The drive south from Salt Lake City, Utah to Provo, Utah, home of Brigham Young University takes about an hour. The University is nestled on the slopes of the Wasatch Mountain chain in the Northeast portion of a very large valley. Fresh spring water pours down mountains canyons from glacier fed streams and the snow pack of the winter months. The University I believe brought together twenty to thirty thousand students from many places in America and the rest of the world then. Many returned missionaries like myself chose the University as a continuation of the spiritual life we were trying to attain in the mission field.
I lived in a dorm-type apartment complex called the Moon Apartments. I was rooming with Lynn Whyte, the son of members of the Church whom I met in Blackfoot, Idaho. There were other elders whom I roomed with there but Lynn was very close to me. We had family home evenings (weekly Church wide family night) with other return missionaries, attended Temple sessions, went to Devotionals ( religious speakers ) in the Smith Field House. I got into the study habit again.
There were humorous moments too. One of the first days, I was completely disoriented in the new Ernest L. Wilkinson Center ( student union ). I was trying so hard to be straight acting and doing what's right since being counseled by an Apostle. The building was very new and as yet all the rooms were not labeled. I desired to use the bathroom. As I entered the restroom I thought it strange there were no urinals. You'd think it would register.
I went to the stalls anyway and sat down. Then I heard the sound of high heels coming into the bathroom. I was going to stand up and tell the young women she was in the wrong bathroom. The reality of the moment finally hit me. My feet went up on the toilet seat with the rest of my trembling body. The young women then sat down in the stall next to me and then left.
About an eternity later, I crept very carefully to what I thought was another way out. It wasn't an exit. It was a rest area with a girl lying down on a couch. How much more worse could this thing get? I let the door slide closed carefully realizing I needed badly to get out of this room. I walked to the door through which I had made my entrance. I opened the door carefully viewing the hallway. I slipped into safe territory.
I do remember several devotionals in which Ernest L. Wilkinson, President of the University, would counsel the students to turn in any peers whom they suspected of being homosexual. It made me feel as if I were a criminal. Just what every gay person needs, some more paranoia to add the myriads of other self-esteem eroding experiences.
I began to enjoy the classes I was taking. I had three years of credits studying in special education. I took exploratory courses to decide what area of study I should pursue. I took a writing course from the niece of the Prophet David O. McKay. I joined the Oratorio Chorus which was preparing to perform Mozart's Requiem.
I found a job working in the Harris Fine Arts Center as a janitor. My cleaning area was near the costume room. In the room the workers busily prepared costumes for the upcoming opera production, The Masked Ball.
There I met George a flamboyant costumier. It wasn't long before we were talking and I was made aware of a group of homosexuals who spent time together on campus but were very secretive.
George asked me over to his apartment. We ended up being affectionate to each other. He informed me that I had passed the "test." I was introduced to the other members of the society. There were rumors that one of President Wilkinson's relatives cruised the streets of Provo was one of the bits of gossip I was told from the group. We would often meet in the stand down lounge in the Wilkinson Center to be introduced to other homosexual members of the student body.
Often our group would drive to Salt Lake City and attend a bar known as Radio City, the Lounge. This was the first Gay bar I had ever been too. There were also after-bar parties where I met an assorted group of people. I was looking for love but I did not know how to do that and found further confusion.
The group at the Wilkinson step down lounge seemed to taunt me in whatever I was experiencing. In their paranoid hysteria they seem to mock my problems. I wanted friends. I wanted to find a companion. Many of them found life time companions as I would learn later in life but I found less than my expectations with them.
Then in the early part of 1968 I met Brent. He was an anthropology student. We were listening to music in the library at separate study booths across from each other. One day our shoes touched and I smiled. He smiled. We talked. I thought we were developing a friendship.
I grew to like him. But I just did not understand how to build a relationship. I didn't realize for a long time I was trying to have desert before dinner. I also forgot the appetizers.
Where were my role models? There were none. No one in the Church could ever realize I just wanted to love and be loved. They kept making me think that all I could attain in homosexuality was sex. So I acted according to the prevalent knowledge of the times.
One of the guys in the gay group was going out of town and I asked him if I could stay at his little cottage. It was closer to downtown Provo. He agreed. So I took Brent there to share some intimacy with him. There was some awkward moments but essentially we both shared affection and a form of sexual intimacy. I thought Brent enjoyed our experience. We both went home. I expected to see him in the library the next week but he was not there.
My studies continued. I sang in the Oratorio Chorus Concert in the Mozart Requiem. I looked forward to growing closer to Brent but I could not find him anywhere on campus.
