October 9, 1977- " My wife and I can't stay apart but how can we stay together. I need to put spiritual things back into my life but with honesty, not deception as the Church leaders seemed to have needed to receive from me. I wish I could be what Heavenly Father wants me to be. I am so different from his plan."
November 5,1977- " President Kimball made a statement about Anita Bryant, supporting her actions against gays. He said that gays should not be teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses etc. Where are we to go? Kill ourselves? It made me feel cut off from the Church completely. My Lord must have need of me. I am so confused that I no longer understand the Mormon God. So what is there for me. My sorrow is full. "
December 13, 1977 -" I have been attending a group meeting at the University of Utah. It is a gay consciousness raising group. I realize that divorce is eminent. I cannot initiate it. I decorated Brad's family's Christmas tree with designs I had learned at Brown Floral. We went up Millcreek Canyon. He slept with the car seat down and I caressed him. He said we are just friends so I stopped."
It was at that time in my life that I needed to have finalization with the past. This included my relationship with President Kimball.
December 30, 1977 -" I called President Kimball's office. I spoke to his secretary, Brother Haycock. He had told me to call Friday for an appointment with President Kimball but it never happened though I fasted for two days. He instructed me that I am to repay the $ 50.00 to him ( Haycock ) so as to not disturb President Kimball. I called C. Kent Petersen head of Church Social Services and asked him about the Church program for gays. It sounds like: forget you're gay. Be spiritual. He was vague about the telestial Kingdom, whether to tell wives and husbands about being their homosexual partner. And talk to someone cured. Oh! "
January 9, 1978 - Monday- " Visited President Kimball's home tonight. Found his security guard was a friend from an old ward I attended. He was also someone I saw in the Radio City Lounge, Salt Lake City's infamous gay bar on numerous occasions.
I took my friend and roomate Jim who was a local community radio personality. President Kimball did not seem to remember the $50.00 I owed to him but he took it after I convinced him that I was telling him the truth. After all I didn't want to end up owing a prophet of God, $ 50.00. Jim was very impressed with being in President Kimball's home. The security guard let me in because he knew I was at least honest and meant no harm to the President. And after all I was this security guards home teacher once! "
It was at this visit to the Kimball home on Laird Drive that it looked like a trophy hall. There were Maori wall hangings, Native American rugs and other accumulated gifts from around the world draped haphazardly through out the rooms of the home. At last I had accomplished my mission to repay the President. It would be my last face to face encounter with him before he died.
January 25, 1978 - Wednesday - " Interview with C. Kent Petersen, Head of Church Social Services. Many of President Kimball's clients were referred to Social Services when he became the prophet of the Church. I trusted that this man would give me advice which could update me. He would treat me with dignity and great sensitivity on the matter of being gay. I felt that he was an extension of what President Kimball would say to me. "
Even then I was willing to hear any reasonable voice to help me understand my life with the Church which seemed to be ending without reasonable avenues for my participation in the Church.
" Brother Petersen told me that the homosexual would have to live in the Telestial Kingdom ( the lowest degree of glory offered the resurrected ) with murderers, whores and liars. I told him I did not associate with these kinds of people here on the earth. I was shocked to think that he could pronounce where I would be living for eternity. I had always thought only the Lord knew this vital statistic.
He told me that we form a picture of our Father in Heaven from how our earthly fathers have treated us. My father was completely absent from my life. My father gave me next to no encouragement, support or love. This was not as I pictured my Heavenly Father.
I told him about all the spiritual experiences I had in the fourteen years I had been a member of the Church. He told me that most of the members of the church hadn't had a portion of these kind of witnesses. He told me that people like me who were homosexual did not have the gift of the holy ghost or spiritual experiences. He looked me in the eye telling me my spiritual occurences were not of God but of Satan. I was deeply shocked by his words for these spiritual experiences had made me know that the Church was Christ's true Church restored to the Gospel.
I related the Church news article which implied people were lenient to homosexuals in our time. I told him this only encouraged the lawless to murder homosexuals as they did in Liberty Park inSalt Lake City. He seemed to not be moved.
I was overwhelmed with my emotions. I wept. I sobbed. I doubted. I hated. I rejected. I determined to state my convictions for the rest of my life.
I didn't expect the Church to say that homosexuality is right or acceptable but resented being given die messages and the closed door. "
I was determined from that moment on that I would not allow any other person on earth to demean my life. I decided to tell my truth to whoever would listen until someone in the Church would listen.
