Religion News Service graphic “25 plays in 20 years: Homosexuality and Mormonism in theater” by Tiffany McCallen and Kellie Kotraba/Columbia FAVS

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(RNS) Twenty years ago, a gay Mormon character stepped onstage for the first time. His name was Joe Pitt, and he was in Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches.”

Pitt lived in New York with a good reputation and a bad marriage to a woman addicted to Valium. As colleagues dealt with the devastation and uncertainty of AIDS – it was the 1980s – he grappled with openly acknowledging his sexuality. He was Mormon. And gay. And the two didn’t mix.

Before Pitt, there was a gay Mormon character in a novel: Brigham Anderson, in Allan Drury’s “Advise and Consent,” published in 1959. But words like “gay” and “homosexual” weren’t used; it was all innuendo.

Teresa Sanderson performs in Plan-B Theatre’s ERIC(A). Photo by Rick Pollock/courtesy Plan-B Theatre

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Now, the scene has changed: Gay Mormon characters and themes have a growing role in theater and literature.

Utah playwright Eric Samuelsen said “Angels in America” was a turning point: “For a lot of LDS playwrights, part of the reaction to that play was, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’”

But the biggest catalyst came in 2008, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints threw its weight behind Proposition 8, the ballot measure that ended gay marriages in California. Prop 8 is now before the Supreme Court, with a decision expected in coming weeks.

“I really believe that Prop 8 really inspired a lot of people to say, ‘I’m not taking this anymore, I’m going to write my story,’” said Gerald Argetsinger, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Gerald Argetsinger gives a talk at the University of Missouri about the increasing number of gay Mormon characters and themes in theater. He is also the editor of an anthology of short works that deal with homosexuality and Mormonism, due out this summer. RNS photo by Kellie Kotraba/Columbia FAVS

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Argetsinger, who is gay and Mormon himself, has spent the past few years working with friends to compile works that contain gay Mormon themes and characters. Their anthology, “Latter-Gay Saints: An Anthology of Gay Mormon Fiction,” is due out this July from Lethe Press.

Looking back to 1959, they found more than 200 plays, short stories and novels — half are from the past five years.

In the past 20 years, 25 plays with gay Mormon characters or themes have been professionally produced or performed as major shows on college or university campuses, with more than 15 in the past five years.

The growth of gay Mormon theater comes against a culture shift in how the Mormon church relates to gays and lesbians. The church-run website mormonsandgays.org pairs the church’s official stance – “(homosexual) attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is” – with stories of gay Mormons and their families and friends.

Another independent group, Mormons Building Bridges, is “dedicated to conveying love and acceptance to LGBT individuals.”

Shell-shocked by the backlash set off by the church’s support of Prop 8, the church has largely sat out recent statewide fights over gay marriage, and recently announced its support for the compromise proposal of the Boy Scouts of America to allow gay youth but exclude gay leaders.

Fiction has provided a way to talk about the lingering tensions on both sides.

After “Angels in America,” there was Mark O’Donnell’s “Strangers on Earth,” Paul Rudnick’s “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told” and Neil Labute’s “A Gaggle of Saints.”

Logan Tarantino and Topher Rasmussen perform in Plan-B Theatre’s ‘Adam & Steve and the Empty Sea”. Photo by Rick Pollock/courtesy Plan-B Theatre

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In 2001, Moises Kaufmann’s “The Laramie Project” told the story of the beating death of gay rights icon Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. One of the men who beat him was Mormon, and the show put a spotlight on the church’s uneasy relationship with homosexuality.

More recent works involve two subsets of characters in the gay-and-Mormon narrative: women and missionaries. Argetsinger has noticed a difference between gays and lesbians in the way they write about the church.

“Lesbians are able to put the church behind them better than Mormon men are,” Argetsinger said. When they leave the church, they don’t look back in writing. They just leave.

Only four of the 25 gay and Mormon plays in the past 20 years have been written by women: Julie Jensen’s “Wait” in 2005, Carol Lynn Pearson’s “Facing East” in 2006, Laekin Rogers’ “Hands of Sodom” in 2008 and Melissa Leilani Larson’s “Little Happy Secrets” in 2009.

A poster for the play “Missionary Position”, written and performed by Steven Fales. Photo courtesy Steven Fales

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Gay missionaries make frequent appearances. In 2009, Steven Fales’ “Missionary Position” told the story of a “squeaky-clean Mormon boy on his mission, trying to hide his homosexuality.” That same year, Devan Mark Hite told the story of another gay Mormon missionary with “Since ‘Psychopathia Sexualis.’”

