 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
July 2007 John Donald Gustav-Wrathall, a local Affirmation leader in Minneapolis, has published a personal essay in which he affirms both his relationship with his same-sex partner and his LDS identity. “I have been trying to define myself a middle path between the polar extremes of, on the one hand, embracing the Church and rejecting the love I share with my partner and, on the other hand, rejecting the Church and embracing my sexuality,” wrote John in the Summer 2007 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Although Apostle Dallin H. Oaks and Seventy Lance B. Wickman recently condemned same-sex relationships in an interview, calling homosexuality “an abominable sin,” John sees a positive connection between his relationship with his partner and his spirituality. “The basic sense of completion I find in my relationship with my same-sex partner suggests that my connection to him flows from a deeper spiritual reality,” John writes in his essay. In his interview with Church Public Affairs, Elder Wickman lamented that our society is saturated with sexuality and suggested that this saturation makes it harder for gay people to see beyond their sexual orientation. “I feel that Wickman’s... generalization about same-sex relationships misses an important point,” writes John. “We don’t enter into relationships and forge long-term commitments (such as my fifteen-year commitment with my partner) because we are succumbing to a sex-saturated culture. Ultimately, we enter into and maintain such commitments because we need and are nurtured by intimate love. We seek and enter into intimate relationships, not because we are gay but because we are human.” In the past John has written about his gay LDS identity in an essay in Sunstone magazine. To learn more about Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, visit www.dialoguejournal.com.
|
www.affirmation.org