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Latter-Gay Saints: An Anthology of Gay Mormon Fiction
Latter-Gay Saints brings together twenty-five exemplary short works depicting a variety of perspectives of what it means to be both Mormon and queer. Some portray characters determined to reconcile their sexuality with the Mormon faith in accordance with its constantly evolving teachings and policies. The majority present the realities of queer Mormons who have come to terms with their sexuality in a variety of alternative ways. Others are written from outside the Mormon community, commenting on often strange encounters with Mormons who are gay. These stories are also of value for the broader GLBT community revealing similarities that people of faith, regardless of which faith, face in attempting to negotiate their religious heritage with their homosexuality. Some in the GLBT community find a way, while others do not, leaving their faith or having it ripped from them.They are all individuals searching for answers to life's puzzles.
335 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 27, 2016
In his introduction, editor Gerald S. Argetsinger explains the need for this big anthology:
“A community is defined, and its values disseminated, through its stories. For most gay Mormons, our stories have been hidden. Officially, they do not exist.”
This reviewer knows the truth of that. From age four to the summer I turned sixteen, I grew up as a “gentile” (unbeliever or outsider) in Pocatello, Idaho, just north of Utah, where the capital, Salt Lake City, is the setting for the Mormon Temple. I knew how important marriage is in Mormon culture even before Mormon boys began seriously proposing that I should marry them and convert. As a fourteen-year-old girl, I knew I could legally marry with my parents’ consent (which they would never give), or at sixteen without their consent. The influence of my educated parents, who believed that drinking wine with dinner was acceptable, but dropping out of high school or becoming a teen mother was not, enabled me to dodge a bullet.
It was only after I had moved to Canada with my family that I was exposed to the concept of Mormonism as an exotic cult, and of early marriage as the sexual abuse of children. After all, mainstream North American Protestantism also grooms teenagers to look forward to lives of heterosexual monogamy and parenthood, and to think of same-sex crushes as a sign of immaturity or mental illness. Mormonism, as far as I knew it, was simply a more intense and in some ways a more honest version of Christianity.
In his introduction, Argetsinger explains that he agreed to compile material for a planned anthology from a major university press that would examine how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is depicted in popular culture, but this publication was cancelled. He goes on:
“I was hooked, so I continued to collect copies of each and every work I could find that included a gay Mormon character and/or theme. It was like a treasure hunt. I never knew where the next story would be discovered. The next step was to organize the stories and report on the project and findings through conferences and publications. And thus the Gay Mormon Literature Project was born. At least ten papers have been presented and five articles published. The bibliography now includes nearly two hundred short stories, novels, and scripts.”
The twenty-five short works in this 336-page book are described as “exemplary” of the whole project. In some cases, they are excerpts of longer works such as plays or novels. They all seem to come from an authentic experience of growing up Mormon with a growing attraction to members of one’s own gender (mostly males). However, the quality of the writing varies, and so do the conclusions that the writers draw from their experiences.
This book is by no means an expose of institutional homophobia by bitter ex-Mormons. Some of the writers describe happy childhoods including religious education that encouraged them to believe in a loving God. Some of them describe a Mormon moral code of individual responsibility which they are unwilling to give up even after they have been accused of rejecting or misunderstanding God’s plan for them.
Several Mormon traditions, as shown in these stories, facilitate same-sex relationships. The missionary experience, in which young men spend two years away from home (often in Third World countries) promoting Mormonism to the local population, encourages the young “elders” who are paired up to develop a close bond with each other. They are taught that mutual reliance is a basis of Christian fellowship, and they are discouraged from losing their virginity before marriage.
Where is the line between close friendship and sexual attraction, and what, exactly, is “sex?” If real sex results in conception, as young Mormons are brought up to believe, then whatever two males can do together doesn’t count.
