My Breathalyzer Story... or, more specifically, That Time A Cop Used His "I Will Shoot if You Don't Comply NOW" tone on me.

If you had asked me a month ago, or even a week ago, if I'd ever had a bad run-in with a cop, I'd have said no.

Today, I'd characterize things a little differently. 

Keep in mind, as I speak, that I'm still white, and my experiences still aren't anything like the level that we've seen in the news and on social media of late. I've never had a gun actually pointed at me. I've never been accused of selling drugs just because of where I happen to be walking. I've never been asked where I think I'm going, as though going home is somehow a crime, now. 

• But I have been accused of drunk driving and breathalyzered, when neither of the people in the car had even tasted alcohol before. 
• I have been accused of purposefully breaking laws despite it being the truth that I didn't know.
• I have been forced out of my car and separated from sight of my driver in the middle of a pitch dark parking lot. 

And those are the good stories. The "I've never had a problem with cops before" stories. 

Let's take a moment and think about that. If this is good, what is the bad like?

We're often given a narrative that being a good kid and doing what we're supposed to means we have absolutely nothing to fear from a cop. They are our friends. They are our buddies. Unless we are criminals.

And yet I have never seen a cop so much as pull out onto the road near me without feeling a tiny spike of adrenaline. Getting pulled over is exponentially worse. I've felt what it's like to get pulled over, and I've felt what it's like to have a panic attack. And to be honest, my panic attacks are milder. I've been in shock before after a car wreck, and coming out of that was milder. 

The visceral rush of "Oh, no! There's a cop! Where do I pull over? What do they want? Did I do anything wrong?" is powerful and terrifying. 

And let me remind you that I'm coming to you as basically Hermione Granger. Though I have been pulled over, it's never been for speeding. I made it through the entirety of high school only having gotten in-school detention once. (For being late to Earth Science by about 3 1/2 seconds.) If anyone in the world should be entirely unafraid of cops, based on that "if you're a good kid" narrative, it ought to be me. 

But I am all the same. So is almost everyone I've ever talked to about this. And I think that's a strange phenomenon. This group of people that is supposed to "serve and protect" almost universally produces a massive fear response when they show up without having been called. (And sometimes even when they have been.)

Even good cops are scary. Even good cops produce panic and fear responses. Why is that?

I'm not a social scientist. I can't offer data or any hypotheses based on established theory. But I can offer a two-part suspicion and a story. 

PART 1: Uncertainty

A large part of the fear of getting pulled over—especially for someone like me who doesn't experience it often—is just that anxiety of not having the brain paradigms to handle it. If something hasn't happened to me before, I often panic. Even when it's a small, silly thing like going to someone's new house for the first time. The stress of not having a pre-made response already in my brain makes me way more stressed out than usual. 

To a large degree, I think this happens with cops, too. And that, in itself, is not the cops' fault. 

But it does go beyond that. The scope of a cop's job is MASSIVE. They could be pulling me over for speeding, or for changing lanes wrong, or for having a broken taillight, or for expired registry stickers, or for suspicion of wrongdoing, or for something as vague as a random search. If a cop stops me, I can guess what it might've been for. but I can't really know. It could be seriously anything. 

It could even be a bored cop who wants to write a ticket and is trying to find an excuse. (And lest that sounds like a too-dramatic example, I pulled that from a real life experience that I heard first-hand.) 

Even as a white person who generally follows traffic rules pretty well, and who is therefore very likely to be totally fine, I can't really know what that cop wants. And I can't really know if it'll be someone nice, or a macho bro who tries to puff his chest and intimidate me with his badge. I can't really know if I'm gonna come out of this with a friendly warning or an arrest. 

Some of those things are less likely than others for me, but still possibilities. I still can't really know. 

And that's the first part of the fear, I think. The inescapable fact that cops could be there for anything. 

And ya know, I just have to ask why that is? Why are cops, who have a very specific kind of skill and training, in charge of so many kinds of things? And why are they allowed so much power in the execution of those things?

Which brings me to the second half, and the part with my personal story.

PART 2: Power

Cops wield enormous power in the execution of their duties. Power which is, more often than not, scary. Yes, even to those of us who aren't in a visibly targeted demographic. A mechanic walking up to my car could be spoken to through an only partially-opened window. They would have a clear topic of discussion. And if you didn't want their help, tell them to buzz off and lock the doors. 

But a cop? Well, a cop can straight up force you out of your own car. Even when you haven't done anything. Even when there is no reason for it. Because if you don't comply, you put yourself on "the wrong side of the law". You can get tased or shot if a cop thinks you should get out of the car, and you don't do it fast enough. 

That's a LOT of power. 

I experienced that same power in Gainesville, GA, some time in the autumn of 2007. 

