"Mormon Family Values" "Army of God"
WEWoo...@aol.com
Most of us in Hawaii have seen the devastating Mormon policies in actions as
excommunication occurs, families are instructed to shun GLBT, children are
told to see the gay parent as evil, etc.
do good
Bill
Two articles forwarded from the Safe Schools Coalition (Washington state):
(1) Mormon Family Values
by Katherine Rosman
The Nation, FEATURE STORY | February 25, 2002
(2) Brand new war for the Army of God?
Under government scrutiny for their ties to antiabortion anthrax hoax
letters, the Army's leaders are spouting new, violent rhetoric against gays.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
(1) Mormon Family Values
by Katherine Rosman
The Nation, FEATURE STORY | February 25, 2002
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020225&c=1&s=rosman
David and Carlie Hardy were the perfect Mormon couple building the
perfect Mormon legacy in their mecca, Salt Lake City, Utah. It was 1995 and
David, then 42, received simultaneous boosts in his professional and
religious life: As an in-house attorney, he had taken a private startup
company public so successfully that he was now able to open his own solo
practice. At the same time, he had been called to serve as a bishop for the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose ministry is drawn from
its membership. Carlie, 41, was fulfilling her religious destiny as well by
giving birth to and then raising six children strictly within the LDS's
rules.
To affirm the family's devotion to the church before David's new hectic
schedule began to keep him from home, the couple took a pilgrimage with
their three eldest children. Mom and the kids retraced the footsteps of
Jesus Christ in Jerusalem as described in the Scriptures, and then met Dad
in France, the country where he as a young man had served the two-year
proselytizing mission required of all devout Mormons, and more recently had
spent countless days lobbying to bring the 1998 winter Olympics to Salt Lake
City. The trip culminated in Austria, where Carlie had studied on an
exchange program from Brigham Young University.
There, in a garden in the hills above Salzburg, the family's bliss
was shattered.
Judd, the Hardys' 13-year-old son, confided to his father that he
feared he was "same-sex attracted," the LDS euphemism for homosexual. In
Mormondom, homosexuality is literally unspeakable; there is no greater taboo
in this institution, in which even relatively benign substances such as
caffeine are forbidden. "My world just caved in," David recalls. He told his
son what he had been taught by the church--that same-sex attraction was
infinitely "curable," merely a phase.
Upon returning to Salt Lake, David drove straight to his church
office. By this point in his life, he well understood that the church often
preached to its members through speeches long ago delivered and transcribed
into LDS-issued pamphlets--many of which are actual doctrine. He needed to
find the instruction regarding same-sex attraction. At the office, he
located a handful of pamphlets addressing the issue, all of which contained
fire-and-brimstone language like "Homosexuality Is Sin: Next to the crime of
murder comes the sin of sexual impurity." David had read the pamphlets many
years back, but rereading them while conjuring the image of his devout son,
he became increasingly upset. He shoved the pamphlets deep into a drawer and
focused on "curing" Judd.
That was seven years ago. Since then, David and Carlie Hardy have
gone from being obedient, God-fearing church members to vocal, angry
gay-rights activists who have willingly ostracized themselves from the only
community they had ever known. In opening their house to outcast gay teens,
and their mouths to the media, they have risked their relationships with
their friends and relatives, and--if it is "God's one true Church," as LDS
members believe--their eternal souls.
Publicly, the church loves the sinner but hates the sin. "People
inquire about our position on those who consider themselves so-called gays
and lesbians," remarked LDS president Gordon B. Hinckley. "My response is
that we love them as sons and daughters of God."
As former insiders, the Hardys contend that the church establishment
is obsessed with good press and intent upon creating an image of a
mainstream Christian religion--a goal it plans to pursue as the television
networks cast their soft-focus lenses on Salt Lake City during the winter
Olympics this February. The Hardys, meanwhile, are determined to let the
world know what lies behind the church's rhetorical niceties. David Hardy
scoffs at Hinckley's profession of tolerance. "We were forced to make a
decision that no parent should be forced to make," he says, "to abandon
one's child or one's faith."
David Eccles Hardy and Carlie Judd Hardy are Mormon Royalty, an LDS
terme d'art indicating that they descend from important historical and
modern lineage--Carlie's great-grandfather, Heber J. Grant, served as
prophet and president of the church during the early twentieth century, and
both David and Carlie have ancestors who were original followers of LDS
founder Joseph Smith.
