Update on Two Guys and a Prom

The kid told me that Chaucer called the other day and that today they would hang out after church and figure out the details for the event. I was glad that Chaucer was still interested. As the kid mentioned the Constance McMillen case, I asked him if he thought that had anything to do with Chaucer, he said no, that the agreement to go was long before Constance McMillen became a news item. He said that he knew that if he went and petitioned the school board for permission to go it might stir up a little frenzy, but that he is certain that if he and Chaucer just went, no one will care.

Last year the Song family tuxedo went to prom on a woman with her same sex date. I knew that. But as I mentioned in the Truth is Stranger than fiction post, I had forgotten that Girl Song had also went to the winter formal with another girl. I told the kid about this. He did not remember. This was eleven years ago. The kid thinks just about anyone can take their same sex date to a prom without it necessarily being a federal case-although he did ask us about how we felt as you will recall from the earlier Two guys and a prom posts.

I asked him if gay kids he knew were surprised that being from a Mormon family this had been relatively painless for him to arrange with his parents knowledge. He just dismissed us as being "liberals." Nice, I guess. I don't feel as though it is quite that simple. You know his "kind of a Homo" Mom would actually, if given the chance, still select a girl for him to go to do high school dances with. Which is strange because, if someone asked me to arrange a marriage for him, I do not know which sex I would choose, because I now have some pretty big questions as to just what his sexuality is and whether or not he could maintain a mixed orientation marriage or same sex marriage with or without a testimony. One night is not eternity, although I am surely certain for a teenager a bad prom night can seem like eternity.

It Takes One to Know One or Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Recently, friend from my ward shared that their transperson child had said that I was the only person in the ward they could possibly talk to about the church and sexuality. I rather doubt that the friend has shared what they know about my own sexual anomalies with their child, but I wasn't at all surprised that a transperson could identify a commonality with me. At a later time, I'll blog about my early teenage desires to be male-I think it has a lot to do with societal expectations of beauty for women and with my fear I had then of domestic violence.

A Schoolgirl's Pedigree

Drama Mama always resented that her mother never had more education. Grandma lamented that she never had more education. She was born in 1909 into the household of a man who farmed for shares. Her parents were "Dunkers" at one time. Religious folk who worked hard and didn't see education as practical. You had to pay for books back then and help with the upkeep of the teacher.

Grandma finished eighth grade, but then came home to help with a younger sister who was disabled and to assist a mother who had used a cane as long as she could remember. Grandma told me she had more schooling than any other child in her very large family, but that she really wanted to become a school teacher, but her father would not pay for more education.

Please understand that in this day, most country schools only went to eighth grade anyway. If a community was lucky the teacher might have enough training beyond the first level teaching certificate to teach part of the high school curriculum. I haven't went back to research what the opportunities were in Grandma's community, but I know that where I live now, some of the early school teachers had to ride long distances horseback, take a train and board with other people, or drive quite a way (which wasn't always too easy in the snow with an early vintage automobile) to get that "advanced" education.

When Grandma was eighteen she met two Soldiers. One swept her off her feet and she agreed to marry him. His friend tried to warn her that his buddy was already married, but she dismissed him as being jealous. Her husband moved her to another city and their first year of marriage was happy. One day he never came home. She heard he had transferred to Texas. When I was interviewing her as an old lady she still didn't want to talk much about the specifics.

I do not know how she got home, but she did. She began taking in laundry and would do laundry for the single men of the community. When she was 25 she was able to get her divorce from the soldier. Some time after that she became pregnant. Very shortly after that she married my grandfather who was forty years older than her. I do not know if he was the father of her first child, but I think he was.

When I asked her about this she said, "How else was I ever going to have a home of my own." I'll let you, dear reader, draw your own conclusions as to what may have transpired between these two. This would still be the era when married women could not teach school, so it's unlikely that even if she had had a teaching certificate, that it would have helped her much as far as finding employment. I do not know how divorced women faired in finding teaching positions in those days.

Grandma, truth be told was not entirely happy in this 7 year marriage, but at least she had her family that she so desired. Her husband was crippled from a work injury, pretty hard to get along with, and did not like the second child who was a daughter,Drama Mama. Things got really hard after he died and they became truly terrible for Drama Mama.

Grandma did the best she could but people and the community were not easy on her. There was a series of unfortunate events which result in the exploitation of her and her children by another family member for financial gain. This person also used this opportunity to sexually exploit Drama Mama. The four of them did eventually escape and with the two oldest teenager's earnings from their jobs were able to make their own way. Drama Mama resented it very much when her older brother joined the military and wasn't at home to help anymore.