I don't remember the exact date, but it must have been late October, or maybe early November. The wind was chilly. The days had gotten dramatically shorter. And we didn't have many appointments. We had done a lot of walking during the day, and when we stopped to have our lunchbox dinner, we stopped in the lot of a public park bordering the lake.

I was the passenger. The driver was Crystal, a short, adorable 22-year-old with masses of bright-red curls and a lot more charisma than I have ever possessed. We were church missionaries, dressed up in conservative dresses, and with Jesus name tags pinned to our clothes. No two people in a car could have looked more innocent. (Ya know, according to definitely-problematic social conventions and all that.)

It was still light out when we started eating our cold soup, partially flat pepsi, and whatever else we'd packed to try to make that dinner feel like we'd eaten actual food. By the time we were done, though, it was after 6, and the sun had long set.

Just as we were packing up and getting ready to drive off, the thing happened that you see in cop shows all the time. A car pulled up behind us. We were instantly a little wary about this. Then that giant floodlight turned on, and got pointed on our car. 

I instantly panicked a little, although I tried to look cool. I'd never had that light used on me, before. I'd only ever seen it in the context of illuminating the people on the show who were obvious criminals. 

After that, the cop walked all the way around the car to come up to my passenger window. I've wondered about why he did that for years, but I have no idea. Either way, when I opened it, he got suddenly tense. "The moment the window opened, I smelled the odor of an alcoholic beverage."

Which... okay? We've never been sure if he really did think we were drunk, or was just trying to find something on us, but the only alcohol we'd interacted with at all was hand sanitizer. Maybe that's what he smelled? We don't know. 

I also learned that even when I'm in panic mode, and not thinking about my responses, I'm a smart alec. 

Cop: "Have either of you had anything to drink today?"

Me: Holds up a water bottle, and squeaks out the word "water".

I legit didn't intend it to be sassy. It was just an honest response to a question I'd sincerely never been asked before, let alone by a cop. I was WAY out of my realm of experience on this. But I have a feeling he wasn't pleased with me about that answer. 

Cop: "I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car."

We looked at each other, shrugged at having no idea why any of this was happening, but knowing that we had to do as he asked. He was a cop. We literally couldn't just say no thanks, and lock the door. And so we started to get out of the car. The both of us. Like he'd asked. 

Crystal got out first, and I started to follow on the passenger side. But the moment I cracked my door open, the cop screamed at me to get back in the car! Back in the car now! It was the same tone cops in the movies used when a bad guy wasn't putting the gun down. 

More than anything else that happened that night, the tone of those words is burned permanently into my memory. I joke about my breathalyzer encounter a lot, telling it as just some funny thing that happened to two people who never even drank. 

But I often catch myself randomly thinking of that moment when the cop's tone turned to angry panic. Even before all of these events of the past two weeks, I have spent a lot of time vividly recalling that half an instant when some random Georgia cop suddenly treated me like I was hostile and dangerous.

I never did a lot of thinking on where things could have led had I stood up all the way before getting back in the car, or if I had insisted on following the missionary rules more closely by not letting Crystal out of my line of sight. Which I almost did, TBH. I was this close to arguing about it. But cops are... well, cops. 

I have thought about that lately, though, and now I'm not so sure it that it couldn't have ended very badly if anything had gone differently. Which is totally possible. I definitely bristle at being told what to do in most circumstances. I've almost gotten myself fined by UTA that way. 

In hindsight, I feel like the only reason I didn't resist that cop was because a) I'd never done this before. I had to improv everything, and I wasn't prepared to do that. And b) because I knew that tone, albeit subconsciously. I knew that if you didn't listen to that tone, you could get arrested or hurt. Or both.

That tone had power over me that even my own parents don't possess. 

(I couldn't find the right gif here, so just imagine that kid from the Mummy Returns. "Lady, I don't even behave for my parents. What makes you think I'm going to do it for you?")

If I'd been more my usually argumentative self, what would have happened? To me? To Crystal? I don't know. But it didn't, that time, luckily for us. 

I sat back down as the cop took my friend around behind both cars, in complete darkness except for the floodlight trained on my car. I tried to keep them both in my rear view mirror, but couldn't see well. And once again, who knows what could have happened there, with us separated and in the dark with an armed cop?

Well, he turned out not to be a rapist, which was fortunate.

When it was my turn to go back behind the vehicles, he had me blow into the little breathalyzer tube, clearly expecting it to say something. When the numbers remained 0.0 he seemed to be sincerely flabbergasted, and started making up some kind of excuse about "have you seen a mysterious gray van around here?"

Then he told us to get back in our car and leave, since the park closed at dark. 

Once again I'll reiterate: that's one of the "I've never had a bad experience with a cop" moments. I wouldn't have said that was a bad run in at all. It's just par for the course. 

