Queer Gnosis

By Troy Williams

The following presentation was given during a panel discussion at the 2007 Sunstone Theological Symposium on August 10 in Salt Lake City.  The panel was titled, Kissing the Damned: Embracing a Queer-Positive Sexuality in the Heart of Zion.

I’ve been thinking about gay shame in a Mormon context – and specifically how gay shame has become embedded in the discourse that shapes our lives.  And by that I mean the ways in which we tell our stories.  So often the stories detail rejection from family members, mocking and gay bashing from peers, reparative therapies and excommunications and in many cases a lonely sense of nihilism and internalized self-loathing.  Suicide attempts become the endpoint of despair.

These stories are real. They exist in many people’s lives.  But we are here today to share a new story.  We here to tell the stories of men and women who have come in one way or another out of Mormon culture, and have been able to embrace a queer-positive world-view.

Despite what the Church and so many other anti-gay activists have to say, queers can passionately embrace their sexuality, fully enter into the gay lifestyle and live happy, successful, joyful and yes, spiritual lives. 

Now I was not always the self-actualized and confidant man that you see standing before you.  I was once a timid kid filled with fear, self-hatred and sexual anxiety.

   
I grew up Mormon, and returned with honor from my mission.   And let me tell you – I was expert at

repressing my sexuality! In fact I was absolutely terrified of my sexuality!  I read Spencer W. Kimball’s
book The Miracle of Forgiveness – and he made it very clear that if you entered into the gay lifestyle, the next step was going to be sex with animals!  Now as a boy you must understand I was especially sensitive to this because I grew up on a farm.  And when you are taught to literally believe everything the prophets say, well, you can see my dilemma.  So I afraid of my nascent sexuality because I thought that if I
acknowledged it, or expressed it – my natural desires would overwhelm and destroy me.

But at eight years old I remember thinking – why can’t two boys fall in love and get married? I have felt gay desire since I was a little kid. And with that I have also felt a deep connection to that unseen presence that many people call, “God”.  These two strong impulses were entwined together.  They co-existed in my childhood but were severed in adolescence.

I became tremendously skilled at shutting myself off.  I turned off my body – turned off potential lovers – turned off my creativity.  And in a very real sense I turned off access to my soul.  But all of that energy had to go somewhere right? 

Freud was right about that whole sublimation thing – I came off my mission and was then faced with the expectation to get married!  So I became a turbo Mormon – and by that I mean a real freak. In order to prove my righteousness I followed the teachings of then prophet Ezra Taft Benson to the patriotic extreme and started volunteering for The Eagle Forum. I had read all of Benson’s talks supporting the John Birch Society – and well, Eagle Forum was the closest thing I could find at the time.  Yes, it’s true – I, Troy Williams, that apostate super fag producer of liberal talk radio, used to hang out in the home of Gayle Ruzicka! 

Well it’s funny where self-loathing will take you. 

And thankfully after a very short while I just couldn’t fly high with the Eagle Forum. I didn’t like the person I was becoming in their nest.

But still I continued to sublimate my libido in other ways.  I once fasted for five days with no food to know if the truth claims of Mormonism were true. Five days! Who does that?  I mean true — that was way back before The Secret, and I didn’t know how else to attract my desires – but still.  It was a bit over-the-top.  But hey it worked.  Because every spiritual witness — every gut instinct kept screaming at me: Get the hell out of the Church! Your emotional and spiritual survival depends on it!   

I have never connected romantically with women.  And I thought — oh my god, I am going to die without ever knowing what it’s like to fall in love. That scared me.  I don’t care what the Church says about life-long celibacy – you simply cannot mature and grow emotionally without physical and sexual intimacy. Prolonged sexual abstinence stunts your emotional growth.  Repression messes with your mind.  Sharing our bodies is vital to our psychological, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.  And without the fulfillment of this primal basic need I was becoming a painful bitter wreck of a human being.

And I thought to hell with this – I want to experience love.  So I excommunicated the Church from my life.  I removed my name from the records.  And yeah – it was sad. I loved the Church – and in a very real sense I owe my life to the Mormons.  My dad was a convert who met my mom in sacrament meeting.  They married in the temple and conceived me!  Without Joseph, Brigham, The Book of Mormon, the pioneers and all those missionaries – I wouldn’t even exist today. 

So one day I thought to myself – I’m going to try out this whole gay thing.

And soon after I met my first boyfriend.  He was a tall, handsome, gentle guy who I met in college.  We became friends and started hanging out – and then we started “hanging out” – which led to making out, which resulted in my first full-on sexual experience with a man – and at long last, my first love.  I was sixteen again for the first time.   

