Editor’s Note: The following letter was received by Signing for Something, including the name of the author, however, the author provided convincing evidence that his name should be withheld.
I am in a mixed marriage. I have had homosexual feelings and inclinations since I can remember. However, I believed with all my heart that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was true. I believed that if Christ had the power to raise the dead and heal the sick then it would be possible for me to change. I believed that God wanted me to change.
I counselled with my Bishops, Stake President, seminary teacher, parents, Mission President and church counsellors. However, it never really changed the fact that I am gay. I was born this way. It is the only reality I remember. Yet, I believed that I needed to do certain things to return to live with my Heavenly Father. I believed that I had to marry and have a family. I believed that if I could not overcome this trial of life that I would be doomed for eternity, forever cut off from my loved ones and damned from any eternal progression. I just wanted to do what is right.
So, I married.
I am still married, and happily so. However, my wife knows that I am gay. Not that I have same sex attraction, not that I struggle with a heinous sin, but that I am gay. This has contributed to the happiness that I feel. However, this does not mean that our relationship is without hurt. It pains me to know of the agony I place my wife in almost every day. Someone recently asked me: “IF you know what you know now, would you have gotten married to a woman?” The real answer to this question is no. Had I known unquestionably that I was a gay and there was nothing I could do about it I would have pursued an intimate relationship with another man.
And, if this was all there was to it, I might be OK. But, I reproduced.
My children are so much like me in many ways it is scary. I had to question myself: if I had to ask my children to suppress their natural sexual inclinations could I live with myself? I simply could not bear the idea that they would grow up trying to be themselves and I ask them to be something they are not. I don’t know if my children are gay, and it really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.
Sometimes it seems easy to make decisions that so dramatically affect the equality of others because we don’t have to look into their faces and say that they are evil. How could I look into the faces of my children and tell them they couldn’t be with the person they loved? I really cannot imagine a loving Heavenly Father condemning His own creation.
The leaders of the Mormon Church dramatically and emphatically proclaim that they do not always speak for God. In fact, this apologetic is a must to explain away past mistakes. I know they are only speaking as men now, and this is not the will of God.
I’m glad that my children can grow up and marry whom they wish and hope that the people of California will not strip this right and freedom from their fellow citizens. I am disappointed that the Church would so vehemently oppose the creation of families and those who have been marginalized, isolated and spoken as a byword. We are your neighbours, your coworkers, your friends, your parents, your siblings and your children.