But now I wonder why. Why is it par for the course that one person, just because of their badge and weapon, can just have us individually get out of our car and walk into the dark with a stranger? If it had been literally anyone else than a cop, we would never have even opened the windows all the way, let alone gotten out and gone with him because we actually had no choice.

Why is it par for the course that a cop can threaten me, and I panic into compliance, when literally anyone else giving me that order would have had to physically restrain me from getting out of the car? Why is that okay? Why is that visceral fear considered just part of the experience of being pulled over?

Looking back on that experience with a more critical eye, I see so many places where the power a cop wields is just astronomical. No one else in any circumstance or situation, besides maybe the military, could have asked us to do the things that cop asked of us, let alone had us actually comply. 

And that is what makes us fear them. It isn't the portrayal in the movies. It isn't the "bad apples". It isn't even the idea of their being armed. It's the power. It's knowing that they can do just about anything they want, and we as a whole are completely helpless to do anything against it. 

Once again, I recognize that my cop stories aren't even actually bad in comparison to most of what we are seeing and hearing about lately. I don't get stopped regularly for no reason. I didn't get shot when that cop apparently panicked at the idea of me getting out of the car. I don't get harassed while walking places. 

Yet still I DO fear getting stopped by a cop. I do have a stress reaction when I see one driving near me. I can only imagine how much worse that might be for me if I wasn't white.

I'm not politically knowledgeable enough yet to know exactly how system changes and budget changes would realistically affect the actual policing system. I don't know what would happen, or if doing things like cutting off qualified immunity would be nearly enough. 

But what I do know? They have too much power. And they have too many jurisdictions. And even the "good apples" intimidate, threaten, panic too quickly, and make excuses for mistakes, instead of apologies and restitution. 

I know that causing such a reaction just by being nearby is never, ever going to help in deescalating situations. I know that deescalation was not on my particular cop's mind as one teeny tiny aspect of his plan went out of place. I know that he held massive emotional and physical power over me, and that it didn't feel good. It didn't make me feel very safe. 

I know that it's WAY worse for other people. And I know that something has to change. 

#Black Lives Matter

I hope to keep this short, because I'm tired. But no guarantees, because I also have a lot of feelings right now, and writing is how I deal with that, sometimes. 

But I'm so tired. Tired in a way that the news and the state of the world has never made me before. Not even something like 9/11 has had me addicted to the news feeds and filled with rage like I am right now. 

Maybe because I was a teenager in high school then. Maybe because I've grown a lot since I was the type of person who could unironically believe that racism wasn't a thing anymore. Maybe because smartphones and social media have revolutionized the way we are able to receive and interact with the news of the world. 

Maybe all of the above.

But whatever the cause, I have been able to see things, learn things, and understand a broader perspective of the world just by paying attention and living in it. That fact makes me so utterly flabbergasted that there are people out there with more years, more experience, and more opportunity who will still argue that treating other humans with respect is a crushing and unnecessary burden.

I got harassed on Twitter yesterday by one such guy, who as much as said that being PC is a sin against God. He literally thinks it's against his religion to respect people's identities and treat them like actual humans. And I'm exhausted by people like him not only existing, but existing in my local area.

I watch the protests and riots and media posts and statements from our leaders, and it exhausts me that people still exist in the world who will hear "Stop killing black people" and can muster up the audacity to reply with "but..."

It exhausts me that half of my facebook feed a week ago was filled with people griping about how wearing masks and using mail-in ballots was a tragic infringement on our freedom, but literally all of them are deafeningly silent as we watch actual martial law get enacted all over the country.

Curfews. The national guard marching down suburban streets screaming and shooting at people who are standing on their own porches. Lines of cops faced against lines of people who are literally just walking, and out comes the the industrial powered pepper spray cans. 

Where are you now, freedom criers? Why aren't you mad now?

It exhausts me that seeing so much silence from all of these people I've grown up with or lived around or am related to means that they won't be a voice for or act on anything unless it benefits themselves. That if I'm the one the bad guys come for next, I know I can't count on support from any of them.

And they do keep trying to come for me. So that's not an idle concern.

It exhausts me that people exist, both in the world and on my media feeds, that are literally more upset about a (censored) Target building than systemic prejudice and MURDER. 

It exhausts me that friends of mine have to feel the way I do now, but ALL THE TIME. It exhausts me to know that I don't even really know how much worse it is for them. It exhausts me that I could maybe defend myself if something were to happen, but if they did the same, they'd more than likely end up getting the life crushed out of them by some psychopath that gets away with it because of his badge. 

It exhausts me that people in the world still exist that will watch our "president" tweet threats and use phrases with a whole history of racism behind them, and still try to claim that he's the victim here. That they can scrape together enough grasping, reaching threads to weave some kind of narrative that excuses everything he does.

