Queering Zion: Liberalism and Coalitional Care in Mormon Drama

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes two plays that represent their gay Mormon characters in radically different political modes. Confessions of a Mormon Boy focuses on an ascendant individual-evidencing, liberal ideology, while Good Standing focuses on relational networks of Mormon communities. Ultimately, the former mode's assimilationist model fails to envision social change while the latter mode offers real hope for change in LDS-Mormon communities towards acceptance of non-normative subjectivity. The acceptance of non-normative subjectivities into communities reflects Mormon commitments to Zion, a radical concept in a religion usually associated with a conservative political agenda.