Richard and Renèe Van Wagoner


Dick and Renee are lifelong members of the church who live in Ogden.  Dick served as bishop of their ward and was released several years ago.  Renee taught for many years in the Ogden School District as a resource room teacher and Dick is Professor Emeritus of Art at Weber State University.
 

This summary of family experience appeared in the Family Fellowship newletter, Reunion,  in Spring 1995.

  

We had always accepted what our church leaders told us: Homosexuality is a choice and can be "unchosen." We were utterly confused. Carol Lynn Pearson said it well, in writing of her marriage to a gay man, "... dogma collides with experience." If indeed it was a choice, had he chosen it when he was four or five? Ridiculous? Yes, but both he and we had "known" since then! Had his knowing or our "knowing" made it so? Maybe counseling was the answer! It would be an answer to our prayers if "choice" were true. Yet, how could homosexuality be a choice? Such a decision would make all homosexuals fools because they would have to enjoy persecution, ridicule, scorn, ostracism and loneliness.

The wall crumbled to dust. In subsequent talks with Nick we learned many things: He didn’t want to be 

"No amount of praying, serving, counseling, promising, covenanting, pretending, dating lovely girls, wanting to fall in love, wanting to marry and have children had made him straight. "
homosexual. He had tried not to be for most of his life. No amount of praying, serving, counseling, promising, covenanting, pretending, dating lovely girls, wanting to fall in love, wanting to marry and have children had made him straight.

The three of us went to conferences, to see a Social Service counselor, to talk to a General Authority and to talk to other parents. We also talked to many LDS gays and a few lesbians.

What we learned, simply stated: He is same-sex oriented! He may choose to be sexually active; he may choose celibacy, but he did not choose his orientation.

We have since become aware of many LDS gays (those five or six on the Kinsey Scale) whose lives were ruined because they were driven to environments and experiences that diminished or destroyed their opportunities to grow and excel. Too many have been and are being crushed by "reparative therapy," self-esteem torn from them until they believe they are evil and worthless, that the world would be better without them and so, the final step. ... "Fast enough, pray enough, serve enough and you will change." Deadly words to a guilt-ridden, self-loathing, sensitive man or woman. (We have found our gay sons and daughters are more tender, more easily hurt than their heterosexual counterparts, and often, more spiritual.) Behavior can be modified. Addiction can be cured. Genetic factors are unalterable. We are what we are.

Where are all true homosexuals who have made the change? Please, we beg for evidence. we beg for 

"Everyone with whom we have talked who has "changed orientation" has changed only behavior and in most cases, for a short period."
truth. Everyone with whom we have talked who has "changed orientation" has changed only behavior and in most cases, for a short period. Where are the long-term, follow-up studies? The American Medical Association has announced that it can no longer recommend reparative therapy for the homosexual. It has proved to be ineffective and, worse, destructive. Now the AMA encourages therapists to help the gay person accept his orientation.

The greatest tragedy existing within the LDS homosexual issue isn’t the thousands who are not becoming heterosexual — it is information from LDS therapists that change of orientation is both necessary and possible. This has produced a climate that denies honest, scientific investigation, love and compassion....We truly believe that science is discovering and will prove, for the most part, that homosexuality is genetic and permanent.