I was recently asked the following question on my blog:
Josh, as Latter-Day Saints, we believe in a resurrection where our bodies are restored to perfection. If I can ask what may be a really personal/controversial question…what is your idea of what that perfected state would be for you? If you could, would you simplify your life and simply want to “become” straight? Or do you think that being gay is a defining part of who you are, and that you are already perfected with that trait? I think it’s an important question for our church- what is the end goal for people like you? For LGBT Mormons, what does heaven and perfection look like, what are they hoping for? Do you think that your answer differs from others in the community?
I thought it was an interesting question. The following is how I responded:
This is where I’m at with this subject at the moment:
For me, a perfected state as a resurrected being would include no longer being gay.
I want to clarify from the outset that my life wouldn’t be my life if I weren’t gay, and there are many incredible and important things that being gay has resulted in for me in this life. Many of my talents and interests and abilities seem to correlate in some way with my homosexuality, and I treasure those components of who I am.
So, what of those components of who I am? What will happen to them if in the next life, a perfect body means a body that is attracted to women instead of men?
I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. My suspicion is that the important things that the gay portion of my identity has given me will be taken with me into the next life. I’m not sure how it will work. But ultimately, I believe that in that state I will feel complete and whole, and that there are probably details regarding resurrection that will make it feel transcendent in such a way that any concerns I have will probably all be moot and I’ll be like “Whoa, okay, I see how this works now, and–coool–I love my new, improved, non-wrinkled, non-blind-eye, perfectly sexualized self.”
I really do love who I am, and feel that major parts of who I am are directly correlated with being homosexual. That includes stereotypical things like my aptitude and ease with musical and verbal expression, my interest in people and ability to empathize and relate to other humans, and my uncanny ability to notice when people, especially women, have gotten a good haircut (really, I have no idea why that is part of my repertoire when we’ve established many times that I no style sense, but it is). It also includes more complex things things like the fact that being part of two groups that appear mutually exclusive (gay and Mormon) my entire life has allowed me, and sometimes forced me, to free myself from over-simplified black and white paradigms. Or like the fact that bullying and persecution in younger years has given me added perspective as I do therapy, as well as strength and stamina as I confront the world around me as an adult. So, in a lot of ways I feel as though I have come to truly cherish the ways my homosexuality has enhanced, enriched and expanded who I am. I am a deeper, better, more nuanced person because I’m gay. I have seen Christ’s Atonement work in my life in miraculous ways because of it. I have truly come to love that part of who I am, although it has been challenging in many, many ways.
One thing I am spiritually very sure of is that the resurrection will happen. It’s probably one of the more profound spiritual witnesses of truth I’ve ever experienced. Riding a bus in a dusty town in Venezuela, reading about Christ, I had a moment of transcendence–a moment where I knew with perfect, spine-tingling clarity that Jesus Christ actually had revivified, eaten honey comb, walked with his comrades. That he was alive, embodied, in that very moment, and that one day I too would be resurrected.
Photo attribution: here
I am positive that no matter what, when we are resurrected, we will be happy with what has happened. We will feel whole and we will feel good. Also, I suspect that all people will have a change in their sexual impulses once resurrected, and I think it’s perfectly possible that sexuality in a resurrected state is something that we can’t even conceptualize.
The bottom line is that this is a mystery and I don’t know the answer. And I’m okay with not knowing all the answers. I know God loves us. I know He wants us to be happy. I don’t believe I’ll spend eternity feeling sexual attraction to something I’ll never ever ever ever EVER have. I don’t believe that the God I know, who has tenderly guided my steps throughout my life and whose love for me feels very real and very personal, would ever lead me down a path that ended in that way.
What do you, Northern Light Goers, think? What is your opinion?
Nicely stated and close to my own feelings on it. I think that gay/straight/whatever is all a mortal construct.
What a coincidence! I actually confronted this very question this morning as I was rereading Elder Callister’s book, “Infinite Atonement.” The chapter was on the resurrection and what it would be like. Many of my friends here on North Star find some help in mentally picturing their SSA as a physical condition that will be “healed” in the resurrection. That doesn’t help me. My SSA is part of my head, my thoughts, my emotions, my ATTRACTIONS. It is only physical in the fact that my head tells my body what to want and to do and to find satisfaction in.
In the last few months I’ve realized that, as I’ve turned to Christ and tried to see things through his eyes, to love as he loves, to act as he acts, my SSA has been overshadowed by those higher emotions, thoughts, and, yes, attractions. Oh, the SSA is still there if I focus on it, but I’m learning that I don’t have to.
So, in the resurrection? I think I’ll have such an overwhelming love for God, for his son, and for the eternal nature of the law of chastity that any SSA will find no room left. I think I’ll have such a perfect vision of eternity that my desires will be only to think and act as God does. He will have brought me into a unity with him. I’ll have finally gotten “my head around” sexual attractions, why they are there in the first place and what role they’ll play in my eternal progression.
The resurrection will give me a perfect body, yes, but it will also give me a perfect mind, a perfect heart–one that will only desire or be attracted to the things that will carry me forth in that realm.
The physical resurrection is a free gift to all of us. But my being resurrected to a state of unity in thought with God is all hinged on my efforts and desires to please God and to show that I love him more than earthly men. I must call on the atonement to repent and to find the power to live in accordance with his commandments NOW.
Thanks for the chance to clarify my own thinking on this subject.
I concur with Rex. Ultimately homosexuality is a result of living in a fallen world. Because if you look at the Plan of Salvation, there is no room for it! Marriage is between a man and a woman and being sealed is requisite for the highest degree of Celestial Glory. Yes, it is very real in this life and it can both help and hinder us depending on how we choose to respond to it. But in the next life, it’s something that is going to be resolved and we won’t have to worry about it. I agree with Josh, it’s going to get worked out but we can’t right now as mortals, figure out how that’s going to happen.