It exhausts me that the president won't even make a speech about what's happening.

It exhausts me that I belong to a religion that preaches about a pretty radical Jesus who stood up for the marginalized, broke bread with the criminals and the sinners, and forgave even the very people driving nails through his body, and yet large swathes of the members of that religion literally and sincerely believe that gay people are evil, black people just want attention, and that holding political opinions that aren't right-extremist is actual heresy. 

There are actual white-supremacy/alt-right/neo-nazi organizations and trending hashtags in this religious community. And the people involved in those things actually believe they're following the radical Jesus I mentioned above.

It exhausts me that there are people who are so concerned with refocusing the narrative on the parts of the system that are good and warm and fuzzy, that they forget it isn't our job right now to feel comfortable. People have been trying to tell us for 400 YEARS that it's not all sunshine and lollipops, but we keep finding ways not to listen.

I'm not an exception. I grew up having no idea that any of this was a thing. I've said things I'm still embarrassed about years and years later. But I've learned, and I've grown, and I'm trying to listen now. 

Nothing ever gets fixed without first RECOGNIZING that something needs fixing in the first place. 

It exhausts me that I can 100% guarantee someone reading this is gonna think "not all cops" or "all lives matter" or "not all white people". 

Yes, we all KNOW it's not every single person who ever existed. But it's enough. Enough that the problem is systemic. Ten good cops don't erase that the bad ones are murdering people and getting away with it. 

Ten good white people don't erase that the KKK still has active chapters in this, the year 2020. 

Ten photo ops of cops kneeling with the protesters is nice and cozy and hopeful, but it doesn't change that militant cop militias are jogging down suburban streets casually opening fire on random citizens.

It exhausts me that cops in full swat gear are not even trying to be careful with their weapons and tools. Just because a bullet is rubber doesn't mean it doesn't explode eyeballs and penetrate skulls. Just because a protester exists, doesn't mean the can of industrial mace has to come out. 

Are y'all even trained? Do you even know how to do your job?

It exhausts me that there have been riots in this country involving massive police overreach for over 250 years (before we even were a country yet), but we're still here, and we're still at it. And very, very little has changed. Trained soldiers still panicked in the face of aggressive riots and shot/killed a bunch of unarmed people during the Boston Massacre. This weekend rubber bullets and tear gas killed some and permanently blinded/injured many others. Two sides. Same coin. 

It exhausts me that even people who apparently know what unfair prejudice feels like (religious persecution, LGBT+ persecution, classism, non-black racism) exist who are still ready to close their eyes, plug their ears, and scream "Nah nah nah nah I'm not listening!" as soon as the status quo is beneficial for them.

It exhausts me that one of the reasons destructive rioting works to get attention, is because everyone is so (censored) OBSESSED with money. Look at our president! Look at Congress! Look at the big name tycoons who make literal billions, and do NOTHING. 

And it exhausts me that I can easily keep coming up with things to add to this list. But I'm tired, and this has gotten long. 

Rise and Shout, the Cougars are Out of the Closet: Pt 2

Aight, friends. I’m back. Now let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this BYU thing in an orderly fashion. (As if my brain could ever be categorized as orderly.)

So what is this about, at its core? What is the deal here?

It could be categorized as a political brawl of left vs. right. A charged atmosphere of different governmental ideas.

It could be categorized as a civil war. A brother vs brother/sister vs sister clash, dividing a people into deeply entrenched factions.

It could be categorized as “Religion vs. Science!” or “Tradition vs. Progress!” or “Homophobia vs. Civil Rights!” 

And while some of those things are technically true, I don’t see any of it as being the important part. Reason: because all of that focuses too much on ideology and too little on people. If you take the human element out of something, it’s very, very easy to end up with collateral damage. 

And that is what happened here, a few days ago. Collateral damage.

The Human Element

Think how easy it is to hear casualty numbers from a war and go “oh, that’s horrible!” before kinda moving on with things. Even if we’re empathetic, emotionally intelligent people, numbers are numbers. They will never feel the same as “your son was one of the casualties.”

You can see it in movies. In books. In plays. In all of the stories of human history, personal connection makes something far more real than numbers ever will. Thousands of people dying in a grand space battle doesn’t mean all that much, even if the universe is at stake. The universe is too big a concept. But when the one heroic space fighter flies into certain doom to save a friend... now that means something.

Have you ever been to a Holocaust museum? Have you ever felt the weight close in on you at something so simple as seeing a pair of shoes that belonged to someone real? That pair of shoes can bring an entire era of our world history into a clearer perspective. 

That’s why the Diary of Anne Frank is such a big deal. Not because it’s a work of literary genius, but because they’re real words from a real person speaking to us from beyond a too-early grave. 

