On Thanksgiving Day 1981, I was a Mormon missionary living in Naples, and our mission president allowed us to spend the holiday with Americans stationed at the U.S. Navy base near Capodichino. Sister Costantino had come with her American companion and spoke no English. But she was able to point out how romanticizing our superiority led us to ignore reality.
When the radio played Neil Diamond’s “America,” she asked me to translate the lyrics. I’d hardly made it through three lines before she threw up her hands in irritation.
“You Americans think you’re the only people in the world with freedom,” she said. “Even Italians have some freedoms you don’t have.”
Back in America, I was again captivated by the moving music as it played over the opening credits of “The Jazz Singer.” The scenes showed people from every ethnicity and religion living and working together in New York City, the lyrics proudly declaring that America was a beacon of hope and light, that people from everywhere came to this great country to share in its riches, opportunities, and “liberty.”
I continued to believe in our superior humanity for years. As a white, middle-class male, I did enjoy many opportunities and freedoms, so it wasn’t apparent to me that others living just down the street did not. And now, when I see the Proud Boys burning Black Lives Matter banners during a pro-Trump rally, it’s clear yet again that far too many white people see rights as a zero-sum game.
They can’t accept the president’s loss because they see it as a loss of their personal rights. They believe there aren’t enough rights to go around, that we need a human rights austerity program to ration our rights.
I can’t imagine a greater lack of faith in America than to believe we have so few freedoms that only a privileged portion of our citizenry can be allowed to enjoy them.
Latter-day Saints and members of other conservative religions believe there is only so much marriage to go around. If we allow same-sex marriage, then some heterosexual couples won’t be allowed to marry. Obviously, we must ration the right to marry.
Many conservatives also seem to feel that liberals shouldn’t have the right to vote. Black Americans shouldn’t have the right to vote. Naturalized citizens from certain countries shouldn’t have the right to vote. If they’re allowed to vote, then the votes of white conservatives are automatically worth less.
But the votes of white people are not worth less. The votes of Latter-day Saints aren’t worth less. The votes of Christians aren’t worth less.
Everyone’s votes are simply equal. And there’s more than enough equality to go around.
I was called to serve as a missionary in Rome, where our message promised that Italian Catholics, Jews, Muslims and atheists were all equally worthy to be baptized and share fully in “the gospel.” We taught Romanian refugees and immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria. Everyone was to be treated the same, poor families in the slums of Napoli and middle-class families in Ciampino.
As a Mormon, as an American, I believed in equality and fairness and acceptance and inclusion. We were all one great, big eternal family.
I’m an ex-Mormon now, excommunicated because I dared to love another man. But I’m still American, and I still believe in equality and fairness and acceptance and inclusion.
Latter-day Saints continue to remain free to practice whatever doctrine they wish, are free to exclude anyone from their congregations they choose. They are free to vote for conservative political candidates. They are free to plan for the millennium when the world will be run as a theocracy. They are free to plan for their futures in the Celestial Kingdom, where everyone will behave just as they are supposed to.
When I was a Mormon, I still believed that non-Mormons had rights.
The most disappointing discovery of my life was that so many other Latter-day Saints didn’t feel the same. When I listen to my family and former missionary pals praise Trump and, worse, utter not one word against his attempt to stage a coup and overturn a lawful election, not a word against the violence being encouraged against their fellow Americans, I think back on that Thanksgiving Day almost 40 years ago.
And I can’t understand why so many people insist on rationing peace.
Johnny Townsend
Johnny Townsend, Seattle, is the author of several books including “Am I My Planet’s Keeper?” “This Is All Just Too Hard,” and “What Would Anne Frank Do?”