddy Kyle, Kyle Ashworth from Latter Gay Stories podcast. Hey, Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [00:02:26] Thanks, John. Thanks for having me here and good to be in the studio.
John Dehlin [00:02:29] Yeah. Anything you want to say? Just in your intro, either about you, your podcast, or just what you want to say about today's episode.
Kyle Ashworth [00:02:37] Sure.
Kyle Ashworth [00:02:37] I'm the host of the Latter Gay Stories podcast, which is a podcast that really takes a look at the intersection of sexuality and religion where it meets at LDS street and LGBTQ Avenue. We essentially highlight the important stories of the queer story, especially those that have roots to Mormonism. And really, as I've always said or say, many Many times there's no one way to gay. So this type of an experience, especially with Ben and Charlie, their way of gay gang as it meets the intersection of, of LDS street and LGBTQ avenue where the church becomes involved, I think it's very interesting. It's worth talking about, it's worth celebrating in a way.
Kyle Ashworth [00:03:18] So I'm happy to be able to opine on this as well. And, and maybe I'll have the most unpopular opinions with the Mormon Stories audience in this particular topic, but I want to approach this as delicately as possible, knowing that this is any step that we move in the right direction, even be it a baby step is the right step. And I do think this is, this is an interesting experience and an interesting opportunity for Mormonism. So happy to be able to opine and share a little bit of my thoughts and experiences in the space as well.
John Dehlin [00:03:48] Excellent. Well, excited to have you here and to have you back. Check out Kyle's full Mormon story on Mormon stories. It's definitely one for the record books and it's, it's a good one. Okay. Also joining us in studio is my, my partner, one of my partners in truth and righteousness, Gerardo Sumano. Hey, Gerardo. Hi.
Gerardo Sumano [00:04:09] Hi.
John Dehlin [00:04:11] Gerardo, of course, has been my right hand man for at least the past two or three years on Mormon Stories podcast. He, his long form interview is also available where he tells his story as a gay student at BYU Idaho and, but also he's been co host of many, many episodes. So he will be a familiar face to you all. Gerardo, anything you want to say kind of by way of introduction?
Gerardo Sumano [00:04:38] No. Well, I think some people might know that you and I and Tyler did an episode a while back entitled the Gay Mormon Reformation where we just talked about how the church went from, you know, doing electroshock therapy and conversion therapy and recommending it to where now we have people like Charlie and Ben who are out and gay and proud and talk about it and they identify themselves as gay and are allowed to either sell books at the store book or you know, do this kind of firesides. We did some critical analysis of the, the approach they take and when a listener sent me this fireside, I thought it was, I had it the same as always, the mixed feelings about it and I thought it was important to cover it with people with different opinions and different backgrounds. So. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:05:36] Excellent. Well, we're really glad to have you as part of our team and to have you here today, Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [00:05:41] Thank you.
John Dehlin [00:05:42] And for producing this episode, we also have in studio a face that will be familiar to many of you. We have the Maven. Hey, Maven.
Maven [00:05:51] Hi, everyone. Thanks for inviting me, John. Appreciate it.
John Dehlin [00:05:53] Yeah. So Maven works with the Open Stories Foundation. She does a lot of production work behind the scenes for us, so we're really grateful for that. Her story is also in the Mormon Stories library, and it's a very popular one. Maven also co produces and helps out with the. With the Radio Free Mormon, Mormonism Live podcast, which we're big fans of and supporters of. Maven, anything you want to say by way of introduction or, you know, clarification to begin today's episode?
Maven [00:06:26] Yeah, I'm. I'm just glad to be here, and I. I love the episodes that we do where we cover topics like this, but it is the usual lineup to have to have Kyle and Gerardo here, and so I'm just happy to come on as. As a feminine voice. And then also, I mean, this is a. Maybe a smaller issue and not quite the focus of today's topic, but as an asexual who was raised in the church, I have my perspective, I guess, on that little. The A in the lgbtqia. Plus, I guess that's my part of the. I guess the rainbow gang or. Yeah, the Alphabet gang. The different, you know, things that people say about it. So, yeah, so I'm just happy to provide that along with our. Our next panelist.
John Dehlin [00:07:11] So, yeah, we're glad you're here. You're always a wise, thoughtful, articulate voice. So glad you're here.
Maven [00:07:16] Thank you.
John Dehlin [00:07:17] All right, and the last member of our panel is joining us from Missouri.
Julia Sanders [00:07:24] Hi.
John Dehlin [00:07:25] Her name's Julia. Julia, remind me we've if we had you on Mormon Stories or not.
Julia Sanders [00:07:29] No, not. This is my first time on Mormon Stories.
John Dehlin [00:07:32] All right, well, tell us a little bit about yourself, Julia.
Kyle Ashworth [00:07:35] So.
Julia Sanders [00:07:35] So I work for the short. I work for Mormon Stories, and I make the shorts on TikTok, and I also have my own TikTok, which is analyzing Mormonism. So. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:07:44] Yeah. And I just have to say, you know, we just. We just surpassed a hundred thousand subscribers for YouTube, which by any stretch, is. Is something that's an important achievement for any YouTube channel. Harad has been a big part of that. You know, several other people. Maven's been a part of that. But, Julia, you've been a really important part of that because it turns out that, you know, creating shorts on TikTok and YouTube are really a really important way these days to get the word out, but also to grow channels. So, Julia, thanks for all your work there.
Julia Sanders [00:08:18] Yeah, I love this job. I love doing it.
John Dehlin [00:08:22] Okay, well, Julia, tell us why. Why this is an important topic to you. Whatever you feel like sharing.
Julia Sanders [00:08:30] So a couple of things. So I am part of the L in the lgbtqia, mafia or Alphabet. So it's important to me in that sense, but also, like on a smaller level. So the Charlie Bird is. We're in the same state or he grew up where I live now, so I'm familiar with his family and his sister. We're closer in age, so that's interesting to me. And so, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:08:51] Yeah. Well, your, your TikTok channel is fantastic. So please check it out, everybody. And Julia, do you want to say anything about kind of your, let's just say, adult background as it relates to your story? Just so people have a small sense of your story and we should have you on to do your full story when you're ready or if you're not ready yet, just say that.
Julia Sanders [00:09:11] Oh, that's totally fine. So I grew up in the church. I went to byu, Idaho. I served a mission in Salt Lake, and I got married in the temple. Yeah, I've since divorced and I'm now with a woman. So, yeah, that's just my mini Mormon story.
John Dehlin [00:09:26] Excellent. All right, well, Julia, you are just. Your TikToks just show so much intelligence and thoughtfulness, and your work has been so great. So I'm just really, really grateful you're here. Thanks for joining us.
Julia Sanders [00:09:38] Thank you.
Background: The Mormon Church and the "Rescue" Concept
John Dehlin [00:09:40] All right, well, let's go ahead and provide a little background. I'm going to just provide a little bit of explanation for why we use the term rescue, because there's some kind of insider knowledge that's important to understand. Please, any of you panelists jump in at any point. But half of our audience has never been Mormons, so they're probably wondering, what rescue? What is that? So, well, let me explain really quickly.
Kyle Ashworth [00:10:05] And 91 of them have probably never been gay, asexual or right?
John Dehlin [00:10:10] Yeah, maybe 80%, but yeah. So. So let me. Let me rewind a little bit. Take not talking about LGBT stuff, but talking about a totally different context. For over 150 years, the Mormon Church was known to not be super truthful or candid about its history, problems with its truth claims, to sort of hide or whitewash its history, and to punish anyone who talked about it. And that history has been well covered on Mormon stories, starting with the rise of the Mormon Internet. Starting in 2004, 2005 through 2009, the Mormon Church started to have the Chickens kind of came home to roost, so to speak. And the Mormon Church started to experience a lot of backlash for the way it's dealt with its history in a way that many members felt deceived or misled.
John Dehlin [00:11:00] And around 2009, 2010, there was this contingency of Swedes of Mormons from Sweden who got together listening to Mormon stories, podcasts and other things and started to ask questions and express concerns, almost like a Swedish apostasy or revolt within the Mormon Church in Sweden. And this included a man named Hans Mattsson, who served as an area authority for the church, which is one of the highest ranking members of the church four or five years. He was a part of this little Swedish apostasy that, you know, emerged in 2009, 2010. And the church got really scared because as soon as your general authority level leaders are apostatizing, that can cause, in theory, an entire country to defect from the church.
John Dehlin [00:11:53] So the church wanted to get a handle on it. And so they conducted what has been called the Swedish Rescue, which meant at the time the church historian, who was also a general authority, Marlon Jensen, brought Richard Turley, who was the assistant church historian for the church. The they both traveled to Sweden in November of 2010 and held a stake or a area or regional intervention where they tried to take questions from the apostatizing Swedes, provide answers and try and prevent an entire country of Mormons from apostatizing. That has been called the Swedish Rescue. There have been several Mormon Stories episodes dedicated to that. The actual stake training intervention was recorded by a Swede.
John Dehlin [00:12:46] That audio recording is also available on Mormon Stories and it's a really important part of modern Mormon history, the Swedish Rescue. From there, some really important things came out of it. Later, Marlon Jensen basically said, sorry, later, Hans Mattson, a former area authority Swede Hans Mattson said to Marlon Jensen, meet me in New York with Greg Prince and Travis Stratford and John De Lin. This is October of 2011 and we're going to figure out how the Mormon Church can change so that less Mormons feel betrayed and misled and deceived. So a bunch of us put a survey together in May of 2011.
John Dehlin [00:13:33] You can read about this if you just Google LDS faith crisis survey, Marlon Jensen, Hans Matz and John Dehlin. You can find the survey and the results. This meeting happened in October 2011 and as a result, a couple years later, Walla, the Mormon Church releases the Gospel Topics essays and started initiated a movement towards groundbreaking transparency regarding its historical truth claims. So that's the Swedish rescue. That's why we use the term rescue. There was another, at least two other rescues when the Denver Snuffer movement really took hold in Idaho. There was a Boise rescue where general authorities did something very similar to stop the Denver Snuffer prepper movement.
John Dehlin [00:14:17] And then recently there was kind of a British rescue where. Where Quentin Cook and Elder Holland. And who? Someone else, maybe Nelson, traveled to the UK and tried to keep the apostasy from happening in the uk that's why we're using the term rescue, I would say.
Gerardo Sumano [00:14:33] Also, there's been a couple of groundbreaking moments, like the Brad Wilcox one where it was not official. I. I don't believe he was sent officially by the church to give this talk. Yeah, but we called it a rescue because it seems so groundbreaking, what he was saying.
John Dehlin [00:14:49] The Brad Wilcox rescue.
Gerardo Sumano [00:14:51] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:14:51] Yeah. Because I don't think I've had a spike in viewer listenership anything like February of last year when Brad Wilcox gave that awful talk and there was a rescue. You're right.
Kyle Ashworth [00:15:01] And historically, rescues aren't unfamiliar to Mormonism. I mean, I remember even as early as Wilford Woodruff, who went down to Southern Utah to rescue the Saints who weren't paying their tithing, which really was the way to rescue the church because the church was in such financial ruin, they needed those Saints who had a little extra cash to fund the church. So these rescues are always motivation driven. There's always a motive behind it, for sure.
John Dehlin [00:15:25] Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. So that's why we use the term rescue. And basically what we're suggesting is, well, we're kind of asking the question, are we in the midst of a Mormon gay rescue? And so. So I'll just give a tiny bit more history. Actually, the best document you could ever read on this is the on the Record document. On the Record, is that right?
Maven [00:15:48] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [00:15:48] On the Record is a collaboration of the church's historical comments in the LGBTQ space. And I started on the Record, I actually started compiling probably four years ago or five years ago because I wanted to know and understand the history as to where the church has been and where they're going.
Kyle Ashworth [00:16:05] And also, it's so interesting being. And I didn't mention this in the introduction, but it should be somewhat clear. I'm gay, grew up in the church, very closeted, married a woman, had children, checked all the boxes, hoping that this would all go away. And what happens when it doesn't? That's. That was my reality in 2016. So I really started diving into this space to try to better Understand where the church landed and how the church got to this place of tradition and culture concerning people who are like me. And I compiled all of these quotes and all these messages and just really put together a chronological history of the church.
Kyle Ashworth [00:16:40] But I also knew that if Latter Day Saints were to better understand their history, they needed like I was in that space too. I needed to know that it was sourced, that it was attributed to church leaders, that it could be followed all the way back. It wasn't taken out of context. So I did put together on the record for that reason and sourced everything so a very faithful Latter Day Saint could read it and see that it actually was a history of where the church has been. And so you can find that. And we should do an episode. We've talked about this many times, John.
Kyle Ashworth [00:17:10] We should do an actual episode about that history. But you can find it@lettergay stories.org record or just Google it. It's now been downloaded, I think 112,000 times, which is pretty amazing for a single document. You can just google on the record lds and it's the first thing that pops up on Google.
John Dehlin [00:17:29] Excellent. Yeah. So I'm really glad we gave a shout out to that. Maybe Gerardo can include a link to that in the comments right now, because it's important. We'll include it in the show notes. If it's okay, Kyle, I'll just give a really quick few bullet points from on the Record just to provide a little context, lay the groundwork for today. Is that okay?
Kyle Ashworth [00:17:49] Yeah, that's fine.
The Church's History of LGBTQ Policies and the Mormon and Gay Website
John Dehlin [00:17:50] So obviously the Mormon Church has a long history of homophobic and transphobic policies and doctrines and behaviors. From condemning same sex sexuality as evil or ugly or as perverted. From comparing it, likening it to child molestation or bestiality.
John Dehlin [00:18:14] From saying that homosexuality is a sin next to murder, all the way through to suggesting mixed orientation marriages for gay and lesbian and bisexual Mormons, encouraging celibacy, and even promoting conversion therapy, reparative therapy, and even electroshock therapy at byu and excommunicating gay Mormons and even people who advocate for LGBTQ Mormons within the church. So, you know, we don't need to rehash that history, but I'll just highlight that the Church also has a long history of involving itself in legislative or governmental affairs, including Prop 22 in the 2000 time frame that led to the death by suicide of Stuart Mattis, which was an important part of my LGBTQ awakening.
John Dehlin [00:19:02] But also, many of you will know about Proposition 8 in California, where the Mormon Church literally worked to to take legal same sex marriage away from a sovereign state and citizens of a sovereign state in the United States. This led to a massive amount of backlash starting in 2008, 2009. It also led to a massive rise in LGBTQ youth and young adult suicides within the LDS Church. And a really important mini rescue that happened that I think bears mentioning is in 2010 when the same Marlon Jensen that did the Swedish rescue traveled to Oakland under the supervision of Dean Crittle, who was the stake president at the time, and and met with a bunch of LGBTQ members and allies in the Oakland stake and gave a personal heartfelt apology.
John Dehlin [00:19:54] This is in September of 2010. And you could even call this a mini gay rescue because it was the first time a Mormon general authority like probably ever used the term gay or lesbian in a non hateful, mean way. And certainly the first time a Mormon general authority ever expressed any sort of empathy, let alone a personal apology for the way LGBTQ people have been treated within the history of the church. So that is important because it was a local stake initiative that precedes this one that involved general authority.
John Dehlin [00:20:29] I'll just also say that that I think helped along with the backlash led to the Mormon and gays website which was launched in December 2012.
Gerardo Sumano [00:20:38] We were just recently know that found out from a Mormon church insider that some of the brethren thought that the website went too far.
John Dehlin [00:20:48] Yeah, absolutely.
Gerardo Sumano [00:20:50] The gay and Mormon website.
John Dehlin [00:20:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was Mormon and gays in, in December 2012, which was the first time the church ever even formally acknowledged or used the term gay. Again if I'm right Kyle, that's true.
Kyle Ashworth [00:21:03] And it also was the first time we actually saw the church create gay Mormon currency. And we'll talk about that a little later in this episode as well, where they started harnessing individuals as currency as a debit card to kind of pave the way and, and promote a message using real stories. And that Mormon, a gay website originally, I think featured around 16 stories, 16 individual stories that kind of met at this intersection.
John Dehlin [00:21:33] And Kyle, tell me if I'm wrong, but. But it seemed to have been the first time the church softened its rhetoric against gay and lesbian Mormons, stopped trying to assert that they knew what caused same sex sexuality, kind of backed off urging celibacy and conversion therapy and mixed orientation marriages, started saying we don't know why people are gay or lesbian and started encouraging members to be more loving and compassionate.
Kyle Ashworth [00:21:59] Yeah, I think the watershed moment really was the first time the church said and admitted to its general public via its highest ranking members that being gay was not a choice which had been promulgated all the way since. The first time the church actually used the word homosexual was in 1952 with LeGrand Richards. So they had a long history, 50 years in sharing this kind of hateful and harmful message. So it was a turning point for the church in 2010, 12 and then forward that kind of stops in 15. But it was a watershed moment to have leaders, church leaders actually acknowledge that the people in the room weren't sinning.
Kyle Ashworth [00:22:37] Their. Their choice wasn't a choice at all. That, that the church kind of took a neutral, kind of a Switzerland stance where they said we don't know what causes homosexuality, but acting on it is. Is a sin, but just being gay is not. And that really was. It meant something to the queer community, but it also started this path of, of nuance and progressive Mormonism in this space was invented. And we really get to where we're at today and we'll discuss that further as well.
John Dehlin [00:23:05] Excellent. Thanks, Kyle. So there was a rebranding of the Mormon and gay and a relaunching of the Mormon and gays website. They changed the URL to Mormon and gay.
Kyle Ashworth [00:23:15] It was gays and Mormons as if there were two separate individuals in the very beginning. Gay, gay and Mormon.
John Dehlin [00:23:21] Right, right. And so they changed it to Mormon and gay. Right. In October of 2016 it was.
Kyle Ashworth [00:23:27] And it actually that website still hung on longer than when President Nielsen came out and said we should no longer use the word Mormon. They held on to that URL and still kept it gays and mormons.com and so we. I always thought it was kind of funny that even it was the whole gay and Mormon website was still stronger than the wins that Satan was getting apparently.
Gerardo Sumano [00:23:49] So.
John Dehlin [00:23:49] Right. Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [00:23:50] When the church rebranded and moved away from the term now they changed that
Gerardo Sumano [00:23:54] to same sex attraction.
Kyle Ashworth [00:23:55] Yeah. So the. Yeah, John will get to that. That website's gone completely.
John Dehlin [00:23:58] Yeah. So in, in classic Mormon church fashion, two steps forward, one step back. In 2015, after same sex marriage was legalized throughout the United States, thanks in part to the Mormon Churches involvement in Proposition 8 in, in California, the Mormon Church we all know now implemented its exclusion policy in November 2015, which was horrific where it basically made.
John Dehlin [00:24:26] It basically put same sex marriage on the same par as even being worse than rape or, or incest or murder because it, it declared same sex marriage as an. As an act of mandatory apostasy and excommunication while also prohibiting the Children of same sex married Mormons from even joining the church, getting baptized, holding the priesthood, and even joining the priesthood as an adult unless they condemned their same sex married parents. So a horrific backslide in 2015 and you know, and then eventually the, the Mormon and gays websites disappear. They get munged back into the church's same sex attraction gospel topic, I guess. And so where do those go? We don't even know anymore.
Kyle Ashworth [00:25:20] I think we basically became a tab again. Yeah, we just, we're moved into a section of the handbook.
John Dehlin [00:25:26] Yeah.
Julia Sanders [00:25:27] Wait, so another thing. If I, if I can so I think so. Kylie, you said there were 16 stories on Mormon stories or on Mormon and gay. I think there are only four now, if I'm not mistaken. And only two of them are individuals who struggle with. Struggle with same gender attraction.
Kyle Ashworth [00:25:42] The other two are parents.
Kyle Ashworth [00:25:44] Yeah.
Julia Sanders [00:25:44] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:25:46] Yeah. So massive backsliding, unfortunately. And then I just wanted to clarify.
Kyle Ashworth [00:25:54] Parents of queer kids. So not, not parents who identify as gay, but parents of queer children. One of those. Becky McIntosh. The other one. Mother of a lesbian daughter.
John Dehlin [00:26:03] Yeah.
Maven [00:26:04] And I think if, if I just jump in. The reason why, I guess I am a little bit surprised that there are fewer stories because my understanding is of those original 16, and this happens to almost anyone who becomes a poster child for, for being gay and Mormon, especially if they're going the celibacy route, is that eventually many of these people finally are okay with being authentic to themselves and will often do end up leaving the church and do end up finding happy partnerships. And that's why their stories get pulled. I guess what surprises me that there's not. I'm just surprised that the church hasn't replaced them because for a while that's what they did.
Maven [00:26:43] So when, when someone, you know, comes out, their story gets pulled. But the church has usually had more people to fill in and. But I guess maybe they're realizing the more you do that, just the more evidence when those people eventually also le. Leave the church or eventually accept their. Their orientations, then yes, maybe the church's new strategy is to just have the two and not. Not build up a potential like future ginormous pool of failed stories, basically.
Kyle Ashworth [00:27:14] Well, and some of those stories were, I don't want to say failing, because I say failing in terms of the rhetoric and the narrative that the church was pushing marketing prior to them even being published. I interviewed Jessica on latter gay stories and Jessica's.
Kyle Ashworth [00:27:28] Her episode was up there for a really long time, but she was in a relationship while they were filming and while this was in production and then put into the blogosphere for the church. And so. And it really was eventually her decision to finally get engaged and marry her wife that the church finally pulled that episode. And so the church was so desperate for stories, they even were okay with blurring the lines because in, in Jessica's case, she wasn't living all of the truths that she was actually using this episode to promote. To promote. And, and I think that's a super important point that Maven brings up that like, the church was so desperate for stories, and we'll probably get into that as well with the Charlie and.
Kyle Ashworth [00:28:10] And Ben situation. The church is so eager to use examples to lift up the narrative that they're willing to overlook some issues as well that I think become somewhat problematic for Mormonism.
The 2015 Exclusion Policy and Its Aftermath
John Dehlin [00:28:23] Yeah, yeah, well, those are all really good points. So I'm loving that you guys are jumping in. So after the exclusion policy was put forward, many progressive Mormons hoped that it was just a policy, not a doctrine. And then of course, at the time, what President of the quorum of the 12, Russell M. Nelson doubles down and states what a BYU Idaho, that the November 2015 policy in fact was doctrine and was revelation. Do I have that right?
Kyle Ashworth [00:28:54] Yeah, it was in Hawaii.
John Dehlin [00:28:55] What did I say by.
Kyle Ashworth [00:28:56] Yeah, BYU Hawaii, not in diet Utah.
John Dehlin [00:28:59] Right.
Kyle Ashworth [00:28:59] It was the other.
John Dehlin [00:29:00] Yeah, yeah, but. But the. The man who is now prophet, President Russell Nelson, made very clear to say that the November 2015 exclusion policy was doctrine and was revelation. Only then to experience so much backlash over the next four years that the Mormon Church did something that almost never ever does, which is within a five year period, completely dual 180 undo and reverse what. What they claimed was doctrine and they killed the November 2015 policy, exclusion policy in 2019, and has just left us all wondering, is it a sin? Is it not a sin? Can you get same sex married? Can you not? Is it apostasy?
John Dehlin [00:29:45] Do they excommunicate for same sex marriage? And I'd say, tell me if I'm right, Kyle. Like in the past couple of years it's been this bishop roulette, ecclesiastical roulette, almost random application of what is and is not allowed or forbidden within Mormonism. Can you date? If you're gay, can you not? Can you get same sex married? Will you get excommunicated? It almost just depends on who your bishop is, how much privilege you have, who you know.
Kyle Ashworth [00:30:12] Well, I think I'm going to push back a little bit on your descriptor that they killed the November 2015 policy. Because what I really believe happened is they, Frankenstein did, they took parts and pieces of the November 2015 policy and reinserted them back into the handbook. And then they reinserted them back into the vernacular. They reinserted parts and pieces of that back into Mormon culture and tradition. So we still see excommunications. We still see people who are tried in these new membership councils and then their membership is, is yanked from the church. So effectively labeling them as apostates. Again, we see this happen again and again and again.
Kyle Ashworth [00:30:49] It's not necessarily that they, they killed off the November 2015 policy. They just cut it up in pieces and resurrected it in new sections of the handbook and, and infiltrated. So what we do is we have this, and you brought it up, John, this confusion. We have Bishop Roulette, Stake President Roulette. We have some very affirming Latter Day Saints and congregations who see that the policy and the doctrine doesn't match the person that sits across the kitchen table from them or sits across the bishop's desk from them. And that really has caused a lot of problems. It has created nuance that I don't believe the Church knows how to control.
Kyle Ashworth [00:31:23] And, and it leads us to where we're at today. And I think it's a fascinating, an unintended consequence. If Greg Prince was sitting here, that's kind of what has come out of the April 2019 dismantling of the original November 2015 policy.
John Dehlin [00:31:38] And just to be clear, you know, Mormons, men and women have been excommunicated over the past few years for the crime of getting legally and lawfully same sex married. True or not true?
Kyle Ashworth [00:31:52] Very true. And, and not only have we seen, we saw this big push for men, gay men being excommunicated. And I've documented this on latter Gay Stories, especially on our Facebook pages where I have so many. And we did, when we had an interview with Brennan and Doug here on the Mormon Stories podcast, was one of those that happened. But even maybe six months ago, four lesbian couples, all at once in various parts of the United States almost got a verbatim letter from their Stake Presidents bringing them to a membership council. So to me, I think there's coordinated efforts out there that shows that either an area authority or even general authorities are pushing.
Kyle Ashworth [00:32:33] And they've all cite, they all cite this law of violation of the law of chastity. We're not coming after you because you're gay. We're coming after you because you've violated the law of chastity. Is this calculated? This seems Very methodical. But to answer your question, it now has kind of approached the lesbian part of the LGBTQ versions of, of this topic, which is sad.
John Dehlin [00:32:58] Beautiful. Well, sad. And thank you so much. So, so that's kind of the background. And I just, I guess I just want to make one final point, that whatever progress is about to be made or is currently being made, we're about to now talk about something very positive, very hopeful. I think it's, I think it's fair to say that the church has been backed into a corner for any positive steps it is making now or will make in the future.
The Church's Dilemma: Losing a Generation
John Dehlin [00:33:28] In effect, the church has a gun to its head. Because where we stand in 2023 is the church. The Mormon Church is hemorrhaging millennials. It's hemorrhaging gen zers. It's hemorrhaging 40 somethings and 50 somethings. The church, the Mormon Church, is basically in decline. It's dying in Western Europe, it's dying in developed Asia. The only thing that's keeping it alive in the United States is a larger than average birth rate of 3 kids per couple. And even in, across the Utah Wasatch front, Idaho, Arizona, wards and stakes are being collapsed because the church is in freefall. And I don't think anyone would make a top three list of what's causing the Mormon Church to hemorrhage without including the LGBTQ crisis.
John Dehlin [00:34:18] So I think it's fair. We could all agree that whatever progress is about to be made or might be made is not necessarily happening out of pure goodwill. It's basically with the church having a gun held to its head. Is that too cynical?
Kyle Ashworth [00:34:35] I think painting the church into a corner is an accurate descriptor because the church for a long time lost its, lost the left. And this was long before an LGBTQ issue. This is social justice issues, race in the priesthood, feminism. This happened long before the uprising of the LGBTQ movement. They lost the right with Des. Not an ultra right, conservative, hardcore, traditional, Latter Day Saint ism, Lafferties, Day Bells. I mean, you kind of go down that path of ultra orthodox, and then when you come to this topic in the center, you actually have really good people who are, who want to do the right thing and are loving and compassionate.
Kyle Ashworth [00:35:11] And when the church is still hard, right, on topics like sexuality and gender identity, then you start losing the families who again, see their children not as policy and doctrine, but as people. And here, the middle, this topic really has stolen the middle from the church. And the church doesn't know who to pander to at this point. They lost the left, they lost the right, they're losing the middle. Who do we kowtow to now? Who, who do we say is our base when even our base is undercutting what the first Presidency and the general authorities are trying to uphold? So fascinating territory right now for Mormonism.
John Dehlin [00:35:46] And I'll. Kyle, I'll lovingly push back on you a little bit. I think the church has lost a lot of its left. Obviously with the Patrick Masons, the Terrell and Fiona Givens, the whole Restore movement or the Faith Matters group. There is still a progressive liberal Mormon wing that's out there. It's definitely shrunk, but they just had an event with 1700 people.