Grandma was insistent that Drama Mama go to college and forced her rebellious teenage daughter to apply for scholarships. Drama Mama was already dating married men and going to roadhouses by this time as well as working, going to high school, and as I recall, playing high school basketball. I suppose much to Drama Mama's surprise, she received a full ride scholarship to a catholic nursing school. I think Drama Mama's older brother graduated high school but the younger one did not.

I do not know how long Drama Mama went to nursing school before being asked to leave. I've blogged about all the reasons that might have triggered that request. After, several stints waitressing and bartending, Drama Mama did take a secretarial course. She "augmented" her secretarial work with different kinds of moonlighting ranging from barmaid work to numerous sexual trysts where men would buy her clothing and take her on interesting trips. She was always very clear she wasn't a prostitute, you know, doing "it" for money. In kind was fine, though.

I think my readers will agree that it is truly miraculous that Drama Mama finally met a Mormon serviceman in a bar, who she thought was kind of cute and went home to sleep with that night. For whatever crazy reason, he took her and us kids to church the next day. We spent a lot of time with him over the next two weeks. He shipped off to Germany and he was gone. She told one of the card carrying mormon guys at work, who had been very carefully avoiding her, that she'd gone to the mormon church for the last few weeks. This fine gentleman arranged for Drama Mama and I to take the lessons and the rest is history as they say.

After joining the church and becoming a very skilled geneaologist, Drama Mama began to lament her peoples lack of respect for education. It's quite odd that she never acknowledged her own failures in this department or understood just how much Grandma did to try to set her on the right path or how Grandma's education was at least average if not greater for her time. Drama Mama had discovered that one of Grandma's male second cousins had done quite well for himself and risen to a high governmental position. She was very jealous of his education and blamed her grandparents for their lack of commitment to education.

As it turned out, I became the first member of my family on Drama Mama's side to graduate from college. I remember trying to convince Drama Mama to take an IT degree tailored expressly for reentry women from a state institution when she divorced from wicked stepfather, but she refused. Eventually she did get a bachelor's degree from a college which later closed its doors. This didn't help her much without a trade certification which she started to acquire and then gave up on.

Of my four female siblings, the three of us who were most committed to living an LDS lifestyle are the ones who also solidly maintained progress on our educations. One of us has a trade and has never stopped working in the trade. One of us is on the Mormon mommy track. And I have had the opportunity or curse depending on your outlook to combine all three and a graduate degree.

The two who have the most difficulty living the gospel are the two who, like Drama Mama, squandered the most educational opportunities. One was accepted to five major universities with partial scholarships and instead chose a prolonged period of riotous living. The other could not apply herself and gave up her athletic scholarship and married soon afterwards and stayed home for a while. Both of these women ultimately found a suitable trade and both are now working on associates degrees in their thirties.

Girl Song, my daughter, was also rebellious, but in a hyper religious way. He path to education was quite convoluted but she kept at it. Her straying from the church also correspondended with straying from education, a series of unhealthy work situations and even a brief stint of homelessness. She has gotten back on track with education and will soon have a graduate degree.

My point in all this is that if you look at this family's experience, it has not been religion that caused our women to deviate from the educational track it has been something else. If anything, our association with the LDS church has actually helped those of us who have the most education attain that education in a relatively short time frame. So, when I read that the Church keeps women from having career and educational attainment, I wonder where does this come from? Certainly, that hasn't been the experience in this family. In fact, strong commitment to the ideals and involvement with the Church seems to be a strong indicator for educational success.

Two Guys and a Prom-Part 2

At this point, in my heart of hearts, I know that Chaucer and the Kid will now be coming to our house before Prom for pictures. This still makes me a little anxious. I make The Kid go to church, mutual and seminary and DH supports me in this because of a few "incidents." DH is now agnostic and the Kid is identifying as Atheist. However, DH feels that the kid needs the moral grounding church has to offer and has remarked, "they don't check to see if you have a testimony or if you are gay at the door." DH and the Kid accordingly don't take the sacrament. But, for some weeks we've been going together as a family and I am satisfied with that.

Even when the Kid wasn't attending Sundays and Mutual, I still required Seminary attendance. My perspective was that this is the one thing that was the most important in the long run as far as, lets face it, preserving maximum options for future missionary service if any thing changed testimony wise. Attaining Eagle Scout also fell by the wayside due to the twin barriers of no belief in God and LGBT or questioning identity.

With Seminary graduation looming, I fear (but have no knowledge that this would be the case) that somehow his graduation could be impacted either by official decree or the Kid winding up being too embarassed to attend after going with Chaucer to the prom. But, truth be told I think many of his friends and his leaders already know. High school social consequences are zero for a variety of reasons I won't go into.