Now, let’s not pretend that the BYU thing is akin to the holocaust. That would be absurd. But the principle of storytelling remains the same: if you take out the human element, you forget people. And when you forget people, it’s easy to hurt them.

That is why the BYU policy changes went so very wrong. The changes were made by people who were thinking of strategies and policies and politics. No one asked anyone LGBT+, “Hey, what do you think of this wording change? How would you interpret it based on your situation?”

No one asked an editor, “hey, is there any ambiguity in this statement we’re about to officially release?”

No one asked, “Well, I know this change isn’t a real change, and YOU know this change isn’t a real change, but will our students who weren’t part of the creation process know and understand that this change isn’t a real change?” or even “is this a problem that the change isn’t real?”

Not only did no one ask that, but no one even thought to. And when they realized they’d messed up, they sat on the retraction for two entire weeks before getting around to doing anything about it. Because timing and policy and press were more important than wondering what was going to happen to the people affected.

And honestly, it doesn’t really matter whether they meant to hurt anyone by it, because the fact is they still did. Thoughtlessness is thoughtlessness.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

The thing here is that it’s really hard to think about or consider things that don’t personally affect you. If you are white, skin-color prejudice does not affect you. If you are male, misogyny does not affect you. If you are straight, homophobia does not affect you. Etc. Etc. Etc. 

As I mentioned in my other post (What is Pride, which you can read here if you want.) it’s very easy to feel like any voices are too loud if silence has been the status quo so far. It’s very easy to wonder why people are making such a big deal out of things. And it’s very easy to not even realize what questions you should be asking in order to be helpful, rather than harmful. 

I have every confidence that most of the leaders at both BYU and church headquarters don’t think they’re doing the wrong thing. I’m sure a lot of them don’t realize who gets hurt by these things. And I’m quite sure that most of them have absolutely no context or experience whatsoever that would allow them to grasp the ramifications of this fiasco.

I doubt it occurred to anyone that taking out the wording would even make people take notice, until everyone did and all the people making the change suddenly realized what had happened. 

And that’s why it’s important to listen. To learn. To be prepared for a new perspective. To be able to adjust mindsets and soften hearts, when it comes to people that are different than you.

“But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.”

Now as for the actual content of the policy change…

We’ve established that the process here was a raging hurricane of bad decisions and poorer responses. Whichever side of the content question is right, the execution was wrong. 

But the content here does matter too. 

I’m not gonna dwell on this for too long. This is a fight I won’t win with one blog post. After all, it’s basically a struggle between people who are living certain life experiences within a church that does a terrible job protecting them, and the lifelong cultural traditions of the rest of the people in that church who easily fit into it and see nothing wrong.

I can’t break those cultural traditions with one voice. But if I add my voice to others, maybe it’ll do… something.

Anyway.

The core of the content debate revolves around “Is it okay for gay people to do gay things or not?”

Which is not a complicated question until you add religion into it. There are still a lot of religions around the world that categorically and emphatically say, “no it is not.” This church is one of them.

And that’s largely why there’s such a big fight. If something that you have always considered a core tenet of your faith gets questioned by an institution of your faith, there’s going to be some cognitive dissonance and/or pushback. The gut instinct to fight back or plug your ears and shout “I can’t hear you I can’t hear you”. 

Which unfortunately is what a lot of people are doing. 

Yet that’s the whole problem. The entire thing. There is a community of people who want to be part of this religion along with everyone else, but who get pushed out and silenced and literally given different promises/rules to follow, and they want you to listen.

For once, just listen.

They are not trying to say that God is wrong. They are not trying to say that there should be a double standard. They are not trying to say that they can tell God what to do or make eternal doctrinal changes just by voting on it. They are not trying to say “break the rules for me. I’m special.” That is not the idea. 

They are trying to say “Hey. We’re here. We need help and compassion. How about not stepping all over us anymore?”

They are trying to say, “The core tenets of this faith are ‘love one another’ and ‘do unto others as you would have done unto you’ and ‘comfort those that stand in need of comfort.’ When you disregard us, or make places unsafe for us, you are not following those tenets.”

They are trying to say, “Hey, you leave us out an awful lot. How about considering us, too, when you make policies and rules?”

They are trying to say, “God’s church should be safe for those who need safety.”

And maybe they’re also trying to mention that God is perfect, but humans aren’t. This certainly isn’t the first time that a cultural misconception has morphed into a “law”. 

1978 Happened

The church that runs BYU is known famously for a few things: 

• Being pretty aggressively conservative.
• For missionaries going around the world knocking on doors and preaching.
• For having more books of official scripture than other Christian religions.
• For a not-super-factual-but-apparently-entertaining musical on Broadway.
• A history of polygamy.
• And, unfortunately, it has a reputation for not being a great place for minorities. 

