When this assignment was first discussed in our class I must admit that I knew exactly what event I planned to talk about. This is something that I think of every day and certainly one of my most regrettable moments of my life.
Two years ago I was attending church with my then boyfriend. He had been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints his entire life, while I had never been to church before. We had been dating for a couple of years and I was interested to learn about his religion. The way their church breaks up services is as follows: The first hour is spent at sacrament with the entire ward, the second hour is broken up into young women’s and priesthood classes, and the third hour is spent in a joint class with members of your age group.
On this day I had gone to the young women’s class by myself. I am fairly self-confident but having no religious background I found myself very uncomfortable in this situation. The topic for the day was protecting the family. This seemed like an appropriate topic based on my understanding of their culture and views. The leader of the discussion that day, a middle-aged mother whom had been called to serve as a young women’s leader, focused on three parts of protecting the family. She had brought small objects for each of us to explain the different parts. The first object was a sheriff’s badge, which represented our duty as women to monitor our families and help out those whom may have strayed. The second object was a ring, which represented the importance of marriage to form a family.
The third object was an American flag, which represented our duty to protect the family in politics. She asked the young women what this meant. A girl my age raised her hand and said, “Like gay people and stuff. That’s gross.” The instructor replied, “Exactly.” My heart stopped. All of my life I had been taught to treat everyone equally, that everyone deserved equal rights. I had been an advocate for gay rights at my high school and within my community. I could not imagine anyone would think this way and would want to teach it to not only their children but to an entire class of children. The instructor then stated, “It is important that we protect the family by keeping marriage between a man and a woman. Also, that we go to the polls and vote on issues like these in order to save the family.” I spent the remainder of the class frozen in my seat, unsure what would be an appropriate response. I did not want to offend anyone because they had welcomed me into their culture, but I knew that what was being taught was wrong and would only hurt our society as a whole. I finally decided to stand-up, return the flag to the front table, and leave the room; a decision that has haunted me to this day.
When Lisa Pittari came to speak to our class I was ecstatic. She is making the difference that people who cannot speak up for themselves, like myself, wish they could be making. Obviously the passing of “Proposition 102” and “Proposition 8” were significant moments in our history. It is a subject that we as a country will struggle with for many years to come, just as we did with woman’s suffrage and African-American civil rights. In order for us to become a more inclusive community we must be willing to accept changes and differences. We can no longer allow basic human rights to be stripped from an American citizen. Unfortunately, the event that I experienced is something that works against that which non-profit organizations are striving to achieve. As of now, churches are filing the 501(c)(3) tax exemption under the law that they have no political involvement. This is a necessary law to be placed on non-profit organizations but we seem to be failing at enforcing this law. Churches and all other 501(c)(3) organizations should be focusing on the bettering of our communities for all individuals, rather than the destruction of other communities and their members.
SafeZONE, an ASU program for members of the LGBTQ community and their allies, is a program that is working towards the bettering of their community. It is important that more schools, cities, and states implement programs like these so that when an individual’s basic rights are taken away, he/she will not be alone.
Needless to say, I did not return to that church. I know that I will always regret not saying something in the class that day, but I am hoping that by sharing this story I am be able to get my message out to someone.