January 31, 1978- " My article entitled Mormon and Gay - One man's tale of Bloody Knuckles, appeared on the front page of the Daily Utah Chronicle, the University of Utah student newspaper. " I thought if I could just bring my experiences out into the open
everyone involved would see things from a different perspective.
|
Mormon and Gay
edited by Jeff Howrey, associate editor
" To those who say that ( homosexuality ) is incurable, I respond: How can you say the door
cannot be opened until your knuckles are bloody, till your head is bruised, till your muscles are
sore? It can be done. " Mormon Church President Spencer Kimball
It has been a tough life of " bloody knuckles " for L.M.L.
His years of agonized vigilance waiting for " the door " to open have been in vain. Instead, his
lonely wait has resulted only in the realization that there will never be a place for him within the
Church he loves.
L.M.L.'s story is a personal one. So much so, in fact, that it would be unfair - perhaps even
impossible - to try to tell it for him. Thus, in the following letter addressed to his " Brothers and
Sisters, " L.M.L. relates his own tale in his own words.
L.M.L.'s story is also a very emotional experience, passions undoubtedly color one's recollection
and interpretations of events. In fairness to those who play a part in his story - particularly
Mormon Church officials- it probably merits mentioning that their interpretations of the events
L.M.L. relates would probably not completely correspond with his. But as far as the events
themselves are concerned, the Chronicle has yet to be presented with any evidence that they did
not occur as he relates them...
Editor's note: The letter written by the young male homosexual " L.M.L." which is the focus of
the story on this page was referred to The Chronicle Associate Editor Jeff Howrey by a friend
who is an employee of a local radio station. That station refused to broadcast the letter because,
according to the employee," Our owner is very L.D.S. and wouldn't let it on the air...for fear of
the controversy sure to follow."
We subsequently discovered that that radio station was not the only local media outlet which had
shied away from using the letter. As it turned out, " L.M.L. " had approached almost every
newspaper in the state, including the Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune, Provo Herald, Ogden
Standard-Examiner and the Daily Universe, ( the Brigham Young University daily student
newspaper.).
But none would print it.
And that, in light of the letter's undeniable relevance to the social and cultural climate of this
state, perplexes us at the Chronicle.
While it is impossible, of course, to speculate confidently as to the reasons the papers cited above
had for not printing the young man's story , we can only hope that the motive was not the same as
that of the radio station's owner. Because " fear of controversy " by itself can never serve as an
acceptable reason for restraining information or ideas from entering the free-flowing stream of
news which the press supposedly provides for this country.
Dear Brother and Sisters:
I have been counseled to knock at the door leading out of homosexuality until my knuckles are
bloody. I have had 10 years of intermittent psychotherapy, aversion shock therapy , fasting,
praying, marriage, fatherhood, spiritual experiences, extreme activity in the Mormon Church and
in its Temple.
I now wash the blood from my hands, anoint them, wrap them, and wait for them to heal. As
soon as the scars have receded, my hands will once again be whole from the palsied, masochistic
beating I gave them at the Master's door.
I retreat from my self-destruction. Knocking quietly now, I pray he who has ears, let him hear.
This account centers on events which happened a decade ago while I was a student at Brigham
Young University ( B.Y.U.) and the vicious act I committed against my fellow men. My soul
begs forgiveness for that act...
But first I should probably tell you a bit about my life before B.Y.U. ( the editor wrote this line
only )
Conversion to the Church was like a ray of light to me. Fatherless as an infant and as a young
man, burdened by my mother's intimacy, the abounding light of conversion soon dimmed as I
came to understand that my homosexuality was diametrically opposed to The Plan.
But somehow God tolerated my condition as He led me through a full time Mormon mission
during which we converted several dozen souls to His Church.
I loved the feeling of being useful to the missionary effort of the Church--I thought of myself as a
talented human being who, incidently, had a sexual preference for men.
While on my mission I confided to a few others that I was gay. Consequently, upon completion
of my mission, I was instructed to meet with Church President Kimball.
At our meeting, he let me tell my whole story and then told me that I was too good for that kind
of behavior and added that I didn't look like a homosexual.
He then gave me an intimate, beautiful, loving blessing and counseled me not to be taught by
Satan and become in his power of force.
I wept.
Not tears of joy but sorrow because no one understood my situation. And despite all of President
Kimball's good intentions and help, I was attracted to men, not women, and I knew I would have
to force myself to live a heterosexual life.
I did not look forward to the life of hypocrisy which it seemed the role would demand of me.
Shortly thereafter I entered B.Y.U. and made gay acquaintances who subsequently made me
aware of the paranoia homosexuals at that institution were by necessity forced to live with.
