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Mormon girl, 12, is stopped from speaking as she explains why she is gay to church
A 12-year-old girl who came out as a lesbian in front of her Mormon church congregation in Utah was told to sit down halfway through a speech in which she said she was not a “horrible sinner”.

Speaking at the church’s monthly Fast and Testimony session, the girl, Savannah, said she was a child of “heavenly parents” who had “made me to be gay”, according to a video taken by someone in the audience which has been watched by more than 200,000 people.

But, as she was speaking at the church near Salt Lake City, the microphone was turned off and she was asked to sit down.

A man then addressed the congregation, using the same mic, telling them he was grateful that the “Heavenly Father has made us all unique”.

Savannah began by saying she wanted to “share my testimony with you”.

“I believe I am a child of heavenly parents. I don’t know if they talk to us, but I feel in my heart that they made me and that they love me. I believe I was made the way I am, all parts of me, by my heavenly parents,” she said in remarks first reported by Pink News.

“They did not mess up when they gave me brown eyes, or when I was born bald. They did not mess up when they gave me freckles or they made me to be gay. God loves me just this way because I believe that he loves all his creations.

“No part of me is a mistake. I do not choose to be this way and it is not a fad. I cannot make someone else gay and being around me won’t make anyone else this way.

“I believe that God wants us to treat each other with kindness, even if people are different – especially if they are different. Christ showed us this.

“I believe that we should just love. I believe I am good. I try my best to be nice to each other and stick up for those that are hurting.

“I know I’m not a horrible sinner for being who I am. I believe God would tell me if I was wrong.”

She said she hoped to one day go on dates, to school dances and eventually to find a partner, get married, have a family and find a “great job”.

“I know I can have all of these things as a lesbian and be happy. I believe that if God is there, he knows I’m perfect just the way I am, and would never ask me to live my life alone or with someone I am not attracted to,” she said.

“He would want me to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to love myself and not to feel shame for being me. I ask you…”

The microphone then went dead and Savannah was asked to sit down.

A man then rose to say: “Brothers and sisters, I ask you to recognise that we are all children of God, we are loved by our Heavenly Father.

“And, I have no doubt that Heavenly Father has made us all unique in different ways and for that I am grateful.

“And I am grateful for all of you that are here today as sons and daughters of God.

“And I know very much and I’m grateful for Heavenly Father’s plans for us. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

Her mother Heather told dailymail.com that Savannah left the stage in tears.

“She came off crying to me. We both walked out of the hall, and I held her face in my hands and told her over and over that she is perfect and good, that there is nothing wrong with who she is, that she is brave and beautiful,” she added.

”I was angry that they chose to hurt her for whatever reason they had.

“My husband and I both were reluctant to let her share her testimony because of the potential rejection. She asked to do it in January, we finally agreed in May.

“She had worked so hard at perfecting it so that it would portray exactly how she felt. We decided to let her do it because we thought it would be more harmful to silence her or give her reason to feel she is wrong in any way.”

Point 1 - The Mormons did nothing wrong. Aside from the whole Mormon thing from day one, but that's a whole other issue. Regardless of doctrine or anything else (I don't even know what theirs is, beyond baptizing dead people), they didn't condemn the kid or anything she had to say. The context of the speech is unclear but unless the explicit theme of the event was "Coming Out: Details Please!" her speech, as quoted in the article is inappropriate and a bit egotistical. Shutting that down was A: something they had every right to do, B: common sense considering that someone was almost certainly trying to start something and C: followed by words that could be read as acceptance of what the kid was saying.

Point 2 - 12 years old. That's bullshit. Even if the notion that she's gay came entirely from her, she's 12. 12-year-olds have absolutely no point of view of any possible interest or value to the adult world. They are dumber than teenagers, and with less experience and knowledge. The number of sensible people interested in what ANY 12 year old has to say about religion is about as long as the row of notches on a 12 year old Mormon's bedpost. Even in my own religion, where there are a number of cases of 12-year-olds involved in religious discussion, it involved the 12 year-old repeating what a saint or angel told her or him. Repeating things accurately is generally so far beyond the skill set of most pre-teen children that just about every such case has been declared a hoax or a miracle. Even in the case of Christ, when the Holy Family got separated coming home from Jerusalem and Mary & Joseph found Him in the temple, He was not preaching, as is often incorrectly asserted, but asking questions. Very good ones, that made the grown-ups take notice, but ASKING, not TELLING. Even God Himself did not try preaching doctrine, let alone telling the congregation what they were getting wrong, at age 12.

Point 3 - That quote by the kid's mother:

“She came off crying to me. We both walked out of the hall, and I held her face in my hands and told her over and over that she is perfect and good, that there is nothing wrong with who she is, that she is brave and beautiful,”
Yeah, sorry, that kid is doomed. You can tell her mom is the queen of the participation trophy committee. She goes on say that the kid wanted to give the speech in January, but it took four more months to wheedle Mommy & Daddy into letting her do it. Good to know who wears the pants in that family. They held out so long, because they were afraid of rejection and her getting hurt. As rejections go, that was pretty soft-pedaled, but also, we see more of the helicopter-parent, self-esteeming-worshiping idiocy that has pretty much guaranteed China's eventual dominance. Are you really raising a kid so removed from reality that you think she can and should get a respectful hearing from people ten, 20, 30 and even 50 years her senior, when she asserts that they are all wrong, on the basis of her own special snowflake wonderfulness?

And if you can't stop her from coming out at a Mormon religious gathering, I really want to watch you spend the next six years trying to get her to do anything else that teenagers don't want to do but must. If the kid is competent to tell a whole religion that their doctrine is wrong, who are you to give her a curfew or a bedtime?

Point 4 - You have no business getting up at age 12 and announcing you're straight, either. I'm pretty sure my own church is at least as hard-core on the issue as the Mormons, and they'd have cut the mike on a 12 year old who got up and started condemning the sin of Sodom and quoting St Peter Damian. There are some things that are just not appropriate topics for kids. And if there was one 12 year old, there were probably others: even if your special awesome kid is so precocious that adults would benefit from hearing opinions, you don't get to make that same decision for every other child in the room.

Point 5 - No 12 year old, setting aside whether it is appropriate to discuss their sexual orientation, or if they actually have anything of value to add to the theological discussion of that topic, HAS a sexual orientation, or enough life experience to be able to say one way or another. Much less doing anything about it. You aren't gay YET, and even if you are, at your age, that is still irrelevant because there is absolutely no way, shape or form your sexual orientation should have any meaning whatsoever in your life, except as a trivial point of curiosity. And no one is curious about it either. Or should be.

Point 6 - Content of her message aside, and making allowances for the deplorable parenting to which she has been subjected, I'm not all that impressed with the kid. See above re: everything on the value of a 12 year-old's opinion, but it goes double for someone who lacks the very basic self-control to refrain from crying in public, especially in the face of so mild a rejection. The circumstances as described in a sympathetic article make her degree of upset not justifiable grief in the face of oppression, but a spoiled brat who didn't get her way for the first time ever. And since she's 12, this really goes back on the parents.

Point 7 - HOWEVER important one thinks the importance of absolutely no one anywhere, ever, saying anything less than overwhelmingly supportive of the homosexuality, couldn't the writer and editors find a more sane instance of such a thing happening with which to make their point? Absolutely nowhere in this country was there a grown-up homosexual getting his message rejected in an unfair venue, or whose story at least would not make you look like a moron with no sense of proportion for printing it?