I believe that only in intimate details can understanding be found.

The fact that the LDS Church has supported Proposition 22 in California sends a clear message of oppression. The LDS church wishes to oppress not only its own members, but also those who are not members. I believe silence gives permission for oppression to occur. For this reason I am submitting this document for publication.

I was born into a devout LDS family. My father was a bishop for seven years, a counselor in the stake presidency for seven years, and Stake President for 17 years. His total involvement in Mormonism is my most vivid recollection of him. Through the earlier part of my life, my stay-at-home mom took great pride in her home and children, and taught us, by example, to be good workers. I have three older brothers, and when she was expecting me, she was hoping the fourth would be a girl. She sort of got her wish. When my only sister was born four years later, there was a great celebration, and the family attention shifted to her. This was not a bad thing. My behavior was never as carefully monitored as that of my siblings; my individuality was freer to develop. I always felt loved in my family and my church community. I was a compliant child, and I worked hard my whole life to be "a good boy." When my older brothers reached their teen years, and began to date girls, my mother supervised their lives with scrutiny, anxiety and tearful arguments. I think she found it most unsettling when their sexuality emerged. I seemed to slip through the family almost unnoticed.

I loved my church community. It was an endless round of church dinners, homespun skits and entertainment, road shows, picnics, scouting adventures, Relief Society Bazaars, etc. I was adored as the fine son of the bishop and the stake president. It was a marvelous extended family and I always felt I belonged. I was praised for my talks and excellent church attendance, earning individual awards for near 100% attendance through all of my teen years.

When I turned 13, it seemed sexuality was everywhere, whether it was the gym locker room, or the bass section of the junior high boys' chorus. There I was singing next to these earnest budding men with newly changed bass voices, and I was awash in sexual feelings. In my 12th and 13th years there was a great deal of same sex activity in our neighborhood, consisting only of mutual masturbation. It was the same boys who lived on my street, attended Boy Scouts, priesthood meeting, and attended my school. I found it enormously satisfying, and relished it as an expression of my newly discovered manhood and sexuality. It happened constantly in back yard tents, in basement bedrooms and on Scout camping trips. Looking back, it astonishes me that we were never caught or suspected. Perhaps, since it was the early 1950's, people thought homosexual behavior was uncommon, or occurred somewhere other than in our decent neighborhood. I doubt that boys nowadays, in our gay-aware age and with constant interviews by the bishop, would get away with it. I am astonished now how I participated in this activity in a childlike, innocent and guilt free way, although I admit that I was careful not to get caught.

As school ended in the 7th grade, I made a new friend. Greg (fictitious name) lived alone with his widowed mother, who of course worked all day to earn a living. Our parents encouraged the friendship; he was fatherless, and with his mother working he was alone all day. I essentially moved in with him, and I didn't have to share a tiny bedroom at home with my big brother who quite clearly disliked me at the time. Greg went with my family on summer holiday trips and merged with my family as well. We fell in love with each other. The relationship was sexual, and I remember the beautiful feeling of waking in the morning snuggled next to him with my arm wrapped around him. We were inseparable that summer.

At age 14 I was told in my teachers' quorum meeting, for the first time in my life, that masturbation was a sexual sin and all sexual sins were next to murder. I went away from that lesson with painful feelings of guilt and self-loathing. I felt that God abhorred me. I tried to stop masturbating, but I could not. I went to the library to research the topic, but found that all the books about sex were locked in a cupboard behind the desk where a stern, matronly librarian kept watch. I was in turmoil for months, but finally made it a matter of earnest prayer. I was praying beside my bed when a great calm came over me. It occurred to me that masturbation really didn't do me, or anyone else, any harm, so why should there be any objection to this? I felt no more guilt about masturbation from this time on through my teen years.

Towards the end of the 9th grade, the dynamics of my friend network began to shift. Before this time I had friendly sex with over a dozen boys my age, but their interests began to shift toward pursuing girls, dating and team sports. I was mystified why they found this interesting. Certainly I was not going to pursue girls. I had clear recollections of my mother, and my older brothers, wrangling over this issue. I was certainly going to avoid that. In time I found myself on the outside of my group of friends, and was bewildered and hurt why I was no longer included. I wonder if they knew my sexual orientation before I did.

Through my high school years, I became mostly a loner. Dating was essentially non-existent, and when it did occur it was because a persistent girl in my class insisted I attend the girl's choice dance. It felt strangely unreal and uncomfortable. I had one friend who had a steady girl friend. He thought I was missing something important, and so I was lined up for a double date. He parked somewhere overlooking the State Capitol dome. While my friend and his steady made out, I kissed for the first and only time in high school. It felt strangely unnatural, empty and pointless. I was eager to escape the situation.

I have a vivid recollection of the last day of school before Christmas vacation of my senior year. My route home took me through the decorated, darkened lobby of the high school with its shimmering Christmas Tree. There were couples in the shadows kissing. When I arrived home, I closed the door to my room behind me, threw myself on the bed, and wept. I did not have the words, or understanding, to know why I felt disturbed.

I found no way to participate meaningfully in the school social scene. In my isolation I had periods of depression, particularly during the winter months. I was treated for clinical depression later in life, and I can now clearly recognize that I had the symptoms. I believe my parents knew I was in some way disturbed, but it was never talked about. I was an introverted person in an extroverted family and I perplexed them. I had a nebulous sense that I was abnormal. I had some indefinable sense that I was different than other boys my age, and that my development was impeded in some obscure way. I suspect my family saw me as having a character flaw.

Through my high school years I focused all my energy on being a good student and a good boy. Although I had devoured books about dinosaurs, planets, steam engines, atoms and earth history since the second grade, it was my 6th grade teacher who sparked a passion for science. He was fresh out of college, and he was handsome, trim and boyish, with a large adam's' apple and a booming deep voice. He was an excellent teacher who later went on to become a professor of elementary science education. As many kids do, I fell in love with my teacher. Through my first years in school I had struggled to keep up with the other students, but suddenly I found I could excel in science. I had discovered what would become my vocation.

Another keen interest, gardening, later merged with my science interest to focus on biology, the subject I taught in high school for 31 years. When I was twelve, I was home ill from school. My mother came home from grocery shopping and threw a handful of colorful packets of flower seeds on my bed. She asked me if I would help her plant them when I was feeling better. She taught me all she knew about gardening, and I took to it up enthusiastically, researching the subject and expanding my knowledge further. From the age of 12 until the time I moved away after graduating from college, I took full responsibility for the care and landscaping of our double sized yard. I became a successful gardener and my parents would often thank me for making our home beautiful. This became my primary source of validation from my parents, and I worked even harder. Many guests visited the home of President and Sister Teerlink, and the well tended gardens made me proud. The schoolwork in winter, and gardening in summer, consumed my life and helped me submerge, sublimate and keep sexuality out of my own awareness.

I had only two or three sexual encounters with two friends in high school. Years later they both came out as gay men. One of these friends showed me a muscle magazine while we were walking home from school. He asked me if I liked the pictures, and I said yes. He grabbed the magazine back from me, folded it and jammed it into his coat pocket. My friend Louis was fickle this way, sometimes friendly, other times rejecting: often thoroughly self-rejecting. I suspect Louis figured out my sexual orientation, and his own, yet I still didn't get it. We drifted apart, but I learned later he escaped Zion to begin a career as an antique dealer in San Francisco. I eventually discovered that the magazine shop a few doors up from my father's jewelry store stocked muscle magazines. I would secretly stop in for a quick look. As I gawked, I could feel my knees melting and my genitals swelling. The sound of rushing blood was audible in my ears and I felt faint.

I was 19 when I finally figured it out. Waiting for a lecture to begin, I was sitting in Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus. It exploded like a bomb in my head: I'm a homosexual! I am unsure to this day what ignited the explosion. Perhaps it was reflecting on how I carefully looked over every male I passed while walking from one class to another. I hadn't the faintest idea what this meant or what to do with this insight. I absorbed nothing from the lecture. By the next day, I succeeded in keeping this knowledge at arms length by automatically not thinking about it. It all went away again. Why hadn't I figured it out? Was it that I didn't have the language or conceptual framework to fit my experience into? I had heard of homosexuality. For example, I remember my older brother sitting on the couch with his arm around his girlfriend watching Liberace, giggling about whether Liberace was or wasn't. It never occurred to me that I might belong to the same human classification as Liberace. And I didn't have the faintest idea what a person like Liberace might do out of the sight of his TV audience that put him in this classification. Besides, Liberace was one of my father's favorite TV performers. Why had I not concluded that my disinterest in girls pointed in the direction of homosexuality?