Toward the end of winter I was called into the University Security for an interview with Mr. Lauritzen. I didn't have a clue what security wanted with me.
I was brought into an office where Mr. Lauritzen informed me of a complaint lodged against me. There were no names mentioned. I was accused of seducing some girl's boyfriend. It still didn't dawn on me. This girl learned from her boyfriend that he had a homosexual experience. The girl went to her Bishop. The Bishop notified B.Y.U. security. From the information given to me that day I denied all the allegations and left the office.
I really did not even think that this was Brent or his girlfriend or his Bishop. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend. He never mentioned anything about girls. After a while I came to realize I had been caught. I had been trapped in a sad situation which put me in legal jeopardy now according to Mr Lauritzen's second interrogation of me.
I was an implied threat of a prison sentence in the guise that Brent was under age. It was impressed upon me by Mr.Lauritzen to reveal the names of other homosexuals attending Brigham Young University. I thought this was ironic since one of the people in our group was his nephew.
I was suspended from the University and instructed to go to Salt Lake City for an interview with Apostle Kimball. I don't remember the interview, but in a series of phone calls he encouraged me to turn in other homosexuals at B.Y.U.
I felt abandoned by everyone. I received no comfort from my homosexual friends. I was broke financially and emotionally. I was more than broke. I was angry. I could not face this alone. I was in a panic. It seemed I started to believe all the things straight people and the leaders in the Church were telling me over the years about homosexuals. It made me feel that we were mentally ill.
I decided to reveal names to Elder Kimball, hoping I would understand more of what our place was with the Lord and in His Church. How would I be dealt with? What were the answers for being homosexual? If I were so repulsive to God maybe now the leaders could show me how to change? Maybe there would arise a plan to help all of us work out the situation of being homosexual and being members of the Church. I imagined a discussion group with all of the gay group attending with Apostle Kimball helping us all.
I was to turn in a list of people to Elder Kimball at my apartment. Then Elder Kimball called changing the place to meet as the Ernest L. Wilkinson Center. He told me to meet him in the basement Lobby of the center. I later would learn from a Provo therapist I went to see that one of the students in my apartment complex was homosexual and I believe this might have stopped Elder Kimball from meeting me there.
I went to the Wilkinson Center. Elder Kimball was an unassuming man. No one seemed to recognize him as he walked up to
me. He knew I lost my college job by being expelled from the University, that I had lost my college loans ( essentially my support ) so he said he would give me a loan. It was thirty dollars. I handed him the list. I then felt like I had betrayed everyone, even from the beginning.
I was to learn later that my name was revealed inadvertently to the people who were on the list by Elder Kimball. This put my life in trauma. The people on the list were very angry. One of them reported that another on the list would do me bodily harm. At that point I thought perhaps I deserved the worse but the people showed much self control.
I didn't know where to go. I chose to run away. I went to Salt Lake City just sixty miles away to look for a job. I had little money. I seemed to have no friends left, so I ran.
I can remember trudging through slush and snow in Salt Lake City interviewing for jobs. I remember one job was working in a west-side warehouse. I wasn't hired. I felt like I had been given a death sentence.
I didn't know where I was going to sleep. I decided to go to the house of someone I had met in the Radio City Lounge. He was a security guard for the Church and a reported relative of Apostle Kimball.
He took me into his apartment. He and his room mate let me stay for a few nights until I felt I had to return to the Moon apartments to get my belongings. When I did return to my college roommates I explained I had some troubles and had left school. They seemed shocked but suggested I stay with them and find a job in Provo. I worked for some professors doing yard work.
I had lost my student loans. I was expelled from the University I had attended. I was lost. I got a lot of comfort from my roommates and little judgment. They knew little about my being gay and the experiences I had at the campus. I believe I told Lynn and his girl friend what had happened. Somehow I made it through the trauma of that Spring of 1968.
Other people on the list started calling me. I was told that one of the persons on the list was up for an ROTC officer promotion and lost that commission. Another's teaching credentials were denied. Still another's file was permanently altered so that his career choices had been seriously curtailed. Many were expelled from school.
I remember Jason a relative of a general authority was able to deny the accusations enough as
to have not been expelled. It was Jason who later in life told me that Brad, a relative to Mr.
Lauritzen, from campus security was hospitalized in a mental institution. He was one of those on
my list. Jason told me that Brad was placed on the psych ward of the hospital but later escaped.
He ended up committing suicide. I shall forever be reminded.