Child Abuse

Brent Astle 1971 - 2010

 Mormons show up at my door extolling the virtues of their religion with alarming frequency.  Alarming to me, that is.  And annoying  -   I find their visits  very, very annoying.  The "elders" that prostelyze may find their visits upsetting as well due to my responses, polite though I try to be.

One duo told me last year - in 2011 ! - that "gay marriage" was an abomination and, as such, to be fought with vim and vigour.   I pointed out that they were standing on Canadian soil and same sex marriage had been legal in British Columbia since 2003 and in all of Canada since 2005.    Astounded, the Mormons repeated their views and then maligned the Canadian government.  In fact,  and possibly with such extreme religious views in mind, the federal government had taken the precaution of submitting their proposed same sex marriage law to the Supreme Court to  ensure its constitutionality before passing it.   "On December 9, 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada  ruled that the marriage of same-sex couples is constitutional, that the federal government has the sole authority to amend the definition of marriage, and the Charter's protection of freedom of religion  grants religious institutions the right to refuse to perform the marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples ".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Canada    So Mormons' constitutional rights to freedom of religion are in no way contravened by Canada's same sex marriage laws.

The "elders" last week told me the Bible wasn't written by chance, and that "God" talked to them in their hearts.  When I told them that, in my view, their religion was tantamount to child abuse because it taught that being gay was a choice, they answered that "we all have our trials to bear" and that gay Mormons had to struggle through their trials.   Unhappily, I know gay Mormons can have "trials" that are insurmountable.

(Gee - at least those "elders" didn't advocate assaulting or killing gay people.  Perhaps they had no idea of the history of  their church.)

In "1991 The First Presidency of the LDS Church stated on NOV-14:

Sexual relations are proper only between husband and wife appropriately expressed within the bonds of marriage. Any other sexual contact, including fornication, adultery, and homosexuality and lesbian [sic] behavior, is sinful. Those who persist in such practices or who influence others to do so are subject to Church discipline...." http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_lds2.htm

I had a friend to whom these teachings mattered very much.  He was born in 1971 and sadly, born into a devout Mormon family.  He was taught that gay is a choice and that gayness is an abomination to "God."   He told me he knew at the age of five that he was different.   He realized what the difference was when he hit puberty.  He was gay.

He attempted suicide when he was sixteen.   He killed himself on September 30, 2010. 

He had been well indoctrinated with the teachings of the Mormon church.   For example, just previous to  his suicide, his sister told him it was only  OK to be gay if he never had sex!   After his death, his brother and sister and their straight spouses cleaned out his apartment  - and - I can still hardly believe this - threw out his gay books and CDs and DVDs and paintings.......most of the material  remnants of his life in fact.  (His lesbian friends retrieved a lot of  his things from the dumpster .)  His family refused to attend a memorial breakfast if we were gong to mention that he had been gay.   His brother -in-law said "we will only attend tomorrow's memorial if is going to be a celebration of Brent as a special person, not a gay pride thing."

They didn't attend.  Their loss - Brent was special because he was gay - not in spite of it.  

My darling fag (I was his fag hag) is dead.  The teachings he internalized at his mother's knee destroyed his sense of self worth and helped kill him.  That's why religious teachings that preach that "gay is a choice and an abomination" are child abuse.  Children born into devout families that espouse homophobic teachings are sometimes born gay - and grow up believing that they are worthless because they are gay.

It's child abuse.

Changing Minds

People do change their minds occasionally. About what to wear - or where to holiday. Changing one's mind seems to be a rarer thing on issues where people are heavily invested emotionally. Think abortion.... Or climate change.Mother Jones has an interesting article on this at

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=4

The writer of the article describes how an emotional investment can skew our reasoning by discussing relationships. Ze says

We all understand these mechanisms when it comes to interpersonal relationships. If I don't want to believe that my spouse is being unfaithful, or that my child is a bully, I can go to great lengths to explain away behavior that seems obvious to everybody else—everybody who isn't too emotionally invested to accept it, anyway.

