Former U student Robert Jones remembers the time he had a crush on another man with whom he worked at The Daily Utah Chronicle.
“We didn’t do anything physical, you know, it was just emotional-neither one of us was out,” Jones said.
Jones, who graduated from the U in 1998 with a bachelor’s in political science, was editor in chief of The Chronicle, gay and in the closet.
“I was brought up to think that gay people were evil.”
After he graduated from the U, Jones came out of the closet and went on to found the group Gay RMs in 2002. The group is made up of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are gay and have gone on missions.
Now he is working on a documentary about homosexual Mormons, drawing comics, writing a blog on current events and writing opinion pieces.
He was especially vehement in editorials about the recent debate in the U.S. Senate on the definition of marriage.
Senators recently rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar gay couples from getting married. The vote was 49 for the amendment and 48 against; 60 votes were needed to get the proposal on state ballots.
Some former U students are frustrated with the recent moves against gay couples by legislators and religious groups.
Charles Milne, a former student who now runs the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center at the U, thinks the Senate should be focusing on more important matters, like the war in Iraq.
“The idea of two gay people loving each other doesn’t seem like that big of a threat to the country,” Milne said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a recent press release, “For millions of people throughout the country, including in my home state of Utah, no issue is more important. As we see it, marriage and family life are the bedrock of American society-the schoolhouse of American citizenship.”
The amendment would have defined marriage as the “union of a man and a woman.”
President Bush and a group of clergy members, including the LDS Church, favored the amendment.
The LDS First Presidency said in 2004, “The church accordingly favors measures that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and does not confer legal status on any other sexual relationship.”
Members of the church’s hierarchy also signed a recent letter with other religious leaders.
The level of LDS church involvement frustrated Milne, who grew up Mormon.
“They aren’t saying, ‘go and get involved with government.’ They are saying ‘get involved’ and then giving [their members] their opinion.”
Milne said the answer to the debate lies in civil unions, not just for homosexual partnerships. Ideally Milne thinks all marriages and partnerships should be defined as civil unions by the government. Then religions could perform ceremonies that conform to their beliefs.
“Personally, I think it’s rather hypocritical of the Mormon Church to
lobby Congress to amend the Constitution to forbid gay marriage. Weren’t they persecuted for their form of marriage?” said Michael Quinn, the
lobby Congress to amend the Constitution to forbid gay marriage. Weren’t they persecuted for their form of marriage?” said Michael Quinn, the
Weren’t they persecuted for their form of marriage?” said Michael Quinn, the
former BYU historian who wrote the book Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: a Mormon Example.”
Quinn’s book says that the LDS Church changed its attitude toward gay members in the 1950s. Jones follows that history in his documentary and explores how the LDS Church looked the other way toward gay members until society began to frown upon the practice.