I noticed something profoundly different about this guy.  He wasn’t Mormon.  He didn’t have a religious background. His parents accepted him.  He told me that when he came out to his parents his dad said to him, “son, you will have many obstacles in your life because of your orientation but we will not be one of them.”  He was the first gay man I ever met who actually loved being gay – and he never wanted to change.  If there were some pill to make you straight – he wouldn’t take it.  He saw being gay as a gift – and he taught me how to deeply and truly love that which I feared so much.

And the joy I felt when we were together — holding him, sleeping with him, loving him was so powerful and sublime.  For the first time in my life, I felt authentic. 

The things within us that are the most terrifying are often the things within us that are the most powerful.

Joseph Campbell said: “My definition of a devil is a god who has not been recognized.  That is to say, it is a power in you to which you have not given expression, and you push it back. And then, like all repressed energy, it builds up and becomes completely dangerous.”  My inner demon was dangerous. But facing it, embracing it, loving it – was life transforming. As Prospero says of Caliban, "This thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine".

Jesus is quoted in The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas as saying, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

And when I hear of gay kids committing suicide – or married men having risky gay sex on the down low – or gay men strung out on crystal, I know that can be true. 

Since coming out and embracing my authentic queer self – everything in my life has changed.  I’ve become a talk-radio producer working for social justice.  I’ve started a film career.  I’ve become a columnist writing in various papers. I am living my life with passion and conviction – and I am happy. 

So how do I react when I read the Church’s new pamphlet, God Loveth His Children? It’s simply not my reality.  The Church requires gay people to live celibate lives to be included in full fellowship. They want docile and obedient eunuchs in their pews. No thank you. I don’t want to change the Church to accommodate me. They can require their members to do whatever they want.  I don’t care.  It’s only when the Church enters the political realm and actively works to restrict our civil liberties, then I will raise my voice.

Well the Church claims the right to speak out on moral issues – like marriage.  For example, Brigham Young, Ezra Taft Benson and other general authorities once taught that black people should never marry white people.  Bruce R. McConkie wrote:

"Caste Systems have their root and origin in the Gospel itself, and when they operate according to the divine decree the resultant restrictions and segregation is right and proper before the Lord. Ham and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry."
(Mormon Doctrine, 1958, p 107-108)

When the Church today uses Christ’s Gospel to justify their attacks on gay marriage — I always remember these words, and the words of so many more like them. 

When the Church pushes out vibrant writers, authors, painters, intellectuals and philosophers, it’s ultimately their loss. With so many creative mavericks exiled from the fold, LDS culture suffers considerably. Mormon music, Mormon art, Mormon theology and scholarship even Mormon cuisine have all become painfully bland and uninteresting.  This is why retention is such a massive problem.  In the 21st Century, misogynistic homophobic patriarchy no longer inspires the masses. 

I don’t want a vanilla flavored religion.  I want a faith and relationship with God that is rich chocolate with rainbow colored swirls and lots of nuts. I want a theology that denounces war and rallies for peace and a congregation that sings for social justice.  I desire a spirituality that takes me to the edge of life – that expands my capacity to love the outsider – and that celebrates the beauty of intimate queer sexuality.  I desire a faith that can include and embrace all people.

The Church leadership admits that they don’t understand the origins of homosexuality – they don’t know how to make a gay person straight.  They don’t seem to know much about the issue.  When it comes to the gays, they are blind guides who use pejorative words like “affliction”, “temptation”, or “inclination” to describe homosexuality.  But I use adjectives like “joyful”, “creative”, “gifted”, and “blessed”.  I love my life.  And I believe queers are here to share our gifts with the world. This is the story that the Church is not telling you! Gay is Good and yes – queer sexuality is a gift from God.

And queer youth are emerging with more confidence, more strength and more attitude than ever before.  And they have a big vision for the planet.  Together, we are envisioning a new future – a new world – not just for gay people – but for all marginalized people.  We are working to expand the blessings of this nation to include and embrace the least of these. 

I talked about my inner work to embrace that which I feared.  As within so without.  Imagine what could happen if Mormons, this nation and the entire planet where to embrace that which we collectively feared: women, gays, blacks, Muslims, Arabs, undocumented Latinos, polygamists, apostates and on and on and on – I believe our fear would be transformed into our power and we would truly create a new world of peace and justice.  Our weary war-torn and polluted little earth desperately needs us all to raise our consciousness and embrace a much larger and grander world-view. 

As an adult I feel again the steady intertwining of my spiritual and sexual desires.  They are wrapped together like a lover in an erotic sacred embrace.  We must all awaken our body and soul to this sensual-sexual-spiritual world.  We must love the condemned and embrace our deepest, darkest secret fears. 

I’ve become friends with Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls. Her queer anthem Fugitive sums up so much of what I feel –

I’m harboring a fugitive – defector of a kind, and she lives in my soul and drinks of my wine – and I’d give my last breath to keep us alive.  I stood without clothes, danced in the sand, I was aching with freedom, kissing the damned, and I said remember this is how it should be.