That last one is the biggie right now. There are many church policies that are staunchly anti-gay. And there have been other policies in the past that were staunchly bigoted toward other groups of people. 

At the time that those history policies were in play, it was considered doctrine. An eternal principle that just happened to exclude several not-that-small populations of people from the full extent of church membership that everyone else got to have. 

(See Official Declaration #2 here)

For fairly obvious reasons, this was pretty divisive. On the one hand, many people had a hard time understanding how a fair and loving God could be racist. How could it possibly make sense that some humans got to have religious things that others didn’t, based entirely on where their ancestors came from. 

On the other hand, a lot of people—largely those unaffected by the policy—relied mostly on “God isn’t wrong. There must be a reason.” And while the thought itself isn’t a bad one, it led to a lot of very, very sketchy cultural traditions within the religion, such as the erroneous idea that black skin is a curse from God that shows sin. (That one is a LOT to unpack, but let’s remind each other for now that this is NOT a doctrine.)

I say traditions, because these things weren’t core principles of the church teachings, but thoughts and ideas that random people had, and that just kind of went viral. Once things go viral, they get so entrenched in the teachings of a culture that they sorta kinda DO become doctrines and laws. 

But in 1978, the leaders came forth like “y’all, this can’t keep going on. Here is an official declaration to make an official change.” Basically “God isn’t wrong, but we as a people were.”

Most people celebrated. A few left the religion, because to them the inferiority of non-white people had become a core doctrine. And changing that meant that they felt the religion no longer followed God. 

Here’s the thing about this church, though. There are a lot of small principles that are different from other Christan denominations. A lot of quirks that many others really don’t understand, such as the missionary program, or that we have more scriptures that other people. 

But the one single MAJOR difference—the thing that largely causes most of the other small quirks—is the principle of continuing revelation.

The idea that God still calls prophets to speak to His people, and to reveal new things. 

Yes, you read that right: the whole entire point of our church is that it continues to grow. To change. To get better. If you’re here for a church that will stay 100% the same at all times, then you are in the wrong religion. We even sing about it in our hymns. 

“The Lord is extending the Saints' understanding,

Restoring their judges and all as at first.

The knowledge and power of God are expanding;

The veil o'er the earth is beginning to burst.”

Things don’t always change quickly, and they don’t always change in a timely manner. It’s an established fact that sometimes people are stupid and need things, as we say, line upon line, precept upon precept. We aren’t always ready for changes. But they have constantly and consistently come since the beginning. That’s literally the whole point of prophets: live updates.

Don’t make us come up with a religious version of “ok boomer” because you can’t let go of old things when new ones are on the horizon.

Conclusion

So yeah. This church is not safe or particularly welcoming right now for LGBT+ people. The protests that are happening are basically saying that, and asking everyone to do better. 

I don’t know if future policies are gonna actually change or not. I don’t know the mind of any deities. I don’t have a timeline. I don’t have any kind of ability to speak for more than just myself.

But I do know a couple of things:

I know that they can change. And they might change.

And I know that whatever happens policy-wise, it is our (literally God-mandated) duty to help people, not hurt them. To bring people into our welcoming arms, not kick them out. To think about more than just ourselves, when we do anything. To stay open-minded about things that we may not understand, or have any experience with. 

I know that “the church has a policy against this” is not a good reason to act like heathens and treat people like garbage. In the words of a friend, “Were you raised in a barn by wolves?? NO. Because the wolves would know better.”

I know that a lot of people are trying harder to be good allies to minorities such as PoC and LGBT+, and that those efforts are not wasted.

I know that it is NOT against church policy to love others. The only time I can think of that Jesus ever told someone in anger to get out was while flipping the moneychangers’ tables.

With those things being said, I conclude that the policy change at BYU was ill-thought out. That it actively hurt people. That the policy makers didn’t consider a lot of things that they should have, and that people need to stop blaming the victims of this for “making assumptions” or “knowing what they were getting into.” Stop telling people to just leave if they don’t like it. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

This isn’t about the content of the policy nearly as much as it’s about the way people are treating each other. The protesters have mobilized because this change and subsequent reversal was a last straw. People realized that they couldn’t handle it anymore and that they weren’t alone. 

And if I keep typing, I’m just going to keep rambling on and on and on. This post is long enough as is. I sincerely have no idea whether I communicated everything I wanted to say. But I tried. If you want to talk further, feel free to message me. 

Rise and Shout, the Cougars are Out of the Closet: pt 1

Okay, okay. I’m not into my status as a BYU alum nearly enough for that title to be the most appropriate, but I couldn’t resist the joke, and you should all appreciate the cleverness of me.

