I am a lifelong member of the church. I grew up in a small Mormon town along the Mormon corridor—you know, one that was founded by Mormons and has remained predominantly Mormon. Our small town was an entire stake, and nearly everyone within four blocks of my house was active Mormon, inactive Mormon, Jack Mormon, or ex Mormon. My parents were inactive but believing members who didn’t go to church, but still wore garments, kept the WoW, and all that. The town was solidly conservative, Republican, and proud of its simplicity and lack of worldly sophistication. All this would have been great, except that I am a liberal, highly educated, artistic gay man. It took me a long time to accept myself as who I am, and that didn’t really happen until my late 30s.
I was pretty much inactive until I was 15, although I was baptized and ordained at the usual ages. I had close friends in band who were also on the Seminary Council. They invited me to take Seminary, and I accepted. We were studying the BoM that year, and I read it from cover to cover and was converted. After that I attended Church regularly.
But there was a problem in the making…(actually two problems). When I was two months shy of my 14th birthday I figured out how to m*********, and I also figured out that I liked guys. A lot. After my conversion I was wracked with guilt. I remember walking a mile to the church to meet with my bishop. I didn’t want my parents to know, so I couldn’t get them to drive me there. I told him that I was attracted to guys. He took it very well. He shared Ether 12:27 with me, and almost implied that my attraction might be a gift given me to care for my brethren. I could not, however, tell him about the other thing…
So after a year of college (during which I fell in love with my best friend…) I went on a mission. Liked being in Japan and loved working with all the other missionaries, although I had major anxiety over finding. I became a TBM, and knew that I had to “work on” my homosexuality if I was going to have any kind of future as a Mormon.
I bought into the whole reparative therapy thing. It was all talk therapy, group therapy, and ropes courses—no electrodes or pron. I had six bishops in a row pay to make me straight with fast offerings, no questions asked. All of them felt sorry for me, and none of them could do anything for me (including one of E Ballard’s sons). I served in many music, teaching, and EQ callings and tried to pretend I wasn’t gay. It worked until I turned 31 and got booted from singles wards. After that, I went to college to get a PhD, and then moved to the Midwest to teach college for five years. I was terribly alone. After being there for about a year, I finally realized that my sexual orientation wasn’t going to change. I realized that the Brethren had no idea what they were talking about in regards to so-called “same sex attraction”. Either they straight up lied to me, or maybe were doing some serious wishful thinking, but I realized they weren’t prophets, seers, and revelators. I felt betrayed that they pretended to know, while I sacrificed for fifteen years to try to change. I believed that I would never be accepted by the Church or God until I changed my sexual orientation. But I couldn’t. Because you can’t.
I became suicidal. I was looking for ways to kill myself for about a month, at which point I realized I was in serious trouble and needed help. For the first time in my life, I started seeing a non-LDS therapist. As I attempted to explain all of the pressures from the Church that I felt were driving me to hopelessness and suicidal ideation I had a sudden realization. Somehow trying to explain the Church’s beliefs about sexual orientation and the pressure I felt to agree with the Brethren forced me to look at the situation from an outside perspective, at which time I realized how crazy my life in the Church must sound. As if in an instant, the Brethren no longer had any power over me. I decided that since the Church was driving me to the hopelessness that was making me suicidal, I must stop going to Church.
I really thought about my situation objectively--I had been feeling terrible all the time becaue of my homosexutality and m***********, but was a great human being. I am a good person, and no words from out of touch old men or constant confessionals could change that. I finally began to like myself.
Even though I stopped attending Church, I became addicted to the LDS blogosphere. And for the first time in my life I began to study the “real” history of the Church. After studying the Documentary Hypothesis, Egyptian history linguistics and culture, cosmology, geology, and the fossil record I realized Mormonism and Christianity was all a pious fraud.
So what now? I’m a 42 year old virgin living with my parents for the companionship. I no longer go to Church, and have finally come out to my parents. I am agnostic about the claims of Christianity but feel I want to maintain ties with all my LDS friends, so I am doubly in the closet with them. During all this time, NOM has become like a ward family to me. I am so glad we got it back up and running. I am happy to meet all of you.
P.S. I just realized I didn’t tell you anything important about me. I am a musician, a Virgo, I love to play instruments, cook, garden, read about science stuff, take care of dogs, watch Star Trek, and play Dungeons and Dragons. Wow, I just realize how nerdy all of that sounds…