Kyle Ashworth [00:36:11] We were both there. It was amazing.
John Dehlin [00:36:13] Just, just a few. So there is still a left. It's shrinking, but it's still there. And I would still say the Mormon right is very much still alive. Now clearly the church has lost people to the snuff rights and to the preppers and to the fundamentalists, but I would say there's still a very large ultra right wing, ultra conservative, Trumpy kind of maga wing within orthodox Mormonism. Very large.
Kyle Ashworth [00:36:39] Yeah. And I agree. And I think that progressive nuanced left is not a space the church has carved out authoritatively. This has been carved out from a grassroots level where Latter Day Saints are trying to make the church work for them. And, and you see 100% an uprising of the progressive nuance left. And maybe some of those were ultra or in fact, I know many of those were ultra orthodox. And because of this topic alone, they move from that ultra traditional conservative spot to a very left leaning or nuanced space because of the personal influence and because of the proximity to their existence to other queer Latter Day Saints.
John Dehlin [00:37:20] Yeah, absolutely.
Maven [00:37:21] I want to jump in on the grassroots thing because that's what I was thinking as well, was a major theme for me. So I think if, if I were to give a summary of what we are about to be diving into it, it is, I guess the, the response to this problem that you guys are pointing out about all of these different sides is that the church is able to be in a position where, I don't know if double speak is the right word, where a lot of things can be said in very vague ways to mean a lot of different things. A lot of things are dog whistles so that when, when conservative members who are more inclined to be homophobic, they will hear these things and even though it's not being explicitly said, they will understand certain statements by church leaders to mean that they are being supported by the church leaders.
Maven [00:38:11] And it's the same with the other side as well, that they, that those on the left will also see that they are or feel that they're being supported by the leadership and the church and what they're currently saying. But at the end of the day, these really positive things that we're seeing are all coming from the bottom up. And the negative things, the hardcore things, the things that are causing the most harm and hurt and pain, those are all coming from the top down. And so the thing is, is what we have to see and what we'll see over and over in these presentations today is really walking on eggshells around that concept, because nobody wants to admit where these misconceptions or where any harm comes in.
Maven [00:38:57] They'll talk about homophobia from members and from family members, but they'll never, ever, ever address that it likely came from the church. They'll talk about ways that they're invalidated again. They'll never mention that these problems come from the church most of the time directly, sometimes even indirectly. But it's just always.
Maven [00:39:18] They just have to keep tiptoeing around that and, and just kind of pretending like it's. That's not where it's coming from. And that's where some people and some members of the church are really genuinely confused at where to be on these issues. But I just wish, over and over, there's so many positive things that are coming from what we're going to go over. I just wish they could come from the top where there's actual authority behind it.
John Dehlin [00:39:40] And that's a great point, Maven. We'll get to that for sure. And I think that's, to Kyle's point that he said jokingly, the church doesn't know who to pander to. The church is in a real pickle because if it becomes too friendly with the LGBT community, it certainly is going to lose, what, 40, 40% of its membership. But if it comes down too hard on the LGBTQ community and stays too retrenchant, and it's not only going to lose a bunch of its middle and all of its left, it's going to continue to be viewed as a pariah in the broader, broader society. So the Brethren are keeping things intentionally vague and ambiguous and allowing a lot of local authority to govern. And that's going to be a key theme for today. So let's go ahead and now introduce Herodotus.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:29] That was a 40 minute introduction.
John Dehlin [00:40:30] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:31] And There's a lot of slides.
John Dehlin [00:40:32] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:33] So I know we may need to pause at some point if we go too long.
John Dehlin [00:40:37] Yeah, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:38] Just FYI.
John Dehlin [00:40:39] Yeah, yeah. Or like, you guys will all go home and I'll stay here. Well, yeah, but. But I. I hope that people value that introduction.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:40:48] I'm really proud of what we just
Kyle Ashworth [00:40:49] talked about, but, yes, I told my husband that this was going to be a two and a half hour interview.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:53] And he said, me too.
Kyle Ashworth [00:40:54] You know what I'm gonna do? He's like, I'm just gonna make sure there's dinner ready. And you're just gonna have to eat on. On the road.
John Dehlin [00:41:00] Three hours for sure.
Kyle Ashworth [00:41:03] Good luck, Jay.
John Dehlin [00:41:04] Say, Jay. All right, so let's go ahead and quickly give a little background on Charlie and Ben. We talked about them really briefly before. I'll go ahead and show the slide.
Introducing the Stake LGBTQ Training with Charlie Bird and Ben Schilaty
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:16] Well, this is about the steak first.
John Dehlin [00:41:18] Well, is it okay if we talk about just who Charlie and Ben are?
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:22] Go ahead.
John Dehlin [00:41:22] And then we'll talk about the stake. I don't want to talk about who Charlie and Ben are, which, you know, Gerardo or Kyle. Just give a really brief introduction of who Charlie and Ben are.
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:30] Julia can talk about Charlie,
Kyle Ashworth [00:41:34] about Willard, Missouri.
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:35] Yeah, there you go.
Julia Sanders [00:41:37] Oh, I think Gerardo would know better because it's been a couple years since I read his book, so.
John Dehlin [00:41:42] Come on, brother. Who's Charlie? Who's Charlie?
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:46] So he was BYU mascot. I mean, this is in direction Cosmo. Yeah, Cosmo the cougar came out as
Julia Sanders [00:41:55] he.
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:56] He says that he has a really. He had a really good coming out
Gerardo Sumano [00:42:00] experience
Gerardo Sumano [00:42:03] with a lot of accept acceptance by family members, by friends and BYU administrators and BYU friends. Overall, pretty positive. Uh, he had to deprogram a lot of the homophobia internal that the church had taught him. Wrote a book in 2020 that sells a desert book without the mask and started becoming kind of like a spokesperson for LGBT inclusivity for it's okay to identify as gay and say the word gay.
Gerardo Sumano [00:42:37] You know, this kind of stuff. So I think it's the first, probably one of the only books that desert book that has the word gay in it. So that was kind of groundbreaking. Some of the things that we have mentioned in the past that we might have been a little bit critical of him is that his image was built upon the, uh, belief of, or people were thinking that members were thinking that he was celibate and leaving the church's standards. Uh, when later we found out that he was actually dating even while the book was being published. Or being sold that this year book.
John Dehlin [00:43:15] Just to be clear, you could date. You could date and be celibate, too, right?
Gerardo Sumano [00:43:19] Yes. I mean, because when. So before the 2019 reversal of the 15 policy, dating was out of the question for gay people. It was not until 2019 when Elder Oaks stood up and said, now we're going to treat homosexuals and heterosexuals in the same way. When kind of that opened the door to LGBT dating. But even then, there was no one out there, you know, publicly dating. And admittedly, he'll say that that's why he kept the secret, because he thought, you know, if he came out, he would get in trouble. So even for him, even though his leaders knew, you know, some of the people close to him knew he was scared of the ramifications of coming out. So that's what I mean. Celibate means, like, to what I'm saying, celibate is, like, not. I'm not speculating about his sexual life. I'm saying about dating.
John Dehlin [00:44:13] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [00:44:13] Anyway, so that came out. So now he has graduated from byu, his masters, and as far as I know, he hasn't been doing any speaking engagements since he said he was dating like he was before. But he did come out with a new book recently, and he was invited to this stake in Canada to speak. And that's what we're going to be covering.
John Dehlin [00:44:41] Yeah. Very good.
Gerardo Sumano [00:44:42] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:44:42] All right. So that's Charlie Bird. Anything else, Kyle, you want to add?
Kyle Ashworth [00:44:46] No, I'm just gonna bench a Lottie. Uh, he was, uh, obviously Latter Day Saint, grew up in Arizona, Uh, served a mission. Uh, Ben was. All the things I. I say. I. Ben and my story are very similar to the point where Ben didn't marry a woman, but served a mission with the intent of having yourself fixed, checking all the boxes, giving everything to the church, and in return, coming up very empty.
Kyle Ashworth [00:45:13] Ben is now an honor code administrator for byu. He holds two master's degrees and a doctorate degree. He's educated, he's intelligent, he's well spoken. He has also been at various stages of this journey as well. He has dated men.
Kyle Ashworth [00:45:31] Ultimately, he sides with single and celibate. And that's where Ben's journey is taking. Taking him today. He's the author of a book called A Walk in My Shoes, also published by Deseret Book. A prolific speaker, he's also done a TED Talk. So to the church, Ben is. Is exactly what they need. They need a Benchilatti out there to share the message and to kind of carry the water. And Ben does That effectively and well for Latter Day Saints.
John Dehlin [00:46:00] Beautiful. And then these two dudes started a podcast, right?
Kyle Ashworth [00:46:03] They've started a podcast called Questions from the Closet and kind of to back up to what Gerardo was talking about. Charlie and Ben's journey does get a little awkward because Ben is an honor code administrator. He, so he, he effectively sees and determines, he as well as other administrators, whether or not a BYU student is living up to the honor code and whether or not their credit should transfer and they stay in, in school. And some people have been. Their, their experience at BYU has been terminated because they held the hand of someone of their same gender or they were dating or they kissed a boy or a girl.
Kyle Ashworth [00:46:42] Someone of their same gender or had sex. Or had sex. Yeah. Or just drink. I mean there, there are a variety of things that the honor code office does. So it does become problem. Problematic for the optics when not only are Ben and Charlie friends, but they're also co hosts, but they also were part of the same institution at byu. And so when, when Ben does, or Charlie does come out and admit that he, he has a boyfriend he has been dating at byu, it becomes problematic because here Ben is an honor code administrator and he doesn't talk about it. And, and, and he allows Charlie to continue this activity to the point where Charlie self reports.
Kyle Ashworth [00:47:20] So I think that's kind of what your original episode was discussing was this problem, this optic problem for Ben and Charlie. But to get to your point, John, they do. They have a podcast called Questions from the Closet where they essentially share their experiences exactly where they're at today. They bring people on to also share their Latter Day Saint adjacent experiences with this topic. And it has been very beneficial to Latter Day Saints to hear from their own. And we all know what it's like to be in that space and how it's easy to trust somebody who is a card carrying member of the church as opposed to those who don't carry that card anymore or those who have been labeled apostates and those who have fallen away.
Kyle Ashworth [00:48:05] So anytime that we've seem critical or become critical of abandoned Charlie, naturally that Mama bear instinct for the Latter Day Saints will rise and they want to defend and protect those who are kind of the Captain Moronis, those who are carrying the standard of true, this, this banner of liberty across Zion to, to bring more inclusivity. And so that's kind of the, the odd predicament that Ben and Charlie have put themselves in in the space.
John Dehlin [00:48:34] Beautiful. Yeah. All right, well that brings us to the actual main topic of today, which is the Surrey, British Columbia stake, under the leadership of stake president Eden Engin, holding a training. And so who wants to talk about what they know about the origins and the format of this recent. I don't. I want to say it's more than just a stake training. You get the impression that multiple stakes were involved and even multiple countries were somehow tuning in to the broadcast, at least.
Stake President Opens the LGBTQ Inclusivity Training
Gerardo Sumano [00:49:13] So after I listened to the. The broadcast and I think we're gonna play clips from the sick person just giving the introduction. So maybe we don't want to spend too much time. But yeah, he has words that speak different languages on his own stake, so I wonder if that's where the. The translation was coming from.
John Dehlin [00:49:32] But I heard somebody say we have people joining us even from Brazil.
Gerardo Sumano [00:49:35] Could be.
John Dehlin [00:49:36] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:49:36] Yeah. And so, yeah, the stake president will explain that they've been holding a monthly meeting, uh, like this. Uh, I don't know what days, but, uh, about to. About LGBT inclusivity in the church and this. And in this occasion and for this month, they invited Ben and Charlie. So they flew them in and they had them speak on Saturday. So that was the first speaking engagement where Charlie and Ben gave a brief presentation and Q A to leaders. So young women's, young primary bishops, anyone that's on leadership attended these meeting. And then on Sunday, they did one for the general membership. So we're going to be playing clips from. For. From both of those.
John Dehlin [00:50:30] Yeah. So this is January 14th and 15th, 2023. And if you have visuals, you can see their Facebook page of this Surrey, British Columbia stake, and all the zoom information of how to join and wonderful photos of both Ben and Charlie. So we've got a gazillion clips, video clips to review. Gerardo, is there something you wanted us to get from this screenshot?
Gerardo Sumano [00:50:54] So this one was like the quick in just explanation.
Julia Sanders [00:50:59] Who.
Gerardo Sumano [00:50:59] Charlie and Ben. Where. It's. That's what the Facebook post is. But we. We already.
John Dehlin [00:51:04] Okay, we already gave the introduction. All right, so any. Without any. For anyone else want to say anything before we jump in? No. Julia, you okay? You've been really patient there. All right, so we'll go ahead and jump in now. And what we're going to do is start with the opening prayer. We're going to skip the hymn. We're going to go right to the opening prayer. And we felt like this is an important little video clip to share. It's not to mock prayer, not to be exhibitionist, but we felt like the emotion of this prayer was meaningful. So let's go ahead and start there. Dear Heavenly Father, we are grateful to
▶ Video Clip 1Video Clip 1 [00:51:41] be gathered here to.
Video Clip 1 [00:51:45] Together to
Video Clip 1 [00:51:49] help our family or neighbors,
Video Clip 1 [00:51:51] our friends, that we might
Video Clip 1 [00:51:56] share and
Video Clip 1 [00:51:57] live the principles of the Gospel, that
Video Clip 1 [00:51:59] we might
Video Clip 1 [00:52:02] know how to support and
Video Clip 1 [00:52:05] love
Video Clip 1 [00:52:07] and understand thy plan.
John Dehlin [00:52:12] We ask for these things that have Jesus Christ. I mean, that's powerful. Does anybody want to share any reaction to that?
Maven [00:52:25] I just want to say that this is obviously a very personal thing to this woman, and I'm certain she meant to say a longer prayer, but she just wasn't able to get it out. And I. I'm able to talk about a lot of difficult things, but I know I have a couple things in my life that I'm just. I'm not able to talk about in a. In a normal, regular voice for more than a minute or two. And I just can't help but getting emotional over it. And that's the connection I felt with this woman, is that this topic is one of those things for her where it's just so painful that will always become emotional very quickly. So I. I don't know what the circumstances, but I feel for her for whatever it is.
John Dehlin [00:53:10] It felt like she. She stopped. She had to stop.
Maven [00:53:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:53:12] Julia, I see you nodding. Is there anything you wanted to add?
Julia Sanders [00:53:15] Well, I just think for members of the church, I think it's really hard for them to hold space for both of these things, like the gospel principles are true and that these LGBTQ people are good and we need to love them. I just think that's really hard. And you can just see the pain of her trying to hold space for both of those.
John Dehlin [00:53:31] Yeah. And of course, we have no idea if she was chosen because she's a member of the LGBTQ community. We wouldn't know. What I can say from having done my dissertation on, you know, 1612 LGBTQ Mormons is that, you know, yes, gay men have a horrific history in the Mormon Church. Lesbian women feel like they're not even. They're. They're just a footnote, because even as this shows, there's no woman who's a third person in this training. Lesbians are almost completely ignored, sidelined, and forgotten within. Within Mormon culture. So if gays have it bad, lesbians are almost non existent.
Kyle Ashworth [00:54:16] And it even goes further than that. And it's. It's a. It's a women's issue because you have the straight spouses of these gay men who also have fallen victim in. In this space as well, who didn't sign up or bargain for this when A church was pushing their gay husbands into mixed orientation marriages. Collateral damage all around.
John Dehlin [00:54:35] Yeah, yeah. I mean, female sexuality still in the Mormon Church just doesn't exist. Women are not sexual beings, period. Gay or straight. Right. So I don't mean to be mean or rude, but Maven's nodding her head.
Maven [00:54:50] Yeah. I mean, and even in marriage, like, that's where it's supposed to be. Okay. But as we know, there's still a lot of shame for women in that. And even in. I think it was in your episode, I think it was with Faith that even among married women, it's still kind of taboo to portray yourself as. As liking sex with your husband. It's still kind of seen as, you know, bad. So.
John Dehlin [00:55:13] Yeah.
Maven [00:55:13] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:55:14] All right, well, let's go and go to the next clip, which is the stake President explaining what the meeting is about. What's his last name again? I've already forgotten it. Does anybody remember? All right, well, it's hard. What's that?
Maven [00:55:27] Engin or Engine.
John Dehlin [00:55:28] Okay, thanks, ma'.
Maven [00:55:29] Am.
John Dehlin [00:55:29] All right, here's Stake President Engin introducing this training.
▶ Video Clip 2Video Clip 2 [00:55:37] As a stake presidency, we have earnestly sought our Heavenly Father's will on how we can expand the borders of Zion, how we can reach out to those who are most at risk, those who are on the margins of our community in the church. That includes many people, many whose language is not English as the first language, many who are first generation members of the church who have not experienced some of the history that longtime members of the church have experienced growing up in the church, and includes people in our community, in our church who are part of the LGBTQ community. And for a lot of different reasons, different members of our community feel like when they wonder, where do they belong? Are they part of our Heavenly Father's plan
Video Clip 2 [00:56:40] as a state presidency?
Video Clip 2 [00:56:43] Our firmest and greatest desire is that every member of the Surrey stake feels like they have a place that they belong. They know they're part of God's kingdom. They are part of our Heavenly Father's eternal family. And that's the message that we want to share.
Video Clip 2 [00:57:01] For the past nine months, we've been having a monthly meeting in our stake on the last Sunday of the month, where we invite members of the gay community, members of the LGBTQ community, their families and supporters and advocates, members of our church, some of whom are not members of the church, some who are wondering where they fit in the church, to join us.
Video Clip 2 [00:57:25] And we talk about gospel principles, we talk about things that matter in terms of our relationship to the Savior, Jesus Christ. And how we can greater bind ourselves to the Savior through ordinances and the covenants that we make as we participate in those ordinances.
Video Clip 2 [00:57:46] And we ask the question, how can we help extend these great blessings to all the members of our stake, and in particular, members of the LGBTQ community?
Panel Reacts to the Stake President's Introduction
John Dehlin [00:58:00] All right, anybody have anything they want to say about this good stake president's introduction?
Gerardo Sumano [00:58:08] Just how, I think I was surprised how heartfelt it felt and how much emotion he had, how it seems like he knows about the subject. He's been at least involved with it and probably with people from the LGBT community. And he knows how hard it is to be a member of the church and lgbt. So I thought it's pretty groundbreaking that he's saying that they're having once a month one of these meetings, because we know other stakes have tried that, and area authorities have either stopped it or recommended for them to stop. And on this one, actually, the area authority for this stake was present, at least on this, on the Sunday session. And so I thought that was pretty cool.
Kyle Ashworth [00:59:07] I do see the stake president starting to build a bridge in the very beginning of his talk. He says, I want to start reaching out to other marginalized communities first. I think this is maybe a nod to the super conservative, ultra orthodox Latter Day Saints who might be in that meeting. I can only assume that those who actually left their homes, traveled to the stake center and sat down, wanted to be there. But as the stake president also talks, and I don't know that we cover it, he also acknowledges that not everybody sides and wants to be in this meeting and that there's still some division in the stake.
Kyle Ashworth [00:59:40] But it is interesting that he does talk to those who, as he explains, people who don't speak English as their first language, those who fill on the margins. And then also he. He nods to this phrase that we hear, expanding the borders of Zion.
Kyle Ashworth [00:59:57] That's actually the title of Charlie Bird's second book. So this. I thought that was an interesting kind of interjection into this. This talk. But to Gerardo's point, this has been done before. I am always excited to see another stake president take the reins and try to move this message forward. But I also have seen the Paul and Susie Augustine's of the world, the Emerson Furches of the. Of the world who have tried this, the Bryce Cooks of the world who have tried this in their ward stakes and branches. And we're also talking about bishops and stake presidents and people with. With some authority in the church who have been shot down.
John Dehlin [01:00:35] So this has been tried before and, and failed multiple times over multiple years. Right?
Kyle Ashworth [01:00:40] Yes. And I know of stake presidents who have tried this in their stakes and the result is stake presidents have removed their names and resigned their memberships over
John Dehlin [01:00:50] the situation or been released from their colleagues.
Kyle Ashworth [01:00:52] Released. And then they resigned their memberships over this. Yeah, yeah. And this is. This has happened over and over and over again. I don't have. I don't wish it upon this good stake president who's taking this banner. And I hope, and I don't want to use this episode to say that's what's going to happen or even wish that that happens, because I want to see more of this happen over Zion. I do have. I have seen what's happened.
John Dehlin [01:01:16] There's a. There's a graveyard of former church leaders, metaphorical graveyard, who have tried to do the same thing.
Kyle Ashworth [01:01:23] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:01:23] That's important history for us to mention. Maven, you were going to say something?
Maven [01:01:26] Yeah, I was just going to piggyback off the marginalized groups comment. And while there are groups that are marginalized by our society in general, they are specifically and deliberately marginalized by the church. So I'm just going to point out again that this is something that is being caused by the church that is trying to be fixed by good members like the stake President.
John Dehlin [01:01:47] Thanks, Julia. Anything quick you want to add?
Julia Sanders [01:01:50] Oh, no, I just. I'm just so impressed by how progressive this stake president seems to be. And I. I love what's about to happen.
John Dehlin [01:01:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll say I'm super impressed with the stake president. Kudos to him. I'll just say, in addition to being ecstatically happy about this groundbreaking event and that it's being live streamed wherever it was live streamed and that the area authorities on the stand, this feels like a historic moment. And my problem with it is why is this not led by the quorum of the first presidency, the quorum of the 12? Why isn't this in General conference? Why isn't this church wide training? Why is this a grassroots effort?
John Dehlin [01:02:32] Our church leaders build themselves to us as led by God and Jesus, as prophet seers and revelators, and yet they're being led by this grassroots stake president and they should be in the lead. Not sort of like potentially in a calculated way letting him be in the lead, unofficially allowing him to do what he's doing, but not endorsing it almost as a trial balloon. And then we'll see whether they end up chopping his head off, replicating the program, killing it, adopting it. But but where's the leadership? Where are the prophets, seers and revelators showing leadership here versus following. That's problematic for me.
Kyle Ashworth [01:03:15] Yeah. Historically, Mormonism loves its martyrs. So in a way, I look at this and say, oh, this is another chance for Latter Day Saint leaders to use this, this martyr theory. And because in my community, in the, in the LGBTQ community, there have been plenty of people who have.
Kyle Ashworth [01:03:32] Have fallen on this path, but their work and their advocacy has allowed people like me to. To move forward in a much healthier, cleaner, and. And easier way. I. But I do feel for the very same thing you feel for. Why isn't this coming from the top? But we also historically know that almost all of the doctrinal and policy changes that have happened in Mormonism started from the bottom up. This. This wasn't from the top down. This was a grassroots effort that the Latter Day Saints, as a community and you. And we can start with tobacco on floors to the way our hymns are sung to 1978.
Kyle Ashworth [01:04:10] We can go through. Or 1891 and polygamy. We can go through all of the church's major historical movements. And they all started from the bottom up.
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:18] Isn't it interesting, though, that the good things come from the bottom up, but the bad things.
John Dehlin [01:04:23] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:23] Always come from.
John Dehlin [01:04:24] Because opposition to the ERA amendment. Top down. Proposition 8, the. You know, the exclusion policy. Top down.
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:32] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:04:33] Right.
Kyle Ashworth [01:04:33] It's the holding of the tradition. So the church leaders think that they. They have to hold tradition together in order to hold the church together. But here are those who are carrying the water for the church, and they are moving the church forward based on their individual grassroots advocacy and the way that they stand up for other Latter Day Saints.
John Dehlin [01:04:51] Yeah. And what this speaks to is they claim to be prophetess and revelators, but it's really the grassroots membership that are doing that are. That are leading the way for positive change.
Gerardo Sumano [01:05:02] That's what it looks like.
John Dehlin [01:05:03] Yeah, that's what it looks like. And I wish that could change. I wish they could be ahead of the times as leaders, not behind and
Kyle Ashworth [01:05:10] behind the membership, which would be fulfilling the definition of prophet seer.
John Dehlin [01:05:14] Exactly. I mean, that's exactly. What do prophets do, they prophesy. What do seers do? They see ahead. What do revelators do? They reveal before everyone else has information. They're failing on all three counts.
Kyle Ashworth [01:05:26] But I do remember when I was in seminary, the difference between a big P prophet and a little P profit. And so maybe that's what we're talking about here. The little p Profits are the ones who were. And prophetesses are the ones who are moving the church forward.
John Dehlin [01:05:38] Absolutely. All right, let's go to the next clip.
Gerardo Sumano [01:05:45] I've had members ask me, you know, there's a question in the temple recommend interview asking about whether I support or affiliate with people who teach or promote doctrines contrary to the church. And they don't know if they can answer that question because they're trying to be supportive of their LGBTQ family members or to participate in a meeting even like this. The answer is, yes, of course you can.
John Dehlin [01:06:12] All right, so what did he just say there? Who wants to translate that in non Mormon speak? Maven?
Maven [01:06:18] Yeah, because this was. This was my. One of my, I guess the first ones that I really had a problem with. First of all, that's not the experience of a lot of members of the church who have lost their temple recommend. What was he saying in support? Are we talking about temple recommends in
John Dehlin [01:06:33] general or just restate what he just said for those who don't understand.
Maven [01:06:37] So in order to have a temple recommend to go to temples, which is the highest level of Mormonism, there are certain questions that you have to answer the right way in order to be considered worthy to have this recommend, which will let you get into the temple. And one of the questions is whether or not you affiliate with groups that are in opposition to the church. And so. So this one, what he's saying there is he's having family members who are wondering if they can support their gay friends and family and still can they answer that question the right way? That. That they are not affiliating with groups that are doctrinally opposed to the church.
Maven [01:07:19] And he is saying, while loving their lgbt. While loving and supporting. Yeah. Their LGBT members. Members. And he is saying, absolutely you can. And I'm saying that absolutely has not happened for many members of the church where they've lost recommends over that specifically. But I guess if we're. If we, I guess, nail down what the meaning of support is, I think that's the real crucial question here. And I think this is something that, again, is just one of the things the church tries to avoid seeing, saying as much as possible in discussions like this. But the support means you can support, you know, in quotations or love in quotations, your LGBTQ family and friends.
Maven [01:08:03] But that means you still see what they are or what they are doing as wrong. So you still. You can't support them in believing that they should be married or it's fine for someone that you love to be in a same Sex, marriage, and you support that and you're glad they're happy and that kind of stuff. You, as long as you believe that they're sinning, that they are wrong, you're fine. Then you are in line with the doctrines of the church. And I think that's the crux of where Ben is able to keep his position at BYU as an openly gay person, because he is towing that line, that it would be wrong for him to marry somebody that he was actually attracted too.
Maven [01:08:46] So he's keeping the line going. Whereas in the news recently where there were several BYU Idaho teachers who, who are not gay, who are straight, but who were very ld LGBTQ affirming and positive spaces, they lost their ecclesiastical endorsements and subsequently lost their jobs. They were not able to stay teachers at BYU because of their support of this community. And it's. Because that support is not saying. It's not calling it a sin. It's the opposite. They're saying it's not a sin. And so that's the difference.
Gerardo Sumano [01:09:20] Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [01:09:21] We could have a whole episode on this topic because this goes to our point about how uneasy this topic is within Mormonism. This also goes to show, and it helps show our point about bishop or leadership roulette, how some leaders do treat this different. And I completely understand Maven's position and, and I promised that I was going to come into this with opposition and all things. I, I push back a little bit because I, I say this is a, this is a great moment to highlight how odd this is for Mormons. Put yourself, pull yourself out of the ex Mormon space or the progressive Mormon space and put yourself in the shoes of the traditional Latter Day Saint.
Kyle Ashworth [01:10:05] We undoubtedly there are Latter Day Saint leaders out there, bishops and stake presidents who are withholding temple recommends. I know of Salt Lake Valley bishops and stake presidents who are withholding temple recommends for someone who, who went to a gay marriage, even though we have Elder Christofferson, an apostle, who said it's okay to go to a gay marriage, we have the church endorsing the, the, the Right to Marry act, the Equality Marriage act, which we, We've, we've covered that and discussed the political side of the church's position there.