Perhaps because I remembered my mother smiling at me over her ironing board as a little boy, and saying that some day I would become interested in girls? Perhaps I had been sort of waiting for it to happen and it hadn't happened yet? As I now look over my life, the evidence that I was gay (a word I had never heard until my late 20's) could fill volumes.

At age 20 I was interviewed for a mission call by my bishop. He was a wonderful man and we loved and respected each other. He discussed with me that it must be my choice to go on a mission. Choice? Choice? That thought had never crossed my mind. He requested that I take 24 hours to think about whether it was my choice to go on a mission, and that I was to return with the answer. I left the interview in terrible turmoil. I went home that night, closed my bedroom door and sobbed agonizingly into my pillow.

I had thoroughly enjoyed my 2 years of classes at the University of Utah. I developed a science-oriented worldview; I was decidedly disinterested in Mormonism, and had zero enthusiasm to go tell others about it. I was enthralled with my university experience, and I was happier than I had been in years; I thrived and excelled there and I didn't want to leave. Only one positive reason to go on a mission popped into my mind: it might be nice to travel abroad and have close male companionship for two years. I thought through the consequences of telling my family and religious community that I had chosen not to go on a mission - of facing my three brothers who had already served missions. I could not disappoint them all, nor could I live with the shame. I went back to my bishop, and lied to him that I wanted to serve a mission.

I had an appointment to be interviewed by Bruce R. McConkie (he was at that time a member of the First Council of Seventy; later he was called to be an Apostle). I had heard he was a stickler for Mormon orthodoxy, and I was a bit nervous. In the interview he asked me if I masturbated. This was the first time I had been asked this question. In previous interviews I had only been asked if I was morally clean. By that time "Boy Scout sex" had vanished in the distant past. The question always made me uncomfortable, but I had always responded yes. My father, who was my Stake President, didn't interview me at all. I was prepared for Elder McConkie's questions, and I looked him in the eye and lied. Tears came to his eyes, and he had a tremor in his voice, saying, "I am overwhelmed by the purity and decency of the young men who have prepared themselves to go on a missions in these glorious last days." I left feeling perplexed. It wasn't until years later that I formulated the obvious question: where were the power of discernment and the guidance of the Holy Ghost?

I arrived by train in the grimy, blackened, industrial city of Bradford, England where I began my mission. There was no one to meet me. I had a phone number, and an address, but no one answered the phone. I dared not take a taxi to the address for fear I would pass them on the way. I waited for two or three hours, and I was feeling lost and abandoned. Then two American elders came striding down the platform. One of them put out his hand and broke into a beguiling grin showing a gap between his two upper front teeth. His eyes crinkled and twinkled as he introduced himself as Elder Monte J. Brough. (Many years later he was called to the Presidency of the First Quorum of Seventy.) My anxiety vanished in seconds as I fell under his allure. Perhaps this missionary experience would be better than I thought! I later discovered he could charm anyone and he did so again and again.

The mission was expanding. The Bradford District was being reorganized, and so several elders were staying at Elder Brough's digs. I met his landlady, named Dorris Brandt, who was strangely effusive, eccentric and fascinating. She named him "Tough Brough" and soon I was called "Darling Dick." The next day while two of the other elders were locating digs in a nearby town, Elder Brough took me by bus to the town of Barnsley to baptize a family he had converted there. When we arrived at the elder's digs in Barnsley, a strikingly handsome missionary answered the door. I had watched with guarded glances this same man, for months back home in the reading room of the U of U Library where I studied. My knees nearly gave out. That evening after the baptism and celebration, we went to the unused living quarters in the local church meeting house. Lying in bed next to Elder Brough, I found it difficult to fall asleep. From his breathing I was quite certain he was asleep, but then he began to snuggle me and stroke my chest and abdomen. What a puzzling but interesting way to begin my mission! The night after that I experienced one of the few wet dreams I ever had.

I was assigned a new companion who I did not find attractive or appealing, and we went to work in the town of Halifax. As I carefully read the Bible scriptures that were on the list to memorize, I was frustrated by their fuzzy ambiguity. It seemed I was reading the meaning into them as some do with poetry. I was used to the crisp, clean, clarity of scientific writing. I was frustrated that the God of Heaven could not explain his plan for mortals more clearly. My companion continually reminded me that understanding of these scriptures required the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In time my science worldview began to shift to one of faith. I believed I had experienced the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. I bore testimony to the truth again and again, but I never choked up with tears like many of the elders.

After 3 months in the mission field, I was reassigned to be Elder Brough's companion. I couldn't have been happier. We were very busy. We didn't tract much. Tracting is knocking on doors, having gospel discussions with people, and leaving them tracts or pamphlets. We drove rented vans all over Yorkshire collecting herds of little boys to be baptized. They were the "converts" of the other missionaries in the district. It was Elder Brough's responsibility to oversee the transportation and the baptisms. After we dropped off the other missionaries, there was the long drive home. It gave us an opportunity for gospel discussions. Elder Brough was a thoughtful person with depth and intelligence. We shared with each other our own developing worldview, and personal philosophy, as it was being shaped with our individual experiences, reading and education. I cherished those discussions.

We made a mission-wide Temple Trip to the London Temple during this time. While we were there, Elder Brough was busy renewing acquaintances with old friends and companions. I had made few friends by this time. I mostly sat alone totally absorbed within myself, and my head was filled with dissonant cacophony. I had a good grounding in evolutionary biology from my two years at the university, and I could not make it fit with the Genesis based temple ceremony. Through this confusion swirled impure thoughts of handsome young men dressed in white temple clothes. The Temple was a place where I had hoped I would find peace, but my mind and heart were in turmoil. The long drive home from London exhausted me, and I sat quietly in the van absorbed in my own thoughts. When at last we parted from the other missionaries and walked through the dark, empty streets of Bradford toward our digs, Elder Brough had noticed my silence and despondence. He put a comforting arm around me, jostled me a bit, and asked if I was ok. I had missed him and I was glad to have him back again. The tears welling in my eyes were concealed by the darkness. I had fallen in love with this beautiful man.

Some time later I decided to tell him something I had never told anyone. When I finally chose the moment the words would not come out of my mouth. As I spoke the words they sounded so foreign that it seemed a stranger had spoken them. The word homosexual reverberated through my head. Elder Brough's face did not register disgust, fear or revulsion - only bafflement. It was difficult to restart the conversation. I didn't regret telling him. My motivation to tell him was a kind of inquiry for me, with perhaps a bit of "poor me" thrown in. I was prepared to face what would happen if I shared this secret with someone I had come to deeply trust and revere. It was not a seduction; it was a reality check.

Elder Brough's greatest concern was that I might be sent home to shame and embarrassment, and he strongly felt that I didn't deserve this. For this reason he was reluctant to take me to the mission president. He was curious to hear about my inner experience as I cautiously disclosed thoughts and feelings. Looking back, his composure suggests he was clear and secure in his own heterosexuality, and very mature for his age. Neither of us could even begin to fathom why he had one inner reality, and I had a different one. But what to do? What to do? This was the very reason I had disclosed my feelings.

A day or two later, with no answers forthcoming from either of us, Elder Brough made an appointment with President Bernard P. Brockbank. (Shortly after his mission, President Brockbank was appointed Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve. This office was abolished about 15 years later and was replaced by the First Quorum of Seventy.) We rented a car and drove to the Mission Home in Manchester, where we met The President in his office. We hadn't even taken our seats when Pres. Brockbank gruffly asked, "What is it: Children? Little boys? Homosex?" He used this three-syllable substitution for the usual 5-syllable term. "The latter," I said.

His lecture was short, almost list-like, and he recited it as if he gave this advice every day. These are not his exact words, but it contains the ideas I lived my life by for years to come.

• The devil chooses to tempt people in various ways. Homosexual temptation is the way he has chosen to tempt you. Your eternal salvation depends on your ability to withstand this temptation.
• Many people think genitals are playground equipment. They are for procreation. Can you get an erection, Elder Teerlink? Since you can, it means you are eligible to marry and the Lord expects it of you. It is required for your eternal salvation.
• To avoid temptation, I recommend that you not tell anyone else that you are homosexual.
• You should never seek the company of other homosexuals.
• You should never read or look at pornographic literature.
• You should read no psychological literature on the topic, because it contains ideas that are the philosophy of men, and not of the Lord.
• You should never seek psychological counsel from any one, but the Brethren.

When he had finished, he reached for a bottle of consecrated oil, and walked around behind me, anointed my head and gave me a kind and beautiful blessing. He asked God to grant me the power to withstand temptation. He promised me that the Lord would bless me abundantly if I would earnestly serve in my calling as a missionary. He asked the Lord to free me of the confusion and conflict that was in my heart. I felt a great burden of guilt lifted, the internal dissonance was stilled and I experienced peace.