The Hardys married in 1975, just after David completed his
missionary service. He earned a law degree and began a steady rise in the
corporate world of Utah's burgeoning tech sector. Carlie oversaw their
children's immersion in the church--before-school Scripture study, Eagle
Scouts, religious classes, community service, all in addition to the regular
Sunday services. As with all faithful LDS members, they gave 10 percent of
the family's pretax income to the church. Mormon perfection.
Judd, the third child and oldest son, was a slight, fair-haired boy
with noteworthy devotion to the church and its gospel. But he was different
from other boys in his neighborhood. "Despite my hours coaching him, he was
utterly uninterested in sports and 'boy games,'" his dad remembers. Instead,
Judd liked to play with his sisters' dolls and to perform songs. David and
Carlie secretly worried about their son's effeminate mannerisms but tried to
ignore their concerns. The idea of having a son with "same-sex attraction"
was too shameful to consider. "A Mormon mother is told to have kids and stay
home," Carlie explains. "There is nothing left for a mother's self-esteem.
You are judged on how your family turns out."
So when Judd came out to David in Austria in 1995, and David shared
the information with Carlie, they did what they had always done--they turned
to the church. They enrolled Judd in a stint of reparative therapy (which
purports to counsel people in "overcoming" their homosexuality). They
remained stoic as they read the research attributing homosexual tendencies
to an overbearing mother and emotionally unavailable father.
One of the pamphlets they found advises church leaders on how to act
if a member confesses same-sex attraction. It reads, "God has promised to
help those who earnestly strive to live his commandments," and it says
members should be reassured that for those who repent enough, "heterosexual
feelings emerge." This pamphlet is only available to leadership. An average
member receives more explicit instruction, like that in the text of a speech
given by a former president and prophet: "Satan tells his victims that it is
a natural way of life; that it is normal; that perverts are a different kind
of people born 'that way' and that they cannot change. This is a base
lie.... it were better that such a man were never born." The Hardys were
most disturbed by the writings of Boyd K. Packer, an apostle second in line
for the church presidency whose public words constitute doctrine. In one
oft-cited speech, Packer endorsed violence as a response to a perceived
homosexual advance. "You must protect yourself," he preached.
The more Carlie and David turned to the church for help, the more
its practices frustrated them. They were outraged to learn that church funds
were being diverted to support movements in Hawaii and Alaska aimed at
keeping same-sex marriage illegal. Meanwhile, their young son was asking his
parents to disconnect their cable and Internet service so that he would not
be tempted by any alluring images of men. He was fasting and praying so that
he could live within the boundaries of the church, yet doctrine labeled him
a servant of the Devil.
In early 1999 David was reaching his breaking point and asked to be
released early from his role as bishop. Soon after, Carlie attended an
annual interview with the family's local ecclesiastical authority, D. Miles
Holman. (Citing clerical requirements of confidentiality, Holman declined to
comment.) Carlie told Holman that total loyalty to the church's principles
was increasingly difficult for her and that she was uncertain she could
encourage a lifetime of celibacy for Judd. "I don't think it would be
healthy for my son for me to suggest that he never have any intimacy," she
recalls telling him. According to Carlie, Holman told her there was only one
solution: Judd had to remain celibate for his life, and she and David should
keep his "problem" a secret. "He said, 'Hey, isn't this homosexual issue
easy?'"
Carlie walked out to her car and turned on her mobile phone. It rang
immediately. One of her children said, "Mom, where have you been? We just
had to take Judd to the hospital." After sitting through an LDS lesson on
Sodom and Gomorrah, Judd had gone home and slashed his wrists.
The suicide attempt, says Judd, now a sophomore studying theater at
the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, "wasn't [done] out of
despair as much as it was [done] almost out of duty. It felt to me as if I
was in this loop that I couldn't end. The church wanted me to change, and I
couldn't get past that. And I couldn't change, and I couldn't get past
that.... It was a quick
resolution before doing the damage of falling into a life of sin. I believed
too strongly in the church and the church's values, and I placed those above
my own life."
Whatever it represented for Judd, for David and Carlie the attempt
signaled that they could no longer rely on guidance from the church. "We
were faithful members," Carlie says, "and then we ran into this situation
and no one was there for us." They told Judd there was nothing wrong with
him, that he was not going to have to choose between affection or damnation,
and they yanked him out of church activities.