Kyle Ashworth [01:10:40] But we have in Surrey, British Columbia, a stake president who says, if I have a member come to me wanting a temple recommend who lives in relation to, closely in close proximity to a queer person and supports them and it attends a marriage or wants them to be happy, I will support that and I will give a temple recommend that shows you the situation that the church is in. And, and to, I guess, to my point, putting yourself in the shoes of a Latter Day Saint who finds themselves in this predicament of what are actually the church's rules. This goes to show how we need to hear from the top, not from rogue stake presidents.
Kyle Ashworth [01:11:21] And that's what a lot of Latter Day Saints will see the stake president as is rogue. But in my experience, I've seen far more affirming stake presidents who are doing their best and bishops to give space to Latter Day Saints to support queer people. Then I have seen the against. We see, we hear more about the against.
Kyle Ashworth [01:11:43] But knowing that there's a whole stake center full of, of potential allies or allies, not even incognito, they have shown up to this event lets me know that they're not alone, that there are other Latter Day Saints out there in this space who want to be like the stake president and have been supporting from the shadows and are now wanting to come out. They want to be able to have their support visibly be seen. And so, yes, I know this is problematic, but I also think this is super important to have a stake president make an announcement like this. It's also sad that he actually has to make an announcement like this. I want that to be noted as well.
John Dehlin [01:12:21] Well, the fact that he has to make the announcement just reveals that there clearly has been a problem because they
Gerardo Sumano [01:12:28] changed the question just recently to make it kind of, it seemed like the, the First Presidency changed the temple question to include LGBT people, support for LGBT people. And the question as it stands right now, it says, do you support?
Gerardo Sumano [01:12:44] It used to be about groups and I would, I would see a lot of bishops and sick presidents say, well, you know, as soon as your son or whoever is not in a group advocating against the church, that's fine. But they changed and removed the, the word group on the question. And now the question is, do you support or promote any teaching or practice or doctrine contrary to those of the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter Day Saints? So they include, they remove the word group and include practice. You know, if your son is on a same sex marriage, are you supporting them? That's totally contrary to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints. So to many bishops is really easy to just say, no, I, you shouldn't have a recommend.
John Dehlin [01:13:30] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [01:13:30] And the, and I just want to bring up Maven's point about ecclesiastical endorsements as well, because so in order to be hired by a church in the ces, the church education system, you have to have what's called an ecclesiastical endorsement, where you go meet with your church leader and they ask a list of questions. Interestingly enough, up in Idaho, and this was Idaho only they added a line in the ecclesiastical endorsement that asked you specifically if you had a homosexual relationship or if you're currently, we're in a homosexual relationship. And that was asked of the students and of the faculty. They've now scrubbed that once.
Kyle Ashworth [01:14:01] There was a lot of backlash and people asking BYU Idaho why that was. But the churches as, as an institution is honing down and, and trying to. I, I think they're trying to figure out, find a space that feels comfortable. And so they're trying a lot of different versions of, of this advocacy that could work, but I don't think the church is there yet. They still haven't landed on something that's comfortable.
John Dehlin [01:14:24] Totally. Julia, anything you want to add?
Julia Sanders [01:14:27] Oh, no, these are all really great points.
John Dehlin [01:14:29] Okay. Maven.
Maven [01:14:30] Yeah, I, I know where I'm making it go long, but I did just want to read. This is from Oaks. This was in 2006. This is still on the church's website. And this is talking about. A question was asked about supporting your children who are gay. And so. And this wasn't talking about attending marriages or, or even being seen with them in public. This is what Oak said. He said, I can imagine that in most circum. Most circumstances the parents would say, please don't do that. Please don't put us into that position. Surely if there are children in the home who would be influenced by this example.
Maven [01:15:04] So this is actually specifically talking about having your adult gay children visit you in your home. So this is what he's talking about. If there are children in the home who would be influenced by this example, the answer would likely be that there would also be other factors that would make that the likely answer. I can also imagine some circumstances in which it might be possible to say, yes, come, but don't expect to stay overnight. Don't expect to be a lengthy house guest. Don't expect us to take you out and introduce you to our friends or deal with you. Any public situation that would imply our approval of your quote, unquote partnership. So these are specific words from an apostle of the church and the.
John Dehlin [01:15:42] From the number two ranking leader in
Maven [01:15:45] the church on how parents should treat their children. So.
Kyle Ashworth [01:15:49] And it probably should be noted that he was flanked with Lance Wickman, who's also the chief attorney for the church, legal counsel for the church when they did that. And Maven is right. That is the official policy that was late. That was a priority move. That was done. It was an official statement that come from the church. It has yet to. I, I do believe in my heart of hearts and my conversations with leaders in the church that they ultimately have moved from that position. But this again says then we need to hear that from the top. We need to hear the top say, we are. We've moved away from that position. We no longer believe that. And that needs to be removed from the church's website because it still currently shows as the official statement of the church concerning this topic.
Maven [01:16:30] If someone's specifically looking for that, that is what they're going to find.
Kyle Ashworth [01:16:34] Yeah, David's right.
John Dehlin [01:16:35] Yep. And I'll just add by saying, I'm so glad the stake President is showing this leadership.
Maven [01:16:40] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:16:41] I'm very happy for the LGBTQ youth and adults and parents of LGBTQ youth that are here seeing this leadership from him. So kudos to him and I'll say I was excommunicated in part for publicly advocating for same sex marriage. That's a fact. And I know people who have been lost their temple recommends for marching in a, in a pride parade. And we know that there's been a whole wrath of a whole number of BYU professors who have been fired as of late because it was perceived that they were too supportive of LGBTQ people. So it's, we have a long way to go and there's still a lot of problems with the enforcement.
Kyle Ashworth [01:17:21] And I'm going to keep bringing this paradox up throughout this whole episode. I want you to continue to put yourself in the shoes of a Latter Day Saint who's trying to better understand this experience. And I, and I love that Maven brought up the 2006, because a good Latter Day Saint is going to go to the website, figure out what they do, what the official policy is, and they're still going to read that that same Latter Day Saint is going to sit in that Stake center in British Columbia and hear a Stake president say that. And they're going to look be twixed and they're going to look confused and they're going to say, who do I believe the next in line to be? Prophet of the church or my stake President?
John Dehlin [01:17:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oaks Trump's Stake President, Local stake President for most Mormons, right?
Gerardo Sumano [01:17:58] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:17:58] Yeah. Okay, let's go to the next clip where Ben gives an introduction.
Charlie and Ben Speak on What LGBTQ Members Need
▶ Video Clip 3Video Clip 3 [01:18:06] All right, so today we're going to talk about what it's like to be LGBTQ in the church and what we need from members of the church and how. How you can best love, support, and serve us. And so I want to share a bit of my story first. But first, we're going to start with this invitation from Elder Ballard. So Elder Ballard said this at BYU back in 2017. He said we need to listen to and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing. Certainly we must do better than we've done in the past so that all members feel they have a spiritual home where their brothers and sisters love them, or they have a place to worship and serve the Lord.
Video Clip 3 [01:18:39] Now, I love this invitation from Elder Ballard because there are two big things he invites us to do. To listen and understand. Now, I don't know what listening and understanding are going to look like for you in your lives, how you're going to listen to and understand your LGBTQ brothers and sisters, but I love that he acknowledges people are translating into other languages. I'm always. I'm always told I talk too fast.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:00] I need you to slow down.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:01] I'll slow down.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:02] Brother Aguilar is having a heart attack.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:04] Okay.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:05] He speaks Spanish, so great. All right.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:08] I will slow down. This happens to me every time. So I love the invitation here where he says, certainly we must do better than we've done in the past. We have to do a better job of listening to and understanding our LGBT brothers and sisters. And just to make sure we're all on the same page, this is what the church teaches about. About same sex attraction. So Elder Ballard said this in a different devotional. He said, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believes that the experience of same sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is.
Video Clip 3 [01:19:44] Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love and understanding. The church reaches out to all of God's children, including those with same sex attraction. So what are the big principles we see here? The elder about? The Elder Ballard is teaching? You know, first of all, this is a complex reality. This isn't something we're making up. These are real things that we're experiencing. These attractions are not a choice. And yet we have agency to decide how we're going to respond to them. And that as a church, we should be reaching out with all of God, reaching out to all of God's children.
John Dehlin [01:20:15] So, okay, if you'll allow me, I just want to begin by only hearing positive responses before we say anything critical. So who wants to share their positive reactions to that clip? And then we'll Go to the criticisms, anyone? I don't mean to muzzle you all. Anything positive.
Julia Sanders [01:20:34] Well, I. I have something to say. So I like that he's acknowledging that being LGBTQ is not a choice. This is not. This is just something that is part of us. And I really like that because that's not always been the rhetoric. That's always been the understanding of people. And so I just really like that.
John Dehlin [01:20:50] Okay, beautiful. Thanks, Julia. There was, like, this awkward pause where nobody wants to say, I've got some positive I want to say, but. Gerardo. Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [01:20:59] Yeah. I also wanted to point out the important part that Charlie is you. Ben is using an example from an apostle. So he is having this discussion specifically about the words that an apostle said. And the backstory here is. Elder Ballard went to BYU and spoke this. This was in November or October of 2017. This is also was the speech that led my friends Paul and Susie Augustine to hold a Fifth Sunday fireside in their. Their ward. Paul was a bishop in Riverton, Utah, because of that. That talk from Elder Ballard, that moment is October 2017.
Kyle Ashworth [01:21:36] Bishop Augenstein, at that point, felt so inspired to go out and have a Fifth Sunday fireside in his ward, and he actually had Ben as one of the speakers in his. His Riverton, Utah ward. And it was incredible. It was incredible. It was full, and it was full of tears, and it was full of the spirit and emotion. I was in that meeting as it was. It was. It was amazing. So I think it's important that Ben uses the words of an apostle who says, we need to listen to and better understand the experiences of the LGBTQ community, and then, in true Mormon form, then gives the.
Kyle Ashworth [01:22:11] The promise and says. Or. Or the reason why he's saying that, and that's because the members have not done a good. Good enough in the. In the past. We haven't done good in the. Well, in this space, we need to do better. So I. I think that's important. To start this meeting by saying what we're doing here today, by exposing more of ourselves. Letting you in instead of coming out, letting you into our lives, is because an apostle said that's important. And as a church, we're not doing a very good job of that beautiful
John Dehlin [01:22:39] art or anything positive.
Gerardo Sumano [01:22:43] I mean, those are really good quotes. There's like, three or four that. That are constantly used by people that want to support LGBT people in this space. That's all I'll say.
John Dehlin [01:22:58] Okay, I'm not lgbtq, but I'm just gonna say, for me to see a gay dude Standing up in state conference out as gay, teaching everybody else what they need to think and feel and believe, training them and, and urging. Not just being muzzled, not just being visible, being elevated and being put in a leadership role to be training others on how to be LGBTQ affirming and supportive. Holy, holy smokes. For me, that is earth shattering from a Mormon perspective and incredibly historic. And I give Ben and Charlie massive kudos for all the capital they've built up to be able to preside in that moment.
Kyle Ashworth [01:23:54] Yes, 100 and Ben will. Then we'll build on this by saying the kind of the trail to get here was that the gay Latter Day Saints were feared, they were pitted and then they were honored. At least he's hoping that there comes this level of honor. And I agree with you, 100. This was honorable to see a stake president invite two queer latter day Saints to lead a meeting.
Gerardo Sumano [01:24:13] I think it's important to mention that most of these quotes that he'll refer to were not said either in general conference or a state conference. They were said on a newsroom or in a byu, you know, closed doors meeting. So the fact that he's doing it and grabbing those quotes and, and you know, giving them in an official church meeting with, you know, the, I mean the pamphlet has the church logo in it and, and, and they have a 70 and a stake president behind them. That's. That's pretty groundbreaking. I don't know if they've been set. These quotes have been used like that.
John Dehlin [01:24:50] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:24:50] Publicly like that.
Gerardo Sumano [01:24:51] People for.
Kyle Ashworth [01:24:52] I know, I know other people in the space like Richard Osler with Listen, Learn and Love uses this quote often. I use it all the time because I think does help Latter Day Saints see that this isn't just a grassroots initiative. But, and, and I want to also talk about the irony of Elder Ballard saying we need to listen to and understand the experiences of, of the queer members. There's some, there's some irony there, but it does come from an apostle. So there's my nice things.
John Dehlin [01:25:22] Oh, you are also well behaved. Thank you so much. Okay, so were you, were you chopping it a bit to have some criticisms? Maven. Okay.
Maven [01:25:30] I mean, just two. One is, you know, talking about members or, you know, the church in general not doing well with something. This is classic blaming the members for things that leadership does and teaches. And this is very common in the church on all kinds of topics.
Maven [01:25:49] Whenever there and then this happened even in the retraction of the November or, you know, quote unquote retraction of the November 2015 policy, Elder Oaks basically threw the rest of the members of the church under the bus for not being kinder and more accepting of LGBTQ members. And so. So that's my first issue with this, is just. It's the members fault just for no reason. They're just being homophobic. You know, it's. And. And not actually looking for quotes like they might find in the one that I just read in 2006 from Elder Oaks, like, they're just doing it all on their own, and the church has no responsibility for that.
Maven [01:26:24] That's kind of the implication there. And then the second criticism, I guess, is when he says that this is a complex issue. I think it's only a complex issue when you're trying to do what the church is trying to do, which is to try to be homophobic and not homophobic at the same time. That's the only thing that makes things really confusing for people. And, you know, like, I mean, like you were saying that this is why members of the church are confused is because they are getting different messages. So if they weren't getting different messages, and if the church just accepted homosexual marriage, it just accepted people's gender identities and, and their sexual orientations and just allowed them to be who they are and, and love who they want as long as it's a consenting adult.
Maven [01:27:07] This is not a complicated thing at all, and it wouldn't be complicated for anybody else. There's a reason why it's complicated, and the church is making it that way.
John Dehlin [01:27:17] Julie, I see you nodding. Do you want to go next?
Kyle Ashworth [01:27:19] Oh, well, I.
Julia Sanders [01:27:20] One of the things he talked about is that quote where he says we must listen to the stories of the lgbtq. Where is that with the church? Where is that being reflected? Is it on their website? Is it in their bookstores? Like, are they saying it over General Conference? Like, where are these stories?
John Dehlin [01:27:37] Well, we know that at least on the church's website, we went from 12 or whatever, right.
Julia Sanders [01:27:41] 16 to 2.
Maven [01:27:43] And that's a separate website, right? Yeah.
Julia Sanders [01:27:46] Right.
Maven [01:27:46] It's not happening in General Conference. Yeah, to your point.
Kyle Ashworth [01:27:49] And when those stories are shared, when. When queer Latter Day Saints show up in their pews, they're ostracized, marginalized, and eventually they're considered aposta. Apostates and eventually excommunicated or their memberships are restricted. And so I think she. Julia brings up a beautiful point. How is it the Latter Day Saints are going to see, hear, and better understand the experiences of the queer people if they don't listen. And that's kind of the mantle that I have to carry as the host of the Latter Day Stories podcast. I want to share these stories in or out of the church to allow other Latter Day Saints to see what their church and do what their church isn't doing.
Kyle Ashworth [01:28:27] I'm trying to. To create a community of understanding, of listening and. And of inspiration. Because we know in this space, and Gerardo especially, like we've had this discussion, that the churches has been very clear that there is no happiness on this side of the aisle. There are no spiritual experiences. There is no growth, there is no joy. This is all temporary. And as a.
John Dehlin [01:28:48] As a married. As a married gay or lesbian person.
Kyle Ashworth [01:28:51] Correct. And our stories are evidence that they're not. And the stories that I want to highlight, evidence that the church is wrong on this topic and that there are. There are spiritual experiences, there is happiness, there is joy on the other side of this aisle. And if the church isn't going to highlight that, I will. And you have on this podcast as well.
John Dehlin [01:29:07] Did we mention, Kyle, that you and Gerardo are both legally married? Did we mention that?
Kyle Ashworth [01:29:12] No.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:13] No.
John Dehlin [01:29:13] Okay.
Kyle Ashworth [01:29:14] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:29:14] Kyle and Herod are both legally married.
Kyle Ashworth [01:29:16] Jay would not take me to the temple. So,
John Dehlin [01:29:20] Gerardo, did you want to add anything?
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:22] No, I think we covered it.
John Dehlin [01:29:23] Okay. All right. All right. Well, cool. So, yeah, I just want to say we've been a little bit. Maybe some people feel like we were hard on Charlie and Ben in the previous episode, and I just want to give my heartfelt congratulations and respect to them because what they've done is really hard and what they're doing is historic. So Charlie and Ben, I don't know if you'll see this, but if you do, kudos. Mad props in respect to you.
Kyle Ashworth [01:29:50] Can I just add that I. I wish I wouldn't interrupt because that was perfect. But this last part that Ben talks about, the. The latter quote from Elder Ballard, and it was kind of laying out the justification of sin or the. The definition of sin in this space. It's not a sin. You're. It's not a choice to be gay, but acting on it is. This is where. And we brought this up earlier in this episode, this becomes really problematic for Charlie.
Kyle Ashworth [01:30:22] They. They have done this presentation in a few places. This happened in Utah County a few months ago. And a listener of my podcast reach out to me, kind of broken by this because they. This is where it becomes really problematic for Charlie in this space, because Elder Ballard is as very clear that acting on it, meaning dating in A relationship exploring your sexuality with another person of the same gender is the sin. And to have Charlie in these meetings reflective of what Elder Ballard has called a sin becomes really problematic for the nuanced Latter Day Saint who is trying to make this work. In my heart, I encourage people like Charlie to date.
Kyle Ashworth [01:31:07] I encourage BYU students to date because I want them to have the. The very same things their heterosexual companions are. Are having and experiencing. So my. My criticism isn't that that Charlie was dating at byu. My criticism is that he's being held up as a spokesperson for this topic when. And also using the very words that Elder Ballard is saying is a sin. And I. And I, again, I want to put the listener into the shoes of a Latter Day Saint who's sitting in that stake center, because in the Q A section of this, at the very last part of this episode, someone brings it up and calls it the elephant in the room. And. And Charlie does something that's very problematic, I think, for this whole experience.
John Dehlin [01:31:50] Teaser.
Kyle Ashworth [01:31:51] Teaser. Exactly right. So I. I do. I do want to just kind of be very clear that I don't want to be critical of. Of the life choices, but I want to be critical of the message and the messenger in this context, that this is problematic for a Latter Day Saint to see this and try to try to make this work in their brain when the person who is speaking on behalf of this topic is in the very definition that Ballard has brought up. A sinner.
John Dehlin [01:32:18] Yeah. All right, let's go to the next video clip where I think suicidal ideation is treated in a very important way.
Clips on Suicidality and the Emotional Weight of Being LGBTQ in the Church
Kyle Ashworth [01:32:32] But around this time, if I thought a woman was attractive in any way, then I was. I was winning. I was succeeding. That was good. But if I thought a guy was attracted, that was bad and wrong. I need to change that. Now, it's interesting that we sang Guide us, oh Thy Great Jehovah as the opening hymn, because at this time in my life, I used to have a ring that my mom gave me that said return with honor on it. And whenever I thought a guy was attracted to, I would twirl that ring on my finger and try not to think that the guy was attractive to try and change those attractions.
Kyle Ashworth [01:33:02] And I was very unsuccessful. And then I wrote this in another entry. What is the reason for this trial? I know that someday it will end, and I pray that God will hasten the day. Now, what you're seeing here is what I would call passive suicidal ideation.
Kyle Ashworth [01:33:17] So we're familiar with active suicidal ideation. Someone who thinks that I don't want to live anymore. And I'm going to take steps so that I will not be living anymore. At this time, I was experiencing what I would call passive suicidal ideation. What that means is I had no plans to take my life. I wasn't going to do that. But if I could have died, I would have welcomed that.
Kyle Ashworth [01:33:39] If I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, I would have been relieved because I'd been taught very explicitly the same sex attraction was just a trial, a temptation, and an affliction of this life life that wouldn't exist in the next life. And so what that made me want to do was just get to the next life. And I have a picture of me up here. You can't see super, super well, but this is me from that time in my life when I was working at the MTC in Provo. And I have this picture here because this is what it looks like when someone is struggling internally with their sexual orientation.
John Dehlin [01:34:11] Yeah, that's obviously. Yeah, that's obviously Ben telling a bit about his story. Kyle, what were you going to say?
Kyle Ashworth [01:34:16] Yeah, I'm just. I'm so glad that we, that we covered this portion of it and that Ben talks about this because this, in my opinion, is part of the elephant in the room. This, this passive suicide suicidal ideation is something that I've talked about over and over and over again. It was an experience that I had as well. If I would have just fallen off of a cliff or my car tire would have blown out, how much better my wife and my children would have been so that they didn't have to live with this collateral damage, knowing what their dad was. And, and so I think this is a super, super important point.
Kyle Ashworth [01:34:47] And I'm really glad that Ben brings it up and I'm really glad that he. He sits down and, and has an honest conversation to allow the, the members here to better understand this experience. This is, in my opinion, fulfilling what Elder Ballard is asking of the Latter Day Saints to better understand this experience. Because what Ben talks. Talks about is real. And, and I also want to. I want to juxtapose that picture that Ben has provided of him in the MTC with those who are also being held up as spokespersons for the church who believe you look at them and think that they have this great big smiley happy experience.
Kyle Ashworth [01:35:23] But Ben had that great big smiley happy experience in the MTC too. And here he is admitting that that was passive suicidal ideation. And so even those that you believe are doing the very best and doing so. Well, and they are. They are honorable in the church and fulfilling all of their covenants.
Kyle Ashworth [01:35:39] I think this is just a. Such a great object lesson for the Latter Day Saints to. For all of us to. To cling to.
Maven [01:35:46] I just want to know why he would. Why was he feeling that way? What. What would make him think that he was wrong?
Gerardo Sumano [01:35:55] Yeah. That it was a trial or.
Maven [01:35:57] Just that it would be nice that if, you know, if he happened to die or happened to get in a car accident or something like that, I. You know, where did that come from?
John Dehlin [01:36:06] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:36:07] Yeah. I think it's. It's really cool how he is challenging in. In an indirect way, the. The premise of Mormonism, that leaving the commandments is what's gonna bring you happiness. And he's doing it in a very aggressive way by showing an MTC picture where you would think. I mean, that's where most Mormons think that that's their highest. Yeah. The pinnacle of their obedience. Mormonism experience and. And saying, like, I was suicidal when I was at the mtc. That's a. That's huge, I think.
John Dehlin [01:36:44] Yeah. For our non members, MTC stands for Missionary Training Center. It's the. It's the returned missionaries who are super righteous and faithful that train the new missionaries who are about to go out on missions. Julia, do you want to add anything?
Julia Sanders [01:36:58] Oh, I was just thinking when you were talking, Gerardo, there's that scripture, I think it's Mosiah, where it says, consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. And he's telling us here, Ben, is. Is that. That's not. That's not always the case. You can struggle with suicidal ideation. And I think that's really important that he pointed that out.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:14] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:15] Yeah. It's Mormon teaching that, quote, wickedness never was happiness. And so certainly if you're gay, you can't be happy. And. And if you are acting against your gayness, then you'll be happy. But clearly Ben wasn't, which goes to show that.
Kyle Ashworth [01:37:29] Yeah, clearly, even hiding that you're gay with the facade that you're straight isn't happiness either.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:34] Yeah, well, he was doing what the church. Right. What the church was telling him to do. Don't identify as.
John Dehlin [01:37:38] Turn it off.
Kyle Ashworth [01:37:39] No labels.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:40] Yeah. Don't use labels. Think that it's a sin. Try to, you know, change it. Don't think about it, you know, say a prayer or sing a hymn.
John Dehlin [01:37:50] Trust in Christ. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:51] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:52] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:52] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:53] Yeah. And then just for those who don't know this Is this. I was just ecstatic. Not only do we have Ben and Charlie standing up, training a stake, and even multiple stakes, we have this super important topic of suicidality being openly and directly addressed, when we all know that Utah historically, over the past five, 10 years, in some cases, has not only led the nation in suicidality of LGBTQ youth and young adults, but in some cases, it's been reported that it has triple the national average of suicide. So there's a serious suicide problem within LGBTQ Mormonism, and here they are hitting it head on. So congratulations to Ben for doing that.
Kyle Ashworth [01:38:37] Yeah, I really love this part. I was super excited to have that lesson.
John Dehlin [01:38:42] Yeah. All right, let's go to the next clip,
Gerardo Sumano [01:38:46] buddy. I think oftentimes in the church, we just assume that there's no gay people around. And I would invite you to turn that assumption on its head and assume that there are gay people in every room, in every sacrament meeting, in every gospel doctrine class. And you may not know it, they might not be out, but think about what message you're sending to them, and if it is adding to that shame and those feelings of self hatred, or if it is alleviating some of the pain that they have.
John Dehlin [01:39:16] Yeah, that's Charlie talking about the stages of identity development, and he's basically saying you all need to assume that there's three to five gay people, because statistically speaking, every average size Mormon ward in the United States probably has at least 3 to 5 LGBTQ people in it.
Kyle Ashworth [01:39:33] More.
Kyle Ashworth [01:39:34] Oh, even more. When you. I mean, consider the statistic. I mean, conservatively, BYU just released a statistic saying 28 of their student body. I think 18 didn't identify as straight. Yeah. So something other than straight. So asexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay. So you're talking more than. I mean, nearly one in five.
John Dehlin [01:39:58] Yeah. Something like 10 to 20% of our current LGBT Mormon. Sorry, 10 to 20% of current Mormon youth are somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum.
Kyle Ashworth [01:40:08] Let's take a Utah ward and say there are 200 members that are active in the Utah ward, and we throw a number of 20%. That means 40 people in that ward are identifying something other than straight.
John Dehlin [01:40:21] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [01:40:22] So I really love this point, and I'm glad that Charlie brings it up, because it does. I know many listeners who are watching this episode or listening to this episode or are pimos that they're still attending
John Dehlin [01:40:35] physically in, mentally out.
Kyle Ashworth [01:40:36] Physically in, mentally out. They are still attending church. They want to be that. That ally, that advocate for the queer member within Mormonism. They want to be the ones that change Mormonism from the inside out. And I think this is great advice to them. This is, this is sound advice where, where Charlie says, assume in all of your elders, quorum meetings, your Relief Society meetings, your young men, young women, primary meetings, that three to five or 40 people sitting in this room identify somewhere along this spectrum and tailor your lessons to that and be mindful of their needs as well. And I, I think Mormonism could do a lot from this, this council.
Maven [01:41:13] Agreed. And from this council. I, I, I like that you said that it could learn a lot from this council, not just in talking about homosexuality, but in, in any church topic where there is a certain kind of action or a person that you, your lesson is against. And so what actually came to my mind first was remembering my young women's lessons on the law of chastity. Because I remember at the time I just took for granted that everyone was as pure as I was and, you know, especially the young ladies that were, you know, in my classroom with me for these kinds of lessons and just assuming that, you know, that we were all being obedient to this law.
The Law of Chastity and Its Impact on LGBTQ Members
Maven [01:41:53] And whereas now as an adult, it breaks my heart to think of how many of my fellow young women, you know, had, had broken the law of chastity or, or had been assaulted either by family members or, or dates, you know, young, good Mormon boys, supposedly, or church leaders. Or church leaders. Yeah. And so, and even now, like, when I think back, there's a few that I can, I can think of that I wonder again, I don't, I don't have any proof, but, but with the knowledge that I have now, I have some guesses, I think, of, of who. Of my friends and my cohorts who probably were just dying in those lessons, but of course, can't say or do anything and just kind of have to sit there and keep hearing that. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that in there to kind of piggyback off of this. So. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:42:43] Thanks, baby. Julia.
Julia Sanders [01:42:45] Oh, no. I think you guys all said all the things like, that's really important.
John Dehlin [01:42:49] Okay. All right, let's go ahead and go to the next clip.
Gerardo Sumano [01:42:56] I love this first consideration. Help loved ones see there isn't a one size fits all LGBTQ experience. And I think maybe that could be the most important takeaway of this entire night, because really, the world will tell us there is. This is either or. And if you're gay, your life will look like this. But if you're in the church, you pretend you're straight, and your life will have to look like this. And really what that does is breed division. And I've seen that breed division in my own heart and in families and in communities and in congregations.
Gerardo Sumano [01:43:29] And so if we can kind of like, reject that idea that it's all or nothing, either, or then really, we can get to a place where our family members, our friends can join with us and participate in the gospel, participate in family life and community activities in a way that feels congruent with. With who they are and is much more healthy than just, you know, diverting everything based on a label.
