Gay Mormon Stories - Add Your Story

Hi! My name is Rachel. I'm not gay, but my road out of the church began with this issue. I've been a member for almost eight years. About a month ago I watched a program on MVT about the LDS church and how they treated gay people. I was absolutly shocked and horrified. That whole night I researched on-line and cried. I could not believe that my church had these hateful views. Unfortuantly, while researching the whole "gay/church" issue, I came across many, many other disturbing things about the LDS church. In the coming days, I found out Mormonism is a lie. It's a big sham. Whether or not you believe me, one thing is true. God does not hate nor advocate hatred to any of his children. It's wrong to discriminate against gay and lesbian people. I just want to tell you wounded people out there that I love you and am so sorry. I am so ashamed of belonging to the LDS church. My husband and I are in the midst of trying to get our names removed. The church is a lie, a very dangerous and intricate lie. Do not let them hurt you because it is not true. The truth is that you are wonderful! I love you!

Approximately two years ago a LDS co-worker of mine, when she viewed the "Affirmation" website for the first time, remarked "These poor people are enduring a hell I cannot imagine." I have to agree with those sentiments, for I come from a very traditional religious background, and homosexuality has always been viewed as disordered behavior. In that regard, I would say that I endured at most a form of purgatory. However, I cannot say that I experienced the kind of rejection that has been so commonly associated with LDS gays and lesbians; I was never once told that homosexuality is a hair's breadth from the same level as murder. Nor was I encouraged (or commanded) to seek "conversion therapy" via psychotherapeutic methods that have been rejected and effectively banned by all accredited psychiatric institutions.

I therefore wish to express my appreciation for this website, and for the message of hope and "exaltation" for LDS gays and lesbians. Each and every one of you has value and profound beauty, and I hope that you will come to embrace yourselves as being worthy of love and respect. After all, worthiness isn't determined from an outside source, but rather from within. God bless you all.

Michael Summers

I have been a "Mormon" for over 20 years and have

recently started questioning some of the beliefs

regarding, specifically, homosexuality. My fourth

daughter, Angie, is Gay, she prefers "gay"

over "lesbian", because she has always been

interested in "bi-sexual" women. She is in a

relationship with a woman who has two daughters and they all form a wonderful family. My daughter was never very active in the church, so she hasn't been affected by the strict rules and regulations the

church has against homosexuality. I, at first, was

humiliated, appalled, physically ill, mad, hurt,

etc. but I learned that she is a very caring,

loving, strong person who would do anything for

anyone anytime and I was missing out on her life.

I now accept her as she is and pray that she will

always be happy. I know, without a shadow of a

doubt, that she was "Born That Way" (I read the

book). That is one thing a mother or father would

know more than anyone else, because they dedicate their lives to raising, knowing, and loving their children unconditionally. I have another daughter, who will have nothing to do with Angie because of her "lifestyle", and what a pity she is missing a wonderful experience with a beautiful sister.

Thank you for letting me share my story about my

lovely daughter. DBonham@Aol.Com

My husband is something that doesn't officially exist, according to current Mormon philosophy. He is a transsexual - born into the body of a male, but with the lifelong belief that the person deep inside is female. Even

worse, I suppose, from the Mormon point of view, is that this hidden person is a lesbian. Go figure!

I have come to love this person dearly, whoever he/she turns out to be. Our children are divided about this issue. Some have declared that if he goes through with sex reassignment surgery ("sex-change") and takes up life as a female, they will have nothing more to do with the new, emergent person. Others have said that they will not be happy about it but feel that his happiness ought to be more of a consideration than theirs.

My husband is a wonderful, caring person who has served the church diligently all his life, including serving a mission in South America.

However, because of the extreme rigidity of church policy, he knows that he would be excommunicated if he went ahead with the surgery that he so desperately wants.

In my heart, I have already left the church. I have no use for an organization that is so harsh and judgemental. But my husband is having a very difficult time leaving the religion that has been central to his life.

I figure that one day, we can simply disappear from the city we live in and turn up somewhere else - as two women housemates rather than a married couple. This

was not an easy decision, but when I see the struggles that my husband has to go through to maintain the facade of a heterosexual male, it breaks my heart.

