A Gay Latter-day Saint on Symbols and Identities

Awhole-souled observance of the very first of the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," would go a very long way toward eliminating many of the divisions we see around us today. Within the past couple of years, apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have repeatedly encouraged each of us, in the words of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland in the most recent General Conference, to take upon ourselves "one transcendent identity" as beloved children of Heavenly Parents. As we consider together the purposes of additional identities and symbols in our lives, the ordering of those identities is of enormous importance: we must not make a new god of any of our subordinate self-labels.