John Dehlin [01:43:55] Gerardo. Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:43:57] I mean, such a great message that LGBT people in the church have different experiences and kind of identify themselves as they want. I mean, I've never seen. And I'm sure they do this, and they've been doing this for a couple years now, but, you know, being. Just seeing it live, being done in a steak, I think is pretty fascinating to me.
Gerardo Sumano [01:44:26] And.
Kyle Ashworth [01:44:27] Okay, there's a lot to unpack only because there's some history here I want to back up and not tell Charlie's story, but tell a little bit of Charlie's story. Before he come out as Cosmo and before he come out publicly, Charlie was attending a little inspirational Sunday service that's held by some ally Latter Day Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. And I remember him coming to these meetings, and I remember him wanting so desperately to cling to his faith and also to better understand his sexuality to the point where he was embarrassed if someone found out that he was gay, found out who and what he was.
Kyle Ashworth [01:45:05] And this is a message that resonates so clearly with so many in this space. And I like what Charlie is bringing up here about this. This division between black and white. And. And I know Maven will. Will agree with me because she's talked about this so eloquently. The church has created the black and the white, and it's the individual member experience that's created the gray, the nuanced area in between. And that's what Charlie's talking about here, is in order for us to succeed in this space, we have to get rid of the black or white or black and white. And there has to be just rainbow.
Kyle Ashworth [01:45:41] There has to be color. There has to be the ability to see all. And Elder Holland brought this up about the chorus that. Are we going to just live with a church that is all B Flats Mormon Tabernacle or a tabernacle choir at Temple Square that only sings in C sharp, or do we need a collection of voices in order to make music inspirational and beautiful. And that's really what Charlie's talking to this point.
Kyle Ashworth [01:46:07] He's wanting the church members to understand that it isn't black and it isn't white and it is a mixture of all of those in order to make this work. And this is where I think Latter Day Saints who hold onto their faith are unfairly beat up.
Kyle Ashworth [01:46:21] And I've seen this in the comment section on our forums right now that so many people are saying, well, why, why do these Latter Day Saints hold on? These, these queer Latter Day Saints know that the church is the abuser. They know that they, they are being beat up in the church. Why do they stay? What. We could spend hours answering those questions, but I want to reverse that a little bit and say, think of the faith and the hope and the desire of someone like a Charlie Bird or a Ben Shalatti who, who know that their church rejects them. Who knows that their church is saying awful things about them.
Kyle Ashworth [01:46:51] Who knows that their church does not create a perfect place for them to exist, but they still show up and they still want to be there and they still want to worship. Sometimes I think the faith of a Charlie Bird or a Ben Shlotti is stronger than those orthodox pioneer stock members who just endured at the end because it's traditional. These are examples of Latter Day Saints, queer Latter Day Saints who absolutely want to be there, but yet their community of faith continues to ostracize them. So the position that they're in is unwinnable. And I think this is, this is a red flag, a white flag that's coming from Charlie.
Kyle Ashworth [01:47:28] For him to try to say, please, please, please support us in our ability to worship the way you worship. It's sad to me. It's, it's heartbreaking.
Maven [01:47:40] Yeah, you did cover the point that I was going to say, which was to. Well, just to ask, why is this a problem in the first place? Why is there a black and white problem? So, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:47:52] Okay. Beautiful. Okay, let's go to the next video clip.
Kyle Ashworth [01:48:03] So we're gonna take a quick quiz to just make sure everyone's paying attention. All right, so what's the most important thing to do after. After someone discloses feelings of same sex attraction to you or comes out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender? Do you one, make sure they know they shouldn't label themselves? Do you two, share your testimony of eternal families? Do you three, point them to church approved resources? Or four, listen and help them feel welcome? What do you think? Oh, you're so good. It's four you listen and help them feel welcome. Now, I did not make this up. This comes from counseling resources.churchofjesuschrist.org it says this.
Labels, Language, and How to Respond When Someone Comes Out
Kyle Ashworth [01:48:38] The most important thing you can do after a member discloses feelings of same sex attraction is to listen and help them feel welcome. I don't know what that's going to look like in your spheres of influence or the people that you love and serve, but that's what we do. We listen and we help people feel welcome. If you don't quite know how to listen, this website recommends five questions that you can ask to better understand the situation. And I'll have Charlie go through these.
Gerardo Sumano [01:49:04] Okay, question number one, will you please tell me more about your experience? Question number two, how have these feelings affected your life? How have they affected the lives of your friends and family?
Kyle Ashworth [01:49:18] Just a quick sociological thing. These are called grand tour questions because we're not going any specific direction, we're just asking a broad question. And you'll have people say the exact opposite, opposite things if you ask these questions. You could say, what's it like for you being a gay member of the church? Some people will say, I found community and I love it here. This is the place I want to be. And other people will say, I hate it here and this is a toxic environment that I want to leave. Two different experiences that are equally valid. So let's not assume experiences, but we can ask people questions and then ask follow up questions to see how we can best serve them.
Gerardo Sumano [01:49:52] Question three, how can I help you? Four, would you like us to meet regularly to discuss this? And five, labels have different meanings for different people. What does the word gay or lesbian, bisexual, same sex attraction and so on mean to you? And I think one of the amazing things about this, you know, I think a lot of times people, we want to take a prescriptive approach. We think, oh, this person's bringing a problem to me, let's fix it, let's give them advice.
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:22] And yet here we are called to establish Zion. A people of one heart and one mind. And how can we become of, of one heart if we don't know each other's hearts? If we don't know the experiences that have made them who they are, they characterize their faith. And so as you ask these open ended, not yes or no, not advice based questions, I have a testimony that your heart's going to be broken open and that you're going to be able to understand more about God's creation, about his children. And with that information that you get from these individuals be able to turn that into revelation in your. Your callings as church leaders.
John Dehlin [01:51:04] Maven.
Maven [01:51:05] Yeah. Going back to the quiz, the very first example answer was to tell the person not to label themselves or identify that way. And I just wanted, again, why that's a thing. It happens all the time. And why is that? Is it because leaders of the church have been saying that? Is that because President Nelson, I mean, even on his Instagram, said no identifier should displace, replace, or take priority over these three enduring designations. Child of God, Child of the Covenant, Disciple of Jesus Christ. Any identifier that is not compatible with those three basic designations will ultimately let you down. I mean, again, it's just. It's that other elephant in the room that will never be said that these words that members are saying as a response to LGBTQ family and friends coming out were put in their mouths by the leaders of the church.
Gerardo Sumano [01:52:00] So your point is he had a mini quiz with a question with four different answers.
Maven [01:52:05] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:52:06] It could have been any of them. Like, I can get a quote for any of the four. I mean, he did find a really good way to give priority to the. Or, you know, elevate the one that he wanted, which was, you know, finding it in the resources for leaders in the church's website. What do you think about that?
Maven [01:52:25] That. That actually really surprised me when I found out that I, and I'd never even heard of this before as counseling.churchofjesuschrist.org I didn't know that this existed.
Gerardo Sumano [01:52:35] Most leaders don't.
Maven [01:52:36] Right. And again, like, if that quiz is there, this is an official church source that is directly con, like, contradicting official teachings from leadership. And again, like to focus on the positive. I'm glad it's there. I'm glad these things are being said because they're really harmful things and really invalidating things to hear. But again, like, the reason why Mormons are hearing this is because of their leadership. This is why their friends and family are saying these things to them.
Kyle Ashworth [01:53:07] Yeah, I'm just sad. I remember when President Nielsen posted that on Instagram. I'm just sad because I responded and said so that. Does that mean that using the labels Prophet Seren Revelator should be done away with? And he didn't like my comment so well.
Gerardo Sumano [01:53:23] And we have a recording of Elder Oaks explicitly in a state conference saying to the youth that they shouldn't identify
Julia Sanders [01:53:33] themselves as What's a Bednar?
Kyle Ashworth [01:53:36] Julia as well.
Julia Sanders [01:53:37] Yeah, I was just gonna say I think that was Bednar that said there Are no homosexuals in the church. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:53:42] Well, there's. That's one.
Julia Sanders [01:53:43] Oh, Oak says it too.
Kyle Ashworth [01:53:45] Yeah, we were the water bottle with Bednar. And then in 2017 in a youth conference in Kansas, Oak says, do not label. Do not label yourselves. He then further again in 2019, said, I have, like, files of, of Latter Day Saints who labeled themselves and then regretted the label. And they had tarnished their image in front of the other Latter Day Saints because they had said, hey, I'm gay. And then they went back into the closet. Or they married a woman and mixed orientation marriages worked for them, but now the members only see them as gay. And so do not label yourselves. And I. And I think that's super, super harmful rhetoric. But not much of what Oaks has said in this space has been beneficial or positive. So thankfully we have Charlie and Ben. So.
Julia Sanders [01:54:27] Thanks, Ben.
Kyle Ashworth [01:54:28] Thanks, Charlie.
Maven [01:54:29] That's an understatement, I would say. But I. I did want to say, I. I feel like in a world that was a lot more equitable and just labels really wouldn't matter as much. It wouldn't matter for me to identify as asexual or for someone else to identify as gay so much as it would only matter when it comes to personal relationships. And it wouldn't. The only thing that would matter is if someone's coming to me, am I attracted to you or not? And if. And if I'm not, then that's all that you need to know as far as pursuing a relationship with me. And so honestly, if.
Maven [01:55:03] If nobody really cared or if the. The church wasn't so exclusionary on these kinds of things, these labels really wouldn't matter as much and you wouldn't have to use them to identify as much. And then I did also want to point out that there are labels that the church absolutely does care about. And, and I would say one of those is gender, because that is. That has huge implications for your participation in the church. So I would love it if the label woman really meant hardly anything in my membership in the church. But it means a whole lot. It means there's a whole lot that I can't do and just a whole lot of expectations about who I am and.
Maven [01:55:42] Yeah. And where I'm even allowed to be or speak at. So, yeah, I mean, that's a label that I wish I didn't have to really identify strongly as and. But yet I would have to in the church. So.
John Dehlin [01:55:56] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:55:58] All right, let's go to the next clip. This is great.
Kyle Ashworth [01:56:05] All right, just one more line from counseling resources.churchofjesuschrist.org and I'm repeating it multiple times so you will go there. And honestly, if you ever have a ward member member come out to you or a friend come out to you, I would even say, hey, the church has this website. Let's read through through what it has to say together. It's got some questions for me to ask you. If you do that, the souls you will save. Okay, so it says this, encourage them so members with same sex attraction to seek to know God's purpose and to discern through the Holy Ghost specific and personalized direction on their path.
Kyle Ashworth [01:56:38] When it comes to being an LGBTQ Larry Saint, there is nothing off the rack. Everything is tailor made for us and so we can't point to other people or say, hey, maybe do this or this. What we have to do is point people to God and help them know what to do. As a story I usually share when I talk about this, about my parents, I'm going to wait to do that till tomorrow. So come back tomorrow at 4 and you can hear the story about my parents. But this is just how this has worked recently in my life.
Kyle Ashworth [01:57:04] So the Provo temple is getting torn down in about a year or so when the Orem temple is done. And a lot of people think the Prolo temple is ugly, but I love it and I live just a few blocks away. And so in March, I was walking around the temple and thinking how sad I was that it's going to be torn down.
Kyle Ashworth [01:57:22] And I thought, maybe I should be a temple worker again. And I thought, you know what? I don't have time. There's no time to do this. I don't have time to work in the temple once a week. And I thought, well, maybe I can just go once a week as a patron but not be a worker.
Kyle Ashworth [01:57:35] And I talked to some of my friends about it and my parents or my dad and almost everyone said, you do not have time. You can't do this. Just go serve in the temple once a week. You don't have to have a scheduled time as a worker.
Kyle Ashworth [01:57:47] And then I thought, you know what? That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do that. Then the feeling would not go away. And one day I was hearing one of my friends speak at a fireside and as she spoke, the spirit spoke directly to me and told me how important it was that I go back and be a temple worker. It was not the right thing for me to do. It was not a good, this has not been a good time in my life. I am too. I do not have this free time. And yet I followed that guidance from the Holy Ghost, contrary to the advice that I got from people that I love and trust.
Kyle Ashworth [01:58:19] And it has been a marvelous experience. And after working there for six months, just this past December, I thought, you know what? God told me to work in the temple. I did it. I'm going to stop now. And I got to the temple and I said, heavenly Father, I'm going to quit at the end of this four hour shift, and if you don't want me to, you need to make it very clear that I'm supposed to stay here. And on that shift, 10 people stopped me, 10 random people, and told me how good it was to see me in the temple that day. And I thought, you know what, God, you know what?
Kyle Ashworth [01:58:47] You could be a little more subtle sometimes, but this is the principle that our LGBTQ members and all of us need to follow. You know, we don't have the answers, but God does. And so instead of trying to solve everyone's problems, we can point them to God and be with them on their journey. My dad, who told me, ben, you don't have time to work in the temple. Now every Thursday when I leave the temple, I call him and he asks me about it and is so thrilled that I'm there. Once I made the choice he was going to support.
Kyle Ashworth [01:59:18] All right, all right. So I. I wasn't as concerned about the temple story as I was about what he brought up in the very beginning. And that was the personal revelation. And I think this becomes super problematic for the Latter Day Saint community who they.
Kyle Ashworth [01:59:33] Ben walks this concept in by saying it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor. Essentially, this is an opportunity for us to take on the Holy Ghost to do what's right for us and follow the path that's meaningful. And the problem with Mormonism and personal revelation and. And we are all examples of this, what happens when our personal revelation is contrary to the teachings of. Of apostles and prophets who are just doing their very best to create rules?
Kyle Ashworth [02:00:08] And if we have. If we have a stake president who is ill informed, a bishop who is traditional and ultra orthodox and super conservative? What if my more liberal lived experience of being a queer Latter Day Saint is different than his version of what a Latter Day Saint should look like? And what is what happens in Mormonism when we actually use and take advantage of our own personal revelation? This is where marginalization and osterization comes in. This is Kind of what Ben and Charlie are speaking to, saying that what do we do with it? I mean that things, it's a very real open ended problem that Latter Day Saints have to face.
Kyle Ashworth [02:00:46] When you tell a Latter Day Saint that they have personal revelation and they can act on that personal revelation and they actually act on it, the church will excommunicate you or they'll consider you an apostate, or they'll marginalize you, they'll take you out of certain callings. If you're transgender and you act on your personal revelation or gender incongruent and you begin a transition process, the church will annotate your records, they'll ensure that you don't receive the priesthood or that you don't receive a temple recommend, or you can't advance in certain callings or you can't work in certain areas like the primary or young men or young women organizations.
Kyle Ashworth [02:01:24] So this problem of personal revelation in the church is, it's an epidemic and it's a pandemic within Mormonism. And I don't have an answer as to how to make Mormonism better because I do believe that each person needs to rely on their own personal revelation and, and they need to make choices that match their, their lived experiences and they shouldn't have to follow the, the flow because that's how the majority of Latter Day Saints live.
Kyle Ashworth [02:01:51] But this is super again problematic for the structure of Mormonism to say. Yes, you have this beautiful thing called personal revelation, but then when you act on it, you're punished for it.
Gerardo Sumano [02:02:06] I thought, I thought he did. And the reason why I included the part with, of the temple worker stuff was because I thought he was doing really good. He gave the quote from the leadership resources or whatever that's called. And basically the quote is it's, it's pretty straightforward. Just let them receive their personal revelation and support them on that. He could have leave it at that. But then I think he ruined it by sharing his experience about the temple worker. Because then members will associate, you know, this quote with okay, as soon as is in the parameters of what prophets and apostles have told us should be fine. But he doesn't leave the door. It seems like he didn't leave the door open for what happens when their personal revelation goes against what the church teaches.
Kyle Ashworth [02:03:00] Yeah, and we see this. This is back to our discussion about social justice issues in, in Mormonism, whether it be feminism, rights of, of women within Mormonism, particularly blessings and some of the things that the early church did.
Personal Revelation, Race, and LGBTQ Policy Changes
Kyle Ashworth [02:03:15] People of color holding the priesthood were Was their personal revelation wrong? In 19, on May 27th of 1978, that a black man who said, I I feel duty bound to hold the priesthood. Was his personal revelation wrong? Because it contradicted the general revelation at the time. Was Gerardo and Mai's personal revelation that we needed to come out, that we needed to be authentic, that we needed to live the fullest measure of our creation in violation of. Of some godly law or some heavenly law, because it contradicted what Dallin H. Oaks thought of us? I mean, that's the problem when you put the resource out here saying, allow this Latter Day Saint to have their own personal revelation, honor that, and believe that there should be an asterisk at the end of that.
Kyle Ashworth [02:04:03] Because the way the church will teach that, treat that person is based on how that bishop or that stake president, his training adjacent to this, this topic. Because most, as we discussed earlier in this episode, will have just excommunicated, marginalized or ostracized that member immediately once that coming out experience was heard, sadly.
Julia Sanders [02:04:26] John, can I ask you a question really quick?
John Dehlin [02:04:28] Yeah, please.
Julia Sanders [02:04:29] So I. In your studies for the lgbtq, do you have a sense or a number of how many members receive revelation or affirmation from God, the living a gay lifestyle or gay being a gay relationship was okay?
John Dehlin [02:04:40] Yeah, that's a great question. And the answer is yes. I think it's something like 45% of those who responded to that survey of 1612 LGBTQ Mormons reported receiving some sort of positive affirmation or. Or spiritual experience, affirming their LGBTQ status or identity from what they perceive to be their heavenly Father.
Kyle Ashworth [02:05:05] And your same study also showed that those who grinned and bear it, that were finding alternate ways of making that work, had a satisfaction level equivalent to those who experienced debilitating disease, diseases like lupus.
John Dehlin [02:05:15] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [02:05:16] And I think that is also telling.
John Dehlin [02:05:17] Yeah. Did you have more you wanted to say, Julia?
Julia Sanders [02:05:20] Oh, no, just that. Just that whole thing that Kyle was saying, like receiving revelation. What happens when it's opposite of what the leaders are telling us?
John Dehlin [02:05:28] Yeah, yeah.
Maven [02:05:29] And what the leadership is saying now, that it's not a sin to be gay or to have those inclinations, as has also been said, that is absolutely not what previous leadership has taught where they've absolutely said that it is a sin, that there's no way God would make anybody that way. You know, that it's absolutely a choice to be that way. So even I think it's. Charlie is going to share his experience, his affirmation experience, basically. From God in a future clip. And that is fine today. That's not necessarily against what leaders are saying, but it is against what previous leaders had said. So even that personal revelation was. Would not have been, or, you know, in the past would have been seen as absolutely apostate and maybe a deceiving one from, like, literally from the devil.
Kyle Ashworth [02:06:18] Yeah.
Maven [02:06:19] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:06:20] One super quick reaction I just had is, as that was Ben, right? As Ben was sharing his conflict over temple service. My master's thesis was on scrupulosity, which is religious ocd. And I found, as someone who did clinical work for LGBTQ Mormons for six plus years, that they have disproportionately high disposition to succumb to religious scrupulosity or religious ocd. In other words, they're trying to pray the gay away. They're trying to make the gay go away. They want to marry a woman if they're a guy, or they want to marry a guy if they're a lesbian.
John Dehlin [02:07:01] And they're very vulnerable to manifestations of hyper religiosity, which is actually a mental illness where you're praying three, five, six hours a day, where you're going to the temple multiple times a week, if not multiple times a day. And it's absolutely a mental illness at that point. In no way is it healthy. And I'll just end by saying, what does religious scrupulosity feel like when you're experiencing it? It feels a lot like personal revelation. Right. And so we have to be very careful, because this population can. That's one of the contributors to suicidality, is this hyper religiosity that leaves you exhausted and completely in despair when after all this extra righteousness occurs.
John Dehlin [02:07:48] Heavenly Father still has not taken the gay away from you yet, which leaves you feeling either completely unloved by your Heavenly father, exhausted, or feeling like you're beyond the power of the atonement, which makes you want to just accelerate your entrance into the next life, where maybe
Kyle Ashworth [02:08:06] everything will be resolved, which dovetails with what Ben was talking about saying. This passive suicide, suicidality. He. He showed the picture of himself at the MTC being ultra religious, checking all the boxes, and he still was in a suicidal position. Passive suicidal. But if. If his life could have been taken not by his own hand, he would have welcomed that. And I also want to just tie that into something that Maven brought up and you bring up to John in that 2006 Oaks and Wickman interview. They specifically say being gay is a mortal experience, and this will be taken from you in this life. That is still the official statement of the church, even though church leaders have come out since 2006 and said things that are opposite.
Kyle Ashworth [02:08:49] But the official statement from the church is that after this life, your. Your homosexuality will be taken from you. It does not exist in. In the life to come. And to me, there is no greater whistle or bell or invitation for suicidal thoughts and suicidality than saying, this will be taken from you in the next life if you just move forward, away from it today. And I think that's super problematic for the church to have that and hold that position as the official statement currently today.
John Dehlin [02:09:21] All right, let's go to the next clip.
Gerardo Sumano [02:09:27] And so, you know, the messages that the LGBTQ people in your life face are. Are difficult. They're hard. They hurt. They leave wounds. They leave wounds that sometimes take years to heal. And if we can be Samaritans and bind those wounds and bring these people to God, imagine the world that we'll live in.
Maven [02:09:53] I just want to ask again, where are those wounds coming from that need to be bound, that need these good Samaritans? Who are the robbers on the side that have been beating up these LGBTQ people?
Gerardo Sumano [02:10:05] Yeah, I mean, I think it's the lead. I mean, there's a whole document with pages and pages they get. And this is my problem with maybe what. What they do. They have three or four quotes that they'll constantly bring up. Charlie?
John Dehlin [02:10:24] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:10:24] They'll constantly bring up of leaders of the church when we have pages and pages of really bad stuff that the leaders have said.
John Dehlin [02:10:32] So all are you saying is, where's the accountability of the leadership of the top leadership that has caused the LGBTQ problem for half a century? Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [02:10:42] Yeah. And just dovetailing into all of these examples, this is why talking with metaphorical muskets is also problematic in this space. These are all.
John Dehlin [02:10:52] That's a reference to Elder Holland's talk at byu.
Kyle Ashworth [02:10:54] Correct. These are all the wounds that are exposed and are inflicted upon the LGBTQ community not by the lay lead, not by the grassroots members of the church, but by the very top. Those who are the prophet seers and revelators, those who are special witnesses of Christ, those who are called to act in the name of Christ as if he were here personally ministering upon the earth. So that's why it's problematic.
John Dehlin [02:11:24] Yep. All right, let's go to. But. But it's good that he's calling on members to heal the wounds of the.
Gerardo Sumano [02:11:32] From the apostles.
John Dehlin [02:11:33] Yeah,
Gerardo Sumano [02:11:36] I think. I think he gives that reference right,
John Dehlin [02:11:40] Peter Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. Not only are they not being prophetess and revelators, they're the ones causing the harm and the damage for half a century. Yeah. Okay, let's go to the next clip.
Ben Schilaty on Church Policy Evolution and His Own Privilege
Kyle Ashworth [02:11:58] So, so the question was, when did.
John Dehlin [02:12:01] Yeah, this is, should we say this is the Q and A portion.
Julia Sanders [02:12:03] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:12:03] So the Q and A has, has started and now people are standing up and asking a question to them directly.
John Dehlin [02:12:09] Yeah. And just to be clear, we, we obviously sometimes want to just jump to all the things we don't like or criticize because the church does a great job of promoting all the positive things about itself. I'm really grateful that we all took the time to highlight the things that we thought were positive. So thanks for all of you for being willing to do that, even though I know this is hard and sensitive and raw.
Kyle Ashworth [02:12:29] At the end of the day, though, when you think about this, can you imagine when we open the Book of Life and read especially these chapters and we find out that the Mormon stories, Latter Day stories, audiences, the. Those who have been ostracized and put on the margins were the most kind and the most understanding in the space. We were doing the things that religion should have been doing in suckering, in running to, in embracing, in fulfilling the baptismal covenant of comforting those who stand in need of comfort and mourning with those who who needed to be mourned for. That, to me, is the fascinating part of this discussion that it is, it is those on the outside.
Kyle Ashworth [02:13:06] And, and maybe even more fascinating, that's how Charlie chose to title his second book Exposure Expanding the Borders of Zion. Because Zion is being pushed and created and effectuated by the borders, by those on the outside, not from those on the inside. That says something about the great and spacious building. It says something about the iron rod. It says something about the Tree of Life and all of these Mormon metaphors that we grew up with.
John Dehlin [02:13:34] You know, Kyle, I was taught as a Mormon that the last shall be first and the first shall be last.
Maven [02:13:38] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [02:13:38] And I also think, I mean this, you bring up a great point when we were all taught about the wheat and the tare, who really are the tare. When we look at this subject, sometimes we have a mind shift and we realize that the wheat probably wasn't the wheat that we thought of. And maybe even early Mormonism predicted this because Joseph Smith said, even the elect shall fall away. So maybe that's what we're looking at today.
Maven [02:14:03] And I just wanted to, to jump in. I, I hope it's very clear that we all love what is happening in this state conference. It's a great thing and is going to help so many people that were listening to it. Just the, the beef is just that it's like the, the fact that it has to happen at all is because of the damage the church has done in the first place.
Kyle Ashworth [02:14:26] And the beef is that it's not coming from the top, that yes, it has to start at a stake or a ward level or because someone sat at the kitchen table and said, enough of this. I, I cannot allow my church to continue to treat somebody that I love this way. And that's where it has to stop or start. It should have began where, in the Holy of Holies, where the president receives his revelation, talks to Jesus.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:49] And there's also a part of, part of me and probably Maven and probably Julia that feel like they didn't push the boundaries enough, which I don't know what I would do in their position. You know, they want to keep being invited to this kind of state conference. I don't know if they can push it more than they.
John Dehlin [02:15:05] I mean, Charlie in bed.
Gerardo Sumano [02:15:06] Yes.
Maven [02:15:06] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:15:07] But I, I think it's important to highlight that people like us who have lived it, who have left the church, we do feel a little bit wounded or sad that there are a lot of things that are not being said, a lot of things that are being twisted to make it sound like the brethren are aligned behind these type of conferences when we know the reality is not.
Kyle Ashworth [02:15:38] And to me that this comes down to a discussion of grace. It took me 33 years to come out and I don't expect someone that I just come out to, to understand my whole experience in 33 minutes or 33 seconds. And so for Ben and Charlie, this is a gigantic pole. This is something, I mean, this is, this is handcart worthy territory. This is them packing up all their belongings and, and making this trek in terms of what they're trying to do for Mormonism. And I fully understand how this is milk before meat and that they, they have to approach this topic as gently as possible because we already know when, when Charlie did come out as, as saying that he was dating the church, ostracized him, deseret book, canceled his, the publishing of his second book.
Kyle Ashworth [02:16:22] They, they removed him from the speaking circuit. So there was very real consequences immediately for Charlie in those circumstances. I'm happy to see that he, that he is back in, in this way at least. And I kind of even wonder, I don't know, to My recollection, I haven't seen him in the United States in this, this position, but he is outside of the United States, in a different country, speaking to these topics. So I don't know if that's part of the program where the church is just testing this out and giving Charlie a second chance. But I do believe that what he is doing and what Ben is doing is beneficial, even if it is just milk and not necessarily the meat that actually moves the needle. But it is a good start and it gets my raising of the right hand, for whatever that's worth. Seal of approval.
John Dehlin [02:17:11] One thing non Mormons never, Mormons need to understand is in 2023, there is one absolute that still reigns supreme. No one is ever allowed to criticize a church leader, ever publicly, in any way, ever. Or they are destroyed socially and their membership. You don't ever criticize church leaders. And if Charlie or Ben were to even skate close to that border, they'd be done.
Kyle Ashworth [02:17:36] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:17:36] Am I wrong?
Kyle Ashworth [02:17:37] 100% correct.
Julia Sanders [02:17:38] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:17:39] So that's, that's, that's survival for them,
Kyle Ashworth [02:17:41] which, and I, and we've discussed this many, many times, Latter Day Saints in this position and Ben and Charlie's position, I, I often call them currency because exactly what you're talking about, they are a debit card. And the church will use all of the pennies in that, that bank account. And once that debit card shows up as insufficient funds, they move on to the next person. And so to me, I want to try to, I want to try to make a deposit into Ben and Charlie's account as many times as possible. Even though I am in the fringes, I'm, I'm married to a man. I'm.