In 2011, “The Book of Mormon” musical stormed Broadway – and so did its gay missionary character. The show has been wildly successful, which Argetsinger credits to the show’s satirical approach.

A newer show, Matthew Greene’s “Adam and Steve and the Empty Sea,” tells the story of a missionary and his gay best friend. It premiered this January at Plan-B Theatre in Salt Lake City – a venue dedicated to highlighting the works of Utah playwrights.

Although some of its recent shows have dealt with homosexuality and Mormonism, Plan-B’s producing director Jerry Rapier said that’s not necessarily the focus. He thinks in terms of “a character who happens to be gay and Mormon, instead of a gay Mormon character.”

In February, Plan-B brought the first transgender Mormon character to the stage in Matthew Ivan Bennett’s “ERIC(A).” The show is about a man grappling with a sex change operation after years spent living as a Mormon housewife.

Matthew Greene’s “Adam and Steve and the Empty Sea,” tells the story of a missionary and his gay best friend. Photo courtesy Plan-B Theatre

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An insider perspective makes the shows work, said Rapier, who is gay. “They ring true because they are written by active, faithful Mormons,” he said.

Many of the stories are based in reality – take Samuelsen’s “Duets.” It’s part of three one-act plays slated to open next season, and it’s about a woman who tells her best friend that her husband is gay.

“It’s a fictional play, but I could plug in the names and faces of lots of kids I’ve known,” said Samuelsen, who taught at church-owned Brigham Young University for 20 years and watched several college-age women marry men they knew were gay.

Plan-B’s producing director Jerry Rapier. Photo courtesy Jerry Rapier

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Self-publishing has also propelled the increase in works about homosexuality and Mormonism. That’s what worked for Seattle writer Johnny Townsend, who collaborated with Argetsinger on the upcoming anthology.

He’s written at least 70 short stories and sold at least 1,200 books. Many of his characters are Mormon or Jewish – he’s a former Mormon, now a non-practicing Jew. Some of them are gay.

Self-publishing allows for targeting a niche audience, but Townsend said that audience is “not nearly big enough.”

Ironically, he said, sometimes the people most intimately connected with the stories aren’t interested. People who are gay and Mormon – or were Mormon – “are over it; they don’t want to read about Mormons anymore.”

(Kellie Kotraba is the editor of Columbia Faith & Values.)

KRE/AMB END KOTRABA

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United States of America flags hang between the columns on the Quad in front of Jesse Hall at the University of Missouri on Sept. 10, 2012. RNS photo by Shane Epping.

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COLUMBIA, Mo. (RNS) Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson has apologized for comments he made about Wiccans, saying he “should have left them alone.”

“Comments in the story offended a number of people – that was never my intention,” Carlson said on the show Saturday (Feb 23). “I also violated one of my basic life rules, which is live and let live. The Wiccans have never bothered me or tried to control my life. I should have left them alone. Sorry about that.”

More than 40,000 people had asked for Carlson to apologize through two online petitions after Carlson, the editor in chief of The Daily Caller,  spoke against the University of Missouri’s guidelines for religious holidays.

“Any religion whose most sacred day is Halloween, I just can’t take seriously,” Carlson said on the Feb. 17 broadcast of “Fox and Friends” weekend show that touched off the controversy. “I mean, call me a bigot.”

“Every Wiccan I’ve ever known is either a compulsive deep Dungeons and Dragons player or is a middle-aged, twice-divorced older woman living in a rural area who works as  a midwife,” he said.

The university’s guide to religions, an educational and planning resource for faculty, staff and students, lists practices and observations for religious holidays from many faiths. It also recommends accommodations for students, such as avoiding major deadlines during holidays that involve fasting.

Eight pagan holidays were added to the guide last fall.

The buzz began on Feb. 12 with a post by University of Missouri graduate student Christopher White on The College Fix. White criticized the university’s guide to religions for listing Wiccan and other pagan festivals “right alongside major religious holidays.”

Soon after, Fox News.com reported that “Students at the University of Missouri don’t need to cram for exams that fall on Wiccan and Pagan holidays, now that the school has put them on par with Christmas, Thanksgiving and Hanukah.” The article called it “all part of the school’s effort to include everyone’s beliefs, although some critics say listing every holiday associated with fringe belief systems is a bit much.”

Fox contributor and radio host Tammy Bruce criticized the religious list in the article, saying “It almost seems as though we’re looking for excuses for people to not have to take their commitments seriously. It’s beyond political correctness; it’s almost like an excuse to do nothing. It’s like social nihilism, where nothing matters.”

