Liberty Park

June 14,1977 -" Tuesday - ... I do have a testimony of the Gospel but I am a homosexual. Am I to get through this life. Excommunication hovers over me, infidelity, disease, disgrace and yet I am a father, a husband..... my wife said she wanted to remain married, appreciates me....has adjusted to the platonic relationship. Have I used them, my family. I love them as well. The Lord has forsaken me. I am very confused in the position the Church has placed me. Special thing : a small Christmas tree plant. "

I was enjoying my employment at Brown Floral. I did display work but mostly made terrariums, dish gardens and bonsai. It was there I met several homosexual employees. It was fun to kind of compare notes on likes and dislikes. The owners son was a Bishop and his wife was on the General Board of the Young Women's Organization. She had a girlfriend and we got along very well. I was preparing an article for the Chronicle to voice my feelings rather anonymously on my situation. They were very interested because they were lovers unknown to their spouses.

I have had journals of my experiences going back to when I was baptized into the Mormon Church. I was counseled by President Kimball to keep a journal. Most of my journals were available and out in the open. Now that I was deciding to " come out " I started a red journal which I kept locked up so that I would not hurt my wife anymore than the situation forced me to. The red journal:

July 1977- " .... somewhere in the billions or more years of my spiritual existence I gained this body of mine ( 1943 ). I was normal physically in every way one person could desire. I was not blind, I was not deaf, I could walk, and taste ....

I do not know if I was gay before the earth was or whether I gained some mutation of genes or had some bad experiences with mother or father or sister or brother figures but I knew I was different.....

....Somehow I got rejected by a college fraternal organization and after that, a serious bout with atheism then I joined this positive male oriented, anthropomorphic believing religious group. I was loved into this Church in a platonic back slapping way but then it soon appeared acceptance of my true self was not possible in this or any other conservative Christian oriented religion. "

This is how I opened the door of the true self that had been brooding for years in a important but out of grasp marriage, I guess a fantasy as my wife would tell me. The wonderful product of which were very energetic children. My wife and I knew before marriage that I was homosexual but maybe we both weren't listening, companionship compelled the jump...I did love my wife even if I have been a thorn to her. I wished that I could save the marriage but all the love I felt I gave to my wife was lost with the reality that I was a gay husband and father.

First I started talking to obviously gay people but decided that the bar, a bathhouse or a kegger was not my way. One evening I decided I needed someone to talk too. So I went to Liberty Park to an area where gay people met. I parked my car and stood by a lake where people were moving over the water in paddle boats. As I walked toward the gay area I saw a man sitting in his car. He gave me a look and I lingered as long as I had nerve too.

From that point on I met one person after another trying to find out what being gay was all about now that I had been away from it for many years. I was going nowhere. What I was learning is that sex is not the key that opens a relationship, it is the gift that rewards the relationship. Unfortunately I did not know how to have a relationship. I was having desert before dinner. Perhaps that is all that society and the Church had taught me about being gay.

Then one afternoon I drove into the gas station near our apartment and home in East Millcreek. There stood before me a blonde blue eyed very handsome young man. He was a body builder working at the gas station. I could not control myself and told him he should be a model and that he was very handsome. He wanted me to get a membership in a gym so we could lift weights together. Well I was an athletic misfit. I had a husky body but it was from physical labors I did over the years not pumping iron. My blonde, gas station attendant became my new best friend.

I was still in the Tabernacle Choir. One of the other male friends whom I met at Liberty Park took me out for dinner with some of his friends after the weekly Tabernacle choir rehearsal. Wouldn't you know it there was another choir member at the restaurant looking at me with these friends, one of whom was smoking. I was very paranoid and felt extremely on the spot. Then I joined these gay friends and we went to Radio City Lounge the gay bar on State Street. We walked in the back entrance to avoid being seen by people as it was just blocks from Temple Square.

I looked to my side and there was my brother-in-law. After we all got into the bar I sat at the bar with my brother-in-law and tried to explain to him why I was there. I told him I was coming out again and getting in touch with being gay. He was there with his lover whom he kept for most of his life.

My talk with my brother-in-law was about not informing his parents, my in-laws, of my appearance in the bar or my being gay. I was sorry to be a hypocrite but I loved the choir and Church and I wanted some control in how I would eventually leave the them both.

My wife was constantly trying to understand my feelings. I wrote in my journal that she was quite justifiably jealous and felt rejected. I shared with her some gay Mormon underground writings called The Prologue. It was written by someone who was living near the Brigham Young University campus. I made a sketch for the person I supposed was the author to be used as the front and rear cover. It was a sketch of the Brigham Young University campus including the Provo Temple.

