Falling Into Life: A Gay Exmormon’s Journey

Chapter Twenty – Understanding Evergreen (Rewritten, part one of two Evergreen chapters)

Mormons think they have the answers for everything, including how to “cure” and “repair” gay people…

Evergreen is a “conversion therapy” program, sometimes referred to as a “reparative therapy” program where desperate LDS men who suspect they are gay often end up. Mostly they find out about this program through their bishops, or their LDS Social Services therapists. Much of the popularity of the program was spread by me, and men like me. When I was actively involved in Evergreen, I was speaking to Bishops, Stake Presidents, and therapists explaining what a successful program it is. Until I crashed and burned because it’s full of lies and false promises. But you have to understand the whole doctrinal set to understand why it exists in the first place.

Owing to the fact that Mormons believe their genders were assigned to them in the pre-existence, they cannot see past the patriarchal, puritanical gender assignments on this planet. They believe God is a male, and that he has a harem of Heavenly Mothers who follow his direction down to the Nth degree. All glory to the male God. All glory to the patriarchal order. All glory to the Holy Priesthood. All glory to the Holy Family Structure. Anyone who doesn’t fit the ordained “family” structure is wrong, and everyone can be taught or changed to fit the structure if they choose the right.

“Choosing the Right” is a trademark of the LDS faith, and young children around the age of five are provided rings to wear that say CTR_© on them. They look like little green shields, and it’s obviously a brainwashing technique where a child’s mind is trained to understand that choosing the right means choosing the things they are shown to be right. A young LDS mind is molded at the start to “know” what is right, and to choose that path. What this translates to mean is that as a young child, you know what will provide you love and acceptance, and what will not. Being sinful will not provide any such things, and becoming “gay” is a sin just above murder.

God the Father_© set the family structure in place for our eternal plan of salvation. Our spirits move from our pre-existent home into a mother’s womb as the fetus grows, passing through a “veil of forgetfulness”. I was taught that pre-existent spirits can choose their future mothers, and so Mormon families are the best choice possible for any spirit to inhabit. Some spirits are pre-judged, or simply make bad choices to be placed with less-valiant families due to their proven (or unproven) valiance in the pre-world. It is God’s Plan that we eternally marry, we have children and we replenish the earth with children. Then we will all be sealed together to be together in the hereafter as one huge family unit, all having returned to live with our Heavenly Father in the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom.

Clear gender roles exist in the Mormon Church and gender assigned duties also exist, eternally connected to those pre-assigned genders. Strong, healthy children can only be attained if a child has a father and a mother that raise them in the never-changing gospel structure. Mothers are strongly encouraged, and pressured to not work because the raising of the family is the most important role there is. Men work; women stay home and raise the kids. If a woman must work, they typically feel pressure in doing so. This then places pressure on the husband for not towing the line and inevitably ends up harming the children, placing then directly into Satan’s grip given enough time…tick, tick, tick.

Because the roles are so clear, and the gospel is so true, there’s no reason to believe that placing every child into the structure would harm them in any way. On the contrary, they feel that this is the *best* way to raise kids and protect them from the onslaught of evil forces and Satan’s temptations ever present, ever waiting. Temptations such as drinking coffee, stealing, and kissing the same gender, amongst others. They can fix each of these temptations; they know how to cure anyone from any errant behavior. All you need is enough faith, enough prayer, and enough insanity.

Mormon leaders with any decision-making power are all male, all untrained, and almost all egotistical due to the fact that God chose them personally to lead. Most religions prefer to hire trained leaders because of the complexities of human nature. Higher degrees are attained in counseling, seminary studies, and psychology in order to better serve and minister to religious parishes and congregations. Most Catholic clergy must pursue training in order to be placed in a leadership role. Mormons, however, don’t need any training or education at all to serve as a leader. They need to be chosen by God, which entails groups of other untrained leaders thinking about who in the ward would “do a good job” in a certain volunteer calling. Many times they end up taking whomever they can get due to such small numbers of active or willing members.

My Ex and I have a favorite story to explain egotism at its finest. One time we were visiting the home of a Stake President. We entered a room, jaws agape; staring at his own “trophy room” he had built into his home where he displayed all of his own personal trophy kills. There were dead, mounted animals of every sort, large and small. We stood in front of a stuffed Grizzly Bear, it looked ferocious, standing erect on its back legs, menacing mouth wide open displaying enormous teeth, head cocked sideways and formed into its last threat. This man stepped up quietly behind us and said in a forced Mormon tone, “That was the most humbling day of my life…” referencing the day he shot and killed the animal before us. My Ex, in one of her most snarky moments (moments I adored), said to him in response, “I think it was more humbling for the bear.”