Bruce said the university’s decision to include the pagan holidays is “less about elevating other religions and other individuals and more about diluting the dynamic about what’s important in people’s lives.”

Members of Hearthfires, a group of mid-Missouri pagans from different spiritual paths, watched some of Fox’s coverage during one of their regular meetings. The group’s response was mixed – half-smiles and raised eyebrows, half disappointment and hurt.

When Carlson said “Call me a bigot,” one Hearthfires member responded: “You are.”

Television commentator and personality Tucker Carlson on the Exhibit Floor at CPAC. RNS photo courtesy Gage Skidmore via Flickr (http://flic.kr/p/7ENWmm)

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“How many Wiccans can name every Wiccan holiday?” Carlson said a few moments later. “I can – and I’m not even Wiccan,” another Hearthfires member said.

The Fox stories prompted a flurry of online responses in the Pagan blogosphere, with one Facebook page demanding a Fox apology generating close to 3,000 likes.  The comments prompted articles and editorials in the University of Missouri’s student newspaper, The Maneater, as well as local newspapers the Columbia Missourian and the Columbia Daily Tribune.

“What we’re doing is making sure people understand the Fox News article is wrong,” said university spokesman Christian Basi.

Contrary to the Fox News article, “the University of Missouri is not recommending any accommodations for students observing Wiccan or pagan holidays,” the university said in a statement.

The Fox News story “made assumptions about our religious guide and the reporter did not read through the guide carefully,” the university said.

Two days after the Feb. 17 show, Carlson apologized on Twitter: “To Wiccans and pagans: Sorry for my pointlessly nasty remarks. Your holidays still confuse me, but you seem like nice people.”

(Kellie Kotraba is the editor of Columbia Faith & Values. The administrative offices of both Columbia Faith & Values and Religion News Service are headquartered at the University of Missouri.)

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David Lamb is an Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biblical Seminary in Pennsylvania. He is the author of the 2011 book “God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?” He preached on Jan. 13, 2013 at Memorial Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo., to help launch a sermon series the church is doing. RNS photo by Kellie Kotraba/Columbia Faith and Values.

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The book has received mixed reviews in the Christian blogosphere, but Lamb was well received when he recently spoke at a church here.  Religion News Service sat down with Lamb, an Old Testament scholar at Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, Pa., to find out how believers’ long-held views of a wrathful Old Testament God might waver with his findings.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You write about how God “strikes, smites, slays and slaughters.” Why is it important to understand why God is angry?

A: I think the biggest thing that God gets angry about is injustice: when poor people are being oppressed, when widows are not being cared for, when orphans are not being provided for. And those are really good things to get angry about. And let’s face it: When people are angry, it gets our attention.

Q: You write that while God “may seem sexist, He is affirming of women.” What is one example to sum it all up?

A: The very first thing we learn in the Bible is that women are divine – they are God-like. Now, men are too, but I think most men think this already. The man and the woman, when God creates them in Genesis 1, they are made in his image. And there’s nothing more positive you could say.

Q: You also write that while God “may seem racist, he is hospitable.” What do you think is key for people to know about cultural context in trying to understand this?

A: We need to go to Genesis 12, where we encounter God first talking to Abraham. He is calling the father of the nations. He wants to bless them, but he wants to bless them to be a blessing to all nations. God gets angry when foreigners are not being cared for. God wants his people to be concerned about people that are different from them.

Q: You talk about the distinction some people make between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. How do you unify the tension between the two?

A: If one looks at texts in the Old Testament where God seems to be mean or violent, and people look at texts in the New Testament where Jesus is compassionate and caring for people and healing people, you can see kind of a dichotomy.

I see God in both testaments doing the same things. Jesus bases his teaching, as does Paul, on the teachings of the Old Testament. And the things that Jesus does in the New Testament – healing people, forgiving people, caring for people – we see God in the Old Testament doing the same things.

Q: You give several examples of negative depictions of God. What are some of the biggest cultural contributions to people’s perceptions of God?

A: The classic I look at is this “Far Side” cartoon where God is at his keyboard, and there’s an innocent-looking guy walking down the street, and God’s got his finger over one key – the “smite” key.

I talk to a lot of college students, and a lot of people read, or are at least familiar with, books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the so-called New Atheists. So, you’ve got these New Atheists out there writing about some of the most problematic texts in the Bible and the Old Testament, and it shapes culture.

Q: You respond in the book to the New Atheist movement and to atheist writers such as Dawkins and Hitchens. What kind of responses have you received from atheists?