Although they experienced massive spiritual and emotional turmoil,
they still could not fathom formally separating from the LDS--"anathema,"
David describes it--so they continued to take Judd's three younger brothers
to church. One day in early 1999 James Hardy asked his mom to call a family
meeting. Carlie remembers that her son said, "I don't understand, you keep
saying that Judd doesn't have to go to church because he's gay and that's an
extenuating circumstance. But don't you think the fact that I have an older
brother I honor, respect and look up to, and this is a church that doesn't
have a place for him--isn't that an extenuating circumstance?" He said, "It
is for me and I won't be going back." That was the watershed moment, Carlie
says. "All of a sudden David and I looked at each other and said, "You know
what? We're not going either. If this is an organization that will not
support this amazing individual who is our son, Judd Eccles Hardy, then we
will not be going either."
It was October 2000, the eve of the church's semiannual General
Conference, for which clergy and members from around the world descend upon
their religious capital to reaffirm the authority of the church leadership.
David Hardy stood nervously in his office, a nineteenth-century carriage
house just eight blocks from LDS headquarters. He and Carlie had invited the
local print, television and radio media for a press conference unlike any
other held in Salt Lake City in recent memory. They were going to speak out
publicly to decry church policy. "I was scared witless," says David. "I
don't think a former bishop has ever done anything like that before."
The Hardys had also invited more than a handful of their peers,
members of Family Fellowship, a support group for current and former Mormon
parents of gay children. But except for the four lapsed Mormons who
attended, the Hardys stood alone. (Since LDS members believe God literally
speaks through the church's prophet and president, dissent, or support of
dissenters, is tantamount to heresy.)
"We are here today as members of the LDS church and parents of gay
children," David began. He had already dispersed to the various reporters
copies of the pamphlets that, he asserted, promote violence against
homosexuals. He pointed out that the church had reissued literature
condoning violence as a response to homosexuals at the same time that
Russell Hendersen, an LDS member, was being tried for the murder of Matthew
Shepard (the church has since excommunicated Hendersen). David asked that
Packer or a church spokesman avow or reject the language in the
pamphlets--the only existing church literature directly addressing
homosexuality.
After David finished his remarks, he and Carlie answered a few questions
before the swell of reporters walked to the LDS administrative building in
pursuit of a church response. (A spokesman issued a statement later that
evening: "These are individuals who are children of God. We love them; we
respect them. This church is a church of inclusion, not exclusion, and we
welcome them and want them to be a part of the church.")
The Hardys' public criticism of the church has caused rifts between
them and relatives, friends and colleagues--and has created tension for
their eldest daughter, who remains active in the church. But even as their
community banishes them, they continue in their quest to compel the media
and, they hope, the church to acknowledge the struggles associated with
being a homosexual in a community of Saints.
They do so in several ways. First, they fund diverse cultural fare
in otherwise archconservative Utah. Last year they financed local stage
productions of The Laramie Project, which focuses on the aftermath of
Shepard's murder (a film adaptation debuted last month at the Sundance Film
Festival), and Confessions of a Mormon Boy, a one-man show detailing
actor/writer Steven Fales's journey from marriage and fatherhood to
reparative therapy and excommunication. (Confessions opens Off Broadway next
fall.) They also open their home for three hours on the first Sunday of each
month to young Mormon men and women struggling to confront their
homosexuality--and any heterosexuals wanting to show support. Carlie is also
planning a series of mountain retreats for those dealing with issues
involving homosexuality in themselves or in their families.
Along the way, they have achieved a certain visibility in the press.
Last Easter the Salt Lake Tribune published an Op-Ed piece by David; that
same month, the CBS affiliate ran an interview with Carlie after she and
David spoke at a candlelight vigil remembering the "Mormon Gay Suicides." In
August they landed significant mention in a Newsweek article on gays and the
Boy Scouts. Their squeaky-clean image has helped. "If there were a
propaganda center in the church, this is the family they would choose," says
Doug Wortham, a board member of Unity Utah, a gay and lesbian political
action committee. "It's a pretty rare story to find a family like this," he
says.
As for the Hardys' most vocal goal, an official endorsement or
condemnation of the pamphlets, they've just recently succeeded: Harold
Brown, the church's official spokesman on homosexuality, said of the
pamphlets to The Nation, "I wouldn't even want to suggest that they were
outdated or not in use." However, he says, "If you [take] the whole context
of what has been written in the church, I think you'll find it's a voice of
love and concern for people.... What we teach are the standards of morality
that we believe will lead to happiness." (Boyd K. Packer was not available
for comment.)