In the interview there were no questions about whether I, or we, had committed sexual sin, but there was no sin to confess anyway. Most important, there was no condemnation for having homosexual thoughts, or for being a homosexual person. It was New Year's Eve, 1961, and midnight arrived as two tired, silent Elders drove back to Bradford. What a way to begin a New Year.

A few days later I was transferred to Liverpool, England. After only one week to learn my way around that immense metropolis, and become acquainted with the contacts in our area, I was assigned a new junior companion. I had only been in England four months, and the responsibility on my shoulders felt enormous. I was grief stricken to be separated from Elder Brough, and I called him once by telephone. He was kind but firm. His advice was to pray, work and do the best I could. A few weeks after that my companion became ill and he was hospitalized. Soon I got a new companion fresh from Idaho.

I worked, prayed and grew. In time the depression and grief lifted, and as my skills improved, the crushing weight of responsibility began to ease. I had always found the memorized lesson plans an encumbrance, and I thought it made our lessons sound canned and phony. I found that in using my own words to explain the concepts, the lesson plan flowed easily and more authentically. Little did I know that I was developing an interactive discussion style. I would use it the rest of my life, and to earn a living as a schoolteacher.

It was the time of "The Baseball Program." This is how it worked. A couple of macho Yankee elders, with baseball, bat and ball, would stride into a park where young boys were playing football (soccer.) The boys would be asked if they would like to learn how to play American baseball, a sport practically unknown in England. They usually responded enthusiastically. After the game they were invited to a place where they would be taught the first missionary lesson, which asked if they wanted to be baptized. If the parents gave permission, they were baptized. Most of these boys thought baptism was initiation into a baseball club. The plan required that the missionaries would then teach their families and baptize them also, but few missionaries were successful at doing this. I heard much later from a member of the Bradford Ward that the names of these boys were eventually crossed quietly off the membership list. They simply could not locate these boys a few years after they were baptized. When Marion D. Hanks was made President of the British Mission (we were in the North British Mission), he put a stop to this practice and the baptisms plummeted to a small number. I heard President Brockbank repeat a chide that Elder Hanks personally could baptize that many people without the help of the missionaries.

I was never enough of a macho Yank to make the baseball program work. I couldn't catch a baseball if my life depended on it. I was harassed my entire mission for not following the program, and was told again and again that I should make it a matter of prayer, and the Lord would give me a witness of it. So my alternative was to tract - stubbornly.

I was never assigned a good looking companion again, and many of them had difficult, prickly personalities as well. My new companion from Idaho was not handsome, nor did he have polished manners or a charming grace. What was not apparent on a first encounter was that he was very bright, never once complained about working hard, and as I got to know him I found him thoroughly lovable. We made a terrific team. We eventually saw success and baptized two families. I remember once getting a newsletter from the Mission Home, with a large cartoon of hayseed and a picture of a farmer plowing a field. The caption read, "Are you a tracter?" The ridicule hurt, but I continued my tracting, more determined than ever.

I had managed to be celibate from masturbation for about 6 months while on my mission. Our digs rarely had adequate bathroom facilities so we went to a public facility for our weekly bath. For one shilling we got a tub of hot water, clean towels and a private cubicle. I was rubbing myself dry when I triggered an ejaculation. I was horrified as a huge amount of rusty colored seminal fluid spurted on the floor. I was wracked with guilt. I became increasingly aware of my sexual urges after this time and I couldn't quite put the genie back in the bottle. Sexuality became so distracting that I could not concentrate on my work. I eventually made a deal with God; I didn't ask him, I told him. I promised God I would do His work but in order to keep my mind on the task, I would shoot my wad down the toilet once per week. In looking back I am convinced that much of the Lord's work is driven by guilt.

One morning while tracting our assigned area of Liverpool, we met a woman who invited us in. She was personable, bright, articulate, educated and called herself a Secular Humanist. The conversation lasted well over an hour. It was not an unpleasant dispute, but a free exchange of ideas. When I left that home I had the exhilarating feeling that it was the first time since I had left my university classes that I had breathed intellectual fresh air, and that she had won all the arguments.

I was eventually transferred to Scotland, the home of some of my ancestors, and was made a supervising elder (district leader) in Aberdeen, Scotland one year into my mission. We no longer rented vans; the church bought them for us. My companion and I became nearly full-time van drivers. Some of the elders lived in an outlying village that took hours to drive to, pick up a van of little boys, return to Aberdeen, baptize them, grab fish and chips for all, return them, and then make our long trip back home. I conducted all the baptismal services. One of the elders in my district was very successful, and had baptisms nearly every week. He had been on the U of U gymnastic team, and had developed a remarkable body. When he came from the baptismal water his clothing was transparent. I would lean against the wall because my knees felt so wobbly. It was such a strange paradox, a holy rite swirling with erotic feelings.

In the spring of 1961, we rode by bus from Aberdeen to the London Temple. I was recovering from influenza, and I was still feeling weak. I sat in the seat heavy as lead next to the window, and gazed at the luminous green fields of sprouting grain. The bus trip gave me time for deep reflection and thought. I was six months from going home, and my future opened vision-like before me. The two most appealing roads that beckoned to me were forbidden. One I labeled "homosexuality," and the other "intellectual apostasy." I pondered whether I had the strength, and the will power, to prevail against the temptation to wander down those very appealing roads.

Toward the end of my mission I intercepted an interesting rumor making its rounds. Apparently, a missionary was whining about the difficulties of mission life to the president, and the president told the missionary that he didn't know what difficulty was. He apparently told the missionary that if he had fallen in love with his companion, then he would know what difficulty was. I perked up my ears. I wondered if my story had made the rounds of the mission. Was this story about someone else? Was it possible that there might be others? Did the president really believe that my problem was indeed larger than average?

At my homecoming, I reported my mission in Sacrament meeting but the words, "It was the best experience of my life," never escaped my mouth. My mission had its happy, rewarding moments, but overall it was grueling work knocking on doors, and being rejected time after time. I was delighted to be free of the oppression of the mission rules and schedule. I was exuberant to take college classes again, and I plunged in with enthusiasm. Also I broke one of my mission president's dictums: I visited a counselor in the University of Utah's Counseling Center.

It was just as difficult to get the word homosexual out of my mouth as the first time I had pronounced it to Elder Brough. I had chosen an excellent counselor on the advice of a good friend who had worked in the counseling center before my mission. I chose not to see "the Brethren," because I suspected it would be a repeat of the President Brockbank's advice, and would provide no new insight. Perhaps counseling might even furnish a cure. The therapy was Rogerian (patterned on the work of Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist) where the client determines the goals, and direction of therapy. I presented myself as a devout LDS person who wished to live life in accordance to LDS principals. The primary questions were whether I was mentally ill, was there a cure, and was it possible for me to marry as my church commanded?

Through my therapy I learned that I was not mentally ill, and that there was no cure. Learning this helped me avoid the wicked advice other homosexual people received, that they were to "knock on the door until your knuckles are bloody, praying for a miracle." I was counseled that I might not find sexuality as satisfying in marriage as heterosexuals, but marriage was possible. Most importantly, I learned that because of my same sex feelings, I was not a disgusting person. When I eventually chose my career as a teacher, I learned that my sexual orientation should not bar me from this career. Every teacher presumably has a sexuality, so what's the big deal? My greatest regret about my counseling is that I didn't stick with it. I tended to only make appointments if I was feeling disturbed. There were times when my counselor would open a small crack in a door so to speak. It was a doorway to alternatives that lay beyond my moral strictures. I resolutely declined to push open that door further. Had I stayed with therapy, I might have increased my rate of psychological development, and avoided a great deal of grief that I did not know awaited me.

My college years are remembered with great affection. The free and open discussion of ideas was exhilarating. My enthusiasm for learning and intellectual exploration took me in many directions, and I enjoyed the topics out of my major field equally. I have no happier recollection than sitting on the lawn under a shade tree on the beautiful U of U campus discussing with a friend the ideas I had been exposed to in my studies. My choice of Biology as major had opened to me the grand vista of science, and the raw beauty of wilderness and nature. I spent two summers, one before my mission, and one after as a nature instructor for the Boy Scouts of America at Camp Steiner in the Uintah Mountains. I met my friend Alan there during my first year at Steiner, and our friendship lasted through my college years. He was more physically adventurous than I was, and he taught me hiking, backpacking, camping and geology. I was eager to learn these skills, and I relished the experience. I had a little blue Volkswagen bug that thought it was a Jeep, and in it we explored Utah from one end to the other.

