Two years ago today, I came out as gay on this blog, and a year ago, I commemorated my anniversary.
For National Coming Out Day this year, I thought I would get extra vulnerable by sharing more of my story and explaining why I came out when I did.
I suppose that my brutal honesty will make some of my readers uncomfortable.
A Crisis of Faith
In January 2022, I began an internship with the Church History Department. It was the last semester of my history master's program at the University of Utah, and I was doing the internship for credit. I had previously worked for the department from 2014 to 2017, and I was thrilled to be back.
On Valentine's Day 2022, as I was doing my work, this thought came into my mind: There's no way this can possibly be true. That's very inconvenient for you, but you know that's right.
That was a devastating thought. But what made it especially devastating was that I believed I had received revelation to go to grad school and to quit dating a girl. This new thought felt the same as those earlier thoughts. So if those earlier thoughts had been right—and I believe they were—then this new thought was also right. On the other hand, if this new thought was not right, then how did I know that the earlier thoughts were revelation? In either case, it was not faith affirming. I had entered what is commonly known as a faith crisis.
What I want to make perfectly clear is that this was through no fault of my own. I think there's a tendency among Latter-day Saints to assume that if someone loses their faith, it's because they quit reading scriptures or praying or going to church, or they were committing some serious sin, or they were hanging out with the wrong people. None of that was true in my case. In fact, I probably was more devoted in doing all the things than the average Church member (and I have continued to do so to the present).
I thought, "Well, I guess I can't stay here now. I better quit my internship and find another job." But then I said to myself, "Now, now, that's a very big decision. Your internship lasts another eleven months, which gives you plenty of time to think about this."
After a few agonizing days, I decided to look on FAIR for answers to my questions. I was less interested in what the answers were; I was just relieved that there were answers. I thought, "Phew, the crisis is averted. I now have more empathy for people who leave the Church, but I'm good to go now."
But really, it was just the beginning of a spiritual rollercoaster.
One compounding factor was that I was still in denial about my orientation. In February 2022, when I believed I had averted the faith crisis, I went to lunch with some colleagues, and we were talking about dating. I still planned on marrying a woman, and I remarked that I felt hopeless about dating. I felt hopeless because I didn't have any prospects, and in the back of my mind I knew it wasn't a realistic expectation.
I was very honest with myself and made four very personal lists: things I like about staying in the Church, things I don't like about staying, things I would like if I left, and things I would not like if I left. By far my biggest list was things I like about staying. But that did not negate the very real things I would like about leaving.
For the first time in my life, I began seriously considering what my life would look like if I left the Church. I realized that if I left, I wouldn't want a wife. I read accounts of straight men who left, and they would say, "I'm so glad I had my wife to help me get through that." But for me, having a wife would be a liability rather than an asset. And that made me realize that even staying in the Church, I don't want a wife.
I had a heavy cloud of uneasiness hanging over me for much of 2022, even in settings that should have been joyful: Easter Sunday, graduation, family reunion, concerts, Labor Day. Faith is supposed to sustain you during hard times, so what do you do when your faith is your hard time? I think a faith crisis is hard for anyone, but there were a few factors that made it especially hard for me:
- I was working for the Church in a job I loved, so I couldn't get away.
- I'm gay, so there are very real consequences for the way I live my life.
- I aged out of the YSA ward right before the pandemic and then went to grad school, which left me socially isolated.
I became desperate for perspectives and ideas, so I consumed books, blogs, articles, and podcasts. Some of them were more helpful than others, and I have listed some of my favorites below. But there are two that stick out to me as especially helpful in my journey.
Metamorphoses
One of these sources was a column by Jana Riess entitled "Dear Mormons in a faith crisis: You're not crazy, wrong or stupid." In this article, Riess explains that when caterpillars become butterflies, it is ostensibly beautiful, yet the reality is much more uncomfortable. Caterpillars digest themselves into a primordial soup and become something completely new. She compared it to a faith crisis, and she advised, "Rather than focusing right now on a particular outcome, just notice the changes that are happening to you, and marvel."
And I certainly have gone through some important changes. The most directly relevant change is the way I view faith. I have come to realize that I am by nature a skeptical person, and I have been since at least high school. I know that may be surprising because of my intense religious devotion, but it's true. As far back as 2010 and 2011, I remember listening to Christmas and Easter songs about Jesus and thinking, "Do I really believe this?" That was discouraging to me. But now I believe that doubt is, or at least can be, a normal and healthy part of faith. I think 1 Corinthians 12 and Doctrine and Covenants 46 imply that it's OK for some people to have a harder time believing.
