Good Conversation

This semester I'm putting myself through hell by taking the first half of organic chemistry. It is one of the many hoops I have to jump through in order to apply for med school.

I spend countless hours every day working on o-chem homework and getting minimal amounts of sleep. It's only 9:30 am right now and I'm already nodding off.

There's this guy named Tucker who sits by me in o-chem. He's really smart and pretty much understands everything. I on the other hand don't. So he as been very gracious and allow me to work with him on homework every night so that I can understand the class.

A couple of nights ago we were working on o-chem late into the night when the subject of Facebook came up. We both came to the conclusion that we did similar things with it: pictures or things that contain sarcasm or are uplifting.

Tucker made the comment that for a Mormon he is liberal, which surprised me. Tucker has always seemed very clean cut, perfect peter priesthood mormon boy. But he's not, he's a lot more open minded than I thought. I mean he's not out hugging trees and for a non-mormon he's very conservative.

He said he felt like he needed to voice his political views and beliefs in the homogenized bubble we live in because there are so many ignorant and narrow minded people.

I asked him what did he mean. His response: "Gay marriage."

He told me that his position on it was that it was not appropriate because the Prophet has declared that marriage was strictly between a man and woman. He has a testimony of the Prophet and sustains him, so he follows his counsel. He said though, if the Prophet one day said it was okay, he would support it.

Tucker also said that people are so narrow minded and hostile in the church towards gay people. He told me theres some statistic that about 3% of the population is gay. So here at school thats a good chunk of people. The things that are said at times in church and classes can be hurtful.

He told me that we need to be sensitive to and love these people. He told me he has a friend that's gay and he respects him so much.

Tucker knows that these feelings that gay people feel cannot just be told to go away. He knows that they are raw and real.

He then said something that really hit me. "I never realized what a blessing it was for me to be attracted to girls. I should be waking up every day and telling Heavenly Father thank you. You really take it for granted when you've never experienced anything else."

The conversation pretty much ended there. It made me respect Tucker so much more. It gave me hope. It's good to know that not everyone is hostile and hurtful. That there are good people out there in the Church that are moving for understanding and love who don't even experience SSA.

Cheers,
GMSW