Sadly, this problem of untrained leadership is never resolved or revisited. Men are chosen in prayer circles, dumpy, stupid, amazingly dense men are chosen daily around the globe to minister to the needs of their ward members. I have, just in my single life, had more asinine responses given to me from Mormon leaders and family members than most religious people have. The Mormon Church is mostly a collection of power-hungry, untrained morons. They learn early that anything they spew at a member is seen as “God’s Word”. They get away with some of the most heinous ideas and counseling methods available to mankind.

This is the danger of the Mormon Church. Untrained leadership! Absolutely untrained leaders, bumbling straight men creating upsetting, pressure-filled and ultimately suicidal situations for their homosexual membership. They take advantage of people. They hurt people, and they do not care! God is on their side, they speak for God, and they literally *believe* that. Even if God was trying to tell them otherwise, they’d never hear it. Their General Authorities set the egotistical, pompous tone and direction.

The Mormon Church has shown that it is a collection of dimwitted humans. Spencer W. Kimball, a prophet from my childhood who actually stated on the pulpit that giving Native Americans blood transfusions from its white Elders would help them become more righteous, “white and delightsome”. Meaning literally that blood from white Mormons would make Native American skin whiter and increase their righteousness. And *that* was in the 1970’s. He also wrote in a published book that Bigfoot existed, and that said Sasquatch was Cain from the Bible who murdered Able. No, I’m not kidding. Poor Bigfoot, doomed to live out his life as a hirsute pariah, lumbering about forever, bumping into startled campers and damned for life with his black skin (under all that fur), the same cursed black skin impacting all Africans. Lazy bastards!

This is only one example, I could provide a mind-numbing amount of examples, each demonstrating that there’s simply no way an omniscient, omnipotent “God” would choose a Mormon to use as a mouthpiece. And one of their General Authorities seems to be specifically dedicated to alienating, embarrassing, and creating hate towards homosexuals: Boyd K. Packer. Most likely homosexual himself, his focus on breaking down any privacy barrier for any young man is legendary. His nastiness has haunted decades of normal young men into believing that masturbation will not only make God hate them personally, but will most likely kill a kitten for each orgasmic sinner.

Packer penned a pamphlet for “same-sex attracted” men called To the One. Inside this small handbook of hate given to those brave LDS youngsters who admit they might be gay, is a startling collection of unscientific bullshit that is used to humiliate, break down, and shame homosexual males. It targets masturbation, pornography, unholy thoughts, and homosexual tendencies as the absolute enemies of God. This handbook highlights how imbecilic and unaware untrained Mormon leaders truly are. One passage actually states, “God wouldn’t make a mistake like this.”

When a church chooses men *that* stupid, you know their “God” has big problems! I mean seriously, that’s the *best* God can do? *Those* idiots? The Mormons were the *last* belief structure to accept African Americans, and they’ll be the last to accept homosexuals. Their track record is abysmal. It takes a threat to their 501c3 for them to even blink an eye at their hideous behaviors. What audacity to even *claim* they speak for God. I wasn’t aware that God was a complete homophobic moron, and his son Jesus (remember him?), never uttered a word about gay people. If you’ve ever seen the branding for the Mormon Church, they increase the size of the words Jesus Christ, in an attempt to actually make you believe he not only founded it, but roams the halls of their own temples to this day. The Jesus in the Bible wouldn’t really be cheering on supporters of banning gay marriage, I don’t think. Here’s a little lesson for the Mormons. Translated original biblical text reveals these definitions: Sin means “miss the mark”. Hell means “shallow grave”.

Typically, due to the pressure to believe that the outside world is patrolled by Satanic forces, Mormon youths and their parents will not seek a “second opinion” due to the fact that the GAs, and their own Ward leaders speak for God. Why would you doubt God’s word? To even seek outside help through non-LDS Social Service Therapists might mean bringing Satan to your doorstep and into your protected spiritual haven. Satan is ready and waiting to pounce. And they’d never trust an outside source anyway, the tone to use towards homosexuals is clear, and has been crystal clear forever: isolate them, embarrass them, get them back in line at *any cost*.