Brown says no amount of press attention or activism is going to
influence God to change the rules regarding homosexuality--as when He
outlawed polygamy in 1890 or gave equal rights to blacks in 1978. "Being
black is not a sin," he explains. "Being immoral is."
The Hardys do not appear deterred. Their work fighting for the acceptance of
gays is, in a sense, their new ministry; clearly it has helped fill the void
created by their exit from the church. Judd is proud of his parents'
commitment. "They've stopped talking about Christianity and charity and
religion," he notes, "and they've started practicing it." At the same time,
their activism irks him because he wants to be known by the world for what
he does with his life, not for what happened to him in the past.
Honoring Judd's wishes, his parents ask his permission before
speaking to the press. Usually, Judd rolls his eyes and then obliges them.
Despite the unusual circumstances, there is something familiar about this
dynamic--he is a regular kid, annoyed and embarrassed by his parents.
To Carlie and David, that is a blessing.
*****************************
(2) Brand new war for the Army of God?
Under government scrutiny for their ties to antiabortion anthrax hoax
letters, the Army's leaders are spouting new, violent rhetoric against gays.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Frederick Clarkson
Salon Premium Exclusive
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/02/19/gays/index_np.html
Feb. 19, 2002 | "Let us give thanks," Army of God "chaplain" Rev.
Michael Bray proclaimed on his Web site
[http://www.armyofgod.com/MikeBray1.html], after sword-wielding officials in
Saudi Arabia beheaded three gay men New Year's Day. The official Saudi Press
Agency reported that the men had "committed acts of sodomy, married each
other, seduced young men and attacked those who rebuked them."
Best known for its terror campaign against abortion providers, the
militant Army of God has lately displayed a virulent new antigay animus in
recent postings on its Web site, which also hosts Bray's. The sudden trend
has set off alarms among human rights groups.
"This is really chilling," Surina Khan, executive director of the
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told Salon. "It
really disturbs me, in terms of the rhetoric and what effect it has."
Ironically, the Army of God is expressing new solidarity with Muslim
extremists just as the
right-wing extremists have come under new scrutiny by the U.S. government
for their own links to
terror, post-Sept. 11. The violence-prone Army of God drew intensified
federal attention thanks to its praise ("great idea!") for the anthrax scare
at 550 clinics and abortion rights organizations last fall, perpetrated by
self-described antiabortion "terrorist" Clayton Waagner.
[http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/11/28/waagner/index.html] Waagner
signed his threats "Army of God."
Deputy U.S. Marshals in Ohio captured Waagner in December after 10
months on the lam -- during which he merrily robbed banks, bought weapons
and surveillance equipment, stole cars, and stalked clinics and clinic
personnel. Arresting officers found that he had $10,000 cash in his pocket
and computer components and a loaded handgun stashed in his stolen
Mercedes-Benz. U.S. Marshals arrested Waagner, an escaped federal fugitive,
and turned up the heat on the Army of God, which had supported his flight
from justice, even allowing him to post communiqués to the antiabortion
community on its Web site. It probably doesn't help, in this age of
vigilance against terror, that several Army of God figures have repeatedly
expressed approval for the use of chemical and biological agents against
abortion providers.
After years of complaining that federal officials weren't taking
threats against them sufficiently seriously, abortion providers and
advocates are relatively happy with the way the federal government has
responded to the latest anthrax threats. Apparently feeling the heat of
federal law enforcement agencies, Rev. Michael Bray even canceled his annual
White Rose Banquet, usually a high-profile fundraiser and Army of God rally
held near the nation's capital every January on the anniversary of the
Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Bray held a "private meeting" instead.
And yet, with its antiabortion threats coming in for more government
scrutiny, the Army of God has apparently decided to ratchet up its antigay
rhetoric. The antigay animus of the group's Web master and spokesman, Rev.
Donald Spitz, has erupted into obsession in the two special sections of the
group's Web site. One offers a selection of links to various news stories,
some from dubious sources. For example:
"Saudi Arabia chop the heads off three homos" [sic]
"Homosexual fag Elton John says he is lucky not to have AIDS"
"Presbyterians Wrestle Over Ban on Homo Clergy. If they have an
question about it, they are obviously apostate."