Why can't the church just accept people for what they are instead of clinging to outdated, rigid rules?

anonymous

I hope you can understand my English, 'cause I'm not a native speaker, I'm a Chilean women that one day found this web page, and that day everything changed, I don't belong to the Gay Community, or in short I'm not gay, but I do belong to the Mormon church, sorry, I used to belong. Not anymore. I got baptized in 1995 when I was 16 years old, hoping to change a life full of tears, I was born in a Catholic family, who really never went to the church, living with a father who constantly hit my mother, a father who used to have many affairs with different women, for that reason I was afraid of marriage,but I found the solution, I had found the "TRUE CHURCH". There I would find the best man in the world, there I could find almost perfection. An ex missionary, with good manners, intelligent, with a Mormon family.

Time passed and BINGO! my stake president called me to be English teacher for the members in town, there I thought I had found what I was looking for. A man who was preparing for going to the mission field, an universitarian just like me, with a strong testimony. I had found the right one. After 4 months of dating, we decided to tell our parents that we were in love, here in Chile things are quite different, first we date, then we "pololeamos", then we get engaged, and finally we get married.

Well, we were pololeando, it was great, we used to go to the church together,

read the scriptures, go out as stake missionaries. After a year I heard that my

boyfiend had gay tendencies, of course I didn't believe. I said to me that he

went to the bishop's office to stop all the commentaries, he told bishop that he

was in love with me and he wanted to marry me one day, he went there to ask for

respect. All of the sudden things went wrong, but we overwelmed the problems and one day he asked me to marry him, of course I said yes, I was so happy because I always wanted to marry in the holy temple, but because we were at university we decided to wait for one year and a half more.Then we practically abandoned church, because we had started our sexual life.

My guilty was so heavy, I wanted to talk to the bishop, but I didn�' trust him,so

I remember being crying all night long, feeling ashamed of making love.

After certain amount of time, I discovered that my fiance had a friend who I

never met, I also knew that some times my boyfiend didn't sleep at his apartment, I felt weird because I knew that something wrong was happening but I didn't want to ask him. I couldn't face what I had knew. In March 2000 I discovered that I was pregnant I told him and he hit me, arguing that I wanted to take out his freedom, he told that I prepare a plan to oblige him to stay with me.

I wanted to die, suicide was the best solution but I had a new life growing

inside of me so I stopped thinking about that. He invented many things about me for that reason I lost my job, i am a high school teacher, he went to talk to the principal and told him that I was pregant of an American missionary (he was a good friend of mine), also he told the principal that I used to go out and get drunk, that I used to smoke and that I had stolen a credit card from him. That was ridiculous understanding that I earned a higher salary than him. He never appeared again.When I was 6 months of pregancy his parents came to my house asking for money because according to what he had said I had stolen his credit card. My parents sent them out. My mother supported me a lot, and she still does I thought in coming back to the church but I knew that a single mother is not a good example for mormon and pure girls.

My baby was born on December 11th 2003, with almost 3 pounds,with a sad face because he lived with me all this difficult road, but now he is fat, healthy and cute.

Of course I hated my boyfriend, thinking that he destroyed my life, but two days

ago I found this page and read the first story, believe me, I found myself crying

like a child. Reading the Book of Mormon didn't help to cure my heart, going to

the bishop neither, nor even talking to the missionaries. This page healed me.

Now I understood why he did what he did, I understood his suffering, many of his acts are described here, now I know that he was gay and three months ago I confirmed it, his friend is his boyfriend I know that his attitude was not the right one, that he almost break down my heart and left my son and me alone.

The first story shows clearly how a Mormon gay lives a constant suffering

struggling how to survive, how to face life day after day.I remembered how many times he wanted to leave me out of his life and I fixed everything crying. Whose guilt? I don't know but the church didn't help if they say men to try to be

heterosexual, gays can not be straight, they are gay. A beautiful Mormon woman won't change that. I couldn't change that I understood that I forgive him, I truly forgive him. I recovered I'm happy next to my child, even though he doesn't know he gave me the most beautiful gift I HAD EVER RECEIVED, my son.

Thank you to the creators of this web page, my heart doesn't feel hate, now I feel really free. Your words save me. Thank you

anonymous