Story and Automatons

I've learned not to ever ever burden casual acquaintances from my BYU days with details about my personal life, even though they ask.

Case in point: I work part-time at a coffee shop. A familiar face from my BYU days popped in for some coffee (which is always a source of secret hilarity to me when that happens). He asked me if I was married.

"Kind of," I said.

"Your kind-of married?"

"Well, I'm gay; that's why I left BYU before graduating. Me and my fiance live in Orem now."

The former acquaintance (soon to be a former, former acquaintance) starts backing away while he tries to continue talking naturally through his shock and embarrassment. It's obvious he's not taking it well. He gets his coffee and leaves the store without getting the pastry he bought from me. He never came back for it.

I think I'll come up with a elaborate lie. Something impressive like.....I'm a neurologist and part-time inventor. I have seven kids and am thinking of adopting more.

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I don't have strong opinions about many things, but I do have a handful; and here's one of them:

Members of the church who believe marriage should only be between a man and women often have a litany of well-worn, oft repeated reasons supporting their opinion (and to be fair, so do we). In fact, today I got the "marriage is sacred" variant on an argument from a customer who thinks my coffee shop is her own little version of Cheers [where everybody knows your name] and decided to go a little too deep for pleasant coffee-shop chit-chat.

I would almost never do this, but I've always wanted to ask these people this question: If the prophet announced tomorrow that he received a revelation affirming homosexuality and gay marriage, would your opinion change?

I tell you that any member who answers yes, that their opinion would change in that unlikely event - that person does not have my respect. They can take all their well-rehearsed bullet points and shove them. They are automatons. I fully understand why they believe they way they do, and still I say - they are unthinking and heartless. I understand the real reason (prophet speaks>obey). Everything else is hot air.

Which is why I'm so intrigued with the current drama of Scott & Sarah. In a nutshell - they're a gay-straight married couple trying to stay active in the church. After Scott came out to the ward in testimony meeting (God!), the most recent trial is trying their best to keep a foothold in the church while insisting they can sustain the prophet while disagreeing with him on some issues (guess which issues).

Reading their blog is kind of like being a voyeur and rubbernecking at the same time. I can't look away no matter how hard I try.