"American Red Cross to give 9/11 funds to sodomites" (about a story
on providing aid to 9/11 victims regardless of sexual orientation)
"Homo fag TV channel will soon be broadcasting their filthy crimes
against humanity" (on the prospect of an all-gay cable TV channel)
"Massachusetts Governor picks sex perverted sodomite as running
mate" (after Massachusetts Acting Governor Jane Swift picked an openly gay
man as her candidate for lieutenant governor)
Another section of Spitz's site is devoted to explaining "why you
should never give money to the United Way." The reason? The United Way gives
money to family planning organizations and abortion providers like Planned
Parenthood but "refuses money to the Boy Scouts because the Boy Scouts will
not let child molesting homosexual sex perverts become Scout Masters and
take your children out to the woods to molest them."
While Spitz has a sharp eye for potential antigay headlines, Michael
Bray has been more focused on the opportunity the Saudi gay beheadings may
afford to get some "discussion" going toward a more theocratic order in
America. "While the Christians among us westerners would decline to emulate
our Muslim friends in many ways ... " he notes, "we can appreciate the
justice they advocate regarding sodomy. Might these fellows also consider an
embryonic jihad? Let us welcome these tools of purification. Open the
borders! Bring in some agents of cleansing."
"In the meantime," he concludes, "let us pray for justice: viz.,
that the heads of adulterers, sodomites, murderers, child murderers
(abortionists), witches, traitors, and kidnappers roll."
"I think this is a blatant call for people to murder gays and
lesbians, among others," Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force told Salon. "It's the logical extension of
radical fundamentalism and religious intolerance."
"I think that any alliance they may be building with fundamentalist
Muslims is alarming," says Surina Kahn, of the International Gay and Lesbian
Human Rights Commission. "And this may be just the beginning."
While Bray has called for prayers of Thanksgiving for the Saudi
executions, Kahn's group is publicizing Amnesty International's blistering
report on the incident. The report denounces the
vague charges, secret trials and executions of the three men.
Bray's cheering of the Saudi executions is striking in light of the
usual contempt for all things Islam expressed by the far Christian right.
"One has to appreciate the cosmic irony here," said Chip Berlet, senior
analyst at Political Research Associates in Somerville, Mass. "They can side
with a religion they don't approve of against a scapegoat they both loathe
and demonize."
Berlet isn't surprised by the Army of God's antigay outbursts.
"Within the Christian Right, there is a distinction between the reformists
and those who want insurgency," he says. Revolutionary groups like
the Army of God, he says, see before them a "three-headed monster -- of
liberalism, feminism (which includes abortion), and the gay and lesbian
civil rights movement. And the monster doesn't die," he observes, "unless
you cut off all three."
Spitz's headlines also echo the vitriol of Rev. Fred Phelps, an
antigay protester and provocateur best known for his Web site, God Hates
Fags. Pastor of the tiny Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., Phelps and
his cult-like entourage are notorious for picketing the funerals of AIDS
victims. But Phelps' group has recently picketed such unlikely targets as
Weight Watchers spokeswoman and former princess Sarah Ferguson ("fag
enabling whore"), and President George and Laura Bush ("demon possessed fag
enablers").
But Phelps is not known for specifically encouraging bombings and
assassinations, while that has been the raison d'être of the Army of God. So
the Army's sudden increase in antigay rhetoric worries hate-group watchers.
"We know that in the race-hate movement," Berlet explained, "people who
have been fed a steady diet of demonization based on falsehoods have gone
out and attacked people -- people who have been targeted by the rhetoric. So
we know this happens."
The question is whether the escalation of the Army of God's antigay
rhetoric signals a coming campaign of violence of the sort that has targeted
abortion providers, or a pernicious but nonviolent distraction for a group
whose harassment of abortion providers has suddenly come in for greater
federal scrutiny. But hate-group watchers say they're monitoring the group
closely looking for an answer.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
--
This is message #2447.
**********
To post, send mail to <gay...@groups.queernet.org>.
To unsubscribe, send mail to <gaynet-un...@groups.queernet.org>.
(This may fail if your address has changed since you signed
up; if so, or for other assistance, contact <gaynet...@groups.queernet.org>.)
For information about other lists, or to create and manage a list on
a topic that interests you, see <http://www.queernet.org> for details.
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
Check out our new Unlimited Server. No Download or Time Limits!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! ==-----
Troy Westerberg
To whom are you talking?
My mother simultaneously believes that her child is doomed to hell and that
she's been a bad parent because her child is gay. What is "do good"? I
don't get it. Who should be doing good? My mother? She believes in her
religion. Me? I'm just gay.
What do you do about a church and it's adherents in a society that holds
freedom of religion among it's highest values?
Sorry that Hawaii has been laid waste, but I'm not sure what you expect gay
people to do.
Regards,
Troy Westerberg
--
This is message #2457.