Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons

Sara Jordan

The Odyssey

First Place, 2003 Affirmation Writing Contest

Oct. 2003
By Sara Jordan

I walk in the foothills of the world's highest mountains, the Himalayas. I come to experience the world and myself, beyond the confines of identity. Here, in India, who knows, who cares, my name, national origin, religious background, profession or sexual orientation. The tiny, brown baby monkeys dancing in front of me, with their bushy eyebrows and long tails, certainly do not. They chase each other across fallen timber and ground pipe. I watch. What kind of monkeys are these? The tiny monkey seems lost. Where is his mother?

My "watching meditation," is interrupted by the Tibetan gong-like voice of a former lover. "You little monkeys," I hear her say, and I see her face repeating the phrase. She uses this term a lot, as an affectionate reference to her precocious cats or rambunctious middle school-aged boys. Does she have any idea how precocious and rambunctious little monkeys can be? I'm delighted to witness this for myself and to make the connection between actual monkeys and the phrase "you little monkeys."

I want her to be with me now, and I don't. Our half-year relationship languishes. Unpleasant memories pop into my head. Irritated, I look around at randomly tossed debris. Why do people litter? Do they not see how it blights the external landscape? I note that my "drunken monkey mind," as Swami Vivekananda calls it, is in full swing. Where is the peace that these mountains promise?

I come naturally by the habit of questioning and writing. My father, a social scientist and his father, one-time editor of the Deseret News, both examined and published about the worlds in which they found themselves. My father's mother wrote a society column for and about Mormons in southern California and Utah. My mother is a letter writer and loves history.

My questioning and writing are different from theirs, though. Whereas my parents and grandparents established themselves as practical people who seemed to accept the opportunities and difficulties of their lives, my questioning challenges the assumptions they took for granted -- gender roles, marriage, career, the sanctity of institutions and are more existential in nature. Like the Mormon poetess Eliza R. Snow, I too have often felt like "a stranger here."

As a teenager, I began to notice a contradiction between Mormon rhetoric and my life. While I rebelled against some of the standards of church and family, I continued to seek illumination about the human experience through the lens of Mormonism. In September 1993, that changed.

I live in a shotgun style duplex in New Orleans. I sweep the hardwood floor of the middle room. It has pocket doors of solid wood that slide shut for privacy. Its walls are about 14 feet high and painted Pepto-Bismol pink. I've made it my bedroom. I like the way the walls turned out. The comforter matches. The dust ruffle and pillows add a soft touch. Will Pam like it? Should we even try living together again? We've been together for almost four years, off and on. I haven't decided yet if our problem is my religious baggage, which she as a lapsed Catholic doesn't share, or the relationship itself.

In the background, "All Things Considered" blares from the radio. I am glad that I made my donation to the station, not that the $5.00 makes that much of a difference but it was fun, easy to pledge and I felt so grown up doing it. I enjoy the moment until I hear, "Earlier today, the Mormon Church announced that six of its members have been excommunicated." What? "From Salt Lake City, comes this report…" I sweep absent-mindedly, slowing. "…Intellectuals, feminists, homosexuals…" My stomach turns. I sit on the end of the freshly made bed. If the church no longer allows people to research and publish on controversial topics, if the church no longer allows women to investigate their personal and collective experiences, if the church is rejecting its members as they try to make sense of attraction to the same gender, then where do I fit in?

Pam and I move to Salt Lake City, Utah, the administrative and cultural center of the Mormon Church. We have decided to make another go of it and she is curious about this strange world I come from. Bolstered by her support, I embark on a journey to learn more about the contradictions of, and sub-cultures within, the dominant Mormon culture. Increasingly, I see sexuality and spirituality as integrally woven parts of the whole human tapestry, not two disparate threads as I had believed. Several years later, our time together ends.

I create a home of my own, reestablish ties with my extended family, continue in a career path and long to explore other geographical and spiritual worlds. As time passes with me still living in Salt Lake City, I start to wonder if I am becoming root bound. Perhaps establishing an identity in a place is a prerequisite to moving beyond its confines.

Finally, I feel ready to travel abroad.

For months, I plan. India, via Thailand, is the destination. A week before I leave, I receive several letters of affection and best wishes from people close to me. I place them carefully in my suitcase for those anticipated moments of loneliness. My mother sends a card. She expresses her love for me and I am touched. She also calls me to repentance. I want her to fully accept me however I choose to be -- gay or straight, Mormon or not -- and leave the card at home.

I fly to Asia, alone. To those who question my path, I repeat words of Amelia Earhart: "Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. I do it because I want to do it." Having left the Mormon Church, work, friends, and family, I am ready for whatever is to come. I wear a t-shirt, a gift from a friend. It features Amelia Earhart smiling, leaning on the wing of her twin-engine plane with the words, "Courage is the price life exacts for granting peace. Women Fly."

