*Deep Sigh*

I’m done.  Done. Done. Done.  Done with work until the new year.  To quote Ghandi, “Halleh-freakin’-lujah.”  This will be the first time that I’ll be able to use my paid time off since I started at the new job, which is fine with me.  I’ve been there six and a half months, and I already have nearly 90 hours of time off saved up.  It’s awesome. 

Of course, the universe, being it’s usually douchey self, decided that it was going to make my last day of work absolutely miserable, and it everything went wrong.  (Don’t you tell me that computers don’t have a mind of their own…and that they aren’t vindictive jerks)  But at least I get to take a couple of weeks off.

Speaking of work, I know it’s generally not a good idea to talk about work online, but I’m not saying anything here that I haven’t already said in person to the management, so, you know, whatever.  My company has decided that they’re going to be changing to a new “Consumer Driven Health Plan.”  This is a corporate euphemism for “We’re sick and tired of paying for your insurance, so we’re basically going to take away the insurance we promised you when you signed your contract, and then we’ll couch the change in flowery rhetoric to try and disguise the fact that we’re ripping you off.” 

2010:  $35 a month out of my paycheck to help pay for insurance.  $500 deductible.  $1,000 out of pocket maximum.  Good plan.

2011: $90 a month out of my paycheck.  $1,500 deductible.  $2,500 out of pocket maximum.  Won’t cover non-generic drugs. Rip. Off.

So, let me get this straight:  You’re increasing my monthly payments by 250+%, but at the same time, decreasing my coverage significantly.  And that’s only because I’m single.  If I had a family, my deductible would be $3,000 and my out of pocket maximum would be $5,000.  You’re refusing to pay for any non-generic prescriptions.  So, if I get sick and need a drug that isn’t available as a generic (which is about 20% of the drugs on the market) I’m going to have to pay for it entirely by myself.  Really?  This is how you want to treat your employees.  This is how you’re going to compete for high-tech talent in the same marketplace as Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, Google, Adobe, and Nintendo?  Smart.

See, the thing is, when I took this job, I was paying $95 a month for a "catastrophic” individual plan through a company on my own.  This plan had a lower deductible AND a lower out of pocket maximum than my new work plan.  Essentially, it was a better plan for only about $5 more a month than I’m going to be paying now as a “benefit” from my employer.

When I took this job, I ALSO took a 10% pay cut from my previous job because I was being offered benefits, which weren’t included in my last job.  So now, six months after I started, I’ve lost the benefits that I took a pay cut in order to receive. 

I’m not pleased.  Nor, I’m not surprised to say, is pretty much anyone else in the company.  I understand that insurance prices are going up.  I get it.  And I’m willing to pay a little extra for insurance.  But the company’s costs on the old plan would have gone up by 16%.  Why is my cost going up by 250% and my coverage going down my 300%? 

It just seems to me that companies are no longer interested in taking care of their employees.  I really like where I work.  I like what I’m doing (most of the time.)  I like the people with whom I work.  I like the company and it’s vision.  But when they do something like this, I feel like they don’t respect or value me as an employee. 

And worst of all, in my opinion, is when the HR representative gets up and says, “We think you’re really going to be excited about this new health plan.  We’re calling it the ‘Consumer Driven Health Plan’ because it’s really going to help you as a consumer make better choices and have a better grasp on your own health care.  Studies have shown that 50% of all health care could have been prevented by changes to behavior, and so with this new CDHP, you’ll be better able to make informed choices about your health behavior.”

Translation: We’re not going to pay for jack squat, so you sure as hell better not do anything that may possibly ever mean that you’ll get sick.  And you sure as hell better pray to whatever God you worship that you never get in an accident, break a bone, get an ingrown toenail, have a heart attack, have diabetes, or any other genetic condition that requires regular medication.  That’s how you’ll make better health choices.  You’ll be so scared that we’re not going to cover you at all that you’ll end up locking yourself up in a padded room and throwing away the key.  Here’s an idea.  I don’t drink.  I don’t smoke.  I’m not grossly overweight.  How about you give me cheaper rates or better coverage, and make the idiots at work who spend half the day standing outside in the rain destroying their lungs with cigarettes pay all the extra.  They’re the ones who get bronchitis every two weeks.  They’re the expensive ones.