I fell in love with Alan, and quite possibly he with me. He had startling flaxen-blue eyes. But our friendship was never sexual. I yearned for it, but my instincts told me if I did, it would be the end of the friendship, and I still had a strong moral sense that it was wrong. From this time on I always had a close male confidant, and these friendships were nourishing and deeply cherished. Looking back, I wonder how I withstood the temptation to touch him as we spent the night in a tent in some wild place. I think I was born with strong impulse control. My experience also points out that homosexuality is not just about sex. It's about romantic love, companionship, and psychological intimacy as well. I obtained most of what I yearned for without breaking the rules. That friendship was delicious and priceless.

I dated very little during my college years. I was incessantly asked by nearly everyone whom was I dating, and when was I going to get married? I responded icily that I was busy pursuing an education. I hoped that my coldness would discourage them from asking again, but the queries never stopped. I had a friend who shared some of my biology classes with me, and was dating his-wife-to-be. He badgered me to date his fiancés' best friend, and so I tried it. I broke it off after a few dates, and she was hurt and puzzled. I told her that I didn't think we were a good match for each other, and I didn't think the relationship would work. I wanted to end the dating before she became further invested.

I paid for my college tuition by working part time in the emergency room of LDS Hospital as an orderly. I couldn't have found more satisfying part-time work. The nurses fussed over me endlessly, and apparently found my seeming shyness, innocence and naivete appealing. At one Christmas party I received a Playboy magazine. The intern on duty had drawn my name. Perhaps he thought the glossy photos would tempt me out of my conspicuous reserve about women. I didn't open the magazine at the party, but took it home with me. Later I looked it over and puzzled how some people found those pictures worth the price of the magazine.

I made a good friend at the hospital, Peter Van Dallen. He was an audacious, flamboyant, funny, Dutch immigrant with a thick accent, and he amused everybody. The first time he turned up in the ER, I was baffled with just who or what I was meeting. He was more than a person - he was a phenomenon. He was the person who did the male catheterization in the hospital. Part of my training was to learn this procedure. He would enter a hospital room and chirp, "Sir, can't you make your water?" If the patient protested about having the procedure done, he would announce, "That's fine sir. I'll come back when you are ready." Inevitably the time would come when they would plead for his return. After my first encounter I was thinking, presumably as most did, was he or wasn't he? I don't believe even then that I had the word gay in my vocabulary. I believe I didn't hear that word until my late 20's. In reference to Peter, I didn't know the answer to the question for certain until many years later that he too was gay.

I remember an important talk I had with Peter. It was the June after my graduation from college, and I had signed a teaching contract to teach in Granite School District. With my education finished and my career beginning, a topic, which I had successfully kept at arm's length, began to preoccupy me: marriage. I remember sitting on a giant rock in the grandeur of the mountains, with Peter beside me, as we munched a bag of cherries. I confided to him that I was 26 years old, and it was probably time for me to marry. I told him this obstacle seemed insurmountable to me, although I never told him exactly why. He was not the least bit enthusiastic about my marrying. He was never married himself. Hearing my deep concern, he helped me find someone. A few weeks later, Peter asked me if I could give a nurse a ride home from work. She had an English accent, and I asked her where she came from, and she said Bradford, England. "Bradford!" I shouted, "That is where I began my mission!" And, unmentioned of course, it was also the place I fell in love with Elder Brough. I felt an instant connection with this woman. Her name was Janet Newsome.

I asked her for a date, and I came away from that evening with a clear idea that we were psychologically, intellectually, philosophically and religiously compatible. More importantly, for the first time in my life I felt a squeak of sexual arousal toward a woman. I introduced her to hiking in the mountains, and she loved it. A couple of weeks after that she proposed marriage to me, and to my astonishment, I accepted. Soon after I was doing what my father, the jeweler, thought might never occur - buying a diamond engagement ring from him. I presented it to Janet on Temple Square, of course, right under the gaze of Joseph Smith's statue.

I had to overcome great anxiety about kissing her. I was back visiting my therapist again, getting instruction how to carry off this courtship thing. He cautioned me not to expect bells and whistles, but just to relax. I also asked if I should tell my fiancée that I was homosexual. He answered that if I did, the marriage would probably not work. The ethical question of carrying out this deception was never addressed. I was able to eventually find some pleasure in kissing her.

From September until our marriage in June, I made a weekend trip to BYU where Janet was studying English literature. I brought Janet to her mother's home in Salt Lake, but we spent most of the weekends together. The trip down and back gave us time to chat. The nine-month courtship gave us plenty of time to become well acquainted, and I enjoyed the many things we did together. She opened the world of literature to me, and I helped her discover the varied and beautiful landscapes of Utah.

In February 1967, something snapped as I attended priesthood meeting. A bible verse from II Kings 2:23-24 was read. It was about Elisha, the protégé of the prophet Elijah. The scripture says he was walking through a village when a group of children mocked his bald head. Elisha "cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare (mauled, from a modern translation) forty and two children of them." My response was how many absurd things was I expected to swallow? If this was the ethical behavior of God, I wanted no part of it! My Mormon belief system came tumbling down that day with a thunderous crash. I had been propping up that belief system for years, and it had become a most unwieldy, and unstable contraption. When I got home I listed in my journal what had come to be my core beliefs and values. I discovered that this structure remained intact in spite of the collapse of my faith. I could see that I had been constructing a belief and value system that stood completely apart from my Mormon theology and faith. I found it a monumental relief that my faith had collapsed.

I had kept a journal for years, and I read back through those pages. I had written dozens of complaints. Why was sitting through a Mormon Sacrament meeting as stimulating and inspiring as sitting in a crowded, noisy, Greyhound Bus Station? Why was most of the energy of the church spent cultivating power, and maintaining its corporate structure rather than following the injunction of Jesus to "feed my sheep?" Why were the blacks refused the priesthood? Why did the church encourage large families when the Earth's resources were finite, and Utah's schools were bulging with more children than we could afford to educate properly? Why did church leaders not clarify their stand on organic evolution? Why was the ecological destruction of the Earth's environment never discussed? The list was very long, and I came to see how the strain that lead to my collapse of faith had been accumulating for years.

I was ready to launch a thorough investigation into Mormonism. I had made a wonderful new friend, Gerald. We were both new to Granger High School, and with this being my first year of teaching, he became my mentor. I told him about my crisis of faith and he confessed he was an agnostic. Since he had done his own inquiry into Mormonism, he helped my project along by loaning me a copy of Fawn Brodie's book, No Man Knows My History. The world was never the same after that. I had been hoodwinked and I was pissed.

My friend Gerald suggested that I tell my fiancée about my changing beliefs. I didn't do it. It was parallel with the time I had lied to my bishop about wanting to go on a mission. I was too far invested to back out now. My family was overjoyed that at last I had found someone to marry, and I could not disappoint them. I certainly was not prepared to tell them I had become a nonbeliever. I was successful being a closet homosexual, so why not try being a closet unbeliever? I had been practicing deceit for a long time.

We were married in the Temple on the summer solstice. We chose not to have a reception, but had a dinner party catered in my parent's home in the early afternoon. As I departed my mother admonished me with tears in her eyes, "Please don't hurt her." Hurt her? What puzzling counsel. We drove to a small, secluded cabin in the mountains that I had rented for our honeymoon. I went out to gather wood for an evening fire while Janet prepared a meal. I was overcome with intense anxiety. It took immense courage to walk back in the cabin with the firewood. I could barely swallow the food my bride had prepared for me. Eventually we slipped into bed to consummate the marriage. I could not get aroused.

Janet was amazingly kind and gentle with me. I suspect she had a premonition this might happen. It was a night of sheer terror for me, and I could not sleep. I contemplated the horror of having the marriage annulled. The next day Janet gently talked me through the anxiety, and with her kindness and understanding the anxiety subsided. She thought my problem was being raised in a family with rigid sexual attitudes, and that I had become overly reserved. We tried again. That evening I became aroused enough to consummate the marriage, and gradually and eventually we were able to enjoy sexual relations. Through that first year when she frequently gave me that "come hither" look my heart would sink - oh, please, not again, I said to myself.

The year 1968 was incredible. I had begun my career, I was married, I financed a mortgage on a home with a big beautiful garden, and a new baby was on its way. I had arrived! I had demonstrated my manhood! I had joined the club! It was a year of maximum validation and approval from my friends and family. But, unfortunately, the validation was about to end because much of it was based on deception.

