Honesty

I really want to be honest, open and close to my family. I really do. However sometime it is just easier to avoid them. I love them I really do, my parents and all 9 of my siblings (some more than others). But often I find myself thinking; I live my life out here and they are out there. The last few months I have been trying to be honest with myself and know what I really think. So I wrote one of my brothers and talked about my sexual orientation. I expressed feelings of fixing the relationship between us and repairing past misconceptions. In the excitement of my honesty I decide to call my mother and truly opening up to her about my life as a gay Mormon.

I bore my heart and soul. I told her about how it is just easier to accept my feelings for the same gender rather than trying to fake it in the church. I cried. I think that tonight was on the first time I cried while talking to my mom about my same gender attraction. I believe that I was the most honest with her that I have ever been. I thought that we had a breakthrough. However the conversation did not go as planned.

My mother cried along with me and thanked me for my honesty, however in the end she told me, more or less that I need to try harder. The thought of going back to full fellowship makes my soul cringe. I do not feel the same way about the Church than I do now. I still believe in the church and think that it makes good people better. But I cannot see myself back in its good graces. I was hoping that my mom would say something along the lines of, “I have been praying and I feel at peace with where you were at.”

That did not happen. At first I did not know what to think. Should I be mad, angry, sad, depressed? In the end I thanked her for her honesty and we both agreed that we both have options’ to change and ideas to ponder. I promised that I would reread The family, the Proclamation to the world, and she was going to read two chapters in No more Goodbyes by Carol Lynn Perason.

I think that we had a breakthrough, but I am not sure about this. I have seriously tired to ease my family into the acceptance of my same gender attraction to a full on homosexual lifestyle. I am not there just yet, but that is where I see it ending. All I do know is that my life just cannot go back to the same it was while I was active in the church.

I thank all of my Mormon homosexual friends, many that I have met at Affirmation, for their support and understanding. However in the end a gay Mormon had to come to terms on his or her own. No one can tell them which road is right. I believe that for some that may be a life in the Church and for others not in the Church. Only the individual can decide.

I believe that I go to my mother with that idea in mind and leave thinking that she just does not get it. But am I wrong? Maybe from her point of view she thinks she is being open minded and I am the one who is not? Which came first the chicken or the egg? I ask myself.

I do not know the answers, I wish I did; if so, I would write a book. Nonetheless I don’t. I don’t know if what I am doing is right or wrong, however I do know that I find more peace and joy on this road; two things that I didn’t find on the reverse side.

It is not easy being a gay Mormon, but it’s not easy from my mom’s side either. I hope and pray that all involved can stop and consider the others point of view. Life is not easy, but as someone wise once said, “men are that they might have joy.”

Colby Goddard
Staff Blogger