For Love Never Was Sin

Jesus is gay. Must I explain further?

Whether or not same-sex attraction is a surmountable mortal pitfall, a passing scratch on one’s soul, as a result of personal folly and mercifully resolved through ritual piety,

Whether or not it is an everlasting handicap, a deliberate, God-given restraint upon His children, indelibly damning their odds at receiving the fullness of joy available to others,

Whether or not Jesus is a flippant sycophant, whose flattery before the Father can weasel any beggar into Heaven, or an immovable rock, inlaid with the indifferent traditions of man, 

Upon the cross He, too, experienced the pure depth of homosexuality, His Passion filled with the intensity of forbidden love.

To truly become God, Jesus became gay.

No matter the nature of homosexuality, its triviality or the moral peril it portends, One alone can vouch for it. One whose paradigm of love so many contort—nations with the upholding of unjust laws, preachers before congregations shouting bitter offenses to closeted youth, and fearful mothers who sweep their wide-eyed children away from classrooms dangling with menacing rainbows from the doorway.

Into this world we came innocent and unlettered. With untrained hands like gossamer we wove blankets of laughter and wonder, uninhibited in the act of inclusion, before colors learned their names and the tides of fate crashed upon shame’s pebbled shores. From unrestrained fervor we sprung, but with ruddied backsides we learned clearly the permissible extent of attraction and the margins that line the grueling labyrinth of allowance.

Nursery rhymes we used to sing aloud on rugged floors and playground games that rang with woodchip stains and chalky noses have become hoisted chants at protests while witnesses plead upon an asphalt bench with megaphones, crying,

“2, 4, 6, 8. Stop exemptions, stop the hate.”

In my childhood bedroom hung a proud banner of propriety, a striking blue crest as compelling as the sea, in whose wake I earnestly paddled. I would often wear its cerulean letter, a large capital Y, upon my chest as a token of honor. To my younger self, this icon served as a representation of my family heritage stowed up in stories that rippled from my parents’ lips, weekend basketball game traditions with ice cream celebrations forming my memory, awestruck yearning for the harmonious kinship I observed, which only swelled with time. And an edifying throng of scholars I worshiped became a beacon of hope, upon which I gazed with anticipation and for which I prepared tirelessly.

Charming actors who brought warmth to my cheeks in darkened cinema rooms, or boys on the swim team whose hands I longed to touch beyond a comradely clap of congratulation had no factor in my choice of college. I had no premonition at seventeen that belonging was a more restrictive category than I could have imagined. In the watchful gaze of that fluorescent letter Y above my bed frame, I foresaw only the good that I was told.

But the royal blue banner hanging on my bedroom wall never told me that one day I would be the direct subject of homosexual jokes in class. It never told me that my professors could incriminate my commitment to the university’s rules for simply voicing my opinion. It never told me that friends would call me foolish for not having dropped out of BYU or gone elsewhere from the start. It never told me that I would receive disgusted looks in a religion class for my choice of clothing. It never told me that I would lie awake at night, tortured by the jagged implications of my affection and forced to repress its open wounds. It never told me that as a student my federally-protected educational rights would be silently ambushed. It never told me that I could be expelled for giving someone a simple hug. It never told me that I would have my closest relationships violated by looming threats of honor code accusations if I were to admit honestly my desires. It never told me that the invisible war of suicide would rob me of a year’s worth of living—all because I like boys.

And in spite of these offenses, you profess that I belong.

But do I truly belong if I am forced to abide by ecclesiastical standards that directly oppose my understanding of God? While grappling with my faith, I quickly discovered the irony in barring any deviance from the rhetoric of spiritual certainty within an institution that makes fostering an atmosphere of faith its defining quality. 

I also discovered that belonging as a student forced me to carry a psychological burden that was entirely counterintuitive to my academic success. How is a person expected to endure the crushing weight of imposter syndrome while also studying for exams? Living my life as a chameleon in order to get through school, no matter the opportunities available to me, was simply not possible.

And BYU is not alone in its willful neglect for the well-being of LGBTQ+ students and the provocation of inequity among its student body.

Nationwide, the same private universities that claim to be financially supported only by religious sects also accept thousands of dollars in federal funding yearly. By law, no student in this country may be discriminated against on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Still BYU slips, exempt, through the grasp of these Title IX protections with its bigoted policies toward queer students. 

Rules of singularity restrict. Taboos and stigmas isolate.

Crouched behind pandering walls of security, authorities lie in wait to catch their prey unaware and out of line. Their code of conduct, created to preserve honor and integrity at the school, feels more like a slippery ruse to hunt down any student who fails to blend in with the impossibly heteronormative and cisgender standard, all in the name of God. Those expelled for merely seeking scraps of parallel intimacy are left irreparably branded by their lust and with a reminder of their divine disgrace.

Queer students are subject to an entirely foreign college experience at religious universities and are denied the ability to simultaneously practice faith and seek wisdom. Queer students must endure pointed abuse by unaffected leaders, intent upon erasing and rewriting, in a poorly executed scribble, the strict concept of love they deem to be true.

In a cycle of generational abuse, BYU continues indoctrinating its students with the same ignorant ideology: to follow blindly in the footsteps of a misguided mantra that drives queer students like myself into suicide and despair.

Instead of football games, we attend therapy.

Instead of marriage, we aim for survival.

Instead of diplomas, we receive threats of musket fire.

But we, too, would like to hear a little more musket fire from this temple of learning, defending the exemplar of love whose mercenary name this institution praises yet whose character it still fails to embody. The Prince of Peace, whose ways are beyond comprehension and mercy is endless, cannot be the same force that instills fear and shame into our queer community. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:17). 

In the name of Christianity, religious organizations like BYU have perverted the root teachings of Jesus, whose purpose was to stand as a beacon of hope, love, and redemption for all mankind. And this same God, who is full of of grace and everlasting peace, has been regretfully painted with the damning hues of an omnipotent hunter on the pages of so many queer people’s lives—imprinted by the fear of a God determined to shoot down all those who break free from their cages. 

So I ask, what God, who humbly kneels upon soiled ground, washes our feet any less willingly and pardonably than He does yours, saying, “There is no room for sinners here”? The conception of God who is a grim respecter of persons is not the Jesus I have come to love, and refuse to believe in. 

We are not faceless, intangible phenomena, a threatening force lurking between the lines of prophetic verse. We are no less worthy of love, no less worthy of loving another. And we cannot change. We have worn our lungs with that mournful dirge in days past. Change must occur collectively in the hearts of this campus, and most importantly its leadership, each individual abandoning the prejudice they protect and embracing with faith the notion of divine difference.

An institution that ventures to bring its students closer to God should recall that the true character of Christ is not found in the noble and educated but in lifting up the afflicted, the outcasts, and the scarlet letters who are thrown aside and stoned out of religious obligation. He is found in the lending of Samaritan balms to the meek and lowly rejects of society, forsaken alongside the straight and narrow path. 

To truly follow the example of Jesus, we must commit ourselves to fiercely and ungrudgingly love one another. And then, filled with compassion and a resolve to challenge our perceptions of truth, we will undoubtedly seal the chasms of misunderstanding that divide us.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. For love never was sin.