I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had just come out and said, “Our health expenses are going up, and as a new company, we don’t have the financial resources to absorb them all.  Therefore, your expenses will be going up as well proportional to our expense.”  I would have been upset, but I would have been a little more understanding.  But instead, they treat us like morons and present the new “Consumer Driven Health Plan”  like we should be skipping through wildflower meadows, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya in gratitude for this wonderful new health plan that will help us make better health choices.  I don’t appreciate being treated as though I’m too simple to see what’s going on.  Just be honest.

It just seems to me that, this year in particular, everyone is trying to rape me financially at the beginning of the year.  In January, my rent is going up SIGNIFICANTLY, my internet and cable are going up, my car and renter’s insurance are going up, my electricity and water rates are going up, and now my health insurance costs are going up.  You know what’s NOT going up?  My income.  I’m already trying to live a financially monastic life in order to get out of debt and have enough in a savings account that if I ever get in an accident, I will have the $50,000 in savings I need to pay for what my new insurance won’t.  Now my monthly expenses are increasing by probably $400-$500 a month in January, even though my lifestyle is actually getting LESS extravagant.  I’m never going to get out of debt.

It’s almost enough to make me start drinking.  Which the company would probably prefer, since it obviously isn’t willing to pay for decent health care, but is willing to pay for free booze at the company Christmas party tomorrow night.  Apparently, they want us to make better health decisions, which clearly includes getting smashed at the office Christmas party before driving home in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway.  Healthy.  Really healthy.

I’m an emotional person.  I feel my emotions strongly, and I express my emotions pretty openly.  I often get frustrated or upset, but it’s rare that I get really, truly angry.  Spitting mad angry.

Today, I am really, really pissed off.

And what makes me really mad, is that I don’t know even know who or what to be mad about.  Over the weekend, the LDS church held its twice-a-year general conference, where most of the church’s leaders speak to the general membership of the church.  And in this particular conference, of which I admitted watched almost nothing, one of the top leaders of the church said some inconsiderate, hurtful, and ignorant things.  That’s nothing new…it happens all the time.  This time, however, I believe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

For those readers who aren’t LDS, you need to understand something about LDS culture.  Belonging to the LDS church isn’t like being an Easter and Christmas Catholic.  Being an active member of the LDS church informs every single aspect of your life.  It is part of your identity.  This is a church to which I have belonged my entire life, a church that, even though I no longer attend, I still self-identify with.  And even though I have chosen to no longer attend this church, I was still slapped across the face this weekend during general conference.

Growing up in the church, I was always the good little boy.  I did all the things I was supposed to, memorized my scriptures, served in my callings, tried to do the right thing.  I went to church every Sunday, upheld my priesthood responsibilities to the best of my ability, paid my tithing, read my scriptures, went to youth activities and youth conferences, served a mission, went to a church-owned school, served in my callings.  For most of my life I was deeply concerned about being a good boy, a righteous person.  And not the pious self-important righteous that went around telling everyone they they weren’t being good enough, but rather, the kind of righteous that didn’t need to preach.

Starting at the age of about eleven or twelve, however, I realized that I was gay.  I was simply not attracted to women.  I knew that being gay was wrong.  I was taught that it was wrong.  The true plan of happiness was to serve a mission, get married in the temple, and have a family.  I knew that’s what I should want, but I just didn’t want that.  I was more interested in staring at the pictures of the shirtless runners in my dad’s Runner’s World magazine than I was in dating girls.  I "went with" a girl in Jr. High, because it was the thing to do, but I was so disinterested in her that she ended up breaking up with me after a month because I never called her or did anything.

I dated a couple of girls in high school, but I just wasn’t interested in them.   A couple were quite interested in me, but I simply couldn’t return the favor.  Plus, since I was a "good boy," I wouldn’t have done anything inappropriate with them even HAD I been interested, because that would be wrong.  So instead, I brushed them off with a "It’s not you, it’s me," before I realized that was a cliché.  (Wait?  That’s a thing?)

I went to college at a church school, certain that if I were around the influence of the gospel, I would find the one woman to whom I was attracted, and I would be able to be free of my attraction to men once and for all.  I made some wonderful friends…but I would NEVER have told them about being gay.

I served a mission–a truly torturous two years for me–and was promised over and over again that if I served a faithful mission that I would be blessed with a spouse and a wonderful family.  Instead, I spent many, many sleepless nights praying silently that God would take away my desperate desire to be with some man or another.  But I was a good boy nonetheless. 