( Prologue Cover Insert )

After she read it she made me feel as though she could understand my feelings of being gay. She seemed also more resolved to facing a time when we would separate.

My new blond body builder friend, Brad and I had our first date during this time of great transition. He picked me up from my home. He had previously gotten to know my wife and my children. He was a friend to me but I was infatuated with him. We went to the Sizzler. He treated me like his boy friend. Seating me. Getting me anything the waiter forgot. I was in heaven. He was my ideal. He was my prince. He made up for all the difficult times I was having deciding my future with the Church and being in the Tabernacle Choir.

I finally had to make a decision where my life was going. It was very emotional at home the morning I went to my last choir rehearsal. I was very sorrowful. The choir was like my lover. I wrote my resignation letter and played a song from the album I had help to record, Till We Meet Again. " Smile a while you kiss me sad adieu. When the clouds go by I'll come to you. Then the sky will seem more blue, down in lovers lane with you. Wedding bells will ring so merrily. Every tear will be a memory. So wait and pray each night for me : Till We meet again." These lyrics to the song were expressing my profound sorrow, my deepest grief leaving the Choir.

Both my wife and I were crying bitter tears as I think we both sensed that the marriage too was over. The song's lyrics were a fantasy of heterosexuality which to me was unattainable.

July 1977 " Today I resigned from the choir and my sorrow is many fold for my family, for my loss of the choir and for myself. I could not be myself and be a member of the choir.... why am I married. I am a homosexual. I'm not heterosexual in the slightest. I got married to be obedient to the Lord but I am needing love, infatuation, pleasure in my life so I have broken my agreement with deity.... I could have stayed in the choir but was afraid of excommunication now or disgracing the choir. "

August 2, 1977 The Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Dear Brother Attridge, This will acknowledge your request to be released from your mission call to membership in the Tabernacle Choir. Your request is granted and we extend to you our sincere appreciation for your past service in furthering the work of the Lord through the missionary activities of the Tabernacle Choir. Sincerely yours, Oakley S. Evans, President Jerold D. Ottley, Director

I can not relate my emotions from that period. One of my therapists would later state she did not know how I survived through that time in my life.

I tried to cover up my depression with involvement with Brad. I see in my journal that one day He and I went for an all day outdoors hike. We drove to Little Cottonwood Canyon. We hiked deer trails to a beautiful lake in the tops of the mountains. I swam in the nude. I wore his tee shirt as we hiked to smell his odor on me. On the trails we would stop and he would act like a little boy asking me questions, like I was his older brother. We sat by each other and talked.

We ate near a lake and laid down on a large rock. It seemed to be built for us. He put his feet by my head. My feet were by his head. I talked about the Temple, his hercules obsession, and my home life. We became closer. Sometimes yelling and arguing and teasing each other. My greatest excitement was to act hurt and have him be attentive to me. We both knew it was a game. It was fun to play. It was like a courtship interaction for me.

On our way home he told me he didn't have any friends and I told him I didn't either, other than my wife. We needed each other. I remembered once as he ate he had some food crumbs on his face. I brushed them off and knew there was a trust there. We talked about his exposure to gay men but I didn't want to talk to much about that. I didn't want anything to put off our friendship.

We listened to the Moody Blues on the way home. I wanted to hear a song by Crosby, Stills and Nash and he played it for me after trying to convince me about the superiority of the Moody Blues. I was still wearing his tee shirt and kept it so I could smell his aroma long after we parted realizing I was becoming a little obsessed.

Brad surprised me one day while I was at work at Brown Floral. In he walked right to my work area to spend some time with me. Bob, who was a gay married fellow employee came up to me and wanted to know everything about him. He too had taken Dr. Card's Aversion shock Therapy and reported that he was cured. I entered in my red journal " some shock therapy...what a lie! He called me at my home like a crazed animal. He has been through the Card therapy and it obviously didn't work.

August 24, 1977 Wednesday- " I was close to my children today. I am not just a gay man but a loving father and I was a caring companion to my wife ...I walked around Temple Square today.. visited the Tabernacle first time since leaving the Choir. I felt a new confidence in myself. The suppression of one kind is over, the building has begun...for this cause I give my life. LET ME LIVE has been my cry for a long time. Now I am L.M.L. Special thing: flowers. "

From the many outings to the canyons I made with with Brad, I wrote him some poems: The energy expressed was directed at forming a relationship with him.