It was impossible for me to do the closet disbeliever routine. A hint of sarcasm about Mormonism began to seep out from behind my mask. Very gradually I began to share with Janet my disbelief. It was a very disturbing message for her to hear. She accused me of dishonesty, and was deeply hurt that I was not candid about all this before the wedding. The trust between us had been damaged. Janet had a fine mind, and it didn't take long for her to process the same evidence I had, and she drew similar conclusions to mine. Nevertheless, it took a long time to heal her mistrust of me, and she grieved over her lost faith.

In the spring of 1967, I heard rumors that the Book of Abraham papyri had been found in a museum in New York City. The gist of the talk was that these documents would substantiate Joseph Smith's story. I chuckled within myself over that one. I knew that Egyptologists, decades before, had decoded the facsimiles at the front of The Book of Abraham. They had been identified as ordinary funeral incantations common in the Egyptian religion. They were about 2,000 years old and they were far removed in time and content from Abraham or the Book of Abraham. I thought to myself, "Oh my! What a can of worms they have opened!"

I made the Book of Abraham the keystone of my inquiry into Mormonism. I couldn't wait for my subscription of Dialogue to arrive in the mail with the translation of the Joseph Smith Papyri by competent Egyptologists. I read everything I could lay my hands on. As I read it all, I was sure Mormonism would collapse under the weight of the evidence. Wrong!

Janet and I attended a seminar that filled the Institute of Religion chapel at the U of U. I remember talking to an old friend from high school there. She said in hushed tones, "You mean there are problems with the Book of Abraham?" Outlandish hypotheses were carted out to explain the discrepancies. The defining moment for me came when Henry Eyring, the world famous chemist, said something to the effect that it didn't matter if the translation turned out to be a laundry list. His work might be respectable within the realm of chemistry, but as soon as he moved beyond that, his intellectual integrity evaporated. Janet had come to share my dismay with Mormonism. A detailed exploration of the Book of Abraham controversy can be found in the book, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, by Charles M. Larson. The conclusions parallel my own.

During this time, anxious thoughts crept into my mind as silent as cat paws. The anxiety was attendant to questions I had been exploring. Does God exist? Does our consciousness survive death? Did life evolve through a natural process dependent only on the laws of nature? Is the universe indifferent to my existence? Are the terrible things that happen to some people purely accidental, and not part of some cosmic plan? Is the only justice that will ever occur dependent on the actions of human beings and their institutions? Again and again meaning and purpose would dissolve. I felt lost and cast adrift. These were questions that would send most people scurrying back to their cozy church pews for pat answers. The only credible answers I could find to these questions were in the essays of Bertrand Russell, the renowned 20th century philosopher.

In 1968 I made an important discovery: the Unitarian Church. I attended regularly and each sermon seemed to have been written just for me. The Rev. Hugh Gillilan was the minister, and he helped me negotiate the deep existential waters mentioned in the previous paragraph. Gradually, new meanings assembled themselves, and I no longer felt lost or cast adrift. From these sermons, I discovered that there is life after supernatural belief, and probably it is the only truly authentic life.

My non-belief was making church attendance and relations with my family increasingly problematic. I agonized for months about telling my parents. I finally got up the courage and told them I no longer believed. Off course they were heartbroken. It couldn't have been harder had I told them I was gay. A short time after that I removed my temple garments. Janet found this very upsetting, because she linked them to our commitment to marriage in the Temple. A few weeks later while visiting my parent's home, my mother was giving me a hug. She ran her fingers down the back of my opaque shirt searching for the hem of my garments. When she found no hem, she burst into tears. As the news of my disbelief spread through my family, relations with them was strained to the breaking point. In the years following, a great gulf of very complex alienation separated us. I had rejected their faith and in varying degrees they rejected me in return. Over the years there were rejections on both sides of that great dividing gulf. As I evaluate this family-fracturing experience it is clear to me that Mormonism has great power to polarize people, to alienate people and to disrupt families. Why do they never address this phenomenon in their "family values" sermons?

Janet and I gradually made the transition out of Mormonism. We both considered our relationship with each other to be a good one, and I clearly loved Janet and the children. Two beautiful daughters had been born to us, and I took on parenting enthusiastically. Janet was unable to breast feed the babies, and so I did an equal number of night shifts until they could sleep the whole night. I found it very satisfying to hold them in cozy flannel, and nurse them in the stillness of the middle of the night. I was awestruck by their delicate beauty. I believe I was more involved in the raising of my children than most fathers are.

In 1974, after attending the Unitarian Church for several years, we decided to become members. As our children approached school age, we knew that other children would ask them if they were Mormons, and church membership would provide them a ready answer. We also felt a strong need for religious community that would support the raising of our children in our chosen beliefs. Joining that church changed us from being passive attendees to active participants. That autumn there was a "men's consciousness raising" group starting up at the church. Janet had long thought my cognitive thinking skills were fine, but I was rather reserved (stunted perhaps?) emotionally. Besides, it was a way to get acquainted with people. So, I signed up. I had clearly walked down that forbidden road: "intellectual apostasy." But then there was that other road that had been mostly forgotten.

Well, I sure did get my consciousness raised - no doubt about it! The first meeting dealt with various ground rules such as confidentiality, and although we had a trained psychologist for a leader, this wasn't a therapy group. It was patterned on women's consciousness raising groups whose role it was to understand the way women are oppressed in subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, ways, and to gain the courage through the support of others to change their lives. The premise for the men's group was that men are often trapped in rigid gender roles too. So the sharing of feelings and experiences began. I felt timid when the discussion started, and I became increasingly uncomfortable as it proceeded. I tried to add a word or two but my mouth felt frozen shut. I went home that night, and Janet asked how it went. I told her "I didn't say shit." "Well then," she said, "Next time you should go back and say shit."

I called the leader of the group and told him I was dropping out. He coaxed me gently and said, "There won't be any confrontation or therapy or any heavy duty stuff. We are just going to share our lives, experiences and feelings." The next week I returned and well into the meeting I said, "Shit!" The talking stopped and everyone turned to look at me. They had been concerned with my non-participation, and they listened as I haltingly told them how frightened I was, and that this "feeling stuff" bothered me. They gently helped me take a few faltering steps. What I came to realize through the course of the group was that in previous years I had pressed my critical and rational thinking skills into service as I examined religion and Mormonism. I had observed huge amounts of irrationality in the world, and saw that it had appalling consequences. I had come to equate irrationality with feelings.

The group was hard work for me. I came home tense, with my mind abuzz, and I frequently had trouble sleeping afterward. A few weeks into the group the inevitable happened. The topic of homosexuality came up. It had to. The fear of homosexuality grossly distorts how men relate to each other, and in any men's group this topic must be thoroughly dealt with. That evening two men, out of the dozen or so participants, disclosed that they were attracted to the same sex. I was stunned and angry that this topic had been raised. I could never go where these men were going! I was silent through most of the evening, with dissonant noise in my head. I heard little of what was being said. I watched the minutes tick by and debated "should I or shouldn't I?" Toward the end of one of the meetings I finally croaked out the words: "I, too, am homosexual."

I didn't sleep all that night. After Janet feel asleep I got up, put on my coat, and paced up and down the back garden processing my thoughts and feelings. I crouched up next to the fence wracked with agonizing sobs. I intuitively sensed that if I acknowledged my same sex feelings it would undermine my marriage. Janet and I had weathered some powerful storms over the religion issue but our marriage at that time was not only intact but thriving.

I met with the men's group weekly through the winter and spring. It was very difficult matching my feelings with words, and then getting those words out of my mouth. I found the men in the group loving and supportive. Because of this, talking about the feelings that had been wedged tightly in my heart for years became easier. What had at first been a trickle of words turned into a torrent. I had so much I needed to talk about. One of the participants of that group later described me when I came to the group. He thought I was like a fragile, nervous little bird in a tree, carefully watching all that was going on, but prepared to fly away with the least provocation. It's amazing that I didn't fly away.

What would my life be like had I not participated in the Men's group that winter? My hunch is that this new awareness that came to me would have eventually occurred anyway. The men in that group were a vanguard for a movement that eventually would sweep the country. The change that occurred to me was inevitable. The gay revolution is in the media now every day.

