In the late 1990s, Jared Oaks is a kind-hearted and shy Latter-day Saint teenager living in Tacoma, Washington, who has been taught to believe that his sexuality is “abominable.”
He was aware of the then-current position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that homosexuality was a sin, and had read the writings of the Apostles condemning the immorality of same-sex attraction.
He is aware of gay and straight alliances and gay clubs that are emerging in high schools, and believes that while they may be beneficial, he may be harmed by joining them. Ta.
He said his grandfather, Dallin H. Oaks, was an Apostle to the Latter-day Saints and now the first counselor in the governing First Presidency, and that he supported the church’s teachings on the evils of homosexuality, and that I knew that the apostle Boyd K. Packer once taught. Male missionaries receive permission to beat companions who have made sexual advances on them.
He knew that some pastors, especially Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, had suggested that AIDS was “God’s punishment for the sin of homosexuality.”
What Jared didn’t know at the time was that such religious rhetoric could lead to violence.
Or that the brutal assault and murder of 21-year-old Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard in 1998 was just another assault Shepard endured throughout his life, including the rape and murder he suffered in Morocco while in high school. , that he had been assaulted and robbed, and that at the time his own Episcopal church held the same views as the Mormons.
(Zeina Barkawi | The Matthew Shepard Foundation via AP) This 1995 photo shows Matthew Shepard. The murder of gay University of Wyoming student Shepard marks a turning point for gay rights and LGBTQ acceptance in the United States.
Or that thousands of LGBTQ people around the world have been harassed, attacked, maimed, robbed, and yes, murdered.
Now, 26 years later, Jared, 42, says that no matter how soft the language has become, the LDS Church teaches that being LGBTQ is not a sin, but acting on it is. Currently, I believe that what defines some forms of love as unacceptable is: It invites dehumanization and hostility.
“When we are taught that others are morally corrupt or that it is dangerous to act in ways that we love, we create an environment ripe for violence,” he said in an interview.
Jared said that while violence isn’t always physical, mental, emotional and even educational harm can still leave a scar.
“Maybe you will be punished and kicked out of the church.” [the faith’s Brigham Young University] Or sometimes they go outside the ward, he says, “just because they love someone.”
Jared, Ballet West’s musical director, feels a connection to Shepard and welcomes the opportunity to write a song in honor of the murdered gay student. “Life After Laramie: Matthew Shepard Memorial Concert” will be held at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in downtown Salt Lake City on Sunday, October 27th at 2:30 p.m.
(Bethany Baker | Salt Lake Tribune) Ballet West Music Director Jared Oakes rehearses with the orchestra on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Salt Lake City.
Jared’s work is called “Bleeding,” based on Utah poet Mae Swenson’s poem of the same name, and features singer Evie Marie Gilgen, a transgender woman and Jared’s friend, and recorder-playing Lisa. Performed by Marie Schofti.
Whenever Jared hears about new government or church policies, he thinks about the possibility of “bleeding” like the one described in the poem, “which could lead to violence against someone,” he says.
– – – – – – –
Stop the bleeding, the knife said.
If I could say cut, I would.
Stop the bleeding, you stain me with this blood.
Sorry, I cut it short. Don’t do this, or the knife will sink further.
Don’t say cut.
I didn’t say that the knife couldn’t be helped, but
It sank further.
If you don’t bleed, the knife says, I won’t bleed
You have to do this.
– – – – – – –
“Tell me what went wrong.”
As Jared entered adolescence, he searched his home library for Church books by prominent Latter-day Saint authors, looking for answers (“I knew how to use an index, but it was a detriment to me. “) he recalls. That’s when his worries started. .
“None of it helped,” he says. “They told me what was wrong and what not to do, but there was nothing I could connect with on a spiritual level.”
Although he had no sexual experience, he felt “dirty” and begged God to remove his attraction.
During his first year of college, Jared attended the University of Puget Sound. That year’s theme was sexuality and diversity.
“As I learned from a former Catholic priest in a class, the root of anti-Semitism is defining oneself by something other than the other,” Jared says. “It was a gift because it applies to so many things.”
At age 19, he embarked on a two-year Latter-day Saint mission in Sweden, which he says was “without any trouble.” “I was just following the rules as best I could. I knew my fascination had to go away once the mission was over, or else.”
After returning home, Jared transferred to BYU to study piano performance and began praying for a “miracle” again.
His parents thought he was too busy to date and gave him money and movie tickets to take girls out. One time, to appease them, he invited two girls to a movie without letting either of them think it was a date.
Near the end of his years studying music at the religion’s flagship school, someone reported several of his male friends to the Honor Code Office for having homosexual relationships.
“I was furious because I didn’t see anything happening,” Jared said. “So I was interviewed and went to the office to defend them.”
On the way there, he worried that his connection to his grandfather, BYU’s chancellor and then-Apostle, would lend further credence to Jared’s words, but he realized that whatever he had to help his friends, I decided that “power” was also worth using.
At the time, Jared wasn’t worried about being outed himself (he was too closeted), but he also realized by then that “gays” weren’t going away. I was there.
And he found his first gay Latter-day Saint “friend.”
“I didn’t feel guilty.”
(Bethany Baker | Salt Lake Tribune) Ballet West Music Director Jared Oakes rehearses with the orchestra on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Salt Lake City.