At any rate, I fully intend to bring up the BYU dumpster fire that is currently still burning strong and bright. So, ya know, it’ll still be relevant.

ANYWAY

This is something important. More important than I think a lot of my acquaintances will realize. Especially those who have seen the BYU thing happening, and don’t understand why anyone cares, or what everyone is worked up about.

It’s important enough that I’m getting on my blog, which I only do like 2–3 times a year.

It’s so important that I’d like to make this post beautifully poetic. Add turns of phrase that will make you weak at the knees. Expound my point in a way that even C.S. Lewis would stand up and applaud. When things are deadly serious, it’s my natural reaction—as for many people—to want to create something equally serious, with more gravity than a neutron star.

But that’s not what I’m good at. I’m not as quick witted as some of my brilliant friends. I’m not as sharp-tongued. I’m not as wonderfully empathetic or naturally eloquent. And I want you to read this, not fall asleep. 

So you get me. Raw, unfiltered, unserious, unable-to-not-make-dad-puns me. The me who is 57% likely to make a D&D reference at least once this post. The me who is categorically **gaaaaaaay. (The 7 As are important.)

Yes. You read that right. You would also be right in guessing that I’m scared to say that as loud as I just did. I’m 100% sure that someone I know and consider a friend is going to read that and feel very differently about me because of it.

But you know what else? I’m so sick of lurking in the shadows. I’m sick of being super cagey every time someone brings up celebrity crushes or Rom Coms or whatever it is. Because I want to participate in the conversation, but I can’t without being a little more vulnerable than everyone else. I’m tired of not remembering who knows and who doesn’t. I’m tired of panicking. I’m tired of being SUPER limited on who I talk to about things.

And you know what else I’m 100% sure about? That more people than I expect will either be not surprised at all or be super chill about it. I intellectually know that it’s really gonna be okay. But still, vulnerability is the worst. 

**Note: this is a little bit of an over-simplification, but this post isn’t about the nitty gritty details of all the scales and where I land on each one. If you want to know, message me.

So now you know. Now the whole world has public access to this knowledge. You know that the first ever celebrity who gave me stomach butterflies was Rachel Weisz in the 1999 Mummy, and that if I ever told you the name of a guy celebrity in answer to “who is your crush” 93% of the time I was lying to you.

And you know that I didn’t do this a long time ago largely because I was unreasonably slow on the uptake. Like I mentioned before, I’m a high-wisdom build more than a high intelligence. I notice everything, but don’t process it all that quickly. It often takes me time to mentally get places.

(D&D reference: check.)

This is me. 

---

Now, this BYU thing. Why do I want to talk about that? Well, it’s happening in the town I live in, for one thing. For two, a lot of the negative voices here are very, very loud, so a lot of people are feeling more alone than ever. Suicide rates are up, and they were already too high for the LGBT+ folks in Utah. 

As much as we’d like to pretend that we as a people are all kind and generous and loving and inclusive… Utah is not as good at that as it should be. But WE CAN BE. We can be if people get off their high horses and listen to each other for just one hot second. 

Sincerely listen. Not waiting for your turn to talk. Not laugh-emojiing things that others are trying to say. Not telling people to just get out. Not making fun of their profile pics as a form of debate. Not calling them brainwashed. Not accusing them of hatemongering. Not accusing them of lying to get publicity. And not regurgitating memorized things instead of paying attention. Check any privileges at the door and sit down for a minute.

Channel Pocahontas. “But If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.”

If you don’t know what happened this past week, the summarized version is this:

BYU as a school changed some of the language used in the honor code that each student agrees to follow. I have theories and rumors on why, but no sources to confirm them. The changes eliminated phrasing that specified “no homosexual behaviors”, essentially. 

A bunch of nervous LGBT+ folks went to the honor code office and asked “does this mean what we think it means?” And they were told “yes. Yes it does.”

And the queer BYU babies rejoiced! People came out to friends and family. People held hands on campus for the first time ever. People felt weights lifted off of their shoulders, and for two weeks the world was filled with more rainbows than ever.

Then—after TWO WEEKS of letting everyone trust what had just happened—the CES folks up in Salt Lake were like “no, no, no. This simply will not do.” They issued a letter that basically said “The wording is gone. The rule is still there. Nothing actually changed. K bye.” 

While using reasoning that is being unequally applied to ONLY LGBT+ situations.

And if that feels to you like a bait and switch, imagine how it felt to everyone who had posted pictures of themselves kissing someone on campus. Pictures that could now get them expelled. Imagine how it felt to people who finally felt safe enough to be vulnerable, only to have to suddenly hide again 2 weeks later. 

