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Show 135 lesbian kinship networks not only demonstrates the authenticity of fictive families, which derives from their self-determined or chosen nature, but also debunks the preeminence and permanence ascribed to biological families using examples of children disowned by parents for being gay.l'" The superior status traditionally accorded biological relations in Western culture supported compulsory heterosexuality and the LDS Church's position. The LDS Church did not construe homosexual behavior as a stable or natural condition, but enshrined heterosexual marriage as natural, authentic, and eternal, even in cases of "therapeutic marriage." However, gay men who entered such marriages often found their circumstances more "fictive" than real, and persisting homosexual desires caused psychic strain and broken families. When Rick Pace met Jerry, who had six children of his own, the deception he and his wife had lived began to crumble and he finally confronted her: I told her that I was in love with him. I went beyond that, and told her what I felt like when he kissed me, and what I felt like making love with him, and I wanted it to be real, I mean everything we were doing was in denial, and I wanted it to not be in denial anymore so she asked me if! would ever leave her if Jerry invited me to go off with him, and I said I would have to follow my heart, and that's when she decided that we ... needed to get divorced.'?' In many cases, therapeutic marriages did not meet the procreative criterion underlying the "naturalness" of heterosexuality and seen by the LDS Church as central to marriage and sex within marriage. Instead, gay men in unconsummated marriages honored the standard and appearance of conventional family life by adopting children. lOOWeston, 61-4. lOlpace interview. |
