#beyond the block

[nerdygaymormon]

[bimormondisaster]

Based on this Beyond the Block episode starting around the 33:08 point

[queerlymormon]

"Jesus did not bleed and die on the cross for us to be a corporation" -Derek Knox, Beyond the Block

[bookish-bi-mormon]

I actually envision [Jesus] hearing Christians talk about how much God hates gay people and then flipping through a copy of the Bible like "Where, man? Where the heck did you hear me say that? Where did I say, ‘be celibate’? Where did I command gay people to condemn themselves to a life devoid of romantic, long term and emotionally and physically intimate love that all people understand not only as their birth right but as just about one of the greatest parts of being human? Where did I command gay people to be alone? To live alone? To not hold anyone’s hand? To not snuggle on the couch with anyone? To not have someone to talk to, enrich and otherwise share and synergize with over the experiences of life? Where did I command them to not have or raise children, or not to get married? Where did I command them to live their whole lives without knowing that joy, that sharing, that fulfillment? When did I command my gay children to resist the terrible temptation of love which I myself ordained as the greatest?" …. This is where we really end up messing ourselves up. Is when we take God’s law – which is Love God and Love others above all else – and we use that to hurt people.

James Jones, Beyond the Block, “The Storm before the Calm [3 Nephi 8-11]”

[bookish-bi-mormon]

"People think that LGBT people are faithless and apostate. We've got more faith than everyone else. Every LGBT person who stays in the church has absolutely more faith than 90-something% of the straight people in the church, right? We just have to. And I'm sure it's true for every marginalized population in the church. Cause we know where God's going and we know what God's promises are, and we know those promises better than you because we have to rehearse them to ourselves everyday of our lives just to continue functioning and no one else needs to do that."

- Derek Knox, Beyond the Block, Nephi vs the World

[bookish-bi-mormon]

"We must latch on to every joy that we have a right to have. Its a commandment. If, on judgement day, you realize that you SHOULD have married the person you love and you didn't, it will be too late. If, on judgement day, you realize that you SHOULD have lived as the gender you know yourself to be and you didn't, it will be too late. 'At midnight comes the cry, the bridegroom is here.' All who wrongly deprive themselves will be mad at themselves for being so foolish."

- Derek Knox, Beyond the Block, The Lord's Commentary [Doc and Cov 45]

[bookish-bi-mormon]

In Beyond the Block Episode 81 “Crash and Learn,” James and Derek talk about having the kind of faith to “live into the reality of promises that don’t exist yet.” and “realities that are not yet seen.” They talked about early Black members of the church who had the faith to join or stay despite the racist policies, based on their faith in promises that one day the changes would come. They talked about LGBT members, and Derek shared his testimony once again that he knows there is a place for us in the Plan of Salvation, because there must be because our Heavenly Parents didn’t send us here just to forget about us. 

And just ... sometimes having that kind of faith is hard. Maybe this should be a journal entry and I shouldn’t be posting this online idk but I just wanted to get out some of my feelings. I so desperately want to have hope in a better world, a place at the right hand of God. I want to have the kind of faith Derek says he has, where he just lives as if he was already fully accepted in the church, instead of being afraid that me presenting masculine in the wrong congregation could put me in danger. I’m tired of trying to feel the spirit while always slightly on edge, worried that someone might say something harmful to me in the middle of their talk. I’m tired of knowing that if I marry the person that I love so dearly it will result in me loosing my temple recommend permanently. 

I know my Heavenly Parents love me. I know that They are watching out for me. I believe that They have been guiding me closely all year, helping me find the people that I need to have in my life, helping me make decisions and find resources that will help me be happier. I believe They want me to be happy. 

I don’t think I would be truly happy and fulfilled without The Book of Mormon, The Bible, and the Church in my life, but I also know we are a loooooong way away from them accepting gay marriage, let alone nonbinary identities. 

I want to live into the reality that we can’t see yet. I want to trust that these mountains will move one day. It may not be in my life time. And living into that reality before the rest of the church is ready may end in my rejection from the church. But I refuse to fall into the little box many members think I should fit in, and I refuse to cut my ties to the religion that has helped me find so much peace and solace in my life. So here I am. Grasping my queer identity and my religion tightly to myself, because I would not be me without both of these pieces. 

[bookish-bi-mormon]

When members or leaders of the church make decisions about us [LGBTQ members] they are not deciding if WE are fully human, they are deciding if THEY are.

Derek Knox, Beyond The Block [Alma 53-63]