A Step Backwards? Or a Cautious Step Forward?

The Church has done another revision to the General Handbook regarding queer people at Church. The response online has been negative, categorizing the change as political suppression and a "Don't Say Gay" ban for all church meetings. For the text in questions, it's currently available under 38.1.1 Attendance at Church Meetings:

Those who attend [church meetings] should avoid disruptions or distractions contrary to the worship of other purposes of the meeting. All age and behavior requirements of different Church meetings and events should be respected. That requires refraining from overt romantic behavior and from dress or grooming that causes distraction. It also precludes making political statements or speaking of sexual orientation or other personal characteristics in a way that distracts from meetings focused on the Savior.

There is a lot of emphasis on the first half of the last sentence. I think it's important not to ignore the second half of the sentence here. This isn't Don't Say Gay at church. This is a reminder not to do anything that "detracts from meetings focused on the Savior." I think it's important to unpack what that means and what it doesn't mean.

I have been in many Church meetings where sexual orientation was mentioned—usually in relation to friends and family members—where it was perfectly appropriate and no one complained, including the more conservative members of the audience.

I've only been to one where the person was removed. It was a testimony meeting in a ward in rural Delaware. There was one family who consistently used the pulpit to parrot talking points from conservative talk radio and political ideology. They had a son with autism who decided to get up one Sunday and repeat what he heard at home. He didn't get up to talk about the Family Proclamation or families. He just started fomenting the homophobic vitriol he heard at home about gay people. The bishop immediately shut it down. He was told to go sit down and there was an unpleasant conversation in his office afterwards.

We can talk about how it's impossible to separate politics from religious beliefs. This is true. I think it's still possible, and not too much to ask, for people to maintain some level of decorum at the pulpit in how we talk about those beliefs. I live in one of the most ferociously conservative areas in the Church, and have for over a decade now. Even our members understand the delicate balance of maintaining political neutrality and self-expressions of identity and belief. It's not too much to ask for that mindfulness from people at church. As a people, we know and can discern the difference between heartfelt vulnerability and inappropriate grandstanding or canvassing in a place of worship.

If I wouldn't want conservative members to do this, I shouldn't give license to people I agree with politically to do it either. This is the spirit of what the Handbook means, in my opinion and experience in seeing how these matters have been handled.

I'm recalling the incident I think this was in response to, where a young queer person came out in a sacrament meeting where it was filmed and shared online. I think we can agree there is a healthy and productive way to come out within a church community, and an incorrect and emotionally dangerous way to do that. Opening a private and sacred decision in a vulnerable young person's life for public consumption and comment to the entire Church is not wise. We need to keep our youth safe from adults who mean to do them harm. We also need to keep them safe from people who don't mean to do them harm, but will nevertheless end up doing it anyway because of how they interact with what they do not understand.

Being out and proud as a queer person is good. Being out and proud where it is safe and met with the dignity that all people deserve is better. That's what I want for our community. I want full fellowship and participation for queer people. 

I want queer kids in my Church out and proud because it's ultimately the healthiest state of being for their self-actualization. I also want them alive to adulthood. We live in a world where those goals are in stupid amounts of needless conflict.

So we have to be strategic and careful. We have to build a community that can handle that responsibility first. To me, that's what this policy represents. Never do anything with discussions of sexual orientation at church that isn't in harmony with the Savior's purpose and mission.

Endangering people isn't one of them.

Giving people dignity, community, and love is.