An thought provoking opinion piece on Holland's talk titled "You Can't Welcome Others With Open Arms If You Are Wielding A Musket"
Holland could have chosen to speak to any number of critical topics, including the life-upending pandemic that will soon round the corner on two years of uncertainty and strife. He could have instilled comfort and hope and leaned into the offerings that have long made organized religion a place people turn to in their darkest moments for refuge.
It came as no surprise to me, though, that Holland instead devoted nearly 1,500 of his 3,700 words trying to reconcile how his church should not condone or advocate for LGBTQ people, who, his says, members have “spent hours with them, and wept and prayed and wept again in an effort to offer love and hope.”
Holland’s vitriol was cemented when he invoked what many would interpret as violent language, particularly in a school setting, conjuring guns as a means of protecting the religion and particularly the doctrine of the family and so-called traditional marriage.
“I would like to hear a little more musket fire from this temple of learning,” he said.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commenta ... -you-can't/
I don’t know about you, but I can think of a few alternative ways to show love for our LGBTQ brethren than weeping or wielding firearms. Unless, of course, you are crying tears of joy to celebrate their bravery in stepping into their true selves, the selves that they were born into, that God intended, and which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long made us hide, or else risk ostracization or excommunication.
I know firsthand how the church time and again has chosen to impose fear and judgment and exclusion over embracing all of God’s creations as they are. I spent my entire life in the church trying to live up to its insurmountable expectations to lead a life that ran inherently counter to who I am. I am a deeply faithful person who believes in God and Christ. But in order for me to maintain my relationship with them, I, as a queer human, had to leave.
I saw the hurt that was coming from those students at BYU after Holland’s epithets, which were intended to sniff out the faculty that were sympathetic to the extreme duress LGBTQ students at BYU were facing. These students now have little hope that there will be any change. A hostile environment got even more perilous after Holland’s speech. They have no refuge. Is that what Jesus would have done? My heart says, most definitively not.
It is these reasons and a lifetime more that I submitted my resignation to the church. I should have left a long time ago. I should have left when I saw children killing themselves over how they were being treated. I didn’t, and I will always feel shame and guilt over that.
I know I am not alone.
I hope Holland is currently struggling with shame and guilt over what he said, but I suspect he lacks the self awareness and intellectual honesty to do so.
