Mormons in the Pride Parade

As someone whose has received a lot of judgement and hate (directly and indirectly) from those calling themselves Christians, reading this article about Mormons marching in the Utah Pride Parade brought a lot of tears to my eyes. I haven't personally lived in a Mormon-centric city or state, but I can certainly sympathize with those who do. One memory I have is visiting a friend's relatives who were Southern Baptists and spending the entire dinner meal dreading the inevitable "What does your father do?" because I knew that their opinion of me would be completely changed if they realized I came from a lesbian household. Thankfully the question never came.

The article I linked to above is primarily composed of accounts from the Mormons marching. Here is one excerpt that particularly spoke to me: 

"Here I was using this opportunity to put word in to action, to show my children I practice what I preach. But how my example paled to the overwhelming outpouring of love that we received from the crowds! We were so immediately accepted, applauded, thanked, encouraged, forgiven. There was no hesitation on their part, even though it would have been warranted, the way they have been hurt by church policy.

But no. Instead of harboring ill feelings, this beautiful, courageous, misunderstood LGBT community showed more Christ-like love than I have felt in a long, long time. It was hard to feel worthy of it."

I'm having trouble articulating why the quote is so important/beautiful to me. Okay, for example, if someone places high value on keeping a very neat and orderly home, for them to complement someone else's on being neat and orderly, that is very high praise. They are praising someone on something they value very highly.

For a Mormon to praise the GLBT community of exhibiting "Christ-like love" is very high praise indeed, because this is something they value very highly. I'm proud of the Mormons marching in the parade to be able to recognize that quality in their GLBT brothers and sisters.



I went to a protest against a KKK gathering in St. Paul, MN once. That protest made me feel ill because rows of protesters stood across the street from the KKK members giving them the finger and chanting, "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU." How could they call themselves any better in that moment, when their response to the hateful KKK was to try to throw even more hate back at them? How is that a protest against hate?

I'm proud of the GLBT folks in Utah who threw love back at the Mormons marching in the parade. I'm proud of them for being able to open their hearts to people from a community which has showed them such personalized negativity.