Sue-Ann Post Articles/Reviews

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Post-MormonMarch 22, 2005





Sue-Ann Post: her trip to Utah gave her ample material for a new book and Comedy Festival show.
Photo: Gary Medlicott



Former Mormon Sue-Ann Post returned to Utah to stand up to zealotry, writes Carolyn Webb.

Given that Sue-Ann Post has survived for decades as a very tall, former Mormon, diabetic, lesbian comedian, you wouldn't think much could faze her. But she admits to have felt terrified about going to a conference for gay and lesbian Mormons in Salt Lake City last year.

Would even this group alienate her? Would they make her feel like a boring, everyday girl? And would she feel the urge to rejoin the church?

Happily, none of that eventuated: the group, called Affirmation, welcomed Post with open arms. She had a wonderful time - despite the fact that half of the Utah capital's population disavow alcohol, smoking and pre-marital sex, and view homosexuals as the devil's spawn.

If nothing else, the trip provided Post with ample material for a new book, a documentary, and a Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Jesus Loves Me, He Just Hates What I'm Doing, which opens at Melbourne Town Hall on Friday.

As a child, Post went to church every Sunday for six-hours of study and worship. But, after suffering incest, realising she was a lesbian and questioning whether God existed, she broke all ties with the church at age 20 - 20 years ago.

At the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney, Post met an American, lesbian, former Mormon who invited her to the 2004 Affirmation conference.
Post says she accepted partly "to see what sort of demons from my past might come out and attack me".

"But I really didn't expect that I'd have such a good time and meet so many amazing people," she says.

In just a week, she did two stand-up gigs, a radio interview, toured the sights, attended conference workshops and a dance (where she spiked her orange juice with vodka), and suffered two low-blood-sugar attacks that brought on public crying.

I really didn't expect that I'd have such a good time.

Post says she's still an atheist and, in the unlikely event that the Mormons accepted gays tomorrow, she wouldn't sign up.

"But I have a little more compassion now. I can't be a zealous atheist. Zealotry is what's wrong. It's 'live and let live, whatever tickles your fancy, just don't try and inflict it on people who aren't interested', and maybe we'll all get along."

Sue-Ann Post's book, The Confession of an Unrepentant Lesbian Ex-Mormon, is published by ABC Books. A documentary called A Lost Tribe will appear on ABC TV's Compass later this year.

JESUS LOVES ME

WHEN March 25 to April 17, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only
WHERE Melbourne Town Hall Cloak Room.
DETAILS Book at Ticketmaster7, 1300 66 0013 or at the door.

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http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--ra...823211173.html


Daughter of the lost tribe
November 3, 2005
Page 1 of 2

Sue-Ann Post outside the multi-spired Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Photo: Supplied



Paul Kalina looks at a documentary of a gay comedian haunted by her Mormon past.

WHEN Sue-Ann Post brought her one-woman show to Melbourne for the first time, the show's director, Sue Ingleton, sent out a press release announcing the debut of a lesbian Mormon comedian.

Ingleton soon received calls from disbelieving journalists asking about this new character she'd apparently devised. "A gay Mormon stand-up - who's going to believe that?" they asked.

Post is fond of telling her audiences that the Mormons gave her her first 15 minutes of comedy routines. Colleagues tell her that she's lucky to have such stories in her bank of stand-up material.

As is often the case, the jokes are but a thin veneer. Australia's only 182cm, lesbian, ex-Mormon, diabetic comedian and author, to quote her own press release, Post has waged a difficult - though often very amusing, as readers of her weekly columns in this paper know - battle coming to terms with the damage of her traumatic childhood and youth.

Post left the Mormon Church, which rejects homosexuals, when she was 19; later, she famously demanded to be formally excommunicated on Andrew Denton's television chat show.

Rachel Landers' riveting documentary The Lost Tribe cuts to the raw core of Post's demons, as well as the difficult journey she and others have made as they attempt to reconcile themselves to the faith that excludes them.

The film, which has also produced a spin-off book, was initiated by Post when she received an invitation to attend the Affirmation Conference, a group representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Mormons, in Salt Lake City, the Mormon Zion.

According to Post, the Mormon Church spends a lot of money in the US on anti-gay initiatives. But despite this hostility towards them, gay Mormons retain strong residual bonds to the faith, be they spiritual, social or familial, Landers believes.

She says: "Look at Sue-Ann - she's in Australia, where she could have just walked away (from Mormonism), but there she was in Salt Lake City, bright-eyed and going 'wow', all this stuff sparking off in her."

The first time Landers met Post, she sensed that Post was still struggling to fill the void that her ostracism from the church, and her devout mother, opened.

"One of the first things I thought when I walked into the house (where Post lives with her partner Anthea)," Landers recalls, "is they bottle, they preserve, they embroider and they have scrapbooks. I said, 'You're like a couple of Mormon housewives.' It's funny, but she lives very much physically as these people do. She has strangely ended up where she's left, but she needed to find another family in that world."


Post, who says she will probably return to the Affirmation Conference next year, says she is unsure whether she was more worried about not fitting in, "of being a weirdo again", or being like them. "Turns out I'm a lot like them and, unexpectedly, that was kind of cool."

As we see in the documentary, some of the theological debates got up her nose. "But with these people there isn't a whole lot of external debate and arguing and conflict, because basically we're all so conflicted."

From the outset, Landers was adamant that The Lost Tribe would take a serious view of much-derided Mormon institutions. She notes that while there are grave problems in Mormonism, there are also positive aspects, in particular its focus on community.

There are several reasons, she argues, why ex-Mormons want to maintain their links.

The Mormons' faith in "celestial marriage" and polygamy led to widespread persecution. Exiled from the east coast of America, they trekked and finally settled in Utah in the late 19th century.

Landers believes many gays identify with the tradition of being shunned by public opinion and social values.

In many ways, The Lost Tribe tells a universal story of marginalised individuals finding their place in the world and is a window onto debates about gender, sexuality and personal liberty - debates that are raging throughout churches of this and other denominations.

Faced with the choice of abiding by the church or a gay child, increasing numbers of families are joining affirmations, Landers says. "It's having a ripple effect of changing people's opinions."

The Lost Tribe screens at 9.45pm on Sunday on the ABC.