Ze goes on to demonstrate, that, since this emotional skewing happens to everyone,  it is virtually useless to argue with people over the facts .

Take, for instance, the question of whether Saddam Hussein possessed hidden weapons of mass destruction just before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. When political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler showed subjects fake newspaper articles (PDF) in which this was first suggested (in a 2004 quote from President Bush) and then refuted (with the findings of the Bush-commissioned Iraq Survey Group report, which found no evidence of active WMD programs in pre-invasion Iraq), they found that conservatives were more likely than before to believe the claim.

Uh huh.  The stronger the evidence against their belifes, the more the subjects clung to their beliefs.  Gad -  what's a poor climate change or environmental activist to do in that case ? Arguing doesn't change anyone's mind. Presenting  facts entrenches beliefs! Aaagggh! One ray of hope remains:

Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue.

So sell climate change adaptation and greenhouse gas emission reduction to deniers on the basis of their values - using someone they already respect as a spokesperson if possible. Couch measures in patriotic language and present said maeasures as business opportunities.

Another ray of hope. sometimes people change their minds on the basis of their experiences. A conservative Christian campaigner against gay amrriage in the US changed his mind and recanted his opposition to gay marriage.

between what I had witnessed on the marriage tour and RJ’s post about marriage equality, I really came to understand that gays and lesbians were just real people who wanted to live real lives and be treated equally as opposed to, for example, wanting to destroy American culture. No, they didn’t want to destroy American culture, they wanted to openly particulate in it. I was well on my way to becoming a supporter of civil marriage equality. My name is Louis J. Marinelli, a conservative-Republican and I now support full civil marriage equality. The constitution calls for nothing less.

http://louisjmarinelli.com/politics/i-now-support-full-marriage-equality

The trick is gonna be changing enough folks' minds -  in time.   Tick, tock, tick, tock.......

The Mormons at my Door

Two children from California(children to my eyes at least) rang my doorbell the other day. They asked if I were religous and what I knew about the Church of Latter Day Saints. I told them I was a spiritual person. I also told them that I had a very large animus against the Mormons . They gaped at me in astonishment as I stated that I would NEVER join a horrible homophobic religion that subjects gay children to child abuse. They protested, prettily, that the Mormon Church was not in the least homophobic! I mentioned that my closest friend, who knew at a very early age that he was gay, was damaged by the teachings of the church. He was told in sermons and church sponsored movie nights that being gay was wrong and sick and evil - and he had in fact, attempted to committ suicide as he believed he was evil after years of church attendance. They said they had NEVER heard of such doctrines . The two "elders" added that it was perfectly acceptable to be gay and a Mormon. Warming to their theme, they said "In fact, gay people will be heterosexual in the after life - if they behaved well in this life. But the Mormon church is against gay marriage." I firmly stated that their's was a disingenuous argument at best . I added that, since they had their feet on Canadian soil - and gay marriage had been legal for some time in Canada - they were pissing into the wind on the marriage argument. Their eyes widened - possibly at the swear word or perhaps at the legal facts of life. When I suggested that they should acquire critical thinking skills and a knowledge of history (especially their own history) , by attending university, they fled . Damn! They left before I mentioned the hetero normative paradigm is an instrument of oppression!

Letter to my fag's family

Hi there:

You don’t know me – I’m your son’s fag hag. Oh – I forgot – you don’t know anything about being gay – or about gay culture. Well, you know Leslie is gay: he told you and the rest of his family ten years ago. Therefore, he is a fag – and since I’m a natal woman, I’m a hag. I love him and he loves me: together we’re fag and fag hag. Because I love him enormously, I have something I need to tell you. I want to tell you so badly I’m having my message published. It is going to shock and affront you but it may change your life.

Your religion is tantamount to child abuse. How do I arrive at that conclusion? Please read on and you will find my logic is inescapable.