Kyle Ashworth [02:18:13] All the things that Mormonism fears in this space. The fact that I have a happy, healthy relationship, that I have four kids and an ex wife who is still my best friend. I still have values and morals, all the things that the church really hates about my position.
Kyle Ashworth [02:18:27] From there, I still want to make deposits into Ben and Charlie's bank account to give them as much opportunity as possible to speak to the group that ostracized me, to speak to the group that said, well, you no longer are in the bishopric. You no longer are a young men's president. You are no longer a temple recommend holding member. Therefore, I can't listen to you. But they'll still listen to a Ben and they'll still listen to a Charlie, even though we're saying the very same things about this topic. And not even just me, but Maven and Gerardo and. And Julia and John were all saying the very same thing. It's just the messenger that Mormons will listen to has to have a barcode.
John Dehlin [02:19:02] Yeah. All right, now we go to the Q and A section, where I think the sparks. I don't want to say sparks Start to fly, but things get even more interesting. Yeah, Right. All right, so here's the first question we're highlighting.
Kyle Ashworth [02:19:17] So. So the question was, when did the church change its policies? And I would say that we have received further light and knowledge throughout the years related to God's LGBTQ children. And God isn't done talking to us about so many subjects. God has more to teach us about faith and repentance and the gathering of Israel, and God definitely has a lot more to teach us about his LGBTQ children.
Kyle Ashworth [02:19:43] And one of the things that has been emphasized in. In recent years is that gay members of the church who are keeping the commandments can serve in any capacity in the church the same as anyone else. You know, an openly gay person like me can serve in the temple, can work at byu, and me being openly gay is not a problem. And Elder. Elder Cook said back in. I think it was 2012, he said, we need to be at the forefront of expressing love for our LGBT brothers and sisters. Be at the forefront. And I recently wrote this essay that I published called Feared, Pitied, and Honored.
Kyle Ashworth [02:20:22] And the reason I use those words were because those kind of. In the three stages I've experienced as a gay member of the church. First, when I was a kid in the 90s and the early 2000s, people like me were feared. Like homosexuals were deviants and perverts, and they were bad and wrong and to be. To be shunned from our lives. And then we were pitied. You know, people would say, well, you've got a problem. We don't know where your problem came from, but you've got a problem. And
Gerardo Sumano [02:20:49] so I. I just wanted to start on this one, because this last part that he said, and this is one of the probably recurring themes that are going to come out in this Q and A is that because they're trying not to criticize the leaders of the church, they're pinning these ideas or bad, you know, ideas about LGBT people in the members or people in general, when in reality, he's quoting general authorities or prophets when he's saying this. So he. He just gave an example, you know, that there was a point when people. When members of. Or where people thought, oh, you guys have a problem. We don't know where that problem came from, but you got a problem. And I have a clip from Gordon B. Hinckley that probably we should play because he just said that.
Kyle Ashworth [02:21:37] Larry King.
John Dehlin [02:21:38] Can we play it now? Yeah, yeah, I'll play real quick.
▶ Video Clip 4Video Clip 4 [02:21:40] Yeah. Well, we're not anti gay.
Video Clip 4 [02:21:48] We are pro family, let me put it that way. And we love these people and try
Video Clip 4 [02:21:56] to work with them and help them.
Video Clip 4 [02:21:58] We know they have a problem.
Video Clip 4 [02:22:00] We want to help them solve that problem.
Video Clip 4 [02:22:02] A problem they caused or they were born with.
Video Clip 4 [02:22:05] I, I don't know.
Video Clip 4 [02:22:06] I'm not an expert on these things.
Video Clip 4 [02:22:09] I don't pretend to be an expert on these things.
Video Clip 4 [02:22:12] The fact is they have a problem.
Gerardo Sumano [02:22:15] Does that sound familiar? Yeah, like, it's exactly.
John Dehlin [02:22:17] For those who don't know, that's the former prophet and president of the church, Gordon B. Hinckley.
Kyle Ashworth [02:22:22] Gosh, that was my president. Prophet. Yeah, my president.
Gerardo Sumano [02:22:25] He's literally quoting him. And I, it's really hard for me to think that he's not doing intentionally because Ben Shatti is like a, a walking dictionary.
John Dehlin [02:22:34] Encyclopedia.
Gerardo Sumano [02:22:35] Encyclopedia. So, but just the fact that he's pinning it on people, it makes me a little bit upset.
Maven [02:22:44] Yeah, that was my same problem as well. I, I, I guess I don't mind too much the idea of God giving us further light and knowledge, as he put it, but I just don't know why God had to make it so confusing by actually revealing wrong things first only to start correcting them later.
Maven [02:23:04] I don't understand why God couldn't have just been revealing the right things from the very beginning. And maybe ahead of time, ahead of all of this. Just an idea, I guess, but, but who am I to counsel how God does things? There's just been tons of harm and lives and families ruined by this. Which is also my problem with the Gordon B. Hinckley clip. We're not anti gay. We're pro family. No, they're absolutely anti gay, especially in his time. And if they're not pro family, because there are many happy families that involve gay couples. I mean, like, you two are here, and, and even with children.
Maven [02:23:41] And so these, our families that are happy or could be happy, but they're not the one that the church wants. And so the church doesn't seem to mind those families being destroyed or families being destroyed by kicking out LGBTQ sons and daughters.
Maven [02:23:58] That, that just none of that is pro family. So it, it is anti gay. And it just bothers me that they try to make pro family to be like, you know, that they're not the same idea.
Julia Sanders [02:24:10] So another thing that I was thinking about too is so he's listing like, almost direct quotes from prophets in the past and Hinckley's as well. And then he says, I hope that we're moving to a place where we're honored. But where is. Where are the quotes for that one? Like, where are LGBTQ people being honored? Like that. That kind of bothered me when that happened when he said that, like, I hope that's the case. I hope that will be the case. But it's not.
Maven [02:24:33] Yeah. The further night light and knowledge that he's saying we're receiving. Who's receiving it and where is it.
Kyle Ashworth [02:24:40] Yeah. And this. I wish the quote didn't get cut off, because it did cut off Ben's. So just so the listener knows, we're
Kyle Ashworth [02:24:48] not going to talk about that problem.
John Dehlin [02:24:49] Sorry, go ahead.
Kyle Ashworth [02:24:50] Because it does talk about the honoring, which I think is important. But let me just break this little part down because I. I love what everyone has said and I do. You know, you remember those Carfax commercials where they would talk about how destructive some of these cars were. And because of getting a car facts report, you find out what actually happened to your car. This is one of those experiences where you have a car that has light hell damage that's been put on the Carfax. But what you didn't see was the car was picked up in a tornado. It was shoved down into a river, brought back up, fixed up, and then sold on the market.
John Dehlin [02:25:23] That's kind of flood damage.
Kyle Ashworth [02:25:24] That's kind of what Ben is talking about here. Yes, there is some light hell damage, But I just don't love the idea where he starts the premise by saying, I'm a gay man. I have all the rights. I can do whatever other people in the church can do. Because Ben can never be a bishop. Ben will never be a stake president. Ben will never be a temple president. Ben will never be a mission president. Because all of those things require that Ben marries a woman as he is now. As he is now.
John Dehlin [02:25:53] Yeah, Right.
Kyle Ashworth [02:25:54] And so, and as. And I'm not just saying this is a Ben only issue. This applies to lesbian women. This applies to transgender members. This applies to gender non binary members who have transition.
John Dehlin [02:26:09] I say straight women, too.
Maven [02:26:11] I can never be a bishop or a stake president or a temple president or a mission president, either.
Kyle Ashworth [02:26:16] So, so to say I, as a gay man, I can do all the things that any other man in the church can do is. Is disingenuous. It's light Hell damage when we know the car was flooded, and we know for a fact that Ben will not be able to do all the things that other men in his position as just being a man will have as a privilege of. Of being a Latter Day Saint. So I. I do find that that is super awkward to open this Q and A with that type of premise. And. But I also am glad that we do get to get to the honoring part, because to me, that's. I can be concerned about the past, I can. I can try to work on the present, but it's the future that I'm also concerned about, and I don't want to cut that part out of Ben's monologue.
Gerardo Sumano [02:27:00] How about the professors that are being fired for being too affirming to LGBT people because he says, I'm gay and I'm open and I support everyone in their decisions. Then we also know that professors are literally being fired as of this year or last year.
Kyle Ashworth [02:27:15] Yes.
Gerardo Sumano [02:27:15] Because they're too affirming.
John Dehlin [02:27:17] I also think it's worth noting that, you know, the church needs just a few spokespeople, gay spokespeople, to say, hey, the church loves me. The church treats me well. But the fact that Ben is able to speak in front of a fireside or have a job at BYU or speak publicly about what he thinks and feels totally has nothing to do with all the rank and file members who don't have his privilege, who. Who aren't a spokesperson, who don't have the privilege that he does because he's a spokesperson who are punished and marginalized and silenced and even, you know, kicked out for being. For saying the same types of things he says.
Maven [02:27:58] And I do want to say this is me actually jumping in to be on the positivity bandwagon. That was something that was initially bothering me a lot about things that Ben says about his own life. And he says, you know, it's very good. He's very happy.
Maven [02:28:12] Is that in watching the whole thing, he does acknowledge that a lot. And so I do want to give Ben props for acknowledging his privilege, for acknowledging that his experience is not everyone else's, for acknowledging. And. And I don't know if this isn't a clip that we'll show, but he talks about sitting with people and who have had different experiences. So. So Ben is. Is not here saying, you know, when. When a. An LGBTQ member is saying, I had these horrible things happen to me, and I'm so sad, and this is awful.
Maven [02:28:42] Ben is not the kind of person who we see in comp. In comments sometimes being like, well, that wasn't my experience. So I really appreciate that he will not do that to somebody, that he will sit and he will be with them in their pain while acknowledging that. That his experience was different.
Kyle Ashworth [02:28:58] So, so to answer your question, like how do we determine this method metric? How do we determine whether Sue Bergen, who was one of the adjunct professors at BYU who was terminated and excellent marks 28 years at BYU, also queer affirming LGBTQ ally. And. And she was, she was terminated. And without. In Utah is a, is a state where they don't require notification as to why you've been terminated. And so she still doesn't to this day know why she was terminated. So what is the metric? And I think why a Ben and a Charlie? So is it important for the church to have just a limited number of spokespeople? Is it because Ben was. Is an honor code administrator? He's intelligent, he's well spoken, he's bilingual. Are those all traits that the church wants to use to elevate this topic? And because Charlie was ESPN's number one mascot. He was Cosmo. He was. Or he's.
Gerardo Sumano [02:30:00] Here's another one. And this is something someone brought up to me. But Ben being an honor code administrator shows people and the church. It must not be that the rules at BYU for gay people must not be that bad if a gay is willing to enforce them.
Kyle Ashworth [02:30:17] Yeah. US USA Today just last week did an article about BYU athletes and kind of the issues that they went through. And I, I pulled a quote from it because I thought it was this kind of fits into this discussion. Said the athletic department at BYU is the biggest part of the school that is at war with itself. They need. BYU needs to appear as inclusive as they can to get into bigger athletic spaces and therefore get more money and therefore support their student athletes. So they need to look as inclusive as they can be, but they can only be so inclusive inclusive. And I thought that is super telling. And that may answer why the church is okay with a Charlie as opposed to a Gerardo or a Kyle being at the forefront of. Of this discussion.
John Dehlin [02:31:03] All right, well, let's go to the clip you guys wanted to make sure we included next.
Kyle Ashworth [02:31:09] And we're not going to talk about that problem because we feel uncomfortable with it. And now we're moving to a phase, I hope, where we can be honored for our unique contributions. You know, it says in First Corinthians, chapter 12, where it talks about the body of Christ, there's a reason we're all different. There's a reason that we're not all hands or feet or eyes or ears so that we can be different. And then it says that those members of the body that have received less honor now receive more honor.
Kyle Ashworth [02:31:39] And that's something that I have felt and experienced. And I love Section 46 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And that section. You know, most of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants start out with a question, and the question in that section was, who's allowed to come to church? Who can come to church? Who can worship with us? And what is the answer? God then lists all these spiritual gifts, and then he says, everyone has a spiritual gift. So what's the answer to who can come to church? Well, everyone should be here because we're poorer, if anyone is missing.
John Dehlin [02:32:14] All right. Does that speak for itself?
Gerardo Sumano [02:32:16] I think so.
Maven [02:32:17] Well, I just. Not the more honor. I mean, maybe. Maybe he personally, because he's in this position where he's giving talks like this because he's gay, but as a general rule, the LGBTQ members of the church are not getting more honor than an average person would, and I don't think that's ever going to happen.
Kyle Ashworth [02:32:37] Yeah, I want to see more honor with lesbian couples that are able to stand up on these podiums and share their experiences as. As well, I see honoring this experience by showing a. A transist transitioned transgender member who shares their lived experience of. Of their incongruence and how they've been able to find happiness. I want to see honor by showing a happy, healthy, Latter Day Saint gay couple who sits in a pew and holds their children or teaches them in a primary class. That, to me, is the honor that. That I think would be appropriate for Mormonism. It may not be the space that I feel comfortable in.
Kyle Ashworth [02:33:16] It may not be Gerardo space. It may not be your space, but it is a space for someone like Ben and Charlie. And I think the Latter Day Saints as a community has a long way to go to honor their experience. But it's something that I believe Ben and Charlie deserve and others who are like them, who. Who want that. I've interviewed many people like Ben and Charlie on the Latter Gay Stories podcast, and so I know that there's a contingent out there who. Who love Mormonism, who believe Mormonism is the only true and living church upon the face of the whole Earth. And because of that, they feel like they have to live on the margins because their own faith community does not accept them. And. And I feel for them. It may not be my choice, but it's theirs and I have to honor their choice.
John Dehlin [02:34:02] Beautiful. Okay, let's go to the next clip. How have you reconciled yet the question of why me?
Why Charlie Bird's and Ben Schilaty's Stories Get More Attention
Kyle Ashworth [02:34:12] Why my experience?
Gerardo Sumano [02:34:13] And if you have, what would you
Kyle Ashworth [02:34:15] share with someone who is wrestling with that?
▶ Video Clip 5Video Clip 5 [02:34:19] Yeah, this is a question I had my whole life, and this is probably a story that I'll retell tomorrow because it's one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. But I remember the first time I ever really prayed about this aspect of who I am. Not from.
Video Clip 5 [02:34:37] Not from the perspective of God, please change me, but from the perspective of, hey, God, is this actually part of who I am? And if so, what should I do with it? And I had the most profound. I just felt the biggest love, like the biggest bear hug of love from my heavenly Father.
Video Clip 5 [02:35:02] And I realized that, you know, he knew the whole time who I was and, and he was okay with it. And I had this, this sense that, you know, I. This aspect of my being, wherever it comes from, whatever it's for, is there for a purpose. And that purpose is connection, growth, beauty, and that I was made different. But that was a good thing because it could start productive conversations, it could help heal other people, it could help me develop Christlike characteristics.
Video Clip 5 [02:35:42] It would be difficult, it would be challenging, but it would be strengthening in the end. And so, yeah, I've absolutely thought, why me? Why. Why do I have to carry this extra burden, you know, that I used to perceive as an extra burden? But I really feel like I've been able to. To flip that and say, what a blessing. What a blessing that I me, what a blessing that I was created just the way God intended me to be. And what a blessing that I get to go forward and share that with other people.
Video Clip 5 [02:36:18] And just a quick comment to add to that. I really pondered a lot in my earlier years. Ether, chapter 12, verse 27. And that's where it talks about weaknesses. And if we come to God, he'll make our weaknesses strengths. And so I thought, I am gay. That is my weakness. If I come to God, he will take that weakness of being gay and make it the strength of being straight so I can have an eternal family. That's what I thought. And now looking back on my life, this thing that I hated about myself, that I viewed as a weakness, has now become the main vehicle through which I bear my testimony of Jesus Christ and His atonement.
Video Clip 5 [02:36:56] So, you know, I used to ask myself, why me? And perhaps the answer was so that I could build the kingdom of God. And you know, I have found that as people ponder and ask this question, you know, why me? I, I think the question that for me has been healthier is God, what can I do with the circumstances you've given me to build thy kingdom and become like thy son.
John Dehlin [02:37:19] Never in a million years did I think I would ever see a gay Mormon stand up in a state conference and say, I'm gay. To build the kingdom of God.
Maven [02:37:30] Yeah, I was also wondering, I mean, because it is a sin to act upon this. I just, where, where is there any other equivalent in the church at all right now for any other, you know, quote unquote sin or way that the church preaches against being that, that someone could say something like that? I'm just, I can't think of anything else besides being gay. So I feel like there's definitely misconnect or disconnect happening here to be able to say that.
Gerardo Sumano [02:38:03] There's also, the question was like, have you reconciled why you. And then what would you say to someone that's wondering that? And this answer of like, you know, build. Building the kingdom. It doesn't leave a lot of open, you know, openness to the gay Mormon to, or LGBT Mormon to decide whether they want to remain on the church or not. Or, you know, if, if you tell them, well, Ben said that to build a kingdom and, and he asked the question, maybe, maybe you should ask what God wants from you. You know, maybe the, the answer is not going to be go and be healthy and have a healthy life by dating or, you know, getting married.
Kyle Ashworth [02:38:49] Yeah. What this does is it creates a problem for Mormonism because it, it in, it emboldens the, the middle Latter Day Saint, the one who is in those in this particular meeting, for example, to better understand this experience. And when that Latter Day Saint listens to someone like a Ben and a Charlie and says, that makes sense to me. That's a confirmation of my personal revelation. And it's kind of like the old Boyd K. Packer now, therefore, what, now what do you do with that?
Kyle Ashworth [02:39:20] Until we hear that from the very top, most Latter Day Saints aren't going to do it or, or listen to what Ben is saying and understand what Charlie is trying to get across here. But in the meantime, it's what happens to that member with that information that I think is super important and critical to this conversation. Because then that member goes off into the lone and dreary world and they start acting kindly and they rid themselves of prejudice. They become blind to or, or become more aware of their bigotry and they start making changes. And that's where this becomes super dangerous for orthodox Mormonism. This is where it becomes really problematic for 50 North Temple because now they have members on unsurping or usurping their authority and acting as these leaders should be acting, and they don't know how to control that.
Kyle Ashworth [02:40:13] And if too many stakes in Zion start hearing Ben's and Charlie's standing up, what do you do with it? In fact, I've said this. I sometimes say half joking, but this is. I'm almost fairly serious when I say this. Imagine what we could do as a community. And I speak to the queer community, those who are in and out of Mormonism, but imagine what we could do to Mormonism if on any given fast Sunday, chapels across Zion are littered with queer testimonies during a testimony meeting. What would happen to Mormonism if one Sunday on fast and testimony meeting, you stood up and said, my gay relationship is a blessing?
Kyle Ashworth [02:40:56] What if on one Sunday in a remote ward or branch or stake throughout the world, enough people stood up and said, this is my wife and we are in love and we have a beautiful relationship. What would happen to Mormonism in a single Sunday if we could unite and do that?
Kyle Ashworth [02:41:15] This is kind of what Ben and Charlie are doing in a very micro level. Imagine what we could do in a macro level. Imagine what we could do globally if enough people stood up to the pulpit and bore their testimony of what they knew to be true, not rehearsed, but true, concerning their sexual orientation or gender identity. That to me is beautiful. And that to me is the groundwork that I hope Ben and Charlie lay to allow other Latter Day Saints to do. And maybe just as this audience joins together, maybe we put together a fast and testimony, a queer fast and testimony meeting, an invasion of pulpits all across Zion. Because even though I'm not a member of the church, I'm all for helping the Latter Day Saints become better in this space.
Maven [02:41:59] And I just want to point out, if you really think about it just on its head, it's really odd that, you know, Ben is saying that being. Being gay is his biggest platform for testifying of the gospel. Yeah, it just. Why, why would that be? Because I would think that being gay would be. Should be no different. Being gay and testifying of God should be no different than being straight and being able to testify of God. So it's a really.
Maven [02:42:34] There's just. If you're. I think if you're just looking at this neutrally and rationally, there should Be no reason why being gay, you know, being a. Yeah. Being an openly gay man is the platform that gets you in front of more people. It's only that way, I think, because of, again, the harm that the church is causing. So I. I'm just saying I. I feel like it should be a complete non starter and a complete. There's nothing about that I see about being gay that makes somebody better or to testify of God or Jesus than anybody else that isn't gay. So I. I guess I. I don't know if that's coming across clearly, but I just. I just don't see the difference it should be making at all.
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:19] If there's so much equality like Ben is saying, you know, like he's a gay member and he can do everything, why is it. Why does it make a difference?
Maven [02:43:26] It should be just a nothing or a non starter.
Kyle Ashworth [02:43:29] I think we're kind of. And in a way, I mean, I completely under. Understand what both of you are saying. In a way, we also are discounting the progress that Latter Day Saints have made. Remember the days when Latter Day Saint woman couldn't even wear pants to church?
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:44] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [02:43:44] And now that's commonplace. Remember the days when it has. It had to be a dark suit, but now missionaries can wear light suits in the mission field. Remember the days when you couldn't even get on the Internet or call home or. And all those things are happening today. I mean, missionaries have cell phones and they call home whenever they'd like. And so. But also in this space, Latter Day Saints have made great strides. Why aren't we. I remember when Savannah bore her testimony in Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs, and was booed off the stage. I mean, literally ostracized out of the chapel. I don't believe that that would happen in a lot of wards and branches today.
Kyle Ashworth [02:44:21] I believe that Latter Day Saint leaders would allow testimonies to be spoken because we have made progress. I don't believe that we're there yet. I don't believe that all the answers have been given, but I do believe we're in a space where we can start making bigger and bolder moves in support of our LGBTQ Latter Day Saint friends and family members.
Maven [02:44:41] Yeah, agreed.
Gerardo Sumano [02:44:42] Julia, do you want to say something?
Julia Sanders [02:44:43] Well, just now, my thoughts were going to Matt Easton, where Elder Holland did not allow him to have that moment of. All he said was, I'm proud to be a gay son of God. Everything he said was affirming. But Holland wasn't in agreement. So even though he was bold in saying that I was just wondering, Kyle, what your thoughts were on that and how you were reconciling those ones as well.
Kyle Ashworth [02:45:02] Yeah, I don't reconcile it. And I. And I. That's why I think this episode is so beneficial, because I. I've continued to ask each of our listeners to put themselves in the space of a Latter Day Saint trying to better understand this topic. And when you have church leaders like Elder Holland who say those types of things, and then an Elder Renlund or an Elder Cook or an Elder Uchtdorf who say something completely different, who does the. Who does the leader listen to? Sorry, who does the member listen to? Which leader has more authority? Is it in seniority? Is it the one that matches your personal revelation?
Kyle Ashworth [02:45:37] This is the problem at 50 North Temple. Not even the brethren are united in this. This topic. And so either God needs to speak louder, revelation needs to happen in a different way, or we need to rid the church of bigotry and. And prejudice.
Kyle Ashworth [02:45:52] Or I guess maybe option number three is have more Ben and Charlie stand up. And when this rises from the grassroots and members. And we talked about this earlier. When. When enough hemorrhaging happens, when enough people leave the church, that's when the church typically pays attention. The leadership will pay attention when there's a loss in revenue and a loss in membership and statistics. Yeah, and we're getting there because aside from church history, I don't know of another topic that is leading more people out of the church than the LGBTQ topic.
John Dehlin [02:46:23] Beautiful. Super important discussion. All right, let's go to the next clip.
Kyle Ashworth [02:46:30] Gee, and not to make assumptions, but I am thinking that you probably face
Maven [02:46:37] challenges both from within the LDS community
Kyle Ashworth [02:46:40] as well as outside of the LDS community.
Julia Sanders [02:46:43] So I was wondering if you could
Kyle Ashworth [02:46:44] speak a little bit about what those
Kyle Ashworth [02:46:46] challenges are like for you from people outside the church who are questioning why
Kyle Ashworth [02:46:52] you, as gay men, would stay in the church.
Kyle Ashworth [02:46:56] That is the correct assumption. I knew it would be a good question. So one quick story. When I was doing my PhD work at the University of Arizona, I rented a room for a year and a half from two retired lesbians. And they were retired professionally, not from being lesbians.
Kyle Ashworth [02:47:12] And when I moved into their house and they knew I was gay, they knew I was a member of the church. And on my very first night there, Alison, who owned the house, she'd read the Book of Mormon when she was a teen, so she had some context. She said, in the kindest way, how are you part of that bigoted, homophobic church?
Kyle Ashworth [02:47:29] And I bore my testimony to her talked about the Book of Mormon and what it meant to me, and then her eyes kind of glazed over. And then I said, allison, I am trying to make my ward and congregation the most loving and kind place it can be. And I want you and Kathy to know that if you ever want to come to church, there's always room for you on the pew next to me. And if anyone gives you any guff, they'll have to deal with me. And you know what she said? She said, thank you. That means a lot to me. And then I did a lot of education in my community there, inviting straight members of the church over to my house to have conversations.
Kyle Ashworth [02:48:05] And so we had them in their living room, and they were so proud of us, and they bragged to all their LGBTQ friends about their gay Mormon roommate who was making his church a better place. And, you know, I found that most people who are outside of the church, they look at my life and they say, I don't get it, but I love you and I respect you, and I want you to thrive. I found that to be the case. And the people I found to be the most unkind are people who were once members of the church who no longer are, because they're speaking of a place of hurt and pain.
Kyle Ashworth [02:48:38] It's not really about me. It's about their hurt with the church. So I found that, for the most part, LGBTQ people who are not members of the church and never have been just want me to live my best life. And whatever I choose, they're on board with that.
John Dehlin [02:48:53] Wow.
Kyle Ashworth [02:48:53] I was watched.
Maven [02:48:54] Yeah, sorry.
Gerardo Sumano [02:48:55] I was watching a show. We. Zach and I were watching a show on Hulu about parenting, and they have, like, this 20, 20 different couples around, and they put them in different challenges, and they all vote on what's the best parenting style. And there happens to be an ex Mormon couple, and there happens to be a gay couple, and there happens to be active member couple in a Mormon couple there. It's not a Mormon show at all, but they have all those three groups. It was. It was. So when the. It was the Mormon couple group to do their challenge, there was a lot of pushback from everyone about just the religion. What would you do if your. If your daughter leaves it? Like, if your daughter leaves the church,
Kyle Ashworth [02:49:46] what would you do if your daughter
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:47] decides to marry someone else? And. And they. The Mormon couple felt attacked by everyone. But once they. The Mormon couples show their. You know, they show their video of how happy they are about how, you know, their Mormon life is. Everyone except the ex Mormon couple shifted and even the gay couple were like, we're so happy. I think we're gonna vote for them. Like they're, they're this more this religious couple. They accept everyone.
Kyle Ashworth [02:50:16] They're so great.
Gerardo Sumano [02:50:18] But you can tell that the ex Mormon couple were always like looking at them whenever they were talking like BSBs. So there's this very interesting dynamic of people who have been hurt by the church, who have been on Band's position, which we feel like we have their perspective because we've been there and we are at a different place now where they haven't been yet. And because we, we've been on the inside and we've seen what it really looks like.
Kyle Ashworth [02:50:49] I think that is, That's a great point.
Maven [02:50:50] I was gonna say. I, I agree and I think, I know the members of the church really like to paint this as a. Can leave it, but can't leave it alone kind of a thing. You know, that, that we just have to be able to negative and.
Maven [02:51:03] But it's the people who are not LDs and who have, Aren't familiar with the lingo. They don't understand the dog whistles, they don't understand how much everyone pretends to be happy even when they're not. Especially just how much pressure there is to be showing that you have a happy family, even if things aren't that way behind the scenes. It's. I think it's because we have this insider knowledge and the. I think the biggest problem I had with what he said was that he said it's coming from a place of pain. And it's, it's. Their pain is not about me. It's about their pain. And I 100% disagree with that.
Maven [02:51:39] I, yes, I have my own pain with how I was raised in the church, but I have a friend who is trans. And you know, at first she was still a very strong member of the church, had a very strong testimony even after her a gender affirming spiritual experience from God. She really tried so hard to stay in and be as model of a member of the church as she could be while also being true to herself. And that was really difficult for me to see. And I actually kept my tongue in check as much as possible in order to preserve the relationship I had with her.
