Being a part of a church where I feel like I don’t belong as I am is really difficult for me. I am welcome to be a full member if I stay single and celibate for the rest of my mortal life. This option breaks my heart because I can’t imagine coming home to an empty house every day. I know you can find love in other places besides a relationship but I just don’t want to come home to an empty house every single day of my life especially as someone who struggles with mental health and thrives off building relationships with others. I am also welcome to be a full member if I decide to enter into a mixed orientation marriage. This means that I marry a man even though I am a lesbian and not attracted to men at all. This is a very difficult option because marriage is difficult already. It’s gotta be even more difficult if you are not attracted to your partner – if even the basic things such as holding hands, kissing, or being emotionally intimate are difficult. These are things that I don’t feel are feasible in my life right now which is why it’s so painful that my church will make me an apostate and excommunicate me if I decide to follow my heart and marry a woman. If I marry someone who I truly love, am attracted to, and want to spend eternity with, I get excommunicated. The church preaches about how the family is everything and I want a family. I want to be a wife, mother, and teacher. However, with excommunication, there are certain things that I will be asked not to do such as taking the sacrament or going to the Temple. It’s hard because people in my religious community don’t understand why I would give the church up for love and belonging which I might add is a basic human need. However, it’s also hard because there are some people in the LGBTQ+ community who can’t understand why I’d want to be religious. I love both communities and I want to belong to both communities but I don’t see a way to mesh those two lives together especially if I’m excommunicated for marrying the person I love.
I made a painful decision to start stepping away a bit from the church. I decided to stop taking the sacrament. I also stopped going to the Temple. I made this decision because if I get excommunicated one day, these are things that I will not be able to do. Personally, I feel like it is less painful if I made the decision to take these things out of my life rather than having these things ripped away from me. I still like to attend church on Sunday’s because I like having a place to worship and be spiritual with others but sometimes I miss because it’s too painful or anxiety producing. I understand that church isn’t for everyone and that’s not what I’m advocating. I’m just speaking from my personal experience. I love and respect everyone’s decision to stay or go. I can only hope people will respect my future decision and will still love me regardless. Sometimes I feel like love is conditional in the church. I feel like some people just love me if I stay or do the things “I’m supposed to do”. I know that not everyone is like that but I know enough people that are like that. I know that my God loves me the way that I am. I know that He did not make a mistake with me being gay. I know that He has a plan for me which includes happiness. My happiness includes being married to a woman and starting a family with a woman. I just wish that the church could understand that. I wish that they loved whatever family I choose to have in the future without excluding me from membership. I wish they could love me as I am. I don’t want to completely leave. There’s something that draws me to church but there’s also something that draws me to love. More than anything in this world, I want to love and I want to be loved.
Colorful Closet 