The train moves slowly as it leaves the station somewhere between Delhi and Gaya. Waiting impatiently to cross the tracks is a long line of trucks with ear-piercing horns, bicycles and their mostly male riders crammed across the width of the road, a few cars, cows, goats, pigs, water buffaloes, dogs, chickens, donkeys, three-wheeled auto and bicycle rickshaws, and people on foot. As I settle into my space on the barely padded, vinyl covered bench, I notice the peanut shells on the floor. Who is responsible for keeping the train clean?

A tiny, deeply wrinkled woman, dressed in a light-pink sari, walks through the compartment. With an almost chanting voice she advertises popcorn wrapped in a cone-like bag made of newspaper. She carries her supply in a worn metal bucket. Popcorn is a universal food? That's an efficient use of paper. What is the environmental situation like here?

I am one of only a few people seated in my second-class sleeper compartment, the one the travel books recommend for budget-conscious backpackers on overnight trips. I hope there is no double booking so that I don't have to share the berth tonight. I think about how I'll spend the hours as we head east across India. I could write; I am many days behind in my journal.

My attention turns to the window; it is half shut. I open it. We pass plot after plot of green and fallow land. A woman in a hot pink sari squats over a neatly tilled row of dirt. A dozen white birds fly over her head. I am mesmerized and enchanted with the visual display I see as I sit in the moving train. The writing can wait. "Take photos with your mind," I tell myself.

I observe single farmers walking on the rise of land between plots; cows, attached to wooden ploughs, turning the hardened soil; villages of dirt houses with drying dung patties on the exterior walls; women, children, and men balancing on their heads huge, tightly wrapped bundles of sticks called faggots; women washing clothes and people bathing near rivers and at standpipes; school girls dressed in navy blue pinafores. At dusk, the smell of burning wood wafts into the train through the open window. It's getting chilly. Before long, flickers of light from random fires, built for heat and cooking, dot the vista. What would the villagers think about our hobby of camping? What we do for entertainment, they do for survival.

A man seated opposite me stares at my short, blonde-tipped hair. Our feet almost touch in the tight floor space. He looks at my shoes. They are low-cut hiking boots. I wish I'd brought sandals. Another man asks if I am married. How many times a day do I have to answer this question? What would it be like if I were? Would the presence of a ring make a difference? I could lie and say that I have a family at home, but then what explanation would I give for leaving them? Too messy. "No!" I reply. How would I even begin to describe life as a lesbian? "Not even love marriage?" he continues. Interesting how foreign the concept of romantic love is here. Though coldly utilitarian, arranged marriage can make much more sense. I prepare for a discussion.

When it doesn't come, I prepare for bed and notice that there are only men in the compartment. Thank goodness I am on the highest bunk. I have no chain to secure my things. What is the bare minimum of sleeping gear that I need to get through the night? I get out my sleeping bag and leave everything else packed.

Lying there, I review my recent adventures: reading the walls of the sanctuary where Mother Teresa is entombed in Calcutta and being smothered by hugs from the toddlers who live at one of the Children's Homes she established; visiting the Taj Mahal, the shrine to romantic love and to the cultural expectation of women to bear children even at the cost of their lives; attending a traditionally-arranged Hindu marriage and watching as the bride, sobbing in the arms of her mother, is escorted from her parent's home to begin life as a wife in her husband's home; spending Eid, the last day of Ramadan, at a large Moslem mosque as Christian America threatens to attack Iraq; entering the Sikhs' Golden Temple in Amritsar, and hearing the vocal ragas and instrumental music electronically piped out from the inner sanctum; standing with Tibetan refugees, who have crossed the Himalayas on foot to escape the brutal occupation of their land, as they wait for the Dalai Lama to return to Dharamsala; joining pious Hindus on New Year's Day in Hardiwar, where they bathe in the holy water of the Ganges river.

I am en route to Bodh Gaya, home of the Bodhi tree where the Buddha gained enlightenment over 2500 years ago. The Dalai Lama is scheduled to lead an eight-day teaching. The Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns with shaved heads and blood-red robes; resettled Tibetans and a handful of Westerners on the train are also making their way there.

Near my destination, an Indian man shifts to face me and asks in English, "So what are your thoughts about God?" I am taken aback. What do I think? I reflect on the spiritual teachings of Mormonism and other faith traditions and what I have learned through meditation. The words of Thomas Moore come to mind: "to live from a deep place is to go back or down to that origin of your life that is not in the least explained by the autobiographical myths." Whether God is an external Being, a force in the universe or some essence within each of us, I don't know yet and tell the man so. I feel the soil around my life's roots begin to shake loose and I know that I will continue to move beyond the confines that restrict my soul.