These are some of the final images for my fine art photography project. These portraits are of students of BYU who identify themselves as homosexual and a person that supports them. With all of the dissenting views regarding this topic in the past few months I have felt very strongly about this project. The portraits will be shown in pairs. The idea is that there are gay and lesbian individuals not only in the Mormon culture, but also at BYU. I also chose to photograph someone who is a support to this person. This could be a family member or friend. This support person may also identify themselves as homosexual and both people may provide support to each other. I am not telling the viewer who identifies themselves as homosexual, because I hope the viewer will realize that placing a label with the portrait only creates divisions in our society and furthers stereotypes. It is my hope this body of work can be a vehicle for tolerance, support, love and change.
I photographed all the portraits using similar lighting and cropping. I also used a tilt shift lens to achieve selective focus, so that the subjects eyes are the only part of the image in focus. This was purposefully done to force the viewer to look in the eyes of these individuals. I hope that through this project we can realize that all men (and women) are created equal in the eyes of God.
Crossposted at Pam’s House Blend
If I didn’t know any better these two guys can put on white dress shirts and ties and pass quite easily for Mormon missionaries. Still trying to push people back into the closet – how sad.
And if you look at my post on incarceration, in a way, the attitude shown by John D and BostonShepherd fits right in with the actions of BYU. Once anyone perceives an entire group as less than, in some way, it is easy to treat them as if they do not exist.
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p>Looking at the “beginning of the pipeline” in the child welfare system – and an attitude that can eliminate an entire category of education advocates [ED GALs] with the stroke of a pen in the dark – with no regard for the reality that without those ED GALs more African American and kids from impoverished families won’t make it and WILL wind up first in DYS lockup and then in prison – on our dime and to their sorrow and our loss.
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p>Why the homophobic attitude is so firmly entrenched among so many Latter Day Saints I do not know – I joined that church, also called “Mormon” in 1978 but have been unable to attend for some years and am greatly saddened by the fact that so much money was spent on hate [20 million at least in supporting the successful passage of Proposition 8]
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p>I feel like I am without a home, and that the church I joined due to a private mystical process really has ceased to exist in the form in which I once knew it.
I can’t even bring myself to substantively comment on this.
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p>I keep reminding myself that Jonathan Haidt from the Univeristy of Virginia is right and that I should be more tactical in my navigation of the conservative mindset. It’s hard though. Really it is.
Thank you.
Yes, I think Haidt is right, actually. We talked about his Five Foundations in my Peace Studies class, and the kids understood what he was driving it, and it made sense to them, too. He is writing a book on this subject that he says will be out in about two years. I’d be interested in reading it.
I’ve written about this elsewhere, but one thing that has me interested is Pollen’s critique of nutrition science in In Defense of Food. He points to how we have gotten less healthy due to the Western diet and how a focus on nutrition has had the reverse effect. Prescribing a low-fat diet increased obesity. He contrasts that with the success of traditional diets and traditional social norms around eating. Eating traditionally seems demonstrably healthier whereas eating healthier (per modern science) seems worse.
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p>That is very much the reverse of liberal expectations. It’s also amusing because food appears to be an area where a lot of us liberals tend to exercise the purity part of morality.
among nutritionists, there are many philosophies regarding what the best diet should be. it is very much over-simplifying the case to talk about the “western diet” and infer that all nutrition scientists agree as to what that does or should amount to. the low-fat approach is not by any means universal among nutritionists. and nutrition science is not the driving force behind food fads like those mentioned in the video lightiris linked to. marketing and, yes, perhaps human psychology, are. i know this is tangential to your comment, but i didn’t want nutrition scientists to get an undeserved bad rap. 🙂