I'd rather not have to explain ourselves to any outlying do gooder who doesn't already know that the Song family is pretty out there anyway as far as being card carrying liberals. But every LDS congregation, no mather how tolerant, has at least 1 or 2 of these types of personalities. And, often I've found these vocal few to be some of the folks with the greatest problems in their own personal lives-think homophobic closeted gay folk. The Kid thinks there won't be any problems. I think he is right.

We also wondered if Chaucer was really serious about doing this and if he would get cold feet? I wondered if the Kid would take this as another rejection. The Kid assured me that his relationship was really much more casual and that he would be ok if Chaucer got cold feet.

I then told the Kid that it is my wish that he find a nice Mormon boy to settle down with. The Kid both liked this and found it uncomfortable. I also said that I hoped both would attend church regardless of excommunication, disfellowship or whatever. He asked, "How would I introduce my husband in Elder's Quorum?" "What if we have kids?" We said, you will introduce him as your husband if you are legally married in a state that allows gay marriage. If you are in a state that allows domestic partnerships, you will introduce him as your partner and that will be that. If you have kids, you will introduce them as your kids with your partner or husband.

And, that will be that.

We also shared about our family friend who went on a mission and is now marrying her girlfriend she fell in love with as a heterosexual woman. He got a kick out of the cute Mormon "lesbians."

DH supports gay marriage and I am just so tired of the whole debate that I no longer participate politically on the issue. If the Kid marries a woman, I will go to the wedding and do the traditional parenting things. If the Kid marries a man, I will go to the wedding and do the traditional parenting things. God can sort all of this out in the millenium.

Two Guys and a Prom-Part 1

So last night the Kid asked me how I felt about him going to his friend Chaucer's (name changed here) prom in May. Oh the mixed feelings and logistics of it all as a something more than straight, living to have no regrets, active member mormon lady of a certain age parent. Where to start?

First of all, we know Chaucer, and his most memorable imprint upon us as parents was his disturbing lack of hygiene. However, we haven't seen him for a year, and the Kid assures us Chaucer has undergone something of a metamorphosis. The Kid is a stud muffin and when not fighting the dreaded teenage acne, and even when the facial eruptions occur looks pretty good even if I say so myself. DH and I don't make no junk when it comes to offspring, although we always wonder how this could be(being relatively dweebish ourselves), genetically, we seem to have combined well to produce better specimens in our offspring. Yes, I am a braggard.

Second, the Kid wanted to know if he should bring Chaucer to the house or meet him elsewhere. What's the problem you may ask? Well, there is a little brother who is cognitively delayed and the original birds and bees talks have been difficult enough, but now we will need to explain to him why the Kid has a male date. And, then how does this fit or not fit in with gospel principles and what does this mean for our family? Fortunately, the Kid has thought about this and has some good ideas for the talks with little brother. I think the next few weeks of Family Home Evening are going to be very interesting . . . .

Third, the Kid's previous two male romantic interests (before them he previously had two girlfriends-one who is now his best friend) have now decided they are straight. This was a bit of a blow to his self esteem as a budding bisexual or gay man. The Kid readily admits that there is something incredibly exhilerating about Chaucer asking him to the Prom after these experiences. I thought it was kind of funny when DH said, "You don't have to go with him, just because he was the only guy who asked you."

And as I now have to run off to work, I must leave the post incomplete. Stay tuned for installment two wherein I share the high points of the family discussion of the hypothetical of how the Kid should introduce any future husband he might have in Elders Quorum.

Sexual Orientation is a Choice-Political Feminism

So you wonder why large numbers of LDS people believe that sexual orientation is a choice? Look no further than political feminism and separatist feminism for your answer. Political feminism argued that women should choose lesbianism as a way of combating the patriarchy. Chief among the proponents of separatist feminism was Sonia Johnson, the mormon ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) advocate who later went onto a very colorful life in feminist and lesbian extremes outside the mainstream culture. She was the most famous LDS LGBT person of her time.

I Left my Flaming Pantyhose at the Summer Cottage in Babylon

So, as a brief and incongruous interlude to my ongoing dissection of domestic violence issues in the LDS and LGBT communities and how those concerns may intersect, I now take you to my very own Summer Cottage in Babylon which I gave up a couple of years ago-Roller Derby. I loved Derby. Due to my age, I rode the second wave ashore and was a dedicated, though mostly closeted fan.

I say mostly closeted, because the fam and I did go together to watch one incredibly satisfying, slutty, violent, catty clash of femmes and butches working together to kick "trash." They all loved it and as I mentioned to DH, "Chicks with big thighs-could it get any better?" He did not object. Certainly one could speculate that my obsession with derby and sizable female thighs is ample evidence of my "sexual fluidity."