A: I sent an email to Richard Dawkins and got no response, which is perhaps not surprising. I’ve had some great interactions with atheists, and they love to talk about this. Some of them feel very strongly about it, which I think has been fantastic.

A lot of Christians, we do the same thing that Dawkins is doing – Dawkins just focuses on the negative texts, and Christians just focus on the positive texts. And I think Dawkins needs to acknowledge the positive texts in the same way that Christians need to not ignore these negative texts.

(Kellie Kotraba is the editor of Columbia Faith & Values.)

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For the last 25 years, the Trappist monks of Assumption Abbey here in the foothills of the Ozarks have made fruitcake.

Fr. Cyprian Harrison, a Trappist monk, decorates fruitcakes. Every fruitcake is topped with four pecan halves, two red cherries and two green cherries. RNS photo by Kellie Kotraba

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They’re less interested in profits than in eking out enough money to maintain their contemplative lifestyle.

This year, thanks to extra attention from local media, the monastery sold all of its cakes — a Christmas favorite — earlier than usual.

The fruitcakes sell for $31 each, and people from all over the world buy them. The monastery has shipped to places like the United Kingdom, Thailand and Japan. They also have a few wholesalers, including Williams-Sonoma.

As popular as their cakes are, they don’t expect to increase supply to meet higher demand.

“It’s possible, but we really don’t need to make a higher number,” said Brother Francis Flaherty, the monastery vocation director. “Our life is a balanced life of prayer and work.”

The abbey makes 125 cakes a day, five days a week, except on holy days — that’s about 25,000 cakes per year, said bakery office manager Michael Hampton.

Joseph Reisch, the baker, cracks 265 eggs every morning, and soaks the fruit in burgundy wine. By 9 a.m., the cakes are in the oven. Across the room, another group decorates the previous day’s cakes.

When all the cakes have been injected with rum, coated in corn syrup and decorated — four pecan halves and four cherry halves top each one — they pray Psalms and say a special prayer over the fruitcakes:

“O God, Creator of all things

Bless now these creations of our hands,

That these cakes may be received

As tokens of your love

And shared with friends as hints

Of your Eucharistic feast.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ

Incarnate in our midst.”

They wrap each cake by hand, using wrapping stands made just for the bakery.

“Like putting a diaper on a baby,” said Brother Joe Manning, wrapping a cake.

Manning is one of the four Franciscan friars who live on the monastery property. They, along with a few bakery employees, help keep the bakery running. Michael Hogue, an employee, inspects each cake for quality before packing it in a tin. By sight, he can tell who’s wrapped each cake.

Brother Joe Manning, a Franciscan friar; Father Cyprian Harrison, a Trappist monk; and Kristin Nash, a bakery employee, begin wrapping fruitcakes. Each cake is hand-wrapped in plastic wrap, then placed on a griddle to seal. “It’s like shrink wrap,” Manning said. “Monk style.” RNS photo by Kellie Kotraba.

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“That’s probably a Father Cyprian there,” he said, pointing to how the plastic wrap was crossed on the bottom of the cake.

Once packed,  the cakes age for at least two months before mailing.

“When you first make them, they taste like a fruity spice cake,” Reisch said. “Then, the rum subdues and mellows the particular flavors of the different fruits, and it kind of harmonizes things. There’s a real benefit that comes from the aging process.”

But while the popularity of Assumption Abbey fruitcakes grows, the number of monks is dwindling.

The oldest living monk at Assumption Abbey these days is 89 years old, and the average age is 80. There are 10 members, but only five live at the monastery. One is in a nursing home; two are away as chaplains.

Like other Catholic orders, the monks have struggled to draw modern Americans to their contemplative lifestyle.

“Everyone is short of vocations these days,” Flaherty said.

In February, four monks from Vietnam will arrive as part of a plan to transfer responsibility for the monastery.

Vietnam is “overflowing” with Catholics pursuing religious vocations, with  at least least 900 men and women there in the Cistercian order alone.

The Cistercian monastic order of the Roman Catholic church was formed in the 1100s, and there are 13 groups, or congregations, within it — most identified by nation.  The Trappists, like those at Assumption Abbey, are a reformed branch within the order that focuses on contemplation.

If all goes well, a few more Vietnamese monks will come to Missouri, and eventually, the monastery will be turned over to the Vietnamese Cistercians.

For now, the monks are taking their annual retreat. Fruitcake baking stops from mid-December through February. But once February comes, the new monks will arrive, and the baking will resume.

(Kellie Kotraba is the editor of Columbia Faith & Values, ColumbiaFAVS.com.)

DSB/AMB END KOTRABA

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