After completing graduate work in choral conducting at BYU and accepting a job with Ballet West in 2009, Jared moved to Salt Lake City and began attending Latter-day Saint Singles Congregation on the Avenue.
He soon found work in his favorite choir and made great friends.
But soon someone “exposed” Jared’s “relationship” with his gay friend.
“I was very open to the new bishop,” he recalls, but the bishop placed him on church “probation” to “protect me from wrongdoing.” [disciplining] supreme council [of regional authorities]”
And the bishop said that no matter what, Jared is loved and always welcome in the congregation.
Two years later, a new lay bishop was called and offered to abolish probation.
Jared refused.
“We went on a few dates, but I didn’t feel guilty about it,” he says. “I thought, ‘Well, I’ve been taught all my life that I’m going to feel guilty when I need to. So what does it mean to be innocent?’
That was when he finally left the church. He has also recently performed at two stake (area) conferences, except when members ask him to participate in music.
– – – – – – – –
The knife asked, “Why should I shed blood in the first place?”
For the same reason you probably have to
All you have to do is say cut.
I couldn’t stand the blood coming out, so I stabbed her with the knife.
Go further.
I hate it too, said cut, I know it’s not you, it’s not you
For me, you are lucky to be a knife, you should rejoice
that.
– – – – – – – –
“I needed something more.”
(Francisco Djorses | Salt Lake Tribune) President Dallin H. Oaks, along with his wife Kristen, waves to the congregation at the end of the morning session of general conference on Saturday, October 5, 2024.
Jared believes his parents guessed he was gay in high school, but he didn’t officially tell them until 2011.
Their reaction to the news was “fair,” he recalls, “nothing negative was said, and nothing particularly positive.”
His two brothers, on the other hand, seemed fine.
“I didn’t know what it took, but I needed something more, and I didn’t even know what that was,” he says.
As for my grandfather, his reaction, communicated to me through his family, was as follows: [in the future]”
Jared said he knew the sacrament was one of his grandfather’s “theological interests,” but the belief that “I wouldn’t continue to receive it or that I wasn’t worthy of it” upset me. , he says.
His grandson wondered, “I’m in some kind of crisis or life-altering hospitalization right now, and that’s all he wants to say?” he says.
When my family said I should talk to my grandfather, I said, “I said I would be happy to answer any of my grandfather’s questions about this, but he said he doesn’t need your help understanding anything.” .”
Jared then received a second message from his grandfather telling him that he would not tell anyone as long as it was completely confidential.
However, my grandson thought: If it was good, if there was light at the end of the tunnel for younger kids and people more at risk than me, then it’s only fair that I know something and don’t share it. Probably not. And if it’s negative, there’s no need to keep it a secret. They will need to know soon. ”
Jared began writing letters to Elder Oaks several times, but never sent them after hearing relatives say the church would never apologize.
In the end, grandfather and grandson never talked about such things.
Since then, Jared has limited his contact with his grandfather, he says. There is nothing now. ”
The Salt Lake Tribune reached out to Apostle through a church spokesperson for comment for this article, but Oakes did not respond.
– – – – – – – –
Enough is enough, stop it, do you feel better now?
knife.
I don’t think it needs to bleed to think it was cut.
No, the knife doesn’t have to feel dry right now.
It becomes shiny.
– – – – – – – –
“Policy, not prediction”
Dallin Oakes “seems to have made a religious career out of anti-LGBTQIA+ politics, not prophecy,” Jared wrote on Facebook. “That’s a shame.”
In fact, this church leader has probably spoken and written more about this issue than any other Latter-day Saint leader, especially from a legal perspective.
In 2006, Oakes, a former Utah Supreme Court justice, gave a joint interview with church attorney Lance Wickman about homosexuality, one of the first to distinguish between “feelings” and “behaviors.”
He signed anti-discrimination legislation against LGBTQ people while reminding members of the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
(Francisco Djorses | Salt Lake Tribune) President Dallin H. Oaks addresses the congregation during the morning session of general conference on Saturday, October 5, 2024.
Most recently, Oakes declared that transgender members must be known by their “biological sex at birth.”
Although Jared is no longer a Mormon, he said it pains him to know that his grandfather “doesn’t represent the best of Mormonism, which has so much room for everyone.”
Jared says that many of his Latter-day Saint friends “do nothing or say anything other than love for all people.” “They make up the ‘true church.'”
Jared says Oakes’ “love you but” rhetoric “tells me.” “My grandfather doesn’t understand the Latter-day Saint scripture about Jesus Christ, who ‘wept and stretched out his arms, and his heart swelled.'” Eternity. ‘”
Next, Mr. Oakes, 92, who is a global faith leader, should recognize that words have consequences and, as in the case of Sheppard’s murder, he should be aware that both physical harm and psychological harm are possible. Son says it can cause both.
That’s why “bleeding” is such a powerful symbol for Jared. The song reminds the composer that “knives don’t need to feel pain; knives don’t need to feel pain.” The cut will be. ”
(Bethany Baker | Salt Lake Tribune) Ballet West Music Director Jared Oakes rehearses with the orchestra on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Salt Lake City.
Editor’s Note • This article is available only to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
