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Building the CASE for Affirmation
What Are We All About?

by David Melson & George Cole
Originally published in the February 2009 issue of Affinity

When someone asks you what Affirmation is, what do say? How do you explain Affirmation? Are we a political, social, religious-oriented organization? The 2009 Executive Committee in its first meeting decided that we needed to determine just who we are, why we are here, and where we are going before we can be effective in the things that we hope to accomplish. We identified four areas to help guide us in our tasks:

Communication

We like and feel comfortable with people and places and situations that we know and that are familiar. Humans tend to hate what we fear, and we often fear that which we don't know. Most people who fear or hate gay people do so because they have never known very many gays very well, and they don't know better. In close-knit Mormon communities, that situation is magnified. So when church members are told that being gay is a sin, or that you must support Prop 8 to save the world from Satan, they simply don't know better. Gay Mormons can easily believe there's no one to talk with about being gay and LDS; they can easily believe they are doomed to be outcasts; and they can easily lose their self-esteem. Affirmation is here to foster and to create communication – between gay people, between gay people and their families, between the LGBT community and the Church, and among our own.

Advocacy

Affirmation is there to speak out. To bring gay Latter-day Saints together to speak as one. To climb together, high onto the mountain top, where our rainbow banner will be unfurled. Much of the homophobia that we endure in our society each day is brought about by well-intended organized religion, and, as was recently demonstrated in California, by our LDS brothers and sisters, most of whom have no idea that their actions and ignorance have caused such hurt. Affirmation's advocacy actions include not only educating the public via our website, but also participating in initiatives that promote GLBT rights, speaking out through the media, engaging with the LDS church and its leaders, and responding to anti-gay rhetoric and actions carried out by the LDS Church.

Safe Spaces

A gay teen who is out or who is considering coming out to her or his bishop or LDS family has good reason to feel that she or he is not safe; sometimes there is fear of physical aggression, and very often of emotional or spiritual abuse. Similarly, a gay couple with a small child in many places in this country cannot trust that their child is going to be safe.

Affirmation is dedicated to making our world, and particularly our Church (or former Church) a safe space for all. This includes not being bullied, ridiculed, condemned, or cast out for one's sexual orientation. In the meantime, our conferences, our chapter meetings, and our homes will provide a safe space for those of God's children who find themselves to be both gay and Mormon.

Ending the Damage

Suicides. Lesbian or gay teens forced onto the street. Families torn apart when a parent or sibling comes out as gay. Young children being made to feel second rate because they have two moms or two dads. Millions of dollars, that could have been spent to help those in need, wasted to scare people into believing that gays are "out to destroy your family." Teaching homophobia as a family value. These reasons and others are poisoning our world, they have damaged or destroyed too many lives, and they must stop. That many people in the Church never intended the damage that resulted from their actions only speaks to the failure of the Church to teach the values of the Gospel. Affirmation must and will fight to end the damage.

These are the four critical parts of our mission the encompass who we are and what we seek: communication, advocacy, safe spaces, and ending the damage caused by the Church's policies and rhetoric. Communication. Advocacy. Safe spaces. Ending the damage. Those four points make up the CASE Affirmation is making with the Church and the community at large. To put it another way: "Affirmation seeks to improve communication and advocate for safe spaces in the Church and in the global community that will end the damage caused by misguided policies towards gay people and their families."