One of those *costs* is the LDS Church’s most monstrous tactics of using electric, temperature, and drug shock therapies on gay men. The film A Clockwork Orange details this type of abuse in order to change personality, and recipients of these torturous tactics have been revealed by those who have suffered through it. One of these documented cases as recently as 2002, and all of them always on the campus of BYU. This is how far they will go to force a homosexual to “change”.

During one of these sessions, a young man can experience a series of torture techniques. The young man is asked to purchase materials that they find attractive to them, then these materials are made into slides that are projected onto a screen in front of them. Their penis is wired to indicate movement, or an erection state, and their heart rate is monitored. As the male watches the screen and is aroused, they might receive a jolt of nausea delivered via an IV in their arm that introduces a liquid. They might receive a jolt of electricity to their penis, or some other area of their body. Or they might be immersed in a vat of ice water. The intent of these sessions is to evoke a Pavlov’s-like sickness response to being aroused by the same gender.

There are plenty of studies that show that these types of technique do have a short-term effect of stopping certain “behaviors”, but there is no indication that it has any long-term effect. Therefore, in order to use these “techniques” successfully, one must continue to experience these torture sessions frequently. These are the men who are in a much higher danger of completing a suicide attempt. And gay Mormon males do commit suicide, and I fault the untrained Mormon leadership for each and every death. What they propose is impossible to follow. Impossible!

They *never* allow transcendence, they never show complete acceptance, complete love, or complete caring. They are *right*, there is no other choice. Now they say that you can be “gay” and be Mormon, you just can never act out a homosexual sin. What this means is that you can admit to being gay, but you cannot feel the same intimacy, the same deep connection, the sane fullness of relationship. You cannot have sex with the person you are desperately in love with…ever. You can’t sit in church and hold hands, you cannot kiss, you cannot show those types of affection without being scorned, embarrassed, and asked to leave. Those things undoubtedly will lead to sexual sin, but the sexual sin that is one step above murder as opposed to heterosexual sin, which is cute and cuddly, and God-approved.

Parents of gay kids are the ones who must also absorb this hate, but then they can either pass on that hate, or they can push back against the system. And it is clear: Choose the gospel principles over love for your own child. This is what my family has done, my parents and my siblings as well. Those parents who do defy this pressure, who do learn to love and accept their children are few and they are targets of humiliation themselves. I do have gay Exmormon friends whose parents did eventually learn to accept them and they have become beacons of hope for myself and thousands of others. But they have learned to separate their practiced beliefs from the errant, anti-gay beliefs of the church.

The Mormons have glommed onto the three passages in the bible that claim homosexuals are “abominations” (note that eating shrimp is too, by the way), and they have become the leading experts on homosexual oppression, pleading its membership to shell out twenty-two million dollars in private donations to change the California Constitution to reflect a biblical definition of marriage; otherwise known as Proposition 8. And spending around $190,000.00 in paid employee time to manage that feat of hate. I’m not sure when they decided they did not believe in the concept of the separation of church and state, but they clearly believe that their membership’s freedom of choice should be legislated away from them.

All in all, this points to the fact that most gay Mormons are trapped individuals experiencing cycles of pain, self loathing, torture, and possible death. Packer and others use the term “selfish” to describe homosexuals, and this term has been lobbed at my by even my closest family members. It doesn’t matter that I am a tax paying citizen, that I am a dad to my three kids, and a strong supporter of three more kids, that we work together to raise them to be strong, independent, healthy members of society, none of that matters. I have been told directly that I am *the most* selfish person they’ve ever met. And that comment came just weeks after I had sent more than $200 in checks to two of this woman’s own children for their graduation presents.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m really not that selfish, but that’s beside the point. This demonstrates that most Mormons are brainwashed to believe that homosexuals are deviant humans. Their own untrained leadership and biased counseling services support this concept, and faithful members are there to carry that charge forward with hateful gusto. The love only goes so far with these people, and then it’s a quick judgment and a healthy dose of conditional love. This is why it’s so difficult to leave, if you happen to be gay, you know that you will become trash to these people, and unworthy in God’s eyes. And *that* hurts.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

test Filed under Etienne, Falling Into Life | Tags: Etienne, Falling Into Life | Comments (7)