1. That is unprofessional.
2. It is irresponsible.
3. It is harmful more than helpful.
4. It was ill-thought out.

No matter whether you agree or disagree with the changes, the execution of it all was hot garbage. No editors to check that the new wording worked right. No test audience to check that it would mean to other people what they wanted it to mean. No immediacy on the retraction. All of it was handled very poorly.

Okay. Turns out this is going to be a two-parter. There’s a lot I want to say about this, but my thoughts on the whole thing are still far too jumbled to be a post yet. I’m getting to it. I promise. I just gotta get this all organized in my brain. More next time. 

The Silence of Our Friends

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

This past two months has been an absolute roller coaster for me. I started a new job, after ten years in the same place. I nearly lost several friends and an entire game group because of a stark disagreement on where the line is between reasonable doubt and overt prejudice. I flew internationally for the very first time. I rank tested in Japan before several important teachers and the president of our school. I experienced a heartbreak that left me feeling utterly numb. I stayed up working until 6 or 7 in the morning on more than one occasion. 

The ups and downs have got me over here feeling like Icarus, flying high for the briefest of moments before losing control of everything. 

I got to listen to two middle-aged, white, male authors tell me about how Brandon Sanderson is doing better in his book sales than Mary Robinette Kowal because he chose to be extremely unpolitical, and she should have too, but now she’s sleeping in the bed she made. And that if I was smart, I’d do the same thing as Brandon, the white, male, married, straight, American man.

(Congratulations, boys. You’re in a position where you can ride the status quo, without anything adversely affecting you. Go you. Meanwhile I’m still over here watching people like me literally getting murdered with next to no comeuppance for the attackers.)

I had an old friend message me that all of my stances were too negative, and that things would work out for me if I just chose to smile.

(Well-intentioned. I know she was. But hoo boy. That’s a lot to unpack.)

This week I had not one but two grown, adult, should-know-better human men tell me in undisguised words that my life experience is all a lie. That I’m making it all up in a desperate bid for attention. That I have been brainwashed by SJWs to believe I’m a victim, because racism, sexism, and homophobia are just political tricks to gain control over people.

(Fun times.)

I had someone with whom I grew up, and have known for nearly all of my life, tell me literally and not implicitly that disagreeing with his extremely biased article was hate, while his friends tore me apart for what I am and not what I said.

(I can’t help but think of the phrase ‘the blind leading the blind’.)

He told me, with a tone of sincere-but-severely-misguided pain that my choices brought me to where I am, and HEAVILY implied that being gay is somehow a mistake that I chose along the way, and that he hopes I’ll turn away from. If it hadn’t been in written form, I’m sure there’d have been misty eyes and a tremor in the voice.

(Oh hey. Hi there. By the way, if you have reached this, the tenth month of the year 2019 still under the impression that I’m straight, then you REALLY have not been paying attention.)

I’m still unpacking the layers of shame he was implying. The same guy who just preached about how it’s our choices that matter just also told me that being non-straight is horrific, regardless of how I’m acting about it.

Two weeks ago, I got to listen to a speech from the leaders of my church that basically said, “Look, we have a responsibility to love everyone. And that includes LGBT+ people. But also, if you are LGBT+, basically sucks to be you. I really got nothing, here.” And I got to see all the people around me gush about how loving and inclusive it was, all the while even the leaders of my entire religion have no actual hope or encouragement to give me.

A few days ago I got to see the better part of the whole state oppose a ban on conversion therapy, and back up that opposition by talking about how the bill wasn’t written well enough. 

(So yes. It’s very comforting to know that people all over the place literally care more about legal minutiae than about protecting vulnerable people from horrific things. Such cozy. Many love.)

And that’s where the quote at the beginning comes in. (The internet says it’s Martin Luther King Jr. but I’m not 100% sure.)

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

When things don’t affect you personally, it’s easy to stand aside. Let some other author use their fame and literal millions of dollars to improve the world. Why bother to change anything, when you’re doing perfectly fine?

When things don’t affect you personally, it’s easy to tell someone to keep their chin up and things will work out.

When things don’t affect you personally, it’s easy to tell someone they’re overreacting. That nothing is really THAT bad. That the 1% slight you feel when something doesn’t go your way is EVERY BIT as hard as the long-standing societized inequality someone else lives every day.

When things don’t affect you personally, it’s easy to call anger hate. It’s easy to call standing up for oneself aggression. It’s easy to claim that change is bad. That having different political priorities is ignorance and stupidity. That someone you don’t agree with is lying, brainwashing scum. 

When things don’t affect you personally, you can do and say whatever you want about it without any kind of consequence. 

Congratulations. You have privilege. 

(No, listen. You literally do.)

But, in the immortal words of every Spider-Man version ever made, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So are you going to sit around being comfortable, because you can? Or will you do something with your abilities?

How deafening will the sound of your silence be?