This week a friend asked what the MoHo shield on my webpage represents. “MoHo”
is internet shorthand for “Mormon Homosexual.” Mormons are members of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to the Mormons, a Homosexual is a deluded soul struggling to overcome the curse of “same-sex attraction” so he can enjoy eternal life with his wife and children.
When I was in grad school, the postmodern buzzword du jour
was “deconstruction.” These days, the black-clothes-and-brown-cigarettes set
are abuzz about “intersectionality” – examining how our multiple identities
influence us. For example, I am a father and I’m gay. Both roles are
fundamental to being me. At the same time, each of these core characteristics
constantly affects the other. Being gay often defines how I parent, and being a
parent profoundly altered my formerly fabulous gay life. Driving around in our
dented old Kia minivan, I don’t miss my pre-kids sailboat and convertible.
Much.
I am also very Canadian. How can I tell? My first concert performing with Vancouver Men’s Chorus last year was as the guests of Elektra Women’s Choir. Searching for a vocal exercise we could all use for a joint warm up, Elektra’s conductor asked us to sing the theme song from “The Friendly Giant,” which was like a Canadian version of Romper Room on TV in the 60s. Somehow the melody came back to me, buried beneath 45 years of detritus.
Like fatherhood, my sexual orientation, and Vancouver,
my Latter-day Saint heritage is a core part of my identity. In law school, one
friend captured the Mormon-Canadian combo by making fun of my vestigial accent
– whenever I said the word “tomorrow” as “to-more-ow” rather than “to-mah-row,” Jim
would repeat it as “ToMormon.”
Unlike being a gay father or Canadian Mormon, however, the
relationship between being gay and being Mormon is fraught. It's not a simple matter of charting
where two Venn diagram circles overlap, or observing the subtle effect each
characteristic has on the other. MoHo is an oxyMormon. Most people ultimately find their LGBT and Mormon identities
are incompatible. The Mormon church certainly treated us that way.
The term “MoHo” also refers to the online community of LGBT
Mormons, ex-Mormons, and their families. MoHos began sharing their stories long
before anyone started listening. Clicking
on the MoHo shield will take you to a directory of recent postings on a wide
variety of MoHo blogs, including this one. For example, my BYU roommate John Gustav-Wrathall has written extensively
about his post-Mormon experiences. John ran away from BYU, narrowly avoided
suicide, was excommunicated by the Mormons, became a Protestant, eventually married his longtime
partner Goren, and raised a gay foster son. A decade ago, John heard God call
him to start attending the Mormon church again and
still be a Homosexual. (Goren is the latter-day saint in this story.) John hasn’t
posted much on his blog lately, however, because he’s been busy working with Affirmation, the LGBT/Mormon advocacy
and support organization.
These days I don't often cross paths with Mormons other than my extended family. But adding my blog to the MoHo Directory reminded me of two occasions when I paid rapt attention to the “Blogernacle,” the broader online
community of Mormons and fellow travelers. The most recent episode was in
November 2015, when the Mormon church announced it would no longer allow the
children of gay parents to be baptized. This coincided with my PTSD diagnosis,
and helped us to identify some of the specific youthful traumas underlying my
newly-triggered symptoms. Several over-the-top Facebook rants were involved. Luckily I’m not on Twitter.
The only other time I actively followed MoHo blogs was three or
four years before. A large contingency of MoHo bloggers are LDS men who went on
missions, married very young, and had a bunch of kids before coming out in
midlife. I started obsessively following their stories. In hindsight, I realize
I identified with them because they were publicly agonizing over the end of
their eternal Mormon marriages, just as I was in the process of separating from
my longtime partner. Change is painful,
particularly when you love your family but know deep down you’re no longer in
the right place.
I consider myself a PoMo MoHo. Unlike John, I’ve managed to stay Post Mormon. Until this whole PTSD thing happened, I thought I had finished my processing long ago and moved on from Mormonism. Now I recognize there’s a lot more digging left to do.
I consider myself a PoMo MoHo. Unlike John, I’ve managed to stay Post Mormon. Until this whole PTSD thing happened, I thought I had finished my processing long ago and moved on from Mormonism. Now I recognize there’s a lot more digging left to do.
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