On January 1, 2000, I finally decided that it was time to get professional help.  I had been promised by bishops, mission presidents, and the repeated talks by the General Authorities that if I were only righteous enough, the Lord would bless me and help me to overcome my horrible, sinful desires.  So I went to a counselor for two years.  TWO. YEARS.  Once a week for two years, I worked with a psychologist whose sole practice was in helping LDS men and women overcome "Same Sex Attraction."  Reparative therapy, they call it–like they’re trying to fix something that’s broken.

During this time, I happened to fall deeply in love with one of my roommates–who was straight.  I was so starved for love and companionship that I couldn’t help but fall in love with this very attractive man who was also a dear friend.  Ruined the friendship.

I finished my degree at BYU, still dedicated to "overcoming."  Well, that’s not quite true.  I had dedicated my life to celibacy.  Because, after all, it’s not a sin as long as you don’t do anything about it.  We all have feelings of desire, but as long as we don’t act on them, it’s not a sin.  Great logic, until a bishop of mine told me that even desiring another man was a sin because I was committing adultery in my heart.

I went to Tennessee.  Fell in love with another friend.  Ruined my friendship.  Was "outed" by this friend even though I wasn’t ready to out myself.  Denied it vigorously.  Tried dating another couple of girls in the hopes that I could find "the one."

I came back to Utah and started teaching at BYU.  Being back around so many very attractive young men didn’t help at all, but I was a good boy.  I went to church every Sunday.  I taught gospel doctrine and I directed the choir.  I went to the temple.  I even performed in the bi-annual production of Savior of the World in order to help infuse my performing life with a spiritual bent.

I moved up to Seattle, and ruined yet another friendship by falling in love with a man who I loved and respected more than pretty much any other I had ever met.  I went to church every Sunday, and once again, taught Gospel Doctrine.  Then finally, at the age of 30, I had enough.  I was sitting in church on Father’s day of 2008, and spent the entire hour and ten minutes of sacrament meeting listening to kids and wives talk about how how wonderful it was that they had a husband who could provide for them, and that being a father is the greatest thing that any man can do.  And I got up, walked out, and I never came back.

I spent 30 years of my life trying to do the right things, trying to do what I was taught, trying to be a good boy.  I tried and tried and tried to overcome my homosexuality.  I spent all of my best years being ashamed of who I was and how I felt.  I relied on the promise that if I relied on the tender mercies of the Lord that He would help carry my load.  I asked to be healed.  When that didn’t work, I asked to be strengthened.  When that didn’t work, I asked to please just help me find a modicum of peace in my life.  But it wasn’t to be.  Instead, I spent my nights alone, many times just sobbing for God to just take my life once and for all because I couldn’t fight anymore, and it would be better to just die than to commit the sins that I held in my heart.  (Side note: I couldn’t then and wouldn’t now take my own life…so don’t worry about that.  This is not a suicide note.)

I have spent my whole life feeling guilty about being who I am.  And even now, two years after I finally stopped attending church, I still feel guilty about being gay.  I HATE it.  I wish I wasn’t gay.  I wish I could be straight.  I wish I could have a wife, and family, and house with a white picket fence.  I don’t understand the gay pride parades.  Why would ANYONE be proud of being gay?  It’s still a shameful thing to be.  I still get sick to my stomach when I tell someone I’m gay–like the act of saying it out loud makes it more true.  It’s sick.

I feel like my desperate desire to be a good boy has ruined me for life.  I want to find someone to love who actually loves me back for a change.  I want to know what it’s like to have someone in my life who cares as much about me as I care about them.  But I can’t.  At this point in my life, I feel like it’s too late.  My self-loathing is too deeply ingrained.  I’ve spent so much time hating what I am, that I can’t possible love myself, let alone ask anyone else to love me.  In my mind, I’m not worth loving, because I failed.

And then, this weekend, one of the leaders of the church that I spent my whole life trying to serve, got up and said that same sex attraction is "impure and unnatural" and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong and "against God’s law and nature."