Maven [02:52:17] Because if I was too nasty about the church or if I, if I was too forceful in trying to get her out, then that friendship would have ended. So. But at the same time, you know, by holding all of this back, I'm having conversations with her I'm seeing the pain that she is constantly being caused by this church that I know doesn't want her, doesn't respect her, doesn't care about her at all. And so it was painful for me to watch, not to do with my own pain, but with the pain that I am continuing to see inflicted upon her. And so, yeah, so it's really the same as seeing somebody in an abusive relationship, but then being told that, well, you just want me to be single because you're single. My being single has nothing to do with not wanting to see somebody harmed by an abuser. So that's my two cents on that.
Kyle Ashworth [02:53:15] And I agree. I have a hard time completely understanding Ben's perception, his situation, his. His perception of this. I'm trying, and I'm. I'm trying, but I also understand exactly what Gerardo and Maven are talking about in terms of proximity and. And our life experiences as well.
Kyle Ashworth [02:53:34] At the end of the day, what I do know is that I'm tired of living in triage. I'm tired of rescuing Latter Day Saints who have fallen out of the closet in an unhealthy way with broken bones and bruises and a lot of trauma, and the church is causing that. Maven's done an excellent job, I think, of highlighting that trauma, and the church is guilty of that trauma.
Kyle Ashworth [02:53:57] My goal is to help those Latter Day Saints fall out of the closet in a more healthy way so they can stand up on their own two feet. Dovetail with what is always talked about on our podcast, John and I. Informed consent. Let them make decisions based on decisions from a healthy perspective, from a clear perspective. And if they want to go back into the church, let them go back into the church. If they want to run away from Mormonism, let them run away from Mormonism. My concern is not what. Where they land spiritually or. Or in what ecumenical tent they find themselves in. My.
Kyle Ashworth [02:54:32] My goal is to help them avoid the triage. My goal is to help them become better people and. And to. To avoid and. And stop wasting all of this bandwidth that requires so much energy. The church has the ability to do that. They just. They just continue to. To harm the people.
Gerardo Sumano [02:54:46] But what about. And I don't think they do this intentionally, but what about the argument where, like, you, you're m. You're saying informed consent people should make decisions based on information by Ben and Charlie, shielding the leadership from all the harm they have done. And Charlie has a whole chapter on his. On. On his. On his first book about how he has. He had a Document of quotes, bad quotes from the leadership of the church and how he basically deleted it. And he was able to just think of the good things that the church has done for him, and, and that's how he was able to get over that. How is that not what they're doing? A little bit like shielding the gay membership from informed consent from the harm that the church has done and continues to do?
Kyle Ashworth [02:55:39] Well, in two ways. I'm upset because I. It took me four years to write that document, and then he threw it away.
Maven [02:55:46] And, you know, not just that, like, what he ended with was that he wants to live his best life, and. And it's that it's the ex. Members of the church that won't let him do that. I was pretty astounded and I really dislike them. I. I think that phrase in this way because that's what the church is doing to its LGBTQ members. If they were allowed to be who they are and actually love who they love and be in committed, you know, deeply loving relationships like the heterosexual, Heterosexual members of the church can, then that would be living their best life. So it's really astounding to me that, that Ben would kind of throw this at, I guess at us collectively that we're not letting him live his best life. And, you know, honestly, I mean, if he wants to say this is his best life and he is where he
Gerardo Sumano [02:56:36] wants, well, he has a blog post where he talks about him wanting to date.
Maven [02:56:39] So, yeah, okay, so then it's not okay. So. So even we can show that he, even himself is not really living his best life. So, you know, but if it weren't for that, I would. I would at least give him a teeny bit of benefit of the doubt for that. But. But that's the thing. And you know, John, your research was showing that members of the church who. Gay members of the church who are in mixed orientation marriages or living a celibate life are not happy. Like, overwhelmingly, we know they. They are not living. This is. We've got data for this. They're not happy. They're not living their best life. So I would love for Ben to want that for everyone else, because I don't think he does. He wants them doing what he's doing, which is living the best life that they can live within the constrictors of Mormonism.
Kyle Ashworth [02:57:27] I want Ben to have that as well. But I also have to give Ben grace and the ability to navigate this path at the very modes and methods that are beneficial to Ben. Yeah, we all. I served A mission. John served him. I don't know.
Maven [02:57:41] I did. Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [02:57:41] So we. We served a mission. I don't know, Jessica, if you served a mission. Yes.
Julia Sanders [02:57:46] Yeah, I did.
John Dehlin [02:57:47] All five of us. Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [02:57:49] We all know that.
Kyle Ashworth [02:57:50] What.
Kyle Ashworth [02:57:50] It's what it's like to bring someone into the church, and it's because they gained their own testimony for the most part. They. They were able to walk that path, and it eventually got them into the church. I think the same has to be given to the queer members of the church. The same has to be given to those Latter Day Saints who are understanding this topic for the first time. They. It is milk before me, and this is. This is difficult territory, but it is something that's going. It's the long game. And I. I see Ben and Charlie playing the long game, and I 100% agree with you, Gerardo.
Kyle Ashworth [02:58:19] Bringing up the fact that even Ben himself said he has. There's a desire to date. And. And we've seen that replicated with other Latter Day Saints who vow to be celibate forever and then eventually make proclamations that they are now going to date again. And so this isn't unfamiliar territory for any of us in this space. I myself was going to be.
Kyle Ashworth [02:58:41] Just toe the line and do all the things that the church asked me. And today I'm married to a man. So how does that happen? It's because I walk this path at my own pace, and I was able to be both spiritually, emotionally, and physically fed. And here I am today, and I hope. I hope the same thing.
Maven [02:58:56] What you're saying is that there's nothing I can say. And I realize this with my friend, there's nothing I can say to get her to realize what I can see about the church. And ultimately she had to get there on her own. And it was Oaks that did it in general conference, and, you know, it. Finally, she finally realized for herself, the church doesn't want me and they will never want me. And that's. And then she was on her, like, truly on her way out from there. So I think that's. That's kind of what you're saying. There is. As much as we want people to be living their best life, they do have to come to that on their own.
Gerardo Sumano [02:59:32] Yeah.
Maven [02:59:32] So I do acknowledge that.
Gerardo Sumano [02:59:34] But, yeah, what you're saying is like, don't pin it on us, the ones that have left.
Maven [02:59:38] Right.
Kyle Ashworth [02:59:38] Correct.
Maven [02:59:39] That's what I don't like Ben is doing. And. And also just the whole, like, living the best life thing that, I mean, the Church is actively preventing. So I, Yeah, I, Yeah, that's what's keeping. I think a lot of saints is still into the church because there, there is no. You can't live your best life out of the church. That's a very strong teaching. So, anyway, so I, I get, I get what you're saying. And so I'm, I'm not mad that people aren't coming out because we say they should, but, but I am upset at, at how they're being kept in unfairly, I think.
Kyle Ashworth [03:00:16] Yeah. So if video killed the radio star and Google killed Mormonism, then it's podcast episodes like this that help give education to these topics. And, and that's, that's why this is a incremental, educational, step by step process. And kudos to everybody out there who are sharing their stories, who are opening up their, their platforms to having these really difficult discussions. And again, kudos to Ben and Charlie for harnessing a little segment of the market and, and speaking to their own lived experiences. That's the way I see it.
Gerardo Sumano [03:00:49] Julia, do you want to say anything?
Julia Sanders [03:00:51] Oh, I was just thinking, like, as he was talking, like, I was thinking how he. At the beginning, he was like, I want to make our words safe. I don't know if he used that word exactly, but he wants them to be welcoming. And to me, I think of it as like the. A storm and you've got an umbrella. And like, you're. You can invite these people as much as you want, but the umbrella is not big enough for these LGBTQ members. They're still going to be stuck in the storm. And like you just said, he was experiencing himself that he doesn't feel. I don't know if that's true, but it seems like he's not feeling his full satisfaction or happiness because he has this desire to. To date, which I totally agree with and support.
Kyle Ashworth [03:01:25] But yeah.
Julia Sanders [03:01:26] Yeah,
John Dehlin [03:01:28] the jokey part of me wants to say to all of you that the guilty take it the truth to be hard to the very quick. I'm just kidding now. That was beautiful. That was a really powerful.
Maven [03:01:40] But that goes both ways as well, I think so. So when people are like, no, we can't be, you know, it's not wrong to say that homosexuality is the sin, then I, I would say the same thing.
Kyle Ashworth [03:01:51] And clearly my personal revelation has taught me who the wheat and the tares are. So I'm just fine in your adulation.
John Dehlin [03:01:58] I was just trying to make a joke. All right, the next segment is Charlie sharing a really beautiful story about his dad, do you think we have time to share this roto?
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:07] We can. We can skip it.
John Dehlin [03:02:09] Okay, so basically, I'll just say it is a beautiful thing. Go check it out. Charlie tells this beautiful, moving story about how his dad is one of the most homophobic people he's ever met.
Maven [03:02:19] Hateful and homophobic.
John Dehlin [03:02:20] Yeah. For his words specifically, and because he showed patience and. And educated his dad, his dad turned around and became loving and supportive. And in my mind, I'm thinking. And every. I'm glad that every single bigoted parent in that room is hearing that story.
Kyle Ashworth [03:02:36] Amen.
John Dehlin [03:02:37] How powerful that was as a testimony to help parents. Because let's just. This is just a fact. Probably the number one contributor to LGBTQ youth suicidality is familial rejection. We get that from Caitlin Ryan and the Family Acceptance Project out of San Francisco State University. So them talking openly about Mormon orthodox parents accepting and loving their gay kids. That's gold.
Kyle Ashworth [03:03:03] And imagine how empowering that is to someone like a Charlie who sees that experience in his own life and is out there actively trying to replicate that in the lives of other Latter Day Saint families. To me, that's another kudos. Opportunity and moment for me just looking at his advocacy and his form of advocacy.
John Dehlin [03:03:20] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [03:03:20] Does it work?
John Dehlin [03:03:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:03:23] Hey, it's sad that it's not gonna be everyone's experience, you know, and I have plenty of friends who. Who have had really the opposite on when of experience come while they're, you know, when they come out, so.
Kyle Ashworth [03:03:38] Me too.
Maven [03:03:39] My thought was, you know, as he was saying how he. Because he describes how scared he was to tell his father that he was literally the last person that he told, and it was only out of necessity because he was so many people were knowing at that point that it was going to get to him eventually. There was so much fear in even telling him in the first place, and I. I thought that was really sad. And again, you know, why would he. Why was that situation even a thing in the first place? Why. Why would. Why was his dad, as he said, one of the most hateful, homophobic, you know, people that he knew? And I think we know why.
Gerardo Sumano [03:04:13] Yeah, we can skip the. Oh, no, actually, no, that one's a good one.
Coming Out to Bishops and the Risks of Disclosing to Leaders
John Dehlin [03:04:18] Okay, so let's. The next one is a question about whether. Yeah, this is. This is an important one.
Gerardo Sumano [03:04:29] First partial part of the question is, is it important for us as priesthood leaders and church leaders to create a
Kyle Ashworth [03:04:37] safe space for people to be able
Gerardo Sumano [03:04:39] to come to us or come out, or is that not important?
Kyle Ashworth [03:04:43] That's the first question.
Kyle Ashworth [03:04:45] The second question is, if it is
Kyle Ashworth [03:04:47] important, how do we safely and properly
Gerardo Sumano [03:04:51] in our priesthood responsibilities create that space? And thirdly, maybe, Charlie, you could answer the whole thing by just telling us
Kyle Ashworth [03:05:01] a little bit more about your cousin
Gerardo Sumano [03:05:02] and what made it about her that she was the one that you went to and made it a safe time, a safe place. Thank you for that question. I think to the first tier, I think it's essential. It is. It is so important that especially priesthood leaders are aware of the challenges and blessings that LGBTQ people in the church face.
Kyle Ashworth [03:05:31] I can't tell you the amount of people I know who are LGBTQ who wish they could come to church and don't feel like they can.
Gerardo Sumano [03:05:37] So many. And more often than not, the bishop is the first person who ever knows because it feels like a confession. It feels heavy, you know, and. And bishops are our helpers, are, you know, like almost pseudo therapists sometimes. That's how they sit in people's minds. And so if you're a bishop, it's high, highly likely that you'll be the first person to know.
Gerardo Sumano [03:06:01] Now, if. To the second point, if. If there's not gay people in your ward, you think this isn't happening where I live, then maybe it's time to do some introspection, because maybe you're not a person that feels safe. Maybe you're giving some sort of signal that, you know, if I go to talk to my bishop, it's going to go badly. So it's better to hide and hide and just keep it low key and live in that shame.
Gerardo Sumano [03:06:27] And that's. That's hard, you know, that's hard to. To face that idea. But. But it's true. And the reason I was able to talk to my cousin is because I, you know, I got to the point where I just knew that she loved me and that she wouldn't recoil because after so many years of hating myself, if I showed that side to someone and they said, ew, oh, I don't know what to say to that. I don't know what to do.
Gerardo Sumano [03:06:59] All that would do is just confirm every way I hated myself, every way that I had already distanced myself from love, but there was just something about her that was so welcoming, accepting. She shared her own hard times and experiences and. And we got to the point where our relationship was deep enough that I knew I could have told her anything and that she would have stayed with me.
Kyle Ashworth [03:07:27] And, you know, how do church leaders do this? How do we make this happen? I Think a good example of this in General Conference is Elder Holland. So in October 2015, he gave a talk about mothers. The topic was mothers, and he mentioned a mom of a missionary who was gay and had come home early from his mission. Then he gave this one line that felt like a throwaway line to so many people. And he said he didn't change and no one expected him to.
Kyle Ashworth [03:07:53] Now, in that moment, my phone lit up. All of my gay friends texted me and said, can you believe what he just said? This is so meaningful. And then in April 2017, he gave another General Conference talk where he talked about how there's room for everyone in God's choir. And then he listed groups that have a place in God's choir, and one of those groups was people with different sexual orientations. And once again, my phone lit up because that was so meaningful to people. These two little lines meant so much to people.
Kyle Ashworth [03:08:23] And so what leaders can do is talk about LGBTQ people in organic, natural, normal, and positive ways. And as you do that, it doesn't have to be a whole fifth Sunday lesson, but as we just talk about LGBTQ people in natural, normal, organic, and positive ways, people are going to hear that and they're going to know that someone I can trust. That's someone I can talk to.
Gerardo Sumano [03:08:47] I just want to add one thing. I think there's.
Kyle Ashworth [03:08:50] There's a.
John Dehlin [03:08:51] So her order. What made you list that quote?
Gerardo Sumano [03:08:54] I mean, it's a great message. What Charlie said was great. It did bother me that he. Ben is using. Elder Holland is someone who brings up gay people organically and. What's his other word? Just in positive ways in General Conference.
Kyle Ashworth [03:09:15] This is not a good look for Holland. This is not a good look for Ben. In this situation, I would not have used Holland as the example of someone. Even though he claims to weep over the Latter Day of the queer Latter
Julia Sanders [03:09:27] Day Saint and market store openings.
Kyle Ashworth [03:09:29] He knows. He knows the struggles so intimately that it causes the. The quorum to weep. This is not. This is not. Not the.
John Dehlin [03:09:38] Explain to our. Never Mormons why not Holland? Just briefly.
Kyle Ashworth [03:09:43] So just. Just. As recently as August of 2021, Holland said that Latter Day Saints need to be a defender of the church using musket fire against the defense of. Of marriage between one man and one woman. Holland has. Has claimed to be very close to queer Latter Day Saints and supporting them and their families. And that has been contrary to the lived experiences of other people. My friends Paul and Susie Augustine, who. Paul was a former bishop in Riverton, Utah who held the Fifth Sunday Fireside on behalf of queer members of his church, of his ward. Rather was called into the church office building by Elder Holland to let them know that it wasn't an acceptable experience for them. Some of the methods they used to. To hold this Fifth Sunday Fireside. So I, I don't believe Elder Holland should be the. The stalwart banner of what LDS LGBTQ inclusivity looks like.
Gerardo Sumano [03:10:47] I don't know who, though, what apostle.
Maven [03:10:51] Right.
Kyle Ashworth [03:10:52] The stake president. I'm right. And that's the point of this episode is we are now going all the way down to literally the lady who is by volunteer sweeping the floors in a Surrey, British Columbia stake, who is the. The prophetess of Mormonism in this space.
John Dehlin [03:11:09] This is extreme, but it would be like highlighting Bernie Madoff as, as, as the example or the model of financial, you know, securities, you know, responsibility. Right, yes.
Maven [03:11:21] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:11:21] Within Mormon context, it's just tone. It's tone deaf.
Kyle Ashworth [03:11:25] It is tone deaf. That's a great way of putting it.
John Dehlin [03:11:26] Tone deaf.
Maven [03:11:27] And I want to go back again to the top of the quote. And you know what the actual question was was about how. Because priesthood leaders are often sometimes the first to know, you know, and how to react to that.
Maven [03:11:39] And he admits there like it's because it's a confession. It feels heavy or he said it feels like a confession. It doesn't feel like a confession. It is a confession because the church is teaching that this is wrong. And so, yeah. So I think the fact that bishops and priesthood leaders are the first to know is not one, you know, like it's not a good thing. Like the example he shares with his cousin where he, because he knows this is somebody who loves him, he is comfortable telling his true self to this person because they know that they'll be loved and accepted. Bishops are judges in Israel, so they.
Maven [03:12:17] They have this ecclesiastical authority and power over us and. And over our temple recommends in salvation. Even. So the reason why it. It's not a good one, it's not necessarily a trusting one, but it's one out of duty and out of basically. Yeah. Of needing to confess this burden of their identity to someone that really has no business knowing it other than this, this person confessing, quote, unquote, or feeling like it's a confession is only doing. Because they're trying. Because they're trying to do the right thing. And they have been taught to believe that this is the right thing to do. So I wouldn't necessarily see if I was a bishop or a stake president, somebody coming to me and telling me what their.
Maven [03:13:04] Their gender or their sexual orientation is, I wouldn't see that as necessarily a good thing or a privileged thing or, you know, something that I had done anything necessarily to earn because of my treatment of them.
John Dehlin [03:13:17] Yeah. For those who don't know, Mormon bishops are not in any way trained with any basic mental health training, any basic LGBTQ training, coming out training. I mean, an undergraduate intern at Utah State University who's volunteering in an LGBT support group gets more training on LGBT issues or coming out issues than a Mormon bishop who serves for five years as the head of the congregation. In some sense, they also represent the church and the corporation. In some sense, Mormon bishops are the last people LGBT Mormon youth should be coming out to. So, Julia, did you have anything you wanted to add really quick?
Julia Sanders [03:14:00] I just kind of like the parts where he said, if. If you're a bishop and somebody, if your members in your congregation have not come out to you, then you're probably not a safe person. So I like that because I think they do need to listen to more stories. They do need to. To have a kinder rhetoric surrounding LGBTQ people. So I really like that he said that.
Gerardo Sumano [03:14:17] Yeah, that's a good. That was a good one. I. I just. One more criticism, like, and this is something he. When he quoted Holland specifically on the second quote, where. Because Holland's a great example of loving gay people, the key didn't quote in him completely because the quote also says everyone's inviting to God's choir people who have doubts about the church and people with different sexual orientations. And he also says, come as you are, but don't expect to stay as you are. So an implication to changing your sexual orientation, which in the first quote, supposedly he rejected. You know, and it's always the bait and switch with this, with the apostles, and we know that. So.
Kyle Ashworth [03:15:00] Yeah. And the light hell damage as opposed to the flooded car.
Gerardo Sumano [03:15:03] That.
Kyle Ashworth [03:15:04] That's my point. And these, these two guys, Charlie and Ben, are in an impossible situation. What they are trying to do is they're trying to show you the shiny paint job after the hell damage hit the car, and they're trying to put their very best foot forward and trying to give this topic as much good publicity as possible. But it is, as we've all experienced in our. In our own journey through Mormonism and sexuality, it is not always as it seems. And that's the problem for these guys. That's the hill they have to climb.
Maven [03:15:37] I wanted to add that. That loving LGBTQ members and accepting Them I always does have. Even if spoken or not, it has been spoken, but sometimes it's left out. But the, I think the idea, like in the, the part of the Holland talk that was left out, but don't expect to stay that way. The idea of loving these members of the church includes the idea of bringing them back onto the covenant path. So it is to not accept them for who they are, but to change them or get them in line with what the prescriptive lifestyle is supposed to be. If you're a Mormon. And this was also clear in the.
Maven [03:16:16] The 2006 Talk or Interview with Oaks that I referenced earlier. There were other questions about how parents should treat their children. And all of his answers were basically, you know, don't do this. You're going down this path that you might not come back from. But I, I will always love you and I will always help you to get back on the right path. Like that's what love means, is that I. We will, I will. I'm always here to help you to live the life that I want you to live. That's what it means when you're being loving to them is when you're ready, when you're ready to stop doing this thing that you're doing where you're deliberately being evil and you're going against the church and you're, you're living the sinful, selfish life, you know, lustful or, you know, whatever.
Maven [03:16:59] We want to describe and see it as this, this bad, bad thing that you're doing whenever you're ready to stop being a terrible person. I love you and I'm here to help you to, to get back on track.
Kyle Ashworth [03:17:10] Yeah, that's so Mormonism.
Gerardo Sumano [03:17:12] My experience has been that the only way we have a lot of family members on my side and sex family side. Most of them like us, embrace us, some of them don't. But the only ones that we've been able to feel safe around are those who have. They've had. Had to change their beliefs in the church and go to a place where they believe that the brethren are wrong on this. Those are the only Mormons who have that we feel safe around and that really have demonstrated that they really love us and they don't. We're not a project to them that they have to be nice to them. They need to be nice to us because eventually we might come back. And it's really sad because it's not many of them. And see this, this type of talks, Bayan and Charlie is not, Are not helping to move the needle on that that way.
Kyle Ashworth [03:18:16] Just to continue Gerardo's point, I see this in progressive Mormonism a lot with the Patrick Masons of Mormonism. The faith matters groups of Mormonism. If you took out faith and hope, what is left of Mormonism, they often talk about, and even Ben and Charlie have done this, they talk about a Mormonism that doesn't exist. They talk about a church that hypothetically exists based on things changing. And so they have hope, they have faith that all these things will change. And that is the church that they have a testimony in. And I, and I think that's. That's tough for me, that, that's heartbreaking to me that the kind of.
Kyle Ashworth [03:18:51] To dovetail what Har was talking about, the church that they want, the church that they love, the church that they feel a part of, is not really the church that exists. It's the church that exists in their vision of hope and in their. Their elements of faith. And they want that church to exist. They're trying to make that church exist. And that's what it means to expand the borders of Zion to, to include a more larger tent style of Mormonism.
Kyle Ashworth [03:19:19] But it's sad to me that that is not the reality of Mormonism today. Even though, and, and for those orthodox members out there who say the church will never change, this is. You're barking up the wrong tree. Nothing will ever happen. I, I don't believe that either. If they, if they believe in the ninth article of faith that says that we believe that God has revealed, he will yet reveal and does now reveal many more great and important things. If you're an active Latter Day Saint and you believe that there is more revelation to happen and more change to happen. How do you say that nothing on this side of the aisle changes?
Kyle Ashworth [03:19:53] How do you. And the church has a history of already changing the definition of marriage. If that isn't the case, if the church hasn't changed the definition of marriage already, then I have to ask you, how is your polygamous marriage treating you?
Kyle Ashworth [03:20:05] They have already changed the definition definition of marriage once before, and they likely will change it again in order to hold its membership together. And so I say I welcome a church that believes in continuing revelation. And that's where I believe Ben and Charlie have to preach from this position of hope and faith, because that is the only way Mormonism moves forward.
Maven [03:20:27] I just wanted to add that I think this is the crux of the problem with the, the idea and why the church will never be at the forefront, no matter how much you might want to talk about that. Being at the forefront of loving LGBTQ members. The church will never be there, can never get there, as long as they still see homosexuality as a sin or acting on it by being in a committed, loving relationship. And so, yeah, as. As long as that is something that needs to be stopped and corrected, that. That will forever be a barrier. Like, Gerardo, you were saying with your family members to.
Maven [03:21:02] To actually having a relationship with you and loving and accepting you as you are, if there's always something that they're hoping to change about you, that one day you and your husband will be like, you know what? Let's. I think we should not be married anymore. Like, I think we should divorce and, you know, just. Just end this thing. Because to be more righteous, according to somebody else, like, it's just not going to happen.
John Dehlin [03:21:25] Powerful, beautiful, important. Yeah. All right, Gerardo, this is. This is a. A clip that we have that's entitled wow. It just says wow.
Gerardo Sumano [03:21:34] There's another one called Double Wow.
John Dehlin [03:21:36] Double wow. So here's. Here's a clip called wow.
Audience Questions, Double Wow Moments, and Same-Sex Marriage
▶ Video Clip 6Video Clip 6 [03:21:39] One of my questions I have in
Video Clip 6 [03:21:42] working with youth who experience same sex
Video Clip 6 [03:21:46] attraction and that are gay is they
Video Clip 6 [03:21:48] feel individual love, but they don't feel institutional love. They come to me and they say, brother Ridge, like, I know that you love me, and I know that if you're my teacher, I can come or I know that this person in the ward or while I have this bishop. Bishop roulette.
Video Clip 6 [03:22:05] Right.
Video Clip 6 [03:22:05] As long as I have this bishop or this branch president, I can come.
Video Clip 6 [03:22:10] But there's kind of like an X mark with some of the members of the Quorum of the twelve apostles that they feel like have said hurtful things and, you know, general conference in general.
Video Clip 6 [03:22:21] Right.
Video Clip 6 [03:22:21] Is a painful experience, not a joyful experience. And so as a teacher, I want. And as someone who loves these kids, how do I help them feel both love from me and maybe I can't control the institutional love, but how do
Video Clip 6 [03:22:35] I help them build confidence in the prophets and apostles? Even though at times they may feel like those are the people that are hurting them and that's their experience and their words.
Video Clip 6 [03:22:47] You know, I don't know what the right setting to do this would be, but I think it's always important to say, if someone says, I don't trust this institution or I'm hurt, say, tell me about that. Show me that hurt. Let me hold it with you. Now, maybe doing that in a class isn't the right environment. Maybe it is. I don't know. But Always letting them express that hurt. Hurt and feel, and then feel that hurt with them and hold that with them so they know at least they were heard by you. Because, you know, we can't. We can't. We have our spheres of influence, and we can't do anything outside of those.
Video Clip 6 [03:23:19] And the other thing I would say about this is it's okay to have hard times and good times. From the very first verse of the Book of Mormon, Nephi says that, that he was highly favored of the Lord and had seen many afflictions in all his days. These two things, God was there and things were hard.
Video Clip 6 [03:23:38] And so we need to help these youth who haven't quite developed the capacity in their brains for nuance yet to be able to say this was a hard thing. But also. But how has the church helped you? How has the church been good to you? What General Conference talks have resonated with you? And let them talk about the hard things, but also talk about the good things. And one principle that's really helped me a lot is what Jesus did as he was leaving the Garden of Gethsemane. You know, he was arrested, and Peter, who loved him and was trying to protect him, took out his sword and he wounded someone trying to defend the Savior.
Video Clip 6 [03:24:16] And what did Jesus do? He healed the wound. And so sometimes people with the very best of intentions trying to. Trying to protect the Savior will hurt people. And. And it's Jesus that we look to for healing. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt when the ear got cut off. But Jesus is the one who did the healing. I answered that myself.
Video Clip 6 [03:24:39] I agree.
Maven [03:24:41] Hi.
John Dehlin [03:24:41] Now, I don't know why you wrote wow, Gerardo, but all I could say is my first thought was that, bro, that dude asking the questions, he listens to Mormon stories. Podcast or ladder, get rid of me.
Maven [03:24:52] Loved hearing Bishop Roulette being put out like that in a faithful context.
John Dehlin [03:24:58] Absolutely.
Maven [03:24:59] Yeah. And I, I think the wow. Or why, because almost everyone that I was able to see or, you know, in our. Our chat channels, reaction to that question was wow, because he just nailed it. And he laid all of it out there, all of the details. So it's not like these questions that get trimmed or cut off or the first half will, you know, will let be said. And you know, when, when the apostles have Q and A's, these are the exact kind of questions that are filtered out that they absolutely will not address at all. We know. I. Because I. I know that they get them, but they don't want to answer them.