Jeff Laver, one of the co-editors, describes a boy growing up in an American Mormon family in Lima, Peru, where he develops a crush on a Spanish-speaking missionary from Spain. This is only one story about missionary work in which missionaries are described as attractive young men, partly because of their enthusiasm for the work. In “MTC Interview” by M. Larsen, the narrator describes being tempted by another “elder” at the Missionary Training Center; after confessing to the bishop, the narrator is excused from his missionary duties. In “The Interview” by John Bennion, the central character (Tom) must be interviewed by the stake president when he becomes engaged to his girlfriend. He confesses that he had sexual contact with another young man on a mission, and says he refuses to be a hypocrite. Tom, not the stake president, decides that he is unfit for marriage.
Several of these stories deal with masturbation as an obstacle to an honest relationship with God. In “The Summer My Cousin Turned Mormon” by Rik Isensee, the narrator’s cousin Bobby tries to follow the instructions in a pamphlet on how to avoid self-stimulation, with predictable results; the two cousins experiment together. In an excerpt from a novel, Missionary Position by Steven Fales, the narrator is warned by his bishop that he must stop masturbating so that he can become spiritually pure enough to go on a mission.
Most of the men in these stories are appealing to the reader, partly because their discoveries of “sin” seem fairly innocent by current social standards. The conflation of religious faith with sexual attraction reaches a peak in “Gay Messiah” by the late Dirk Vanden, in which the narrator drops LSD in a bathhouse on Christmas Eve 1969, and sees himself and all the other men as versions of Jesus. This author, who began writing gay “porn” in the late 1960s after being raised Mormon, was probably the oldest contributor to this book, and one of those who never completely lost his faith despite being effectively disowned as soon as he “came out.”
This collection is worth reading for its diversity. A Mormon childhood, like a Catholic or Jewish childhood, is shown to have a lasting effect even on mature men who left their childhood homes many years before. The roots of the church in the early nineteenth century, and its history of polygamy, are touched on in several stories. However, none of the authors suggest that polygamy (the pairing of one man with several women) could be fruitful grounds for lesbian attraction, parallel to missionary work as a coming-of-age experience for young men. Clearly, this book has only scratched the surface of the stories that could be told.
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“A community is defined, and its values disseminated, through its stories. For most gay Mormons, our stories have been hidden. Officially, they do not exist.”
This reviewer knows the truth of that. From age four to the summer I turned sixteen, I grew up as a “gentile” (unbeliever or outsider) in Pocatello, Idaho, just north of Utah, where the capital, Salt Lake City, is the setting for the Mormon Temple. I knew how important marriage is in Mormon culture even before Mormon boys began seriously proposing that I should marry them and convert. As a fourteen-year-old girl, I knew I could legally marry with my parents’ consent (which they would never give), or at sixteen without their consent. The influence of my educated parents, who believed that drinking wine with dinner was acceptable, but dropping out of high school or becoming a teen mother was not, enabled me to dodge a bullet.
It was only after I had moved to Canada with my family that I was exposed to the concept of Mormonism as an exotic cult, and of early marriage as the sexual abuse of children. After all, mainstream North American Protestantism also grooms teenagers to look forward to lives of heterosexual monogamy and parenthood, and to think of same-sex crushes as a sign of immaturity or mental illness. Mormonism, as far as I knew it, was simply a more intense and in some ways a more honest version of Christianity.
In his introduction, Argetsinger explains that he agreed to compile material for a planned anthology from a major university press that would examine how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is depicted in popular culture, but this publication was cancelled. He goes on:
“I was hooked, so I continued to collect copies of each and every work I could find that included a gay Mormon character and/or theme. It was like a treasure hunt. I never knew where the next story would be discovered. The next step was to organize the stories and report on the project and findings through conferences and publications. And thus the Gay Mormon Literature Project was born. At least ten papers have been presented and five articles published. The bibliography now includes nearly two hundred short stories, novels, and scripts.”
The twenty-five short works in this 336-page book are described as “exemplary” of the whole project. In some cases, they are excerpts of longer works such as plays or novels. They all seem to come from an authentic experience of growing up Mormon with a growing attraction to members of one’s own gender (mostly males). However, the quality of the writing varies, and so do the conclusions that the writers draw from their experiences.