During that same winter we told our home teachers that we had joined the Unitarian Church. The Bishop, hearing this news, visited us. He said that joining another church was an offense for which we could be excommunicated. I told him I was doing what my conscience told me I must do, and for him to go ahead and do what he must do. The letter shortly arrived from the Stake President ordering me to a trial. Janet was very upset by the prospect, and for a very good reason. Because she was a stay-at-home mother (other than a part-time nursing job), she would be the one who would have the most contact with the neighbors as our children intermingled with other children. I attended the trial, and discovered that joining another church was not grounds for excommunication. I was asked if I sustained the general authorities. I answered no. That one word got me excommunicated. It wasn't asked, did I love my neighbor? Did I fail to feed and clothe the needy? Did I fail to be hospitable to the stranger at my door? Has anyone ever been excommunicated for answering no to these questions? Janet was never summoned to trial. She held the same views and joined the same church. Was it because she was a woman, a non-priesthood bearer, and not a returned missionary? I didn't fight the excommunication. I was ready to part from Mormonism, and it was a message to those around me that I was serious about my objections to Mormonism. It was announced that I had been excommunicated in sacrament meeting, and after that the neighborhood climate turned icy cold. We moved from that neighborhood about a year later. That spring, the excommunication, and the emotional havoc it created was an important discussion item for me in the men's group.

Janet became suicidal and depressed. A visible issue was the excommunication, but what was more troubling to her was that I had changed, and the issues that lay behind that change were outside her awareness. She sensed something was going on, but what? The marriage was in crisis again and the main issues were out of sight and non-negotiable. She entered therapy with a competent psychiatrist who prescribed anti-depressants. She needed the anti-depressants, and may possibly be on them the rest of her life.

I voraciously read scholarly literature on homosexuality during this time. It was the mid-70's, and as the gay revolution gathered momentum there was plenty to read. I identified strongly with the message, but it came about a decade to late for me. In hindsight it is clear that all revolutions have casualties, and Janet and I were becoming two of them. I deliberated on the possibility of a divorce, but I loved my wife and children, and I could not abandon them. But I was now living with a heightened awareness of my sexual orientation. The old rules about homosexuality had now been discarded. What to do? How do I manage this? I worried that the secret stash of gay literature in the attic might be discovered. I read the books on the three evenings per week that Janet worked at the hospital. I would feed the children their supper, put them to bed, and read. One summer morning, before the family was awake, I wrapped the stash of books in black plastic, waited until I could see the garbage truck approaching, then put them in the trash and watched as they were deposited in the innards of the truck.

With counseling, Janet was able to deal with the issues related to excommunication, religion, extended family, neighbors, etc. The move to a new neighborhood also gave us a fresh start. In this neighborhood we were not known as those apostates, but those non-Mormons around the corner. We made friends with some very nice non-Mormons just across the street. I tried my very best to help Janet through this crisis and in time the marriage was working again.

As I began to acknowledge my feelings, new feelings never encountered before begin to emerge. I came to experience what I named "the donut phenomenon." I sensed that there was a large, open, hollow in my heart that could only be filled and healed if I was close and intimate with a man. What I am describing is not about sex. I suspected at that time that sexuality could certainly fit into this intimacy, but it was much larger than sex. It was more what I had experienced with my good friends Alan, Gerald and Jim, all straight men. I was so grateful for their friendship. Two of them were not frightened of me when I told them I was gay. One of them parted my friendship as soon as I told him. I think they were remarkable men, because they allowed closeness and did not keep me at arm's length. I'm sure they would kindly say "no" if I asked them for sex, but I didn't do that. I hope I didn't even hint at it. What I wanted was to settle down and share my whole life with them. This, of course, was not a way they could accommodate me, and I never expected it of them. I had married a wonderful woman, but she could not fill that void in my heart. Why, why, why did gender make a difference? Mystery of mysteries! Was it some stupid little circuit in my brain?

While discussing the cause of homosexuality, it is interesting to note that there appears to be evidence for the gay gene in my family pedigree. Dean Hammer, the Harvard trained geneticist, found evidence that a gene named Xq28 causes homosexuality in some gay males. The gene is carried on the X chromosome, and is therefore passed from mother to son. I have three cousins on my mother's side of the family that I am fairly sure are/were gay. In the four cases (including myself) the data perfectly fit the hypothesis.

I had deliberated long and hard about having sex with a man. I was now in my late 30's, and had experienced much anguish over the matter of homosexuality, but it was all mental stuff (except for the boy-scout sex of years ago). I eventually broke my marriage vows and tried it. I did not resort to highway road-stops, public parks, gay bars or public restrooms. I had an affair with another married gay man. We both had children, and we were committed to raising them, and we were very cautious about not rocking the marriage boat. It couldn't and didn't last. I couldn't stand the sneaking around and neither could he. I was coming to loath my dishonesty and deceit. But I did learn something from it. I had been missing something very important through all these years.

Concealing my identity, the person I had become, from the person I intimately shared my life with was consuming enormous amounts of energy. I was within millimeters of just blurting it out to Janet, but if I did that, I would have to accept the consequences of my behavior. I had a dream that gave me a poignant visualization of my dilemma. I dreamed I was embracing Janet through a set of metal bars that separated us. My hands were hidden because they were touching her back. My hands had enormous, vicious claws gently touching her skin poised to hurt her. If I pulled away it would reveal my claws. If I continued to conceal my claws, we were trapped in a cage. The bars also separated us and it was an uncomfortable embrace.

I had kept a journal for years. Writing is cheap therapy, and it helped me keep things in better perspective. Usually, I carefully returned it to a locked box. One day I accidentally left it out on the desk and Janet read it. Is this evidence of the subconscious, or what? We were thrown back into crisis again. The children had gone to bed and we cried and talked all night long. She was back to her therapist again. I was relieved that it was finally out in the open. I had a secret hope she would throw me out of the house, but she didn't.

I can not begin to describe the pain that the disclosure of homosexuality caused Janet. She is a gifted writer, and this is her story to tell and I hope she tells it. The trust had again been demolished. She thought our marriage had been a sham and a fraud. She thought my homosexuality meant I was not attracted to her. I had been her mirror, and now she discovered the image in it was counterfeit. Suddenly, she felt unfeminine and ugly. She had experienced our lovemaking as beautiful affirmation, and all that turned to dust. No woman should ever have this experience thrust upon her, and she had no choice in the matter.

I am not a person who can be indifferent to another's pain. Not only was the guilt difficult to bear, but also the intense scrutiny she gave me as she reexamined our long relationship in this new light. I believe she sensed that there was not another person in my life, and I was not about to bolt from the scene. She saw the garden was planted with vegetables, and concluded I would be there to harvest them. From my present perspective of many years later, this is when the marriage really began to fail. My counselor at the U of U was right: heterosexual marriage with a gay spouse is more likely to work as long as the straight spouse is kept in ignorance of this fact. But think about this: to what degree is the uninformed spouse living in a world of illusion?

The children both attended school full time that fall. It had been planned from the beginning that Janet would someday finish her degree in English that she had started years ago at BYU. I had always helped with household chores, and I was better at it anyway. I thought that Janet's best gifts were lying dormant ready for full development. Janet had read feminist literature for years, and I got a book report on every book she read. I had become a born again feminist, and I was delighted to send her off to school while I took on the household chores. I hoped that she could find compensatory validation and satisfaction in her schoolwork. I also hoped the hot focus of her attention would move away from the crisis that had no simple solution.

Janet did even better than I expected, and in a year or two I became eclipsed by her brilliance. She earned a bachelor's, then a master's, degree in English literature. We debated whether she should get a teaching certificate and teach high school, but I had experienced the adversity of teaching 15-year-olds and I was not sure she had that kind of stamina. From the beginning I reminded her that her degree should make it possible to earn a paycheck in addition to the enjoyment of learning since our finances were modest. She had saved for years from her nursing work to pay her tuition. She had also won scholarships, and teaching fellowships to finance her career. She also earned enough along the way to buy all the family birthday and Christmas gifts. She assured me that this investment of our limited resources would pay off, and there were many kinds of writing jobs out there. Mostly she had her eye on a "cushy job" (as she called it) as an English Professor.

Watching my 40th birthday approaching was difficult for me. It's an overworked term, but I guess you could call it a midlife crisis. The fantasy of finding a gay lover, and settling down together, had powerful appeal. As fourty approached, I could hear the clock ticking. The older I got the greater my doubts were about beginning a new life. I thought a lot about Janet getting a good job so that we could financially afford to part ways. Janet was off having a wonderful time at the University, and I was getting weary of grocery shopping, making the meals, doing the laundry and cleaning the house. The feminists were right; it's not very stimulating work. Our new home was a two-story frame house, and I painted it Wedgwood blue with white trim and shutters. It looked marvelous with its emerald lawn, cut-leaf weeping birch and red and white petunias. We called it our Fourth of July house. I also grew a patch of vegetables that we canned and preserved. The frame house required constant painting and repairing. Teaching freed my summers, but still the work came to nag me rather than beckon me. I had taken on almost all of the household chores as well as earning most of the income. I was becoming the household drudge. As I look back, what I was doing was paying my debt to Janet. Once again guilt was powering a great deal of work.