Leslie is gay: you have known he is gay since he came out ten years ago. I know you think Leslie is an exceptional person. So do I: I love him because he is spiritual; ethical; compassionate; funny; loving; intelligent; street smart; and highly intuitive. Moreover, he possesses a wicked and bizarre sense of humour; has excellent healing skills; and is wildly attractive. But Leslie is wonderful because he is gay: not in spite of the fact that he is gay. (In many cultures, being gay was considered a spiritual gift. Refer to a copy of Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit to find information on those cultures.)

But your fundamentalist religion has no truck with the notion that being gay is a spiritual gift. On the contrary, your religion oppresses gay people. Church doctrine teaches that being gay is a sickness! As a very young teen, Leslie watched a church sponsored and created video that stated being gay was an evil disease and a sin against God! The video also stated that shock therapy was the only way to “cure” gayness! Can you imagine how your son felt hearing that what he knew himself to be from a very early age was sick and evil? How could you permit your child to listen to that doctrine? After all, it is equivalent to preaching to people of colour that their innate skin quality is inferior, wrong, sick, and evil. Gay people are born lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered: it isn’t a choice. No-one converts to gayness! (Can you tell me why would anyone choose to be vilified, hated, and possibly killed?) And please don’t justify exposing Leslie to these hate –filled doctrines by stating that you did not know years ago that Leslie was gay. You ignored the fact that up to 10 % of the population is gay and you ignored any signs of gayness he showed as a child. In fact, by supporting your church doctrines, you harmed his mental health and emotional well being. Isn’t that a good definition of child abuse?


No wonder he tried to commit suicide at the age of sixteen. LGBTQ youth are up to seven times more likely to attempt suicide than their hetero peers. ( Suicide Prevention Resource Center, Suicide Risk and Prevention for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth at http://www.sprc.org/. ) Youth whose family is not accepting of their sexual orientation are nine times more likely to commit suicide. (http://www.365gay.com/opinion/robbins-in-combating-gay-youth-suicide-acceptance-is-key/ ) You tell Leslie that you believe in the church. By accepting church doctrine to this day, you acquiesce in his oppression. Furthermore, by sending Leslie to church as a child, you participated in child abuse.

You cannot change the past. But couldn’t you change the present and the future? I know you love your Leslie: loving him, and knowing he is gayer than a picnic basket, how can you continue to support your church?

If you cannot leave your church, I want you to pressure the church to amend its policies on gay men and lesbians. Please don’t tell me that the church’s policies are unchangeable: the religion now accepts people of colour as members whereas it didn’t fifty years ago. Stop tithing ten per cent of your income to your church until they change their policies on the LGBT community. You are funding your son’s oppression with your donations!

If you want to support your son by leaving your present church, I recommend the Unitarian Universalist for its inclusion of and acceptance of diverse peoples. Their website is found at http://www.cuc.ca/ . You’ll find your local congregation at this site: the folks there will be friendly, funny, warm, and accepting.

If you want to support Leslie by learning about gay life and culture, please check out PFLAG: you’ll find very supportive and knowledgeable folks at their meetings. Just go to the “Parents and Families of Gays” website (http://www.pflagcanada.ca/en/index-e.asp) and you will find valuable information and the date and time of your local meeting. Read some books on being gay (not published by your church.) PFLAG has a list of books worth reading: click on Links to Rainbow Communities and then on Information, Studies, and Reference material. Get to know some lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered people on an individual basis: check out your local LGBT association for some breakfasts and coffee houses where you can meet us.

You’ll be well rewarded for your effort: my life is much richer since Leslie and I have been friends. Now that you’ve read my letter, you have a choice to make. You can make an effort to learn about gay culture and being gay. You may, of course, continue to let church doctrine rule your life. But, if you don’t care to make an effort to be truly supportive and understanding of your remarkably gifted son, you will lose him.