Of course, another important change was coming to terms with my orientation. It really was not realistic or sustainable for me to remain in denial forever. In fact, I'm a little surprised it took as long as it did.
But there was still another important change. As I did a lot of soul-searching and attended therapy, I had to confront ways I think about myself. Why am I so hard on myself? Why do I think my opinions don't matter? Why do I think everyone hates me? Why do I sabotage my relationships and friendships? This is an ongoing process.
Stages of Faith
Another important source was a Faith Matters podcast with Brian McLaren. In this podcast, McLaren outlines four stages of faith that people can go through: simplicity, complexity, perplexity, and harmony. (This podcast also included a line that stopped me in my tracks, and I had to write it down: "You have to take adult responsibility for yourself, and you have to say, 'I am giving myself permission to belong here and to love these people, even though the written documents and the authority figures don't approve of me.'") He also gave a similar presentation in 2022's Restore gathering. These four stages of faith are not inherently better or worse than the others, and they can be cyclical. I had been thrust from a complexity stage into a perplexity stage, and I desperately hoped for the harmony stage to arrive.
I kind of had an epiphany at Christmastime in 2022 seeing all the nativities on Temple Square. Christianity has been around for two thousand years, and it has taken off all over the world. It clearly fills a human need. I also reread the Book of Mormon, and I was struck by what a profound, insightful book it is.
As I thought about every problem in Mormonism, I also spent time thinking about problems in other belief systems. I have little to no respect for hostile, militant atheists. Please let me be clear: I am not talking about atheism itself. I am talking about a particular brand of atheism that takes every opportunity to make fun of religion, that implies they're smarter than any religious person, and that thinks religion is the cause of the world's problems. If we really are accidental assemblages of molecules in a meaningless universe, then religion is still part of the human experience. It is just as bad to be mean to someone for being religious as it is to be mean to someone for being gay.
Similarly, I think that exmormon Reddit, exmormon.org, and similar forums are hate groups. That's not to say they don't have valid criticisms. Believe me, as a gay Mormon historian, I am well aware of problems in the Church, past and present. But many members of these groups assume the worst motives for anything Latter-day Saints do, and they overemphasize the negative. They even distort neutral and positive things to make them appear negative. For example: Years ago, Elder Renlund lost a lot of weight. He made a social media post explaining that President Nelson encouraged people to make positive changes in their lives, so he started dieting and exercising and lost weight. I came across an /r/exmormon post where people were saying things like "Rusty forced him to lose weight." They were taking one man's personal success story and turning it into something sinister and worthy of ridicule. I have numerous examples, and I could easily find more. These groups foment hatred, and they often do so in manipulative, less-than-honest ways—even as they accuse the Church of being manipulative and less than honest.
I think I have mostly arrived at the harmony stage. I no longer thirst for the podcasts and books like I used to, and many of the things that used to trigger me don't anymore. In my current stage of faith, I am not concerned with whether or not the Church is "true." Like, what does that even mean, and how could I actually know that? I'm more interested in whether the Church is good, beautiful, and useful. And I believe it is, or at least can be—for straight people.
The Queer Dilemma
Unfortunately, current Latter-day Saint theology does not yet include a place or an explanation for queer people, and our present leaders seem more interested in using their current understanding as a weapon against us than they are in figuring out where we fit.
It is very clear to me that Church leaders don't know what they're doing on this topic. In 2010, Boyd K. Packer gave a talk where he implied being gay was a choice, and then he had to revise it because he didn't know what he was talking about. (In the excised portion, he said, "Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone?"—thereby acknowledging that a merciful God would not do this. He just got it wrong where the problem is.) In November 2015, they implemented the infamous policy of exclusion, then reversed it less than four years later. And in 2021, Dallin H. Oaks said that electroshock conversion therapy did not happen at BYU during his administration—which is demonstrably false. I don't think he was deliberately lying, but it does tell me that he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.
The Church used to teach that being gay was a choice, that it could be "fixed," and that mixed-orientation marriages were the solution. If those things were true, then it would make more sense to prohibit same-sex marriage. But the Church no longer teaches those things (at least not officially), which makes the prohibition on same-sex marriage seem needlessly cruel. When so much has changed already, even in a short amount of time, why should I believe that where the teachings are right now is where they're supposed to be?
For those of us who question or reject the Church's LGBTQ+ teachings, it's not that we're trying to justify sin. We want to do what's right, but we don't see a way to do that under the current practices. In a religion that so strongly encourages family and marriage, surely committing to singlehood can't be right. And most mixed-orientation marriages end in divorce, which Jesus specifically condemned. I feel like I'm being punished for simply existing.
