My Gay Thoughts

The following is a response I sent to Joel Burns, the city council member speaking in the video. You don't have to watch the video to read my comments, but it is a very touching video I think you should watch. I wrote this response a while ago, and was reminded of it recently when I re-read this talk by President Hinckley.



Mr. Burns,

I'm sure this is one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of responses to your brave message posted on Youtube. Might I say that we live in an opportune time, that such a touching and personal message given in a local city council meeting can reach the entire world. Thank you for your tasteful and personal message.

By way of introduction, I am a 25-year old student at Brigham Young University studying Sociology and Education and an active, faithful member of the LDS Church. I also work as a social worker at a group home for at-risk youth, some of whom are struggling with the consequences of same-sex attraction.

When I first started college, I stood staunchly against gay marriage and gay relationships. Thanks to my sociology classes and the statistics-heavy papers I've read, I've found that gay marriage is not something to be afraid of. (Weak marriage IS a problem, but that is unfortunately not being talked about.) As I'm sure you're aware, social science shows that parents' sexual orientation alone is not an indicator of successful OR detrimental child-rearing. This information opened my mind, and my heart, to other possibilities of accepting gays into society more openly.

Your comments, however, didn't focus on the marriage debate, which is refreshing. Tolerance and brotherly love is something I would hope everyone, regardless of personal beliefs, can accept. And based on my new-found charity towards other people, homosexuals being at the front of that list right now, I can agree with your comments almost whole-heartedly.

My point in spending the last 20 minutes writing and revising this message to a stranger: there is a pocket of us who are caught up in the semantics game and want gays to have the same privileges and responsibilities as married people, but just not call it marriage. Because of my religious beliefs, I don't want LDS clergy legally obligated to perform marriages between two men or two women. But changing the legal definition would take the pressure off those of us who have a religious conviction against the structure of gay marriage. My faith does not actively oppose baptism in other churches. In a similar vein, I don't see why we would oppose a formal recognition of love and dedication between two gay people.

This doesn't solve all problems, of course. Gay people still wouldn't be "married," and being "civilly unionized" sounds like something from an Orwell novel. But my point is that there are people on the other side of the issue who are looking for some sort of compromise. We are also trying to figure it out, whatever that will turn out to mean.

Thank you for your service. The best to you and yours.

Derrick Kellis