The Sacrifice of Being Gay & Mormon

A dozen years ago I interviewed a gay man who was married — to a lesbian woman.

They are still married, as far as I know.

I wrote the piece for an evangelical magazine, to speak to the issue of how radically Jesus can transform someone’s life — rescuing them from their gayness, as it were.

If you have read Where’s Your Jesus Now? then you know I no longer think gay people need rescuing, any more than I think I do.

Or you do.

I was intrigued, however, when a friend passed along a blog post written by a Mormon fellow. Joshua Weed, author of The Weed blog, is a family therapist who lives in the Seattle area. He is ADHD and he’s gay.

That’s right.

He’s Mormon. Gay. Married. And a father.

Or as the adage goes — It’s complicated.

Josh, who only recently revealed to his blog audience his gayness, explained it in part this way:

One of the sad truths about being homosexual is that no matter what you decide for your future, you have to sacrifice something. It’s very sad, but it is true. I think this is true of life in general as well. If you decide to be a doctor, you give up any of the myriad of other things you could have chosen. But with homosexuality, the choices seem to be a little bit more mutually exclusive.  If you are Mormon and you choose to live your religion, you are sacrificing the ability to have a romantic relationship with a same-sex partner. If you choose a same-sex partner, you are sacrificing the ability to have a biological family with the one you love.  And so on. No matter what path you choose, if you are gay you are giving up something basic, and sometimes various things that are very basic. I chose not to “live the gay lifestyle,” as it were, because I found that what I would have to give up to do so wasn’t worth the sacrifice for me.

His wife knew before they married that she was marrying a gay man. For a more thorough explanation check out this post on Josh’s blog:  Coming out of the Closet on Our 10 year Anniversary.

Does it trouble you that Josh has to make a choice between his faith and his sexuality?

Or do you believe that all gay people ought to sacrifice their sexual identity for righteousness sake?