I followed a particular team, had a favorite skater and followed her on MySpace and Facebook, and almost broke my pledge regarding never wearing pantyhose again. For you see, derby girls are unrepentant connoisseurs of fish net, tights with flames, and all manner of extreme hosiery. However, I did decide that the incessant innuendo, crude humor and language, and, yes, the violence of it all, probably wasn't appropriate for the part of me that wanted to be a "holy woman." So I left derby behind.

Which leaves the pantyhose issue doesn't it? That's another incongruity and according to some measures of "tru-blu mormonism" a matter of obvious hypocrisy on my part as I refuse to wear pantyhose (well at least the demure sheer or semi sheer that are part of the Sunday Mormon Woman Uniform). The one exception was last year's civil wedding of the "kids." Let it be known that I also wore a girdle for that event as well. Never again.

I digress.

The point being that were I to actually take up wearing pantyhose or tights to church again, they would be of the highly patterned kind or nearly opaque ornate knitted "fishnet." Even if I wanted to go sheer or semi-sheer, there is still the matter of the network varicose veins and spider on my left shin that somewhat resembles a tattoo of the highway network on the Eastern Seaboard. Given the possibility that conspiring minds could mistakenly conclude Quiet Song had a leg tattoo, demure Mormon lady pantyhose is out. Which leaves my Islamic style long skirts which allow me great flexibility in both footwear and hosiery, or lack thereof.

Last night I dreamed a crazy dream . . .

Last night I dreamed a crazy dream about two persons I "know" only from online connections. I actually have limited connections even online with with only one. Both were setting up businesses near where I had a business location. "Good" online persona dropped by my home to crash our summer backyard Family Home Evening (at a home I've never seen or lived at before) and Drama Mama was actually there without being dramatic. My family enjoyed meeting "Good" as did I. "Bad" online persona knew he was bad and knew that I knew him even though we never had exchanged any direct communication. "Bad" was setting up a Pizza and Deli place around the corner from myself and "Good." "Bad" was very bad, and I had to have a very assertive face to face conversation with him where I set the record straight, so to speak, and laid out my expectations of his behavior, and what the consequences would be if he did not toe the line. "Bad" agreed to comply and gave me a copy of his menu which had a number of tasty looking items on it.

I rather think I am spending too much time online.

In the year and a half I've been reading Moho blogs several have went private or closed. And, I've felt sadness about that. Why, I'll never intellectually understand. Bad and Good personas are not within that group. I don't even think "Bad" blogs, just makes troll posts on various blogs I read throughout the blogosphere. Through reading blogs and posting, I have received comfort on my political/religious/social/familial/emotional interface boundary issues and internal conflicts regarding gay marriage and parenting a LGBT teenager.

I've tried to ascertain what it means to me to be a person who has been attracted to both sexes. I still don't have any clearer answer and cannot determine whether I have a true identity as a straight person or an identity as an LGBT person or if I just stay with the "sexual" person categorization I gave myself years ago. I think the kid has more of an LGBT identity, but he shows signs of possbily jettisoning that as well in favor of the "sexual person" identity his parent has adopted as he grows up.

Thanks to Drama Mama, I'm now also really questioning what I want to keep from my family of origin identity. There isn't much lovely or of good report. I have a small ethnic identity which I'm going to expand upon. Thanks to Drama Mama, that was stripped from me as a child, but I'm now going to reclaim it and make it a bigger part of my life. I have a beloved elder who was in my life and that person is a part of my identity. Drama Mama did provide me the gospel in her inimitable theatrical way, though, and that seems to be the real key to my identity.

This was confirmed through yet another online type of experience, a list serve, it is the gospel part that seems to make the greatest difference to me in defining who I am. It's not my membership in the LDS church, it is my own personal relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And, it occurs to me that this identity is really the only one that matters. That is what blogging has done for me.

I had also hoped to provide another voice, one that doesn't get heard often within the cacophony of debate. I think I've done that. So, like others I'm going quiet for a while although I'll probably leave this blog up for a long time even if I don't post again.

But now back to real life.

Porn -Wherein I Reveal Too Much

This post reflects a certain attitude within the church that the general authorities and other leaders positions on porn are too overstated. I wish I could agree with the author, but I can't. As a person who works in a helping occupation, I've seen the families and marriages destroyed by porn.