Maven [03:25:35] So Just the fact that this didn't get filtered out, that this was, you know, it. I just thought it was wonderful and just so. Just perfectly encapsulating the experiences of people. And I do, like, for the most part, I like the answer about sitting with them. I don't see any reason why the classroom would not be an appropriate place to do that. But. But just to talk about, you know, sitting and listening and. Tell me about that. I mean, those. Those were all good answers, but I just. Again, because it's. The whole thing is about tiptoeing around the fact that the leaders. You know, the tiptoe that Ben and Charlie are doing is tiptoeing around the.
Maven [03:26:14] The accountability or any accountability for leadership and what they've been teaching. So, I mean, I think they still handle it well because, you know, as we've talked about, the ability to do what they're doing hinges on that. But still.
Maven [03:26:27] Yeah. I just love the fact that this was able to be asked and pointed out directly that the institution is causing the harm and the hurt.
Kyle Ashworth [03:26:35] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:26:35] Julia, do you want to say something?
Julia Sanders [03:26:37] Well, I just, like he says, you know, ask them questions about their hurt and sit with that, but then ask them about all the good things that they've seen. Seen that have happened to them. And that thinking of it, like, my brain was thinking of it like a marriage. Like, if you come and you say, this, my husband is hurting me, and they're like, okay, well, that. That's really hard. But, like, tell me all the good things this husband is doing. Like, that's. That's sort of invalidating this experience of hurt. Like, I didn't like that part of it, but I do like the idea of sitting and listening to these actual stories of hurt and pain.
Gerardo Sumano [03:27:04] Yeah.
Julia Sanders [03:27:04] But.
Gerardo Sumano [03:27:04] Yeah, I love the.
Kyle Ashworth [03:27:07] Sorry, you're fine.
Gerardo Sumano [03:27:08] You want to talk?
Kyle Ashworth [03:27:09] No.
Gerardo Sumano [03:27:09] Okay. The ear slicer apostle and Jesus being the one that is healing. You know, what a. What a good reference. And also how ironic, you know, that it's the apostles doing the harm.
John Dehlin [03:27:27] He's absolutely saying that Mormon apostles cause harm, but Jesus will heal.
Gerardo Sumano [03:27:31] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:27:31] Right. Yeah, that's absolutely what he said.
Maven [03:27:34] But not directly.
John Dehlin [03:27:35] Yeah.
Maven [03:27:35] Not in a way that.
John Dehlin [03:27:37] Yeah.
Maven [03:27:37] Colin can be like, hey, come in here. Come in my office. Have a sip.
John Dehlin [03:27:41] Jesus spoken in parables. So does Bench.
Kyle Ashworth [03:27:45] I wish. I wish Ben would have taken the gloves off a little bit because he already knows the answer to this question, and so do we. The answer to this question is accountability. The church teaches that we must do what is right. Let the consequences Follow. And what's not happening here are Latter Day Saints are not holding their leaders accountable. And one of the ways that you do not hold the leaders accountable is by showing up to your Sunday services, especially around general conference time, and you raise your right hand to the square and you sustain those leaders as prophet seers and revelators, as Latter Day Saints, continue to sustain those leaders and say that we believe you, we trust you, and that we will sustain the things that you do as they continue to do that and not push back against that, then you are still sending the message that what you believe the Latter Day Saint leaders are doing is acceptable.
Kyle Ashworth [03:28:27] And I wish Ben would have press this a little bit further. I again, understand his audience, but this good bishop who, who was in this meeting was willing to press that and was willing to be honest, brave, very brave. And, and I think there needs to be more bishops. In fact, I believe that there are more bishops and church leaders out there in this very same position who are asking the very same questions. But nobody on the inside is holding their church leaders accountable. And, and maybe we do, and maybe that's where it comes from. But I think that's where. That's one of the first steps.
Kyle Ashworth [03:28:58] You have to stop sustaining these leaders and let them know. And maybe it goes back to temple recommend interviews, maybe it goes back to personal priesthood interviews or interviews with your bishop or stake president, but that's where you have to start holding those leaders accountable and letting them know that that is not something that you believe in.
John Dehlin [03:29:13] How about like Nemo, voting opposed, you know, during the sustaining portion of the conferences.
Kyle Ashworth [03:29:20] Exactly. The, the example that I thought of in my mind. And there are people out there who will do that. And what happens, they will pave over you. They will try to dismiss you, they will try to silence you, but they cannot. We, we just heard a bishop, and something about what that bishop said just changed a little bit inside of each of us. And, and that will happen to church leaders as well. I know they're aware of this because they're talking about this topic behind our backs and they don't know how to solve it, which means they are hearing, they are listening, and they are confused about what to do. Because if they were wrong about this, what else are they wrong about? And I think that's one of the great things that these church leaders fear the most about this topic.
Maven [03:29:58] Yeah, I just had one more quick, I guess, complaint, maybe, and, and that was Ben saying. I think it was Ben that had said that nuance was something that maybe like, younger members of the church don't really get. And I just laughed out loud because I was like, yeah, yeah, Ben. It's like the young members that really struggle with nuance, it's definitely not the ones that are at the top who are really black and white in their thinking. And yeah, I just, I really hated I. The younger generations just getting thrown under
John Dehlin [03:30:29] the bus there because Gen zers or millennials, they really struggle with progressive ideology.
Maven [03:30:34] I know. Yeah. Like, it just. That really bothered me because, I mean, I know, like, I'm a millennial. And so I guess, like, the popular thing to do to do is I'm supposed to rag on the younger generation and be like, they're not like mine, you know, in whatever ways or whatever. But I admire Gen Z's so much and the upcoming one Gen Alpha. I think they are amazing people and they really do care about these kinds of issues for the most part. This is what they're starting to be known for, and I love it. So I, I don't want to rag on them. I'm upset that they just got thrown under the bus for something that is not, you know, a stereotype that really fairly applies to them at all.
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:12] Yeah, I'm just getting old enough finally to tell them to stay off my lawn.
John Dehlin [03:31:16] Shut up, Boomer.
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:18] Millennial.
John Dehlin [03:31:21] Okay, Boomer. All right, well, now we go to the slide that says double wow. If that was a wow. I'm excited to hear the double wow.
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:30] My name is Elvin, and I would like to talk about the elephant in the room nobody's talking about. So I, as a straight man married to a straight woman, I can express
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:42] my love in a physical way, and
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:45] that's allowed by the Lord. If I get married in the temple,
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:48] what's up with gay people?
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:50] Are they going to be available someday
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:53] to express their love in a physical
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:55] way to their partner?
Kyle Ashworth [03:31:57] How's that fair? How do I come to a gay friend telling, look, this just.
Kyle Ashworth [03:32:01] God has this unfair rule for you,
Kyle Ashworth [03:32:03] so you can stay in the church.
Maven [03:32:08] Can we pause?
Gerardo Sumano [03:32:10] Hey, thanks everyone, for coming to the fireside. I'm just kidding. I think you should share what you shared today about the law of Moses.
Kyle Ashworth [03:32:20] Oh, yeah, that's right.
Gerardo Sumano [03:32:22] I don't want to steal it.
Kyle Ashworth [03:32:23] Okay, so in second Nephi 26, Nephi writes this really pop, this really well known verse where he says, we talk of Christ, we preach of Christ, we teach our children of Christ so they can know where to turn for remission of their sins. And then he goes on to say that they Live the law of Moses. And he says this really interesting thing. He says, we live the law of Moses and the law has become dead to us.
Kyle Ashworth [03:32:48] And then he goes on to say that. He says, even though this law feels dead to us because we. We're made alive in Christ, we need to keep the performances and ordinances of God that have been given to us.
Kyle Ashworth [03:32:59] And so some people might be living a law that might feel dead, that might not resonate with them. And yet, for me, I feel called to live the law that has been given and see how I can thrive and experience Christ as I live that law.
Kyle Ashworth [03:33:15] Now, to me, I don't think there's any way to say that the commandments in this situation are unfair. People are treated differently, and there is no way to pretend that that's not the case. But this is what I know, and this is my favorite line from Preach My Gospel. It says, all that is unfair about life can be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Kyle Ashworth [03:33:39] So how do we explain to someone, you're asked to do something different than these people are asked to do? All I can say honestly is, I don't know. But I am going to live the commandments that I believe God is giving to me. And then I would say, and if you want to live the commandments that God has given to you to the best of your ability, I will honor that and support that. And if you can live some of the commandments and not all of the commandments, I would say, welcome to being human.
Kyle Ashworth [03:34:08] And I am so grateful for the ways that you can come unto Christ even if you aren't living all the teachings of the church. I'm grateful for the ways that you can and you do come to the Savior.
John Dehlin [03:34:19] Okay, let's segment this. So let's start with the question itself and the questioner reactions to the actual questioner and the question.
Maven [03:34:27] I loved it.
Kyle Ashworth [03:34:27] Excellent question. Absolutely. It is the quiet parts that are screamed out loud.
John Dehlin [03:34:33] Yeah. What a great question, right? Yeah. I want to meet that dude. I would have shake that dude's hand, right?
Gerardo Sumano [03:34:39] He was awesome.
Maven [03:34:40] Yeah, I was cheering. Like, when I. I watched that segment, I think my jaw just dropped open. Like, wow, he's. He's. He's going there. So I. Again, same as with the other previous bishop. I really like that. And this is funny, too, because when I was. I was chatting to Gerardo after I watched that clip, and I was like, whoa, this is amazing. I. I love that this was asked. Gerardo asked me, like, what I thought of the answer. And I couldn't even remember what it was because it was just a bunch of salad just kind of going all over the place. And so I watched it again, but I even had to, like, really pay attention this time again to just try to keep in my mind, what is it he's actually saying? How is it he's actually trying to answer this question? Because there is really no good answer to the question. So.
John Dehlin [03:35:26] All right, so let's go. The next.
Gerardo Sumano [03:35:28] Julia wanted to say.
John Dehlin [03:35:29] Oh, Julia. About the questioner.
Julia Sanders [03:35:31] Oh, no, it was just a great question. All the questions that were asked, I think were really good. And you can just tell it's. To me, it sounds like a very progressive audience, but.
John Dehlin [03:35:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do we think about their immediate answer, which was. Thank you for coming to the. To this fireside tonight.
Kyle Ashworth [03:35:47] So this is where I teased in the beginning of this episode where this is super awkward for Charlie Bird because Charlie was in a relationship at byu, and so this is part of.
Gerardo Sumano [03:35:57] He had to break up the relationship,
John Dehlin [03:35:58] meaning he was probably not living the undercoat.
Kyle Ashworth [03:36:01] Correct.
John Dehlin [03:36:01] Yeah.
Maven [03:36:02] And.
Kyle Ashworth [03:36:02] And so he was doing exactly what this.
John Dehlin [03:36:05] The.
Kyle Ashworth [03:36:05] The person who asked the question was relating to. The person who asked the question says, I'm as a straight man, okay. Showing affection, holding a woman's hand, dating, beginning to date. I have the possibility of dating, but gay people do not have that. And so this is an impossible reality for them. And this is why it was super awkward for. For Ben, for Charlie, because he's been in a relationship and was hiding that relationship while being a student at byu and while Ben was an honor code administrator at that same university and while they work together on a podcast talking about how they are making it work as Latter Day Saints.
Gerardo Sumano [03:36:42] So it was Charlie's turn to answer the question too, and he didn't answer it. He asked Ben to answer it.
Kyle Ashworth [03:36:47] Yeah, the body language is pretty. Pretty prevalent here. And if. And maybe just another point about the person who asked the question, if we in this audience are we have been able to infiltrate the Mormon vernacular with Bishop roulette, I want to infiltrate another word. And that's mental gymnastics, because that seemed to be what Ben was trying to exercise in order to get this answer out was. Was definitely a stretching of. Of doctrine and policy in order to make this thing work, and it was problematic.
John Dehlin [03:37:20] Yeah, I'll just say I. I did. One of the. Probably the favorite slide of all my LGBTQ research was a slide where I simply did T tests on which binary decisions would lead to the most Happiness or joy for LGBTQ Mormons or the most misery and suffering and pain for LGBTQ Mormons. And I was like, do they believe in God or not? Not a big difference. Do they believe in Jesus or not? Not a big difference. You know, do they? And I went through the list and do you guys want to know what these single biggest difference maker was for LGBTQ Mormons?
Gerardo Sumano [03:37:55] What was it?
John Dehlin [03:37:57] It's whether or not they were sexually active. Bigger than. Are the, you know, are they married? Bigger than. Are they in a same sex marriage? Bigger than anything active out of the church. It's whether or not they're sexually active. And of course, we're all primed. That can't be right. That's. Being sexually active is the biggest difference maker for joy and happiness. And Maven, I want to be sensitive to the fact that. That there are asexuals not only in this world, but in this room where,
Maven [03:38:27] you know, makes sense to me.
John Dehlin [03:38:29] There's gonna be. What do you mean?
Maven [03:38:31] Well, I. For me. Yeah, just one of my biggest issues, I guess. Not issues, but the idea and the concept of eternal marriage and temple marriage was one that was very distressing to me for that reason of just viewing. Having a duty for obligatory sex that, That I didn't want to have. So.
John Dehlin [03:38:52] Yeah. So that's a big difference maker.
Maven [03:38:54] Yeah. So for me. But I mean, I guess it's, it's. It's a similar problem as LGBTQ members face or, you know, gay members face when they're expected to marry somebody that they're not attracted to. Like, you know, but, but. Yeah, I think I just. But I, but I understand. I do want to say, even though, Even though not being sexually active is a happy place for me, I, I absolutely acknowledge that that is a. I'm a minority in that. And it's not something I would ever want for anybody else who is not. If that's not what they want. Like, it's what I want. So I would, I would never. Yeah. Push my preferences on anybody else ever.
John Dehlin [03:39:34] Yeah. And just. Yep. Thank you, Maven. And just to finish that point, it is crucial for we. We have no idea how crucial being sexually active is for just basic physical and mental health. And so it is the elephant in the room. And it's Right. That they didn't want to talk about it because not only is it the most important thing, it's the most taboo thing, you know, in this whole discussion. Yeah. You know, per.
Kyle Ashworth [03:40:00] The leaders of the church and institutionally, you would think the church is excited about hitching their wagon to an asexual Latter Day Saint because it, it helps them fulfill all of their single and celibate mantras. And I think this is interesting that the church definitely puts a lot of stock into asexual Latter Day Saints in this space because it does help. It's confirmation bias in a way. It helps them to fulfill their narrative by harnessing the natural realities for some Latter Day Saints.
Maven [03:40:31] Yeah, it's. It's funny because it is still opposite of what. Of what they're wanting, because what they're wanting gay members to do is to be celibate against their wishes. Whereas if there is somebody like me who, who's happy to be this way, it's. That is what my wishes are, but they. What they would actually want for me. The ideal, the better thing would be to be in a heterosexual marriage. And I did just also want to point out that even as asexuals, there's still. There's still other kinds of, like, physical touch and intimacy and care that we also crave. So I, you know, I get to live with family if I didn't get to, like, be on the floor playing with my nieces and nephews or getting hug them.
Maven [03:41:11] I really love those things. Those are things that add a lot of meaning to my life as well. So I did want to say that. That there is still physical affection that's important to. Even to people like myself.
John Dehlin [03:41:22] Absolutely.
Gerardo Sumano [03:41:24] Yeah. So answer was problematic. He wants to say it's not. It's not unfair, but it's unfair. And, you know, he.
John Dehlin [03:41:34] I thought he misspoke there. I think he was. I think he meant to say, no one can argue that it isn't unfair. It is unfair. Right.
Maven [03:41:41] That was my impression as well.
Kyle Ashworth [03:41:43] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:41:43] That he misspoke.
Maven [03:41:44] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:41:44] Anyway, keep going.
Gerardo Sumano [03:41:45] Yeah. And so, yeah, why would the commandments be unfair? And what's that about? You know, live my commandments, but you don't. That's great. In a Catholic, Christian context where they believe all sins are kind of at the same level.
Gerardo Sumano [03:42:06] You know, we have just the Pope being really affirming in some remarks just recently. I just watched. I mean, I watch Christian pastors all the time bringing up this concept of, well, it's fine if you're gay. Sexual, you know, intimacy between people of the same sex is a sin, but if you do it, that's fine. Like, I also sin, so, you know, I sin in different ways as you do. So we're all fine. But in Mormonism, we have a problem, which is that violating the Law of chastity is second to murder. So there's like a scale on how bad sins are. So that while he wants to apply that same concept here, it's really hard for a Mormon to grasp that. That. That, you know, someone sexually homosexual that's sexually active would be the same as someone who forgot to read those scriptures
John Dehlin [03:43:05] or who drinks coffee.
Maven [03:43:06] Right.
John Dehlin [03:43:06] Whatever. Yeah, Yeah.
Maven [03:43:07] I think he really. He really, really downplayed because he. He seemed to kind of give permission for that. And, you know, when he was saying, like, if. If you can live the commandments to the best of your ability, or even if you can follow some but not others, you know, like, he seemed to kind of say that that's the kind of. Okay, like, you know, come as you are kind of a type.
John Dehlin [03:43:24] Welcome to the human race.
Maven [03:43:25] Right. Yeah, this is. This is a totally normal thing, but, yeah, completely downplaying the severity, like Gerardo was saying, or the fact that that can get you excommunicated, you know, as we've even covered on the show before. So, yeah, so I. I think that was really, I don't know, manipulative or at least dishonest and disingenuous to kind of imply that. And again, it was a very. It was an implication because he can't even come out and say that he thinks that that's okay for some people to do. And again, maybe because of the awkwardness of what happened with Charlie, so he implies it in, like, the. The weakest way possible. But, yeah, that. It just bothered me, the downplaying of the consequences in the series of that.
Gerardo Sumano [03:44:07] Julia, did you want to say something?
John Dehlin [03:44:09] No.
Julia Sanders [03:44:10] I think you guys covered it pretty well.
Maven [03:44:11] Okay.
John Dehlin [03:44:12] Okay.
Kyle Ashworth [03:44:14] Yeah. I just wanted to reiterate my point about how this puts people like Charlie in an unwinnable situation. And. And again, my preference is not for Charlie to not have a relationship, and my preference is not to have BYU students find companionship and enjoy and. And learn how to date in these formidable years.
Kyle Ashworth [03:44:38] I think what the church is doing is harmful on all levels, spiritually and mentally and socially. There's. There's a variety of issues in this space. I. I just think that the. The landscape should be different, and as an institution, the church needs to do. To do better in this space to succor their queer Latter Day Saints. And the restrictions aren't doing or creating the effect that. That Mormonism believes it's doing. And it's. It's really forcing a lot of these Latter Day Saints out of the church in order for them to find happiness. And to live the fullest measure of their creation.
John Dehlin [03:45:17] I thought it was kind of wild that he compared the church's current policy to the law of Moses, which was the old law that Jesus came to fulfill. Because basically he's saying the church is living a lower law right now and someday they'll change to a higher law, which we all have to interpret to mean same sex marriage or gay relationships or lesbian relationships someday. But the church is still stuck with the old law. I thought that was kind of bold. Am I, am I reading into what he was saying or is that the implications of the analogy he was drawing?
Kyle Ashworth [03:45:52] Yeah, I think that's the implications and that's the reality. I mean, if the church is really going to move forward in the space, that's really what has to happen.
John Dehlin [03:45:58] Yeah, or it's going to die. Just like it was going to die by holding on to polygamy. It was going to die by keeping blacks from, you know, black people from holding the priesthood, going to the temple. It's going to die if it, if it, it's going to die on this LGBTQ hill ultimately if it doesn't change.
Kyle Ashworth [03:46:14] And just, I just want to bring up one point in that, just a history lesson. So Spencer W. Kimball had this revelation or made this policy change that allowed black members to receive the priesthood and, and have black more experiences in the church via the temple. But this started earlier with David O. McKay and, and more particularly with Hubie Brown, who was his counselor at the time. And Hubie Brown made it known in the Quorum that there was never a revelation that took the priesthood away from black members. Therefore there never needed to be a revelation to allow them to have the priesthood. And, and this same principle applies to the queer topic in Mormonism today.
Kyle Ashworth [03:46:52] It doesn't need a revelation. There never was a revelation that said queer people cannot be full fledged citizens in the church or queer people cannot have any of the same rights as heterosexual members in the church. There was no revelation that said that therefore there, there needs not be a new revelation that comes out and changes this. This is a policy.
Kyle Ashworth [03:47:12] This is, this is the, the bigoted, prejudice, prejudicial side of Mormonism that has created this type of tradition. And that's all it is. It's just a tradition. And whether we need more non homophobic, the older generation of Latter Day Saints to die off and fall away to make this change happen, or if we do this on our own, I think eventually we get there. But it really is, it doesn't require a revelation. It doesn't require. I mean, we both have had Evan, Evan Smith on our podcasts, Latter Day Stories, and at Mormon Stories. And Evan has a very clear doctrinal path to allow Latter Day Saints, queer Latter Day Saints, to find a relationship with God within the parameters of the, of the doctrine and of the gospel that has, that can be a reality without a grand revelation.
Kyle Ashworth [03:48:02] And I think Latter Day Saints think that we need this gigantic movement of mountains in order for this to happen. But again, I point out the fact that the, the definition of marriages has changed before in Mormonism. This is a really simple fix.
Gerardo Sumano [03:48:14] Yeah.
Maven [03:48:15] And to piggyback also what you were talking about, John, just bringing up this old law. I, I believe if I'm remembering right, it was shortly after that he said something basically about following the commandments or being obedient. Anyway, because, like, when people had that old law, yeah, I guess there was a higher one, but that still was what you were required to follow. I think that's what he's kind of implying here in this place as well. And I, I guess my issue with that is that. Yeah, sorry, I lost my train of thought on that.
John Dehlin [03:48:48] Well, think about it for just a second. I'm just going to say that my answer to that is, didn't Jesus come to fulfill the law? Like, they're going to quote Jesus on every corner saying, it's about Jesus, about Jesus, love Jesus, follow Jesus, Jesus came to fulfill the law. So why are we living in old law?
Kyle Ashworth [03:49:04] And I will say that Jesus said absolutely nothing about sexual orientation or gender identity.
John Dehlin [03:49:08] Neither did the Book of Mormon. Neither does the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book, the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham. The entire scriptural canon of Mormonism is silent on the issue of homosexuality. Maven.
Maven [03:49:20] Yeah, I remembered my thought. I was going to say this is kind of like the last place of retreat to go. When you bring up these really difficult topics that don't have an answer is basically coming back to obedience and covenants.
Maven [03:49:33] Because, I mean, firstly, they try to really strongly imply that if, if you go down, you know, this path that it's, it's a dark path. It's. It's evil. It's. You will be unhappy. It's the whole wickedness never was happiness. But once you point out or you really show that, no, in this case, it's, it's in authenticity and genuine loving relationships with, with. Even if it's of the same sex, those do bring happiness, then they have to retreat to this point of obedience, of covenants. Well, I promised God, so You know, I'm gonna do that, you know, and it's just. I think I. I just. It just bothers me.
Maven [03:50:11] It's just to. It's, again, just to ignore or to kind of try to shove off the problem and not address it, not adjust the point that basically following your covenants means being miserable and less happy. And for some people, as far as to be suicidal, that's what covenants means. And they never want to address that. And that bothers me.
John Dehlin [03:50:32] Yeah. All right, well, that ends the coverage of the actual first talk.
Kyle Ashworth [03:50:39] We.
John Dehlin [03:50:40] The next slide that we have is a slide of the area authority that was in the room. It's right. Is that right?
Gerardo Sumano [03:50:46] At least for the second day? I'm not sure. I don't think he was on the
John Dehlin [03:50:50] first that we just watched, but it's. Elder, go ahead.
Gerardo Sumano [03:50:53] But basically, on the second day, which was Sunday, they just share their own stories again with. With all the membership. And they did a Q and A, but this time it was moderated, so it was less impressive, I think, because they filter the questions.
Kyle Ashworth [03:51:09] So it was correlated.
Gerardo Sumano [03:51:10] Yeah, correlated. But I did want to show who was the 70 that was, and it seems like he was a stake president from that stake before he was called to the 70. So, I mean.
Gerardo Sumano [03:51:22] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:51:22] And I. We're gonna show a clip of him just to end. I think that's the last clip we're gonna show.
John Dehlin [03:51:27] And this is Elder M. Travis Woolsey. And I looked up his age. He's two years younger than me, so he's like 51 years old. I. I'm feeling old. Once air authorities and general authorities are younger than me, you're feeling old.
Kyle Ashworth [03:51:40] I'm saying, look what you missed out on, John. There's still a way back.
John Dehlin [03:51:46] I love it. Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and play this next clip.
▶ Video Clip 7Video Clip 7 [03:51:52] It can leave.
Video Clip 7 [03:51:53] We'll all leave this meeting inspired with
Video Clip 7 [03:51:58] thoughts that have come to our hearts, names that have come to our minds,
Video Clip 7 [03:52:01] and things that we can do to
Video Clip 7 [03:52:03] help be more loving.
Video Clip 7 [03:52:05] I love this whole idea of. Of this. These devotionals the past couple days. It's a courageous thing. There's a lot of people scared to
Video Clip 7 [03:52:12] do something like this or to talk
Video Clip 7 [03:52:15] about things like this, but the one
Video Clip 7 [03:52:17] scripture that comes to my mind is
Video Clip 7 [03:52:20] perfect love, casteth out all fear. And so as a Surrey stake, as any of the stakes here in our area, it should be our goal to
Video Clip 7 [03:52:30] nourish the culture, the Christ culture of
Video Clip 7 [03:52:34] perfect love, and we can cast out all fear.
John Dehlin [03:52:38] Okay, just wanted to comment.
Gerardo Sumano [03:52:41] It's Interesting. He acknowledges that there is a lot of people in the church who are scared to do meetings like this. I want like Maven would say, I wonder why. Yeah, and. But kudos to, you know, a 70 area authority being part of this meeting and telling people go and think about names and people who this might apply and you know, kind of giving his approval to, to the whole meeting.
Kyle Ashworth [03:53:10] And I think one kind of final thought that I just as I listen to Ben and Charlie in these meetings, the one thing that I hope that a lot of us take as a nugget of truth out of this is to give. I didn't see, I didn't hear Ben and Charlie dive into a lot of detail that supported the church's bigotry and its rules. And I've said this again and again in this episode. They spent a lot of time talking about faith and hope and things that will change eventually. And I hope that we give them the, the grace that they need to continue allowing other area authority 70s to allow stake presidents to do what this stake president did in Canada.
Kyle Ashworth [03:53:54] Because I think this is a, this is a message that is, that is important. And I also believe that we need more messengers other than Ben and Charlie. There needs to rise up another generation of, of Mormons, gay Latter Day Saints who, queer Latter Day Saints who are willing to take this mantle on as well and share their testimonies in these meetings and make effectual change and, and whether it's from the bottom up, the middle up or the, the sub middle up, we know it's not coming from the top down. Therefore we are the resources. It is our duty to make these changes.
John Dehlin [03:54:27] I want to make sure people don't go away yet. We're going to do a lightning round to end. That's going to be really fun. I just want to let people know, even though we're starting to summarize, don't, don't leave yet. There's a lot of comments coming in. That was beautiful, Kyle. There's a lot of comments coming in about that general authority, his voice, Elder Woolsey's voice, that he had the fast and testimony voice. They're mentioning heart cell that somehow when these leaders come in with their mantle of authority, they kind of turn on the general authority voice and speak in sort of this reverent way and invoke Christ and hope.
John Dehlin [03:55:01] It's almost. It reminds me of like the, these are not the droids you're looking for kind of moment in Star wars, you know, you know, when you're at the End and you really don't have good answers. You turn on your general authority voice and talk about Christ and somehow that's supposed to make everything better, but does it?
Kyle Ashworth [03:55:16] I personally was going to comment but I didn't want to be overly cynical.
John Dehlin [03:55:19] What were you gonna say?
Kyle Ashworth [03:55:20] The very same thing.
John Dehlin [03:55:21] Okay.
Kyle Ashworth [03:55:21] And I was gonna, I was gonna mimic the conference voice. So I'm glad that those in the live chat were able to do that.
John Dehlin [03:55:26] Well, there's just so many comments about that that we had to mend and not to, not to dig on, on him.
Kyle Ashworth [03:55:33] But you know, it's a noticeable thing that is a little cringe worthy. I agree with that.
Maven [03:55:36] That.
John Dehlin [03:55:37] Maven, were you going to jump in and say something?
