prologue: soulforce

This entry is more a reminder to myself of what I want to touch on later. I'm exhausted, burnt out, and incredibly sick, so tonight isn't going to happen. However, here're the basics (and keep in mind that prior to going I was fairly anti-Soulforce, but am typically open to giving people a second chance to make an impression):

We had 60+ people at the in-home discussion group that started at 8:30. There were 5 Soulforce peoples there, the most persuasive/knowledgable of whom was a lesbian gal from upper Michigan (and now from Washington) who has family members who are LDS. She grew up the daughter of a Lutheran minister (hey, I baptized one of those!). There were also fellows from Presbyterian and Southern Baptist roots, and I can't remember the other two (the bookends on the couch - anyone remember?). Their message was okay, but you could tell that underneath the cheery exterior they wanted to change church doctrines more than anything else. Which is okay, because they don't really understand us or our culture. Emily (the cool chick) said the one thing by a Soulforce rep that actually resonated with me, about relationships being the foundation for understanding within the community.

After the Soulforce peeps took off, we continued the discussion for another hour and a half. We got some questions from straight individuals trying to understand where we're coming from, a lot of talk about suggestions for Honor Code changes at BYU, some interesting discussion about stereotypes and common misconceptions, and got to tell everyone about Hidden (he'll get a blog someday soon :P) and Pinetree's meeting with the VP of student life at BYU and the strides that are being made from within. While some comments were a bit off-base, for the most part a lot of honest interaction and real learning went on, and I deem the meeting a success. Even if my body ACHED sitting there the whole time. Sitting in one place for a thing like that for three and a half hours when you're achy and sick isn't very fun, but it was definitely worth it.

Now we just have to convince our teacher to let us off class so we can go to the Kiwanis Park thingie tomorrow....

~drex