By Troy Williams

The following presentation was given during a panel discussion at the 2007 Sunstone Theological Symposium on August 10 in Salt Lake City.  The panel was titled, Kissing the Damned: Embracing a Queer-Positive Sexuality in the Heart of Zion.

I’ve been thinking about gay shame in a Mormon context – and specifically how gay shame has become embedded in the discourse that shapes our lives.  And by that I mean the ways in which we tell our stories.  So often the stories detail rejection from family members, mocking and gay bashing from peers, reparative therapies and excommunications and in many cases a lonely sense of nihilism and internalized self-loathing.  Suicide attempts become the endpoint of despair.

These stories are real. They exist in many people’s lives.  But we are here today to share a new story.  We here to tell the stories of men and women who have come in one way or another out of Mormon culture, and have been able to embrace a queer-positive world-view.

Despite what the Church and so many other anti-gay activists have to say, queers can passionately embrace their sexuality, fully enter into the gay lifestyle and live happy, successful, joyful and yes, spiritual lives. 

Now I was not always the self-actualized and confidant man that you see standing before you.  I was once a timid kid filled with fear, self-hatred and sexual anxiety.

   
I grew up Mormon, and returned with honor from my mission.   And let me tell you – I was expert at

repressing my sexuality! In fact I was absolutely terrified of my sexuality!  I read Spencer W. Kimball’s
book The Miracle of Forgiveness – and he made it very clear that if you entered into the gay lifestyle, the next step was going to be sex with animals!  Now as a boy you must understand I was especially sensitive to this because I grew up on a farm.  And when you are taught to literally believe everything the prophets say, well, you can see my dilemma.  So I afraid of my nascent sexuality because I thought that if I
acknowledged it, or expressed it – my natural desires would overwhelm and destroy me.

But at eight years old I remember thinking – why can’t two boys fall in love and get married? I have felt gay desire since I was a little kid. And with that I have also felt a deep connection to that unseen presence that many people call, “God”.  These two strong impulses were entwined together.  They co-existed in my childhood but were severed in adolescence.

I became tremendously skilled at shutting myself off.  I turned off my body – turned off potential lovers – turned off my creativity.  And in a very real sense I turned off access to my soul.  But all of that energy had to go somewhere right? 

Freud was right about that whole sublimation thing – I came off my mission and was then faced with the expectation to get married!  So I became a turbo Mormon – and by that I mean a real freak. In order to prove my righteousness I followed the teachings of then prophet Ezra Taft Benson to the patriotic extreme and started volunteering for The Eagle Forum. I had read all of Benson’s talks supporting the John Birch Society – and well, Eagle Forum was the closest thing I could find at the time.  Yes, it’s true – I, Troy Williams, that apostate super fag producer of liberal talk radio, used to hang out in the home of Gayle Ruzicka! 

Well it’s funny where self-loathing will take you. 

And thankfully after a very short while I just couldn’t fly high with the Eagle Forum. I didn’t like the person I was becoming in their nest.

But still I continued to sublimate my libido in other ways.  I once fasted for five days with no food to know if the truth claims of Mormonism were true. Five days! Who does that?  I mean true — that was way back before The Secret, and I didn’t know how else to attract my desires – but still.  It was a bit over-the-top.  But hey it worked.  Because every spiritual witness — every gut instinct kept screaming at me: Get the hell out of the Church! Your emotional and spiritual survival depends on it!   

I have never connected romantically with women.  And I thought — oh my god, I am going to die without ever knowing what it’s like to fall in love. That scared me.  I don’t care what the Church says about life-long celibacy – you simply cannot mature and grow emotionally without physical and sexual intimacy. Prolonged sexual abstinence stunts your emotional growth.  Repression messes with your mind.  Sharing our bodies is vital to our psychological, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.  And without the fulfillment of this primal basic need I was becoming a painful bitter wreck of a human being.

And I thought to hell with this – I want to experience love.  So I excommunicated the Church from my life.  I removed my name from the records.  And yeah – it was sad. I loved the Church – and in a very real sense I owe my life to the Mormons.  My dad was a convert who met my mom in sacrament meeting.  They married in the temple and conceived me!  Without Joseph, Brigham, The Book of Mormon, the pioneers and all those missionaries – I wouldn’t even exist today. 

So one day I thought to myself – I’m going to try out this whole gay thing.

And soon after I met my first boyfriend.  He was a tall, handsome, gentle guy who I met in college.  We became friends and started hanging out – and then we started “hanging out” – which led to making out, which resulted in my first full-on sexual experience with a man – and at long last, my first love.  I was sixteen again for the first time.   