I've seen the poorly thought out myspace photo turned into child porn by unscrupulous lawyers. I've seen Judges, child protective services and others take a picture of a beautiful young sexy mother and turn her into a threat to her child, just because they are looking for an excuse and any excuse will do. I've seen a priesthood holder split hairs a la Bill Clinton and violate children spiritually in his own household via the use of pornography coupled with personal belongings of the child (perverted but not entirely criminal). I've seen the husband move on from the porn to another woman at the pain and financial expense of his partner. I've seen the wife who disposes of the husband because he no longers meets the cultural icons of porn as portrayed in multiple forms of media.

Elder Scott wisely reminded us of all the types of passion that interfere with the spirit. Political porn, (here and here) is almost as bad as sexual porn. I highly recommend Alec Baldwin's great essay on political porn. Gun porn has a lot to do with the availability and unfortunate use of weapons. Anger and the addictive lure of expressing righteous indignation also interferes with the spirit. I think he just might have a little more experience helping members with these issues than we want to admit.

Conflicted and . . . in hiding?

Today, I passed on a work opportunity I would have liked to pursue. Why? Because I'm not liberal enough in terms of my support (or lack thereof) of gay marriage. As I mentioned in a previous post, I blog elsewhere and I've mentioned that I don't support expanding marriage beyond the way it is currently configured in 45 states in America in one of those blogs.


I'm slightly ashamed to say that my take on this matter is not as predictable as one would think. I think the real threat to my church is all the other forms of alternative marriage beyond gay marriage. Yes, it's the "p" word. Polygamy is the major threat to the church from alternative marriage. I believe most folks in today's society, given a non-stigmatized response to it, would choose this configuration for marriage and not necessarily in the format previously practiced by the Mormons in the 1800's.

And that's not the half of it. Here is where I'm really jaundiced or cynical. Take your average brother and sister in the church and they are fascinated by Mormon celebrities be they people who are subjects of public acclaim or persons associated with men holding high ranking priesthood callings. Some people do want to be affiliated with certain families and it's my belief that you would see massive disruption among "lower tier" families when some of our dear sisters go shopping for a better model.

And if I want three wives and three husbands, is there anything that would really prohibit that from happening in the brave new world? This would be my ideal if we were simply talking about preferences without any boundaries. I could very, very easily be polyamorous. And yet, upon further reflection and weighing it against my decades of marriage, I'd have to say I'd be nuts to actually try it.

On the other hand, as long as my church and other churches have the right to solemnize only the types of marriages they believe they should, what do I really care how the next person chooses to be married? Perhaps the solution is to make marriage solely a civil function of the state. In the end, I just don't want to deal with the issue. And, I've decided that I'm not going to engage in the debate if it comes up locally.

A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit

Recently, I've dealt more with anxiety than I care to. There are many reasons for this, but I worry for my children, especially the one dealing with a same sex attraction. I wish my child would read posts like this one by Charles Mitchell, but if a parent's experience in living with an opposite sex spouse for a very long time and somehow managing to carry on in the relationship despite many more overwhelming problems than same sex attraction, isn't enough, what is?

Every so often I have to admit, that I cannot solve every problem or find the just the right persuasive words to soften hearts and change actions. When I finally admit that I can't do it without help and that the sadness at watching a dear child make bad choices is overwhelming, that's when I remember the promises of the Savior to those who come to him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I cherish the great blessing of peace when I acknowledge his sacrifice and knowledge of my pain and the comforter sends peace which courses through my soul and lifts my burdens.

I was very touched by Charles Mitchell's open letter to struggles in the blog post link above for a number of reasons ranging from his experience receiving his patriarchial blessing (I also had a line in my patriarchial blessing which I felt and still feel directly addressed my same sex attractions) to the wonderful testimony of successfully living within the bounds the Lord has set for our marital and familial relations.

Entering the World of Moho Bloggers, Ever So Timidly

A certain amount of angst seems to power "moho" blogs, which I don't feel. Maybe more because I'm "mobi," or less because I have lived traditionally (not always entirely happily due to non-sexuality based problems) with a member of the opposite sex in a marital relationship for decades within the LDS Church (mormons). This blog is a response to original mohomie's remark that he just doesn't "see" people like me in the blogosphere. Well we exist and I'll try to find a thing or two to blog about occassionally.

What has created more than a little angst for me is the issue of gay marriage, I was well adapted to marriage as we then knew it and I still have some concerns about whether or not polygamy isn't next on the list of alternative marriage practices under the law and whether or not freedom of religion under the United States Constitution will somehow be compromised. More on these worries some other time. The other motivating angst has arisen from a child coming out. Wow, it's one thing to deal with your own issues and find peace, but quite another to find the same peace with a child threatening to careen recklessly around the the most salacious aspects of the "gay scene."

So there is some grist for the blog mill . . . all in due time.