I attended a worship service at a different church this morning. Southminster United Church, Lethbridge officially became an affirming ministry, and they had invited OUTreach Southern Alberta Society to attend, so as president, I attended to represent our board.
It was such a lovely service. It was inspiring and comforting and emotional. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I attended a church services as emotional as this one.
Southminster has been very open about their new designation. They have signage both inside and outside in their building. It’s quite obvious. No queer person who shows up to this church will ever need to guess whether they will be welcome there.
I long for the day when a queer person can show up to any LDS building to worship and not have to roll the dice on whether they’ll be accepted, let alone welcomed.
When I came out 4 years ago online, I had to calculate the risk that action carried once it got back to my church leadership.
When I decided to come out publicly at church 2.5 years ago, I had to determine whether anyone would try to stop me as I did so or reprimand me afterward.
Last year, we got a new bishop, and I had to spend emotional and mental labour on worrying whether his replacement would be as accepting (or more) about my sexual orientation as he had and what that might mean for my participation level in the church.
And when our new bishop is replaced, I’ll have to do the same thing once again.
There have been situations over the last 4 years at church where ward members have said hurtful, anti-queer things, and I see those who reach out in support and those who stay silent. I see which of my leaders try to offer support and which ones do not.
For a church that, theoretically, has at its core the declaration to love our neighbour as ourselves, this should not be the case. Queer Mormons should feel loved when they attend a Mormon church.
So many times, we don’t.
It’s too bad I had to attend a different church to be shown that I, as a queer person, belong.