Well, Elder Packer (and I don’t say this lightly), screw you.  Are you telling me that the only reason I haven’t "overcome" my same-sex attraction is because I don’t understand the gospel well enough?  Or I didn’t try hard enough?  Or I didn’t have the spirit as a constant companion in my life?  What more could I have done?  What more SHOULD I have done?  I already have the damn hymnal memorized from cover to cover from trying to sing hymns to help distract my mind from "evil" thoughts.  I have already destroyed myself emotionally, mentally, and spiritually trying to do something that is not within my power.  I have already seen my testimony–once so strong it sent me on a two-year mission I didn’t want to go on, and led me to write songs of spiritual awakenings and rebirths–decimated by a complete silence from the heavens.  I don’t care what anyone else says:  I’ve put in my time.  I’ve paid my dues.  If God were going to help me overcome my homosexuality, he’d have done it by now.

Elder Packer, you have done what you’ve been doing for the last 30 years–you have given the members of the church an implicit excuse to continue to fear, loathe, and despise homosexuals.  You have told them that homosexuality is a choice, and that by choosing to be a homosexual, I am a sinner, dangerous, and corrupting.  You have essentially scared the church into the extremely false assumption that two men or two women loving each other is SO dangerous to the fabric of society that they must be cast out.  You have made YET another generation of men and woman like myself feel so isolated, so miserable, so guilty over something that they can’t control.  Good job.

I know what the plan of happiness teaches.  I understand why you believe what you believe.  I understand the authority by which you speak.  I don’t expect the church to welcome homosexual couples into its ranks…well…ever.  But this "hate the sin, love the sinner" shtick that you keep trumpeting about is bull-puckey, and you know it.  People in the church don’t love the struggling homosexual.  They’re shunted off to counselors to get "fixed" and hidden away, for fear that they will corrupt your children.  Well, I’ve got news for you: you can’t "fix" homosexuality.  Reparative therapy doesn’t work.  In fact, it causes many more problems than it fixes.  And it’s not just my own experiences speaking.  This has been shown in study after study by the scientific community.  So, stop trying to sugar coat it.  Tell it like it really is.  You can’t be cured.  You can either live a life of celibacy, or you can get the hell out.  Those are your two options.  Oh, and if you do choose celibacy, just know that you’ll still spend your life being discriminated against because you’re not married and don’t have a family–which is not okay for a man within the church.

When I stopped attending church, I told myself that I wasn’t going to become one of those ex-Mormons who hates the church and rails against it at every opportunity.  And I hope I don’t.  My years of participation in the church hold a lot of wonderful memories and helped shaped the imperfect person I am today–warts and all.  Most of my most formative experiences wouldn’t have been possible without the framework of the gospel.  But you’re making it REALLY, REALLY hard to maintain any positive feelings at all toward the church. 

As far as I’m concerned, my chance for true happiness in this life is gone.  I’m so wracked with guilt over being gay that I am fairly certain I will never be able to have a meaningful relationship with another person.  Despite my desperate longing for it, I have chosen to avoid all close friendships in my life because I can’t deal with any more emotional scars left over from falling in love with an "unobtainable."  I will never have a spouse, or a family of my own.  I simply feel too broken to be healed.  This is what attempting to overcome same sex attraction brings.

The Book of Mormon states that "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy."  Well, it looks like, once again, I’m an epic failure.  Because I don’t have joy in my life.  Apparently, at least according to Elder Packer, I’m not entitled to joy because I’m not righteous enough to start getting aroused by boobies. 

I hate that I’m gay.  I wish I wasn’t.  But I am.  I’ve done everything in my power to change it.  If you knew me at all, you’d know that I didn’t choose to feel the way I feel.  I’ve done everything I could to chose otherwise.  I wish I could figure out how to leave all of the guilt and anger behind and move on with my life–how to find some happiness and love.  I just don’t know how.  I’m Mormon.  I’m also gay.  I can’t really change either.  I may choose not to go to church, I may choose not to have sex with men.  But in the end, I’m still two things that don’t go together.  The two parts of me are always going to be at odds, and I don’t know what else to do but suffer along and find what little shards of happiness I can here or there.

And stop listening to General Conference.  Even when it’s forwarded to me by some insensitive asshat who thinks he or she is doing a good thing by forwarding it to me because they heard the words "same sex attraction."

Note: I’m leaving comments open on this post for the time being.  Any comments which aren’t civil and respectful will be deleted and/or commenting will be closed.  If you’re LDS and are feeling the need to testify, don’t bother. If you’re about to bad-mouth the church, please don’t.  Just keep it civil and try to show some respect for the beliefs of others, even if they differ from your own.