I desperately needed friends, but the gays there were so afraid and paranoid that establishing
friendships proved to be virtually impossible.
As a result, I was more alone than ever... I felt as though I would be forced to remain alone for
the rest of my earth life--unfeeling, unsharing, and with no one to share the intimacy of life.
Shortly thereafter I had a sexual experience with a 19 year old student who was mutually
attracted to me. But he subsequently felt compelled to speak to his Bishop about it and I was
soon expelled from B.Y.U. and then I was asked to officially withdraw, but not before my Bishop
examined me as some sort of curious specimen and President Kimball met with me and pleaded
for the names of other homosexuals I knew of at B.Y.U. so he could help them.
The kind of help I assumed he meant was some sort of apostolic counseling, perhaps therapy for
the whole group of us so we could get to the truth of the matter and maybe I could even come to
understand my burden in life.
But when I supplied the list of names, no such help came.
No counseling resulted.
No Bishops' concern.
Nothing. Nothing, that is, except the hell that broke loose in the lives of those I had revealed. Hell such as
excommunications, degrees denied, careers interrupted or even ruined, and lives ended.
Conspicuously, I was not excommunicated.
Ironically, one other thing that happened after I gave President Kimball the list of names was that
he loaned me $ 30.00 to help ease the financial burden of being out of school and out of work.
Soon, thereafter, the most severe period of mental depression I've ever known engulfed me.
As I walked the wet, slushy streets of Salt Lake City with no place to sleep or eat, I realized that
the Church was giving me the decree of punishment Moses uttered: death.
I did not sleep.
I still do not sleep because of my agony over the lives of those former B.Y.U. students I selfishly
interrupted. I wonder if they have forgiven me. And I still live in the paranoia of their possible
retaliation....
Years passed, I married, fathered children and as President Kimball had counseled me to, I
became extremely active in the Church program of " too busy to sin. " During these years I have
had many spiritual experiences in the Temple and in my private chambers yet I have never been
convinced to not be who I am...
I love my wife but I am not her lover... I need my family, we depend on each other, and my
children need me. I am a good father, but I need to love and be loved both biologically and
emotionally in the way my heart and hormones lead me.
I have never felt conscious desire for women, yet out of love and respect I gave. I can force this
no longer. I wish that I could sit down within the bounds of the Church and talk with other gay
members of my ward without fearing excommunication... I wish the Brethren would call a
solemn assembly for us, an assembly so intense and spiritual that we would come to know what
the Lord meant to our lives... I believe such a solemn assembly could be kept within the bounds
of propriety and perhaps because of it a few lives could be save.
Who in the Church can I trust now?
Who can I talk to without fear of spiritual annihilation?
The punishment I would receive for being honest would undoubtedly be excommunication. If
salvation and exaltation are so important to the Lord's Church, why doesn't the Church open a
door to us...instead of slapping our bloody knuckles?
I have no choice now.
I am forced to live in hypocrisy.
I do not fit into the Plan-- I am lost for eternity to live with murderers in the telestial kingdom.
However, I am not prompted to self-destruction, but to build on my own from what is left in this
world. I will raise my children with understanding and communication and treat my wife with
honesty and care.
I want to become all that I am capable of becoming despite the discomfort to Zion.
This life is certainly no Shangri-La, but I do have certain peace now with the spirit inside this
body of mine which I've never known before.
I want to walk with dignity, the kind of dignity I was born with...the right of any human being to
live.
--L.M.L. ( Let Me Live ) |
I have found having dealt with the press and been in several documentaries that I have been misrepresented or even misquoted. Now some decades later I will bother to correct some misconceptions which for various reasons I am sure had logic as a source but were erroroneously set to print.
It is true I gave my letter to Jeff Howrey of the Chronicle staff. That's all. Perhaps my roommate at the time, the local radio employee circulated it after I gave it to Jeff but I never took it to any newspapers or news broadcasters. Perhaps this was the only way they could get the university paper to print such an article back in the 70's.
People at that time could not believe that I was telling the truth so they tried to discredit the article as being bogus. Some accused the editor of trying to tabloid for his own statis or writing the article himself. They used the idea that President Kimball was not President in the 60's. My use of the title was in connection with his position in the Church as of the date I wrote the article though formerly in the 60's he was an apostle.
There arose such a furor that one of the people on the list of the B.Y.U. students who were turned
in by me wrote his own letter which was printed a few days after my article appeared. I include it
as documentation of what I said as being truthful. It is further evidence that these students did
experience the upheaval about which I have written.