Lavender sons of Zion: a history of gay men in Salt Lake City, 1950-79

Page 147

139 following precepts, disfellowship and humiliation the wages of transgressing them. The church's power as a "totalizing" institution was nowhere more apparent than in cases such as his, where the repercussions of excommunication extended far beyond loss of church fellowship to affect one's income, family, home, and community standing; all could be lost after an adverse ruling by a church court. It is useful to conclude this chapter by returning to Allen Drury's Advise and Consent and LDS reaction to it, which sheds light on the church's mixed message of rejection and redemption. In the novel, Senator Brigham Anderson had married, started a family, and otherwise led an unblemished life redounding to his political success. However, his homosexual past remained indelible, a tragic failing for which his constituents would never forgive him. His enemies ultimately dredged it up and used it to lethal effect.l'" LDS officials' defensive reaction to the book and efforts to prevent its screen adaptation focused on Anderson's homosexuality to the exclusion of his overriding strengths, a case of life imitating art.!" More typically, however, the LDS Church reserved unforgiving attitudes for unrepentant gays. Brigham Anderson actually followed the course church leaders prescribed for gay men, an emphasis on form over substance in intimate relations that paralleled church leaders' preoccupation with image. While public servants fired for homosexuality had little hope for reinstatement, the Mormon Church offered gays conditional reintegration, usually involving heterosexual marriage and all too often, ethically questionable psychiatric interventions. Like the I05Johnson, The Lavender Scare, 141-2. I06Quinn, 377-8.