I noticed something profoundly different about this guy.  He wasn’t Mormon.  He didn’t have a religious background. His parents accepted him.  He told me that when he came out to his parents his dad said to him, “son, you will have many obstacles in your life because of your orientation but we will not be one of them.”  He was the first gay man I ever met who actually loved being gay – and he never wanted to change.  If there were some pill to make you straight – he wouldn’t take it.  He saw being gay as a gift – and he taught me how to deeply and truly love that which I feared so much.

And the joy I felt when we were together — holding him, sleeping with him, loving him was so powerful and sublime.  For the first time in my life, I felt authentic. 

The things within us that are the most terrifying are often the things within us that are the most powerful.

Joseph Campbell said: “My definition of a devil is a god who has not been recognized.  That is to say, it is a power in you to which you have not given expression, and you push it back. And then, like all repressed energy, it builds up and becomes completely dangerous.”  My inner demon was dangerous. But facing it, embracing it, loving it – was life transforming. As Prospero says of Caliban, "This thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine".

Jesus is quoted in The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas as saying, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

And when I hear of gay kids committing suicide – or married men having risky gay sex on the down low – or gay men strung out on crystal, I know that can be true. 

Since coming out and embracing my authentic queer self – everything in my life has changed.  I’ve become a talk-radio producer working for social justice.  I’ve started a film career.  I’ve become a columnist writing in various papers. I am living my life with passion and conviction – and I am happy. 

So how do I react when I read the Church’s new pamphlet, God Loveth His Children? It’s simply not my reality.  The Church requires gay people to live celibate lives to be included in full fellowship. They want docile and obedient eunuchs in their pews. No thank you. I don’t want to change the Church to accommodate me. They can require their members to do whatever they want.  I don’t care.  It’s only when the Church enters the political realm and actively works to restrict our civil liberties, then I will raise my voice.

Well the Church claims the right to speak out on moral issues – like marriage.  For example, Brigham Young, Ezra Taft Benson and other general authorities once taught that black people should never marry white people.  Bruce R. McConkie wrote:

"Caste Systems have their root and origin in the Gospel itself, and when they operate according to the divine decree the resultant restrictions and segregation is right and proper before the Lord. Ham and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry."
(Mormon Doctrine, 1958, p 107-108)

When the Church today uses Christ’s Gospel to justify their attacks on gay marriage — I always remember these words, and the words of so many more like them. 

When the Church pushes out vibrant writers, authors, painters, intellectuals and philosophers, it’s ultimately their loss. With so many creative mavericks exiled from the fold, LDS culture suffers considerably. Mormon music, Mormon art, Mormon theology and scholarship even Mormon cuisine have all become painfully bland and uninteresting.  This is why retention is such a massive problem.  In the 21st Century, misogynistic homophobic patriarchy no longer inspires the masses. 

I don’t want a vanilla flavored religion.  I want a faith and relationship with God that is rich chocolate with rainbow colored swirls and lots of nuts. I want a theology that denounces war and rallies for peace and a congregation that sings for social justice.  I desire a spirituality that takes me to the edge of life – that expands my capacity to love the outsider – and that celebrates the beauty of intimate queer sexuality.  I desire a faith that can include and embrace all people.

The Church leadership admits that they don’t understand the origins of homosexuality – they don’t know how to make a gay person straight.  They don’t seem to know much about the issue.  When it comes to the gays, they are blind guides who use pejorative words like “affliction”, “temptation”, or “inclination” to describe homosexuality.  But I use adjectives like “joyful”, “creative”, “gifted”, and “blessed”.  I love my life.  And I believe queers are here to share our gifts with the world. This is the story that the Church is not telling you! Gay is Good and yes – queer sexuality is a gift from God.

And queer youth are emerging with more confidence, more strength and more attitude than ever before.  And they have a big vision for the planet.  Together, we are envisioning a new future – a new world – not just for gay people – but for all marginalized people.  We are working to expand the blessings of this nation to include and embrace the least of these. 

I talked about my inner work to embrace that which I feared.  As within so without.  Imagine what could happen if Mormons, this nation and the entire planet where to embrace that which we collectively feared: women, gays, blacks, Muslims, Arabs, undocumented Latinos, polygamists, apostates and on and on and on – I believe our fear would be transformed into our power and we would truly create a new world of peace and justice.  Our weary war-torn and polluted little earth desperately needs us all to raise our consciousness and embrace a much larger and grander world-view. 

As an adult I feel again the steady intertwining of my spiritual and sexual desires.  They are wrapped together like a lover in an erotic sacred embrace.  We must all awaken our body and soul to this sensual-sexual-spiritual world.  We must love the condemned and embrace our deepest, darkest secret fears. 

I’ve become friends with Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls. Her queer anthem Fugitive sums up so much of what I feel –

I’m harboring a fugitive – defector of a kind, and she lives in my soul and drinks of my wine – and I’d give my last breath to keep us alive.  I stood without clothes, danced in the sand, I was aching with freedom, kissing the damned, and I said remember this is how it should be.