Truth or Dare: The love God put asunder

Truth: There are many things that get in the way of us really loving people; religion, politics, race, you name it … the list is overwhelming.

My last boyfriend was an ultra-conservative, straight-laced Mormon. My friends couldn’t believe I was dating him and marveled at how intensely I loved him. When I first met "Sam" I was struck by his quiet humor. In his eyes, there’s a gentle kindness. Of course I’m always a presence in the room: animated, magnetic and dominating. Usually quiet people are unsettling to me, but for some reason I was drawn to him.

I threw a white trash costume party to celebrate the return of my best friend who was flying in from Washington, DC for a week to visit his old trailer park pals.

I met Sam at the party. He wore a mullet wig and "hill billy" dentures. I sported a pair of Daisy Duke shorts and a wife-beater on which I wrote, "Single mom on welfare looking for a free ride, application below."

There we stood in all our white-trashed glory and enjoyed one of the most riveting and passionate conversations of my life. Although we were on opposite sides of the spectrum on many subjects, at the core of most issues, we agreed. I was immediately intrigued by this because we were from such drastically different backgrounds. He’s Mormon, raised in a middle class neighborhood, by conservative parents. I’m Agnostic, raised in poverty by my liberal, religion-hopping mother and conservative Rush Limbaugh-listening stepfather.

I’d always viewed religious people as narrow-minded, judgmental and uncompromising. A worldview developed from experiences attending various churches in my childhood and confirmed to me as an adult as I continued my spiritual journey.

Sam managed to alter that belief in a single conversation.

I was drawn to the passion behind his arguments, be they on why the Lakers with Magic Johnson were the greatest basketball team ever, or how much he admired his father and doted upon him with such love and devotion, I was almost jealous of the relationship they shared.

I fell head over heals in love with a Mormon at the White Trash Extravaganza Party. He is an extraordinary man and we enjoyed an extraordinary relationship.

I remember the moment in a conversation we had six months later that I realized I would have to let him go. We were discussing God and religion, subjects we differ drastically in our beliefs. I still feel the intensity of the moment. Sam’s eyes burned with fervent determination as he formed in his mind a way to help me understand why he held so firmly to his dogma.

With pained desperation in his voice, he pleaded, "I know my church is true, because if it wasn’t … it would mean everything my Dad ever taught me is a lie."

We stood in deafening silence as I tried to process what it was he told me. When it became so heavy I thought it might swallow us both, he added, "I care about you deeply Shannon, but this is something you have to understand."

I was speechless. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t accept that the only reason we could not love each other was because God (and Sam’s Dad) forbid it.

I used to be LDS and considered going back to the church for Sam. However, no matter how much I loved him, I could not compromise what I believe God is for him and wouldn’t ask him to for me. I still ache when I think of why our relationship ended and how senseless it seems to me.

Dare: To find an answer to the problem Sam and I faced. If we could do that, we could change the world. Imagine what we might accomplish if we could say, "I know you believe this, and I believe that … but look at all the other reasons we have to love each other."

SHANNON MORGAN
EDITOR-IN-CHEIF

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