I don't think I really had any depth of understanding about homosexuality until I became bishop of the Los Angeles Single's ward in 1986. It was my privilege during the more than five years I served as a bishop to counsel with a number of Latter-day Saints who were struggling with issues of faith and same-sex desire. It was in those intense spiritual and emotional encounters that my heart first began to open, when my mind first began to grasp the complexity and the tragedy of what it means to be a homosexual Latter-day Saint. I owe much to those dear brothers and sisters who challenged my axioms, who schooled me in faith and sacrifice, who taught me much about love that I did not know.

Most of them had gone through what for most of you is a familiar and tragic cycle: becoming aware of their homosexual feelings, usually at an early age; denying and repressing those feelings, then facing them tentatively with great fear and loneliness; being absorbed with feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and self loathing; sometimes exploring their homosexuality; usually making a covenant with God that they 

As I say, this cycle is familiar to almost everyone in this room, either from personal experience or as a close observer. Recently I counseled with a young gay returned missionary. No one besides me knows he's gay except for a counselor from whom he sought help while on his mission. As we talked I asked him about the strength of his homosexual feelings, whether he had any romantic or erotic feelings for the opposite sex (he did not), whether he had ever had a homosexual experience (he hadn't), what he intended to do about his feelings, etc. As he told his story, I felt my heart breaking over what I saw ahead for this young man. The following is part of an e-mail. exchange we had following that meeting (I'll refer to him as "John"):

John: Thanks for talking the other day. It sounds like you are really opposed to the idea of reorientation

 Bob: You didn't listen carefully to what I said, and it is important that you understand where I am on this. I am willing to concede that some people may be able to change, especially if they are in the midrange on the Kinsey scale. I just feel that not everyone can, and the research and therapeutic 

John: I have been giving that whole thing a lot of thought for some time, obviously. On the one hand, I was not incredibly impressed with some things that my counselor said, but on the other hand some of it made a lot of sense. He did not work for the church, but was a church member, so I would like to think that church policy was not dictating his thoughts.

Bob: I don't know this individual, but many LDS psychotherapists are influenced by the policy, philosophy, and therapeutic practices of Church Social Services. The American Psychological Association has taken the position that homosexuality is not a perversion and that aversion and other types of reorientation therapies are not ethical. To tell you the truth, we need more scientific studies. if some LDS psychotherapists Are so convinced that change is possible, why haven't they done any scientific studies in the past twenty-five years to validate their conclusions? In response to this question, some state that such studies would be unpopular or professionally risky, but this does not seem a sufficiently convincing argument since the Church and BYU have both taken stands or engaged in activities that have been unpopular both in the general society and in the academic community.

John: I don't know. If as some people claim, there is a 25% success rate in reorientation, that is 25% more of a chance than I have at the moment of being more normal. The way it is showing up for me is, "what have I got to lose?" Get depressed and discouraged? Already been there a whole lot. Get suicidal, well, been there tons too

Bob: I certainly would not dissuade you from doing what you fiel you need to do. I am not in your skin and cannot make decisions for you. I am concerned about the depression and self-destructive impulses. You must be careful and not let yourself get into a dangerous place. Your worth to your Heavenly Father is of inestimable value, and you must not forget that. I will be your friend, whatever you decide to do, and I will be happy to talk with you as you work things out.

John: It is a miracle that my mission president did not send me home. I don t know. I just need more information. If I were to get married, someday even as I am now, I would be able to consummate the marriage, and my therapist seemed to think that would be all I would need as a starting point for recovering within the marriage covenant.

Bob: This is dangerous advice, from my point of view, and contrary to what President Hinckley and Elder Oaks advise. Before I would take that chance, I would want to be sure this would work. I know homosexuals who entered into marriage with the hope that it would work but then the marriage ended, often with tragic results for the homosexual, the spouse, and any children that resulted from the union.  My pschotherapist friends at BYU tell me they know of successful marriages that have lasted for twenty years.  But again we don't know if these individuls were bi-sexual or homosexual.  Certainly it is physically possible to consummate a marriage, but a marriage is much more than that, and the question you have to ask yourself is could you be intimate in a way that would be physcially, emotionally, and spiritually satisfying for both you and your wife.  You have to ask yourself if it  would be ethically proper for you to enter such a marriage without disclosing to your partner your sexual feelings.   I think it would be good for you to talk to people who represent a range of feelings and experiences--people on both sides of this issue.

I gave John the name of a friend of mine, an older gay Latter-day Saint who was in a similar situation when he returned from his mission. A couple of days after they had spoken, John sent me an e-mail message in which he said:

John: I talked to your friend for about two hours on Sunday night, and it was really interesting, and pretty disturbing. It would certainly take a revelation from God to allow me to make the choices that he has made. Short of that, I would never he able to live with in myself. I have been through more trials with the church than I can express with my family and everything. I have done too much to ever allow myself to give up. The scary truth of matters is that I would really rather be dead than living outside of the church.  He really echoed what you and others have been saying about reparative therapy. I still don't know about it for certain, but am getting more convinced that it is a bad idea. I am probably going to call up my therapist and have a conversation with him about it, to see if he has any other angles that I have not thought of yet, but I kinda doubt he will have anything new to tell me.

Bob: I hope you understand that I am not encouraging you to do more than gather information, explore various possibilities, consider other people's experiences, seek for guidance (both spiritual and psychological), listen to your own heart, and keep open the possibilities. I wanted you to talk to my ftiend because I believe be is one of the finest Latter-day Saints I have ever met, a person of great integrity who has struggled over this issue for many years. I have not encouraged him to do anything other than what he feels is right for him to do, and I have promised to stand by him whatever that decision is. I will do the same for you

I have had several discussions with the man referred to above over the past several months. He is a gay Latter-day Saint in his mid-thirties, one who has gone through the cycle I describe. The first time I met him, I observed to my wife that he seemed to be among the finest that Mormonism produces--a truly outstanding and upright man. He had served an honorable mission, served as an elder's quorum president, and worked in the temple. He has never been sexually intimate. His mother had confided to me over the phone that her son had made several attempts on his life and that recently he had purchased a gun. After our first meeting, I told him that I could assure him of several things: one, that God would rather have him alive than dead; two, that God would rather have him happy than miserable; and, three, that God loved him unconditionally.

I spoke to him just a few days ago, and he had lapsed into depression and suicidal feelings once more. When I testified to him again of God's love, he replied, "If he loved me, why didn't he answer me all those

"If he loved me, why didn't he answer me all those years when I pleaded so earnestly for his help?"

years when I pleaded so earnestly for his help?" I said that I wasn't prepared to answer all questions about unjustified suffering in the world, that I could only testify of what I knew--that God loves us and wants our happiness more than anything in the vast compass of his creation and dominion.  I worry about this man, and I pray for him, and for the countless others like him who suffer unspeakably because, for reasons none of us understands, they love those of their own sex.*

* Unbeknownst to me at the time of my presentation, this friend, Stuart Matis, had taken his life the previous Friday. He had been suicidal for years and his family and friends were hopeful that he was reaching a safer place. He had been terribly disturbed by the Church's involvement in Proposition 22, the "Protect the Family" initiative on the California ballot, and seemed to vacillate between feeling that he was liberated from his depressive feelings and becoming even more depressed over the plight of homosexuals in the Church. See my "Requiem for a Gay Mormon: In Memory of Henry Stuart Matis" at the conclusion of this pamphlet.