I have seen the hurt resulting from Church teachings, policies, and rhetoric, both past and present. When I was a youth, I thought that if I was thinking about men, it was Satan tempting me. And I also inherited a folk belief somewhere that Satan didn't have power to tempt people in the temple. So if I was at the temple doing baptisms for the dead and was attracted to a guy, then I was inherently evil, because Satan couldn't tempt me there.
And it's not just about me. I think about the person younger than me who told his mission president he was gay, and then he was sent home because the mission president worried he was a threat to the other missionaries, and he went to conversion therapy and had to flick himself with a rubber band and make himself throw up. I think about the once-stalwart Peter Priesthood whose shame and internalized homophobia led him to the seedy underworld of gay hookup apps. I think about all the mixed-orientation marriages that either ended in divorce or are barely holding on—I can name eight that I know personally. And I think about all the suicidal ideation my friends have been through.
I truly believe that Dallin H. Oaks cares more about his personal interpretation of the Family Proclamation than he cares about people. I see it in the way he talks about the Proclamation, the way he talks about queer people, the way he talks about law, the way he has historically talked about the two great commandments, and the way he dismisses anyone who disagrees as apostate, unconverted, or unbelieving. As a lawyer, he seems to view everyone as an opponent he needs to win an argument against. Since he never served as a missionary, bishop, or mission president, he missed opportunities to develop the empathy that those callings engender. I do not see him mourning with those that mourn, comforting those that need comfort, or making others' burdens lighter.
I am terrified for him to become President of the Church. Will he canonize the Proclamation?* Will he make it a temple recommend question that you only support marriage between a man and a woman? Will he make the entire Church follow the BYU honor code of no same-sex romantic behavior, such as dating or holding hands? Will he "pack the Supreme Court" by only picking Apostles who think like him?
*(For what it's worth, I don't necessarily object to the text of the Proclamation itself. But I strongly object to the way it is interpreted, applied, and weaponized.)
I enjoy participating in and contributing to my ward. I also know that statistically, most gay people leave the Church, in one way or another, at some point. For example, in the mid-2010s, they implemented the Mormon and Gay website, with videos of people's experiences. Today, most of the videos have been taken down, because the people in them have entered same-sex relationships. If they expect us gays to be single our whole lives, they'll have to give us a better incentive than being second-class citizens in both the Church and the celestial kingdom, and they'll have to give us a better explanation than "This is the way it is because we say so." If President Oaks does not tone down his harsh, us-versus-them rhetoric, I might have to take a break when he becomes President of the Church.
Resources
I thought I would list some of the books, blogs, and podcasts that have been helpful for me in my journey. (These are helpful for my personal worldview. Others might help people in different situations. And there are many books that I haven't read, because I don't feel the need to read them like I did in 2022.)
Beyond the Block podcast.
Bushman, Richard Lyman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
By Common Consent blog. Especially the post "Empathy in the Back Seat."
Dirkmaat, Gerrit J., and Michael Hubbard MacKay. Let's Talk about the Translation of the Book of Mormon. Deseret Book, 2023.
Flunking Sainthood column. Especially the posts "Dear Mormons in a faith crisis: You're not crazy, wrong or stupid" and "Mormonism's Tortured Genius."
Lift+Love. (I have made several friendships through their LGBTQ+ adult support group.)
Mason, Patrick Q. Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt. Deseret Book, 2015.
Mason, Patrick Q. Restoration: God's Call to the 21st-Century World. Faith Matters, 2020.
McConkie, Thomas Wirthlin. Navigating Mormon Faith Crisis: A Simple Developmental Map. Sun Print Solutions, 2015.
Mormon Land podcast. (This has been a favorite of mine since 2018.)
Mormonr. (They have the best memes on social media.)
Questions from the Closet podcast. (They just rebranded as All Out in the Open.)
Schilaty, Ben. A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I'm Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint. Deseret Book, 2021.
Rees, Robert A., ed. Why I Stay: The Challenges of Discipleship in Contemporary Mormonism. Signature Books, 2011.
Rees, Robert A., ed. Why I Stay 2: The Challenges of Discipleship for Contemporary Mormons. Signature Books, 2021.
Reeve, W. Paul. Let's Talk About Race and Priesthood. Deseret Book, 2023.
Times and Seasons blog.
Wayfare magazine. (I do copyediting for them, and being part of the Wayfare team has been so good for my soul.)
Closing
This post only scratches the surface of my thoughts and experiences. If you have questions, feel free to reach out.
As with my other posts, I ask that you not share links to my blog online; and if you want to share it with a specific individual, please ask me first.
Take care!
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