This book is by no means an expose of institutional homophobia by bitter ex-Mormons. Some of the writers describe happy childhoods including religious education that encouraged them to believe in a loving God. Some of them describe a Mormon moral code of individual responsibility which they are unwilling to give up even after they have been accused of rejecting or misunderstanding God’s plan for them.
Several Mormon traditions, as shown in these stories, facilitate same-sex relationships. The missionary experience, in which young men spend two years away from home (often in Third World countries) promoting Mormonism to the local population, encourages the young “elders” who are paired up to develop a close bond with each other. They are taught that mutual reliance is a basis of Christian fellowship, and they are discouraged from losing their virginity before marriage.
Where is the line between close friendship and sexual attraction, and what, exactly, is “sex?” If real sex results in conception, as young Mormons are brought up to believe, then whatever two males can do together doesn’t count.
Jeff Laver, one of the co-editors, describes a boy growing up in an American Mormon family in Lima, Peru, where he develops a crush on a Spanish-speaking missionary from Spain. This is only one story about missionary work in which missionaries are described as attractive young men, partly because of their enthusiasm for the work. In “MTC Interview” by M. Larsen, the narrator describes being tempted by another “elder” at the Missionary Training Center; after confessing to the bishop, the narrator is excused from his missionary duties. In “The Interview” by John Bennion, the central character (Tom) must be interviewed by the stake president when he becomes engaged to his girlfriend. He confesses that he had sexual contact with another young man on a mission, and says he refuses to be a hypocrite. Tom, not the stake president, decides that he is unfit for marriage.
Several of these stories deal with masturbation as an obstacle to an honest relationship with God. In “The Summer My Cousin Turned Mormon” by Rik Isensee, the narrator’s cousin Bobby tries to follow the instructions in a pamphlet on how to avoid self-stimulation, with predictable results; the two cousins experiment together. In an excerpt from a novel, Missionary Position by Steven Fales, the narrator is warned by his bishop that he must stop masturbating so that he can become spiritually pure enough to go on a mission.
Most of the men in these stories are appealing to the reader, partly because their discoveries of “sin” seem fairly innocent by current social standards. The conflation of religious faith with sexual attraction reaches a peak in “Gay Messiah” by the late Dirk Vanden, in which the narrator drops LSD in a bathhouse on Christmas Eve 1969, and sees himself and all the other men as versions of Jesus. This author, who began writing gay “porn” in the late 1960s after being raised Mormon, was probably the oldest contributor to this book, and one of those who never completely lost his faith despite being effectively disowned as soon as he “came out.”
This collection is worth reading for its diversity. A Mormon childhood, like a Catholic or Jewish childhood, is shown to have a lasting effect even on mature men who left their childhood homes many years before. The roots of the church in the early nineteenth century, and its history of polygamy, are touched on in several stories. However, none of the authors suggest that polygamy (the pairing of one man with several women) could be fruitful grounds for lesbian attraction, parallel to missionary work as a coming-of-age experience for young men. Clearly, this book has only scratched the surface of the stories that could be told.
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September 16, 2017
This collection of stories about gay Mormon men (mostly coming out) certainly carries Mormonism as the distinct outlook but, really, these stories could be about Jews, Catholics, Evangelical Christians—whatever religious strain takes your fancy. The details are interesting, and the stories always manage to present something for the reader to think about. Some of them don’t quite speak to me as they do Mormon men because I’m an atheist. However, it’s an interesting perspective and some wonderful stories.
July 15, 2022
Some of these pieces left me with major "meh" feelings, however the image of a dog accidentally getting high on crystal meth and jumping out of a window is imprinted on my mind forever now so there's that at least.
May 6, 2014
First off, don't say "queer" and "GLBT" when you really mean gay men. The stories with women in them were mostly about women in relation to the gay man the story centered on. One exception.
And the stories weren't different from one another. After reading the first 5 or so I skimmed through--and it was as though I'd read them all.
And the stories weren't different from one another. After reading the first 5 or so I skimmed through--and it was as though I'd read them all.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews