Moms of LGBTQs, stripling warriors — from James C. Jones of BTB

“The Stripling Warriors” by Minerva Teichert

by Evan Smith

As our hearts turn to moms this Mother’s Day weekend, I want to share a surprising shoutout in one of my favorite podcasts, Beyond the Block: Centering the Marginalized in Mormonism, with James C. Jones and Derek Knox.

I was astonished to hear Cheryl and myself get mentioned! In speaking about the mothers of the stripling warriors, James said, “These mothers, all the Anti-Nephi-Lehies from this previous generation, made a covenant of peace. I bring that up because these women would much rather suffer death and torture before actually engaging in war. Yet they allowed their sons to go a war because they were moved with compassion for those who were dying in their behalf. 

“Now this made me think of all these women in my life: my mother, Cheryl and Evan Smith, Jill, Becky, a lot of people that have LGBTQ sons and daughters. 

“There is something beautiful in acknowledging that there are parents who have fundamentally different beliefs from their children about what it is to follow Christ. Having just read Evan and Cheryl's story, GayLDSCrossroads, they're not much older than me. In fact, they might even be younger than me actually, now that I think about it, and they got four kids. They got a gay child and they, like us, grew up in an era where homophobia was the norm. It was socially acceptable to be a homophobe. 

“Yet we have all these people, our age and older, who are trying their best to live their covenants while also still loving their children. And they're slowly realizing that those two things are not mutually exclusive.

“That's what I see with these mothers of the stripling warriors. They are honoring their covenants and supporting their children, even though many of them did not initially understand what that looked like and what that would be. I see a lot of women who are honoring their children's way of honoring their covenants and of following God. For these stripling warriors, going to war meant a different belief system (war instead of pacifism), a different lifestyle. It was a fundamental break with the traditions of their parents. Yet the parents of these boys loved them. They were proud of them. And they saw that they applied gospel teachings to their life choices, even though those life choices were dramatically different from what the parents chose for themselves. 

“Later in the story we see provisions from the parents coming to the stripling warriors. So this isn't a passive support of their children. The women in this story can be models for all of us, in terms of loving allyship and more.”

Thank you, James, for recognizing the strength and Christlike love and faith of LGBTQ-affirming moms!

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts. It’s Episode #67, The War Chapters (Alma 53-63), with this excerpt starting at about minute 10:00.