Maven [03:55:38] I just wanted.
John Dehlin [03:55:39] Let's not summarize, summarize though.
Maven [03:55:41] Right.
John Dehlin [03:55:41] Okay.
Maven [03:55:42] Well I, I guess I'm, I'm just bringing this in that I think gender really is at the core issue of this and it's been brought up before and I, I just feel like I would be remiss if I didn't bring this up just because the priesthood is so attached to maleness and, and men only can have it and it's the way that all leadership is, is done in the church and you know, in marriages men are the leaders and, and you know, women have their role that is, is not leadership because they don't have it. It. I think that's really the crux of the issue.
Maven [03:56:12] When you have a marriage or partnership like Julia's, you know, who's in charge there when, when neither of you, you're both the, you know, the, the lesser person that, that doesn't have any kind of authority at all. And then you know, for your guys marriages, who's in charge there? Because you, it's, there's just never been real equality in any kind of a marriage. And so when you do have the same gender, of course there's a lot of the ways those can still be unequal. But as far as priesthood goes, you know, that's, that's an issue, that's a problem. And so I, I feel like that's what really throws the wrench into everything the church does is because, because they won't allow women to have the priesthood or have any kind of authority or leadership. So yeah, if you're a lesbian couple, who's gonna baptize your kids, you know, Etc. Etc.
John Dehlin [03:57:04] Julia, did you want to jump in there?
Julia Sanders [03:57:06] Oh well, yeah, I like that you said that because that's one of the perks about dating a woman and you're both women. But I like what he talked about, where he says the culture of Christ. And I think the church is realizing more and more that the. The Mormon culture towards LGBTQ is not right. And so we need to move to this Christ culture where he never said anything negative or bad about the LGBTQ community. Not in the Book of Mormon and not in the Doctrine Covenants. And I would say that it's been misinterpreted in the Bible. And so I just really like that he pointed. He seemed to point that out.
John Dehlin [03:57:37] Yeah. Okay, this is great. I want to do final thing, a lightning round. And, Gerardo, you're going to switch to Julia when it's her turn. But we're going to just. I'm going to ask, like, five or six questions and short answers. Like, if possible, one word answers, but no more than a sentence answer. And this will be kind of fun, all right. Because we're gonna. We're gonna kind of summarize what all this means. So the first question, lightning round, I'll kind of go clockwise. Gerardo, Kyle, Maven, and then Julia. I want answers. So the first question is, does this accurately represent sort of a gay Mormon rescue? In other words, is the church fearing an existential threat, and does this conference for you signify that the church is not only experiencing an existential threat, but is trying to respond to what it perceives as an existential threat? Gerardo.
Lightning Round: Is This Training Approved, and Is the Church Safe for LGBTQ Members?
Gerardo Sumano [03:58:28] Yeah. Yes.
John Dehlin [03:58:28] You're. Yes.
Gerardo Sumano [03:58:29] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [03:58:29] Okay, Kyle, I'm kind of. If you say that it's from the members, not from the top leaders.
Gerardo Sumano [03:58:34] Yeah, I would say.
Gerardo Sumano [03:58:36] Okay.
John Dehlin [03:58:36] All right. I have another question about that. So, Maven, what's your.
Maven [03:58:40] No, that's. That was going to be what I say. I, I. My short answer is yes, but the only issue is it's not coming for. It's not the top. Sending Richard T.R. with a briefcase.
John Dehlin [03:58:49] We're getting there. Okay, okay. Quickly, Julia.
Julia Sanders [03:58:51] Yeah. Yes. With all the same caveats. Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:58:53] Okay. Okay. So my next question. To what extent was this training program approved at the highest levels of the church? Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [03:59:04] No, not at all.
John Dehlin [03:59:06] Not at all. So for you, Salt Lake City didn't even know this thing was happening?
Gerardo Sumano [03:59:09] I know. I know that there's apostles who. Who don't even know who Charlie is.
John Dehlin [03:59:13] Okay, okay, okay. All right, Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [03:59:17] I agree with Gerardo and my inside sources at the church agree. Absolutely the same.
John Dehlin [03:59:21] Okay.
Kyle Ashworth [03:59:22] They do not know these gay Mormons.
John Dehlin [03:59:24] Okay, Maven?
Maven [03:59:25] Agree.
John Dehlin [03:59:25] All right, Julia.
Julia Sanders [03:59:27] I agree with that.
John Dehlin [03:59:28] See, I was thinking, if an area authority's there, Then he would have had to run it up the flag pole. Otherwise, he's on video to the world in indirectly endorsing this really radical activity.
Kyle Ashworth [03:59:41] This is one of the caveats of having stock ownership in Zoom. The church is just obligated to use zoom at some point and this may turn.
John Dehlin [03:59:51] So what you're all saying is that these people may all get in trouble for what just happened.
Kyle Ashworth [03:59:56] My experience with other church leaders who have done this is that, yes, they. There's a reprimand at some point.
Maven [04:00:01] And I was going to say if, even if it's definitely possible, possible that this area authority did run it up the chain, but just the minute details and all of the questions that were going to be asked and answered may not have been in part of that initial run up. So I think, yeah, he definitely might have gotten permission from the top, but maybe a huge miscommunication on what the leadership. Top leadership understood this to be in reference to. And Gerardo, you said he wasn't even at the first one, which is where most of our clips that we covered. Right. He was not there.
Gerardo Sumano [04:00:33] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [04:00:34] Plausible deniability. Yeah.
John Dehlin [04:00:37] So that's. Yeah. The church has a long history. Top church leaders have a long history of arm's length approval, but. But with the ability to deny any approval depending on how things play out, like the church's support of Evergreen.
Gerardo Sumano [04:00:52] And these guys are very vetted. You know, they have been around. They've been doing this for a couple years now. So I could see the, you know, area authority or the stake presence, like a lot of stakes have invited them, so I guess it's fine, you know.
John Dehlin [04:01:06] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [04:01:06] This is the longest single answer lightning round I've ever heard.
Gerardo Sumano [04:01:08] Yeah.
John Dehlin [04:01:09] Really quick, everyone subscribe or hit the like button on YouTube and Facebook. Thanks. For those who are reminding us of it. Okay, next question. How safe are we to celebrate this. This training as a very positive sign for LDS LGBTQ relations in the church?
Gerardo Sumano [04:01:28] Yeah, I think we should celebrate it. I think we did.
John Dehlin [04:01:31] All right.
Kyle Ashworth [04:01:31] I'm 100 on board and I. I want to see this in every stake in Zion.
Gerardo Sumano [04:01:35] Yeah.
John Dehlin [04:01:35] Okay. I got a next question after that. Go ahead, Maven.
Maven [04:01:38] I love that real questions were allowed to be asked and attempted to be answered. I. I love what happened here.
John Dehlin [04:01:46] Okay. Julia.
Julia Sanders [04:01:47] I think it should be celebrated. My concern is just if there will be any backlash from the top down.
Gerardo Sumano [04:01:52] Yeah.
John Dehlin [04:01:53] All right, next question. What happens to the church if this training is administered in every stake in. In Zion? What happens to the church?
Gerardo Sumano [04:02:06] I don't know.
John Dehlin [04:02:11] If every stake in Zion is saying, love your LGBT brothers and sisters, ask them questions, support them.
Gerardo Sumano [04:02:18] If it's not coming from the top. From the top, you know, if there's not a. It's. If it's exactly like this setting where there was a area authority in it, I think things can change quite rapidly in the.
John Dehlin [04:02:32] I mean, imagine Spanish Fork, Heber, Midway, Alpine, Highland. Right. Southern Utah, Cedar City.
Kyle Ashworth [04:02:42] Kyle, if this happened in every stake in Zion, I would say say, eat your vitamins.
John Dehlin [04:02:50] Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kyle Ashworth [04:02:52] David.
Maven [04:02:53] I was going to say, if this were to happen on every stake, it would. The church would overnight become a much healthier place for LGBTQ members overall. And even in the more conservative holdout areas, if it. If this was a common thing in the church, they. People sense that. So even if it's not coming from the top, I think there's immense amount of momentum that can be started from something like that.
John Dehlin [04:03:19] Julia.
Julia Sanders [04:03:20] Yeah, I totally agree. I think that these would be very. Become very safe places for these LGBTQ people in these stakes and wards.
John Dehlin [04:03:28] But couldn't it be harmful or devastating or fracturing to the church in terms of the right wing that we all talked about?
Gerardo Sumano [04:03:35] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [04:03:35] This goes back to the. The idea that if the church was wrong on this topic, what else are they wrong going on? And it just opens up Pandora's box. And this is the very reason why I believe Dallin H. Oaks has doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on his message. It is also, I believe, why he doesn't apologize, nor allow the church to apologize, because this is a gigantic issue for the church, and they have spent a lot of capital investing into this rhetoric that there is no happiness on this side of the aisle, and that's unfolding in front of their eyes and they don't know how to handle.
John Dehlin [04:04:05] Yeah. Okay, next question. If you had an LGBTQ loved one who's a youth, and they were asking you whether they should come out to their Mormon bishop, what would you recommend to them?
Gerardo Sumano [04:04:18] No.
John Dehlin [04:04:19] No, Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [04:04:20] No.
John Dehlin [04:04:20] Maven.
Maven [04:04:21] None of their business.
John Dehlin [04:04:23] Julia.
Julia Sanders [04:04:24] No.
John Dehlin [04:04:24] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Not until there's training and quality training that we all can see and verify is valid and legitimate.
Maven [04:04:35] I mean, there's a chance that it could turn out okay, but the. The chances that it could be really catastrophic and damaging to that individual would outweigh any benefit, I think.
Julia Sanders [04:04:43] Right, right.
Kyle Ashworth [04:04:44] It's too harmful to measure the lived experience as it sits in relation to the Covenant path.
John Dehlin [04:04:50] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [04:04:51] And when we start comparing somebody's real lived experience to this hypothetical Covenant Path, we put Them already at a distance disadvantage and that's not healthy.
Gerardo Sumano [04:05:00] Yeah.
Maven [04:05:01] And I want to bring up a comment that I was able to see.
John Dehlin [04:05:04] It's a lightning round, Maven.
Maven [04:05:05] I know, but the lightning round. But this someone is saying, and I think they've said it more than once, this is literally only an issue in North America, not the rest of the world church.
Kyle Ashworth [04:05:15] Not true.
John Dehlin [04:05:16] Not true.
Kyle Ashworth [04:05:17] The fact that they're translating this and sending it to Brazil is evidence that even Brazilian stakes were interested in this topic.
Maven [04:05:25] I don't know why, like, why would they think that Are, are there gay temple marriages happening everywhere else in the world and, and not in North America?
Gerardo Sumano [04:05:32] I do agree that it's a problem here where, like, there's way more progressives on one side supporting lgbt. I would think in developing countries like Mexico and, and Latin America, Philippines, Africa.
John Dehlin [04:05:46] Holy moly.
Gerardo Sumano [04:05:47] Everyone is on the side of the brethren.
Kyle Ashworth [04:05:49] But the uk, where the progressives were. Were there in the church. They're no longer there.
Gerardo Sumano [04:05:52] But the church is dying.
Kyle Ashworth [04:05:53] Correct.
Kyle Ashworth [04:05:54] So that's evidence of why it's probably not an issue in the UK because most of those people have already left.
Gerardo Sumano [04:05:59] Exactly.
John Dehlin [04:06:00] All right, next question. This is a two part question, but answer it in two words or less. Either how safe is the LDS Church in 2023 for LGBTQ members and. Or should LDS LGBTQ members be encouraged to keep the faith and remain active? Is the church safe for these people? I don't think it's safe, Harada. Johnny.
Gerardo Sumano [04:06:23] And then
Kyle Ashworth [04:06:26] if it.
Gerardo Sumano [04:06:27] If they should be incur. Encouraged to stay, I know how hard it is to. To just. And, and there's there, like Maven said earlier, there's nothing we can say to make them lose faith. So I don't know. I would not recommend anyone. I would never tell a gay Latter Day saying that they should leave the church because I know that's not how it works.
John Dehlin [04:06:49] But also to tell them to keep the faith and hold on, that's hard too, right?
Gerardo Sumano [04:06:52] I wouldn't say that either, Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [04:06:54] Unsafe. And I would hope that the church uses some of their Enzyme Peak Fund money to invest into some insurance policies because I believe there's some malpractice in the way they've handled this topic with queer Latter Day Saints.
John Dehlin [04:07:05] All right, Maven.
Maven [04:07:07] It's not safe. And if there was someone who's at the point of asking, you know, if they should stay or leave, I, I would recommend them leaving. But just to acknowledge that you can't tell someone to leave if they're. That's not where they're at and they're not wanting to. But if they're asking, that means they're thinking about it. That means it's an option.
John Dehlin [04:07:26] Absolutely. Julia.
Julia Sanders [04:07:28] I don't think it's safe. And I keep thinking that, like, if you're LGBTQ in the church, your happiness can only go so far before you can't get any higher, because you have to either stay, celebrate, you have to marry somebody that you're not attracted to, and that's. That's just not full happiness.
John Dehlin [04:07:45] Yeah. I'll just say on the one hand, I'm super grateful that the people like Ben Schlatti. You know, he mentioned that in the end of his book. He basically says, please don't ever use this book as a way to tell other people game Latter Day Saints how to live. I'm so glad he's saying something like that. Tom Kristofferson, you know, was. Was really clear in his book, the same sort of thing. Don't use these faithful gay Mormon stories as a sledgehammer to corral other LGBTQ moms to stay in. I'm glad of that. And just the fact that he's there being a spokesman and he's staying in the church and keeping the faith just like any. Just like, you know, just like the other mixed faith marriages, like, oh, my gosh, I'm space Josh and Lollyweed or Ty Mansfield and Danielle.
Kyle Ashworth [04:08:40] Anytime mixed orientation you had, you said mixed faith, and I'm like, mixed orientation.
John Dehlin [04:08:44] My brain is turning to mush. Yeah. Anytime a celibate LGBT Mormon faithful or a faithful mixed orientation couple get up and speak, even if they're saying, don't use my story as a club, it's implied that that that should be an example to be followed because they're allowed to stand at the pulpit and train everybody.
Kyle Ashworth [04:09:08] It was the reason why they got the invitation to be at the pulpit
Kyle Ashworth [04:09:10] in the first place.
John Dehlin [04:09:10] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [04:09:11] Yeah.
Maven [04:09:11] So I. I think that specifically happened with Josh and Lollyweed, because I remember when they came out kind of with their retraction statement later that that was a significant source of pain, that from their first initial article that, you know, we're in a mixed orientation marriage and we're Mormon and we're happy was the number of stories that they got from LGBTQ members whose parents disown them or basically use that. It's like, see, These people can do it. So what is wrong with you? What's your problem?
Gerardo Sumano [04:09:40] It was done to me.
Maven [04:09:41] Yeah. And so, yeah, so that was something that they addressed you know, in their retraction later.
John Dehlin [04:09:48] And, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, it happens really quickly. In this entire episode, we've only had one Super Chat donation, and it's from Madison Rose. So, Madison Rose, thank you for the Super Chat donation. Those donations help keep this podcast alive, and they're really appreciated. Okay, just a couple more quick questions. What do we make of Ben and Charlie as leaders in this movement? But I think we've all are universally grateful and happy that they're doing what they're doing. So I guess maybe I'll twist that question a little bit. Will they be sacrificial lambs? Will they endure? Will they go the way of David Dave Matheson or Joshua Lily Weed? Anybody, you know, anybody want to make predictions on. On the future? Or will they become the first gay general authorities for the church? You know, I have a point.
Predictions for the Church and LGBTQ Members, Closing Reflections
Maven [04:10:41] This isn't a prediction, so to say, but I guess my hopes for them, I hope that they can go as far as they can in, you know, in this space where they have influence. So I. I want that to go as long as possible, but at the end, I. I don't want them to stay here forever. I would love for both of them to be able to be in the kind of like, loving, happy relationships that everyone else in the church is entitled to. So I'd like them to ride this train as long as they can and then get off when it's no longer feasible for them.
John Dehlin [04:11:15] Kyle?
Kyle Ashworth [04:11:15] Yeah, I absolutely believe in line upon line, precept upon precept. And if Charlie's journey takes him into a relationship with his current boyfriend, then I say more power. Some of the greatest blessings in my life is my dating relationship and eventual marriage to my husband. And I've. I've tried both sides of this aisle. I can tell you the one that was most authentic is the one I'm in now. And I. I hope the very same thing for Charlie. And. And if Ben so chooses that. That path as well, I honor that. If he chooses to stay single and celibate in the church, I honor that as well, because I do see that he's making a positive and beneficial impact in this space.
Kyle Ashworth [04:11:55] And my fear is that at some point we see that same happy photo of Ben in the MTC when he was a teacher. And how do we know that we don't see that same photo today? I. I just hope that Ben knows what his buoys and. And guardrails are to keep him in a happy and healthy space. But I trust Ben, and I believe Ben and I hope in the hope the very best for him.
John Dehlin [04:12:22] Love it. Really quickly shout out to Daniel W M Ward and Susie Q. A couple super chats are coming in, so we just want to call them out and thank them for their support and for donating.
Gerardo Sumano [04:12:34] Gerardo yeah, I think I just agree with everyone.
John Dehlin [04:12:38] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [04:12:38] Yeah.
Julia Sanders [04:12:39] Julia yeah, I just always feel a little sad when I hear people who are in the LGBTQ community and they want to, they choose to be celibate when maybe they don't want to be. And then I am really happy for Charlie and dating this person. And then I really hope that Ben can find happiness. Whether that's whether that is to be celibate or down the road he does decide to date. I just wish them the best of happy, the most happiness.
John Dehlin [04:12:59] Love it. How meaningful is any training without substantial substantive doctrinal or policy changes? And let's just even add an apology on behalf of top church leaders.
Gerardo Sumano [04:13:13] Gerardo not very beneficial unless it's widespread and like, like somehow it happened in
John Dehlin [04:13:20] every state, like top down at one time. Top down.
Gerardo Sumano [04:13:23] Yeah.
John Dehlin [04:13:24] Yeah.
Kyle Ashworth [04:13:24] Greg Prince in an interview I did with him once said, you will know the value of this and you can judge it by the sound of feet leaving the chapel for the very last time. And I believe as more people leave the church, you'll have your answer. I also believe in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established, to borrow Mormonism's favorite phrase. And if more and more people are are speaking this truth, then there is a chance for Mormonism to, to make it through.
Maven [04:13:50] Evan I'm agreeing with Gerardo. Institutionally there's not really much here, but individually, for the people who listen to this and who are taking it in, I think there were individual members and families that their lives may be greatly impacted and forever changed for the good by this. But that's as far as the reach will go, I think for now.
Julia Sanders [04:14:11] Yeah, I 100% agree with that. Like unless until it comes from the top and it's in the manuals and it's in the handbooks, this isn't going to change a whole lot except for maybe the lives of these individuals on a very individual level, which still matters.
John Dehlin [04:14:25] All right, last question. Any predictions, short, medium or long term for the LDS Church and LGBTQ people, including when will same sex marriage if ever be approved?
Gerardo Sumano [04:14:37] Gerardo I have a little bit of a controversial opinion and is shaped by the amazing John Larsen. You can go look at his episode,
John Dehlin [04:14:51] one of his last ones on Mormon expression.
Gerardo Sumano [04:14:53] Mormon expressions. Why the Mormon church will never accept gay marriage. I think we're. We're decades, decades, decades away from the church accepting gay marriage.
John Dehlin [04:15:03] Okay, Kyle.
Kyle Ashworth [04:15:04] I believe within a decade, the church
John Dehlin [04:15:07] will accept same sex marriage.
Kyle Ashworth [04:15:08] Yes.
John Dehlin [04:15:09] All right, Any other predictions?
Kyle Ashworth [04:15:12] I don't.
John Dehlin [04:15:13] What about. What about same sex married couples just being able to hold callings.
Gerardo Sumano [04:15:18] Yeah.
John Dehlin [04:15:18] And not be punished?
Kyle Ashworth [04:15:19] Absolutely.
John Dehlin [04:15:20] How soon?
Kyle Ashworth [04:15:22] I. I would say within three to four years.
John Dehlin [04:15:25] Whoa, Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [04:15:27] At least two or three decades.
John Dehlin [04:15:30] Okay, Maven.
Maven [04:15:31] I'm more along. Gerardo. I just. I can't see it happening, but I really, really want to.
Kyle Ashworth [04:15:38] Yeah, I just want to back up my answer. I've studied the chronology. I've seen where they move and the church. The church has made strides, but this is also. This is a discussion of salvation. Not salvation, eternal salvation. This is a discussion about the church maintaining relevancy. And in a world that is shifting so quickly, in social justice discussions, the church has to make a move, and they will have to pander, and that's what the church will do. They. They will have to give in and at least allow same sex married couples to participate more fully in. In callings and in opportunities within the church.
Kyle Ashworth [04:16:11] Do I believe that eventually means a temple marriage? I don't know that that's even a decade away. And I would side with. With Maven and Gerardo on multiple decades, but at least marriages in the church, I definitely see that within the next five years. Five to ten years, easily. But giving. There. There are Latter Day Saints who are queer, who have callings in select wards and branches throughout Zion. So we're not talking about something that doesn't exist. It exists.
Kyle Ashworth [04:16:36] It's just a matter of when a general authority finds out about it and nixes it. So it happens. And. And it will become more prevalent again as more of it is exposed.
John Dehlin [04:16:45] Okay, Julia.
Julia Sanders [04:16:47] Well, that just made me think there was a. This is kind of on different lines, but there was a sister on my mission who is staunch Lutheran, and she was. Had been going to the Mormon Church for 20 years, and she had callings. So, like, I don't know why that would be different for our LGBTQ couples that come into church. Why not give them callings too? Like, I think that would be great. I. I had opinions that the church would accept gay marriage, and then I listened to her artist opinion a couple days ago, and now I don't know what to think. So I have no idea.
Kyle Ashworth [04:17:12] Let's not forget the creators of the Children's Friend and the Primary program were closeted lesbians. So Louis Felt and May Anderson. So there's hope for Mormonism.
John Dehlin [04:17:25] Really quickly, thank you to Madison Rose for her super chat, to Oregon Ute and to Gavin. Gavin McCune. So many people are writing in to say this was, like, a amazing panel. I agree. I don't think there's anywhere in all of Mormonism where a more thoughtful, compassionate, and informed discussion of the LGBT issues has occurred or is occurring than what happened today with. With you, panel.
Gerardo Sumano [04:17:57] Thank you.
Kyle Ashworth [04:17:58] And I personally, I'm going to make an invitation to Charlie and Ben because I would love to understand what their motives are to sit down and have a discussion like this. I know that that may seem super polarizing to them, but at minimum, I want to offer my platform to them because I do believe in what they're doing. And. And if there's anything I can do from the outside fringes, if that indeed is what the audience that Charlie is interested in, in speaking to, I am absolutely on the outer borders of Zion. I'm on the fringes, and I'm happy to help him help the Latter Day Saints.
John Dehlin [04:18:31] All right, well, that's it. We, you know, four hours and 20 minutes. That's kind of just the norm. Why are you laughing, Maven? Like, nothing. It wasn't me. I don't think it was me.
Kyle Ashworth [04:18:43] No, not at all.
John Dehlin [04:18:45] Yeah, we're like three, maybe three hours. You know, we'll do it in three. Anyway, sorry, Jay. Sorry, Zach. Sorry, Maven's family. Sorry, Marky. Julia.
Kyle Ashworth [04:18:57] And it's late in Missouri. It's a little later there.
Julia Sanders [04:18:59] Yes.
Gerardo Sumano [04:19:00] Julia's partner, too.
John Dehlin [04:19:01] Yeah. Anyway, thank you. Thanks to everyone who's joined us today. Thanks to you. Amazing panel. What a great discussion. Thanks to Ben and Charlie. Keep it up. Thanks to the leaders in this stake in Canada. And let's just. Let's keep being loving and compassionate, optimistic. Let's keep speaking up and speaking out. I love what you said, Kyle. If every. If everyone in the Mormon Church that loves LGBT people or is LGBTQ gets up in sacrament meetings and just talks about how much they love LGBTQ people and. And how much of an ally and supporter they want to be, that would change the church. That's all that's needed.
Kyle Ashworth [04:19:41] Overnight.
John Dehlin [04:19:41] Overnight. What if we just had that and that's actually realistic and within our power and nowadays. I've done some. I've run some math. I've estimated with the large number of Mormon Stories podcast listeners out there alone, not to mention all the different channels, we easily have five to 10 members in every ward in the United States. Who listen either Latter Gay Stories or Mormonism Live or Mormon Stories Podcast or, you know, watch the Tick Tocks or Zelf on the Shelf or whatever. So speak up. Those of you who are still in the church, speak up. Speak out. And now you've got the COVID of this. This of Ben and Charlie and this steak in Canada. You've got this cover and you can just play it really quickly. My friend Bo is donating.
Kyle Ashworth [04:20:24] Hey, Bo.
John Dehlin [04:20:25] I can't wait to have dinner with you and Heather soon. Anyway, thanks to everyone who's joined us today. Please subscribe on YouTube and on Facebook. Please hit the like button. Please share this episode far and wide. Please support us financially, mormonstories gmail.com. please also subscribe and support Latter Gay Stories Podcast. It's a super important platform. Anything you want to say, Kyle, about that?
Kyle Ashworth [04:20:52] No, it's. Other than I. I do appreciate all who participate and this is a. This is a heavy lift for all of us, but this particular topic speaks directly to my audience. And. And I want you to know that whether you're on the inside or outside of of this topic, you're not alone. You're not broken. And your best days are ahead. And we'll continue to do what Mormonism should be doing for you and sharing your stories and allowing you the opportunity to thrive. Not just survive and not just be alive, but to thrive in this space.
John Dehlin [04:21:25] I love it. All right, thanks, everyone. Stay tuned again for another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Julia, thanks for joining us from Missouri. We loved having you.
Julia Sanders [04:21:38] Thank you.
John Dehlin [04:21:39] Your Mormon Stories debut, let's have you back. You're fantastic. Maven. It was great to have you again on the panel. You too. As always, Gerardo and Kyle. And thanks, everybody. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
Please join us for a panel discussion regarding a recent two-day LDS multi-Stake training in Canada focused on understanding LGBTQ members, led by faithful gay Mormon podcasters Charlie Bird and Ben Schilaty (hosts of “Questions From the Closet” podcast).
Is the Church losing too many members over its antagonism towards LGBTQ people and rights? Does this training represent a “Gay Mormon Rescue,” reminiscent of the Swedish Rescue and Boise Rescue from previous years? What aspects of this training are groundbreaking and should be celebrated? Is this a local/grass-roots effort or is it sanctioned by top LDS Church leadership?
Panel Members:
- Kyle Ashworth
- Julia Sanders
- Gerardo Sumano
- Maven
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Show Notes:
Related Mormon Stories Content:
- Panel Members
- Rescues
- 980-982: Remembering the Swedish Rescue, From Those Who Attended
- 983: Swedish Rescue Audio
- 321-322: Denver Snuffer – A Progressive, Fundamentalist, Non-Polygamist Mormon Lawyer Who Claims to Have Seen Christ
- Bonus: “The Boise Rescue” – Elder Oaks and Richard Turley Speak in Boise on June 13th, 2015
- 1499: Mormon British Rescue? – The Britvengers React
- 1543: Alpine Utah Mormon Youth Rescue with Brad Wilcox
- 400: Top 5 Myths and Truths about Why Committed Mormons Leave the Church
- Understanding Mormon Disbelief Survey – Results and Analysis
- 1382: How Mormonism Groomed us For, and Can Help Save us From Trumpism / Fascism
- 1484: The Gay Mormon Reformation
Other resources:
- Analyzing.Mormonism (@analyzing.mormonism) | TikTok
- On The Record | An LDS Chronology of LGBTQ+ Messaging – Latter Gay Stories Podcast
Thumbnail Credits: Main image of Elder Holland by Trent Nelson of the Salt Lake Tribune; Main image of Elder Oaks by Trent Nelson of the Salt Lake Tribune; Background image of the Salt Lake Temple by William Henry Jackson (public domain)
One Response
Charlie Bird secretly dating and not being punished when other are excommunicated or disciplined for far less is really insulting. How can Charlie be a part of a rescue when he is simultaneously causing families to shame their children for not following Charlie’s proscribed way, while also not even following his own proscribed way.