The thoughts associated with sadness were the tragedy of our marriage. Had either of us known, neither of us would have chosen this marriage. The next stage came with suicidal thoughts. I believe that suicide has a hostile element of wanting to hurt those around you. I could not intentionally hurt another person. I have unintentionally hurt many people as the result of making stupid choices, or the difficult choices presented in painful ethical dilemmas. The thoughts were: "My life insurance is worth much more than I am and this family would be better off without me." Or I would think, "If I could slip out of life unnoticed, I would." Of course I couldn't slip out of life unnoticed, and so I stuck around. Janet saw the symptoms and recognized what they meant. She urged me to seek psychiatric treatment, and I was placed on medication.

It started with waking two or three hours early in the morning. Gradually the insomnia grew worse. Next the world lost its color and excitement. I came to call the feelings "the grim and gray." As time went on I lost the energy to do my work. After a day of teaching mostly 15 year olds, I would prepare the evening meal (I had always insisted that our family would gather to share a meal and the news of the day), and I would do the cleanup chores. I would then enter my bedroom (Janet and I had separate bedrooms by this time) close the door, turn out the lights and weep in the dark. I called this stage "the sad weepies." I now know now that my children very much missed me through this time. They experienced me as an absentee father.

I learned a lot about depression. Years later I taught myself an effective treatment protocol called "Rational Emotive Therapy" from books by Albert Ellis. I now suspect my depression had a hereditary component as well. My daughter also suffers from it. My Grandmother Geertruida Brouwer Teerlink, my father's mother, had it too. The cause of death on her death certificate is melancholia, the old word for the depression. Every Teerlink living in the state of Utah, and probably California, are here because of Geertruide. She was the one who invited the Mormon missionaries into her home in Rotterdam Holland. Eventually she, her husband and his siblings joined the Mormon Church and they all emigrated to America. Had I been a girl, my name would have been Gertrude, in honor of her (mercifully my nickname would be Trudy). Since I was a boy, I was given the middle name Brouwer. I identify strongly with my grandmother. I never met her because she died when my father was 12, and he was the oldest child. After she emigrated, she never saw her Dutch kin again, and there was much weeping as they parted company at the dock. She came to a strange place, could not speak the language, felt very isolated and bore eight children in 11 years. I would be depressed, too! With a bit of Prozac (and some birth control pills perhaps?), she could have raised those children, and I could have met that sweet woman. The tragedy of my life is nothing compared with hers and her children as they grew up without their mother. Her youngest was 1 ½years old when she died.

I responded well to antidepressants, and I was soon sleeping properly again. The improvement was timely because we had been invited to spend the summer of 1980 in England. Janet's parents divorced before Janet and I married, but her father had remarried and lived in York, England. Janet's father paid the airfare. The children met their grandfather and we had a wonderful summer in England!

A side effect of the tricyclic anti-depressant I was taking was impotence. Our faltering sexual relationship was now ended forever. Increasingly Janet and I were living parallel but separate lives. The marriage first turned sour, then toxic. Janet had a mysterious dehabilitating illness, and then I gradually learned that her Ph.D. was not to be. She spent 11 long years, much of it away from the family, working toward that goal. Did she intuitively know that if she finished it, and got a job it would be parting time for us? Why it was never completed is one of my life's great mysteries. One evening when Janet was particularly dour, I asked her, "If you had a million dollars would you divorce me?" "Most probably," she muttered. I knew it was no longer a question of should we divorce. It was a matter of negotiating the time and price.

We told the children we planned to divorce in September 1989. At the same time I told them I was gay, and this was the major factor in the divorce. My oldest daughter Laura's response was, "Dad, you have been miserable for a long time. You should have divorced years ago." Alison's was just the opposite. She thought our family was a bit eccentric but wonderful. She wept that our family was breaking up, and she has never forgiven me for it. Laura had already moved out of the house to live and work. She eventually graduated from Utah State University. Alison was in her last year of high school. She won an excellent scholarship at Mills College, and left home that following year and graduated from Mills. The time following the divorce was a tough time for Alison. My plan was to stay around through the next winter, see Alison through her last year of high school, prepare the home for sale, divide the assets and then part ways. Janet would have no part of this plan. She couldn't stand to have me around if our relationship had died and she insisted I leave. She also refused to sell the house. She said she had lost too much and she couldn't lose this too. It meant she would be left with that maintenance nightmare of a house.

My faithful friend Gerald helped me pack up a few things in his truck, and I moved out on Halloween night, 1989. I moved into a pitiful little apartment, but I gradually fixed it up over the next three years. In leaving the 21-year marriage I dared not raise hope of finding a gay lover to live with. There certainly were no prospects on the scene. My objective was to see if leaving would end the pain. I had given a lot of effort to cultivating a friend network to support me through the transition, and they did so famously. The divorce was less damaging to me than the rest of the family. It fills me with sadness that the others did less well. Janet and Alison were particularly hurt. I know from the literature that heterosexual marriages with gay spouses have dismal track records. It should be no surprise to anyone that the marriage failed. Marriages with a gay spouse are inherently unstable. It is a bit amazing that the marriage lasted as long as it did. Some of my friends believe that I was masochistic to stay so long. The only answer I can give is that I needed to raise my children.

The divorce was amicable and uncontested, and came into effect in April 1990. Over the next three years the divorce accomplished what I hoped it would: it gave me peace. I discovered there is life after divorce, and that it is possible live alone and still find a meaningful, productive and happy existence.

A year or two after my divorce, I read in the newspaper that Monte Brough had been called to the First Quorum of the Seventy (he is now a member of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy). He was the missionary I had fallen in love with over 30 years ago. I sent him a short note congratulating him, and I said I thought they had chosen a fine man. To my surprise and astonishment I received a letter back inviting me to lunch. The lunch never worked out, but I did have a long conversation with him in his office. Much of our conversation dealt with my differences over Mormonism. I suspect he was paying an old debt to my parents. He had been a customer in their jewelry store, and they had told him of my disagreements with the LDS church and asked if he would talk to me about it because they knew I respected him.

Homosexuality was not the major topic discussed. In our discussion he said that attitudes in the church were changing in respect to the status of being a homosexual. That is, it was not a sin to have homosexual attraction or feelings. I said that I had never thought myself an evil monster because I had homosexual feelings because of the clear message of President Brockbank over 30 years ago. I told him I applauded this change in attitude that he said was occurring. It was clear however that Elder Brough still held that committing homosexual acts were sinful.

Then I asked Elder Brough about the issue that had effected my life the most. Did the LDS Church still counsel its gay young people to marry (heterosexual marriage of course)? He said that he (and he emphasized he) had changed his views on this and that sometimes he advised them to marry and sometimes did not. He said that he asked them if their night dreams were mostly homosexual or heterosexual. If they were mostly heterosexual he urged them to marry. All of my night dreams have been homosexual. Had Elder Brough been my Mission President, I may not have married. I mentioned to Elder Brough that I had attended Affirmation, a support group for gay Mormons, at the time of my divorce, and I had become acquainted with many young LDS homosexual men. I suggested he could interview these people, and those that qualified could be lined up to date his daughters. This topic of conversation stopped abruptly at this point and his face looked expressionless. I presume he did not want to pursue this idea further. After a pause, I then attempted to convey to him the pain and difficulty of my marriage (much of the content of this document). I reminded him that President Brockbank (Assistant to the counsel of the twelve and First Quorum of Seventy) had clearly instructed me at age 20 that I should marry, and looking over my life experience I thought it bad advice. To this he did not respond either. We parted amicably.

Although the following represents a jump of about 6 years, I wanted this information to immediately follow. The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association was held in Salt Lake City in June of 1999. At this convention a symposium of religious leaders addressed the topic of homosexuality. The panel consisted of: Bishop Tanner, Episcopal Church, Bishop Neidhour, Catholic Church, President Buehrens, Unitarian Universalist Association, and Elder Morrison, Fist Quorum of the Seventy, LDS Church.

Elder Morrison's talk was a restatement of information available in LDS conference talks and publications, and broke no new ground. When the symposium was over I approached Elder Morrison and asked him this question. Does the LDS Church still advise its gay young people to marry? He denied that the church had ever given such advice. I countered with my experience with President Brockbank. Elder Morrison was very eager to leave the room and gave no response.

Now I return to September 1992. A long time friend of mine introduced me to Paul Trane, a principal of an elementary school. The three of us spent a beautiful afternoon strolling through Red Butte Garden. Later, Paul and I went to dinner together. We talked for a very long time, and discovered we shared many things in common. We both were gay, we went on LDS missions, we both had married, we both had children, he had once served as a Bishop in an LDS ward, we both became disillusioned with Mormonism, our marriages had failed recently for similar reasons and we were close to the same age. Wow! What's more, I liked him from the very beginning!

We took our time getting thoroughly acquainted. Having both escaped painful marriages, we were cautious about jumping into a new relationship if it wasn't right for both of us. Over the next 9 months we enjoyed movies, concerts, plays, Unitarian Church, dining out. He loved my cooking and I loved preparing it for us. After dinner were the long talks sharing the joys and the grief and the pain of our stories. We were able to give great comfort to each other. Paul was a bit apprehensive about camping, but as the spring weather broke we took camping trips together and we loved it. I remember an especially exquisite spring day hiking in the most beautiful place in the world: Zion National Park. It was particularly delicious to crawl in a tent and feel no constraints about touching this man. Amazingly, the sexuality that I thought had died years ago through my years of depression was alive and well. And the "doughnut hole" syndrome? Gone forever! We were in our 50's, and we had waited so very long for this to happen! We had fallen in love, but this time the old constraints had been abolished. Now as I write this, I am approaching my 60th birthday and we have both asked this question: what would it be like if we still had youthful bodies?

We were driving to Promontory point to visit the famous Golden Spike Historic site. I had never been there before and Paul loves history. I popped the question to him. Paul was worried that I might never ask. I suggested living together. We settled on a first step. We would separately make a list of what we wanted and needed for a living together relationship. It also included the things we didn't want. The next day, seated in folding chairs under a tree in Sugarhouse Park, we compared lists and they matched. We chose Paul's apartment, because it had two bedrooms and mine had one. His son had just moved out to go on a Mormon mission. We joined households and have been together ever since. A few years later we bought a condominium together.

In June of 1999, Paul had a serious heart attack and promptly had heart surgery with six bypasses. I had a calm assurance through all of this that I would not loose him. We informed the nursing staff from the beginning that we were a couple, and that our lawyer had drawn up various legal arrangements including power of attorney. For the ten days that Paul was treated at LDS Hospital, the entire staff treated us with acceptance. All medical decisions were dealt with as if I were the usual kind of spouse. There is evidence the world is changing. This crisis came as a nasty shock, and the recovery has been long and difficult. Through it all, it gave me enormous satisfaction to be at Paul's side and to care for him through his recuperation.

Relations with our genetic families are problematic. Paul and I are committed to a relationship with each other's children and they are mostly accepting, but relations with other kin are strained to nonexistent. Mostly we have created our own loving family through friendship. I have been an active member of First Unitarian Church for almost 30 years and when Paul turned up at the church, they extended their love to him as well. They have been loving, accepting and gracious to us as a couple.

Paul and I have been married more than once and will do it again, perhaps with hundreds of couples next time during the Millenium March on Washington in April. The first time we were married was in an aspen grove in the Wasatch Mountains. We pronounced our vows with only the trees, flowers, sky and mountains as witness. We waited until we had retired from Granite School district to exchange wedding bands, because we didn't want to stir up any more turmoil as we were finishing our careers. We returned to the place where we had met: Red Butte Garden. We pronounced our vows again then exchanged identical wedding bands to be worn on our right hands. Who should walk around the corner just after we had done this than our good friend Gary from First Unitarian Church? We asked him if he would take our picture. He gladly obliged, and little did he know that he had taken our wedding photograph. We have spent 7 wonderful years together, and we hope to live together for a very long time.

Over the last few years I have observed the national debate of gay marriage in the news media. Legislation has been passed from one end of the country to the other such as the proposition 22 (the Knight Initiative), and The Defense of Marriage Act. As I observe this storm of words, I have only one question to ask. When Paul and I exchanged rings and vows, whose happy marriage had we destroyed?

Conclusions

What are the conclusions I have drawn from my experience? What advice do I have to give to young people who are presently in the process of acknowledging their homosexuality, and making decisions about how they will live their life? Latter-day Saints like to "bear their testimony" and so, in this tradition, I would like to bear mine. I was raised a Mormon, was beat up a bit by Mormonism, but I have come out whole on the other side. I live a "gay lifestyle," and I have a happy and productive life.

Mormonism belongs to the Abrahamic Tradition and it, along with Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all trace their origins back to the same roots. Scripture that they all drawn inspiration from is The Old Testament (Torah). Some values they share in common are that they have a bias in favor of men and against women. They also have a bias toward heterosexism and against homosexuality. Mormonism is particularly virulent in this regard. It is not difficult to see why. First look at the lives of Joseph Smith and Brigham young. Also Mormonism has drawn on The Old Testament for ideas more than Christianity in general. The practice of polygamy in Mormonism is an example of this. The bias against women is closely related to the bias against homosexuals. It appears at first that the bias against male homosexuals is based on what they do in bed. But the deeper reason is that homosexual males are not loyal to their gender. In other words it is because they do things that are not manly. I owe this idea to an excellent essay, "Gender Treachery: Homophobia, Masculinity, and Threatened Identities" by Patrick D Hopkins. Evidence in support of this explanation is that the bias against male homosexuality is stronger that the bias against female homosexuality. Males in the patriarchal Old Testament societies considered women property and less than human. They were not as interested in what women do in their relationships with each other. I don't know of a single pronouncement against female homosexuality in the scriptures.

The examination of the Old Testament is a good place to begin to examine the bias against homosexuality. If you eat ham, shrimp or stroganoff (mixing of milk products with meat) you are not living in accordance with the teachings of the Old Testament. Also if you do not isolate yourself from menstruating women for the week following the onset of menstruation, you are a transgressor. All this and much more are in the book of Leviticus right along with the statement that it is an abomination for two men (no mention of women) to lie together. I challenge you to read the book of Leviticus, and see how much of it makes sense in the 21st century. I recommend that you read a modern translation such as the one published by Oxford University press, because it's based on excellent scholarship. The King James translation is beautiful and poetic, but the 400-year-old language obscures its meanings and this serves the purpose of those who distort its message. If you have difficulty understanding Shakespeare it's probably because it was written in the same period of time. I highly recommend reading the entire Old Testament, although it amounts to a large project. I mostly found its ethics brutal, the families it describes dysfunctional and the worldview primitive. It undermined my faith as much as any of the books I read.

It should not be a surprise that young people coming to grips with their sexual orientation will question their faith tradition. Those that experience same sex attraction have a profoundly different experience of the world that is different from the majority of the culture around them. It soon becomes obvious that if the church is wrong on this, credibility begins to wear thin.

Many young homosexual people are hoping that the faith traditions they were raised in will change their bias against women, and homosexuality. If you are waiting for them to be nice to you, your lives are going to pass you by. You need to get on with your life, right now. Don't wait for this change to happen. If your project is influencing your faith tradition toward bringing about change in this regard, it is a worthy one.

Homosexual men and women raised in Mormonism inevitably are beat up by the experience. My advice to those who are experiencing this right now is that you don't have to take it any more. This "spiritual abuse" is mostly a mental process that you can change by changing your own attitudes. They can only hurt you if you grant them the power to hurt you. They have less power than you think. The hurting is going on inside your own head, and it's because you have internalized their hostile message. You can stop beating yourself up! This is especially important if you have suicidal thoughts. Jesus taught that you should "love thy neighbor as thyself." It's excellent advice. Unconditional self-love sounds selfish, but it is crucial for your own wellbeing. We all pass through the "valley of the shadow of death," but you don't have to pitch your tent there.

If you are feeling miserable, the church has you right where they want you. They can point their finger and say, "See, being gay makes people miserable." In doing this they will not accept an ounce of responsibility for why you are feeling miserable. The answer is to get your act together, build a meaningful and purposeful life, and prove that they are dead wrong. Millions have done it and so can you.

The change of attitudes that I am recommending requires hard work. Here are some suggestions that can help.

1. Develop your critical thinking skills. You need to develop your "crap detector" so than you can recognize crap when you hear, see or smell it.
2. Read. Every bookstore worth its salt has shelves of books on homosexuality. Decide for yourself if their point of view has merit.
3. Join a support group. This may be as simple as making friends with gay people who have made this transition already. Your local gay and lesbian center can suggest many groups that you can choose from.
4. Obtain counseling help. They can also refer you to someone if you are depressed and in need of medication. Counseling can be obtained free of charge or reduced cost on most college campuses. But beware of "reparative therapy." There is not a single reputable association (American Psychological Association for example) that endorses it.
5. Adjust, but do not discard, your moral compass. Many young people that discard their traditional faith throw out the baby with the bath water. I believe that I have retained more of the principals learned through my church experience than I have discarded. I believe that reason, reflection on human experience, examination of consequences, and compassion for all human life can be an adequate guide.