Dear CJRKS and M,
Something happened recently
that I want to share with you. Last week I attended an event at Greg
Prince’s house where the speakers were Tom and Wendy Montgomery. Their
story was recently featured on abcnew.com http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mormon-mom-fought-prop-fights-gay-son/story?id=19451081
and other national media outlets. The event related to something that happened
earlier in my life. One of my closest friends in high school was Grant
Underwood. (Grant visited us at our house one time in Riverton and met
all of you but you probably don’t remember. He now teaches history at
BYU. ) We were in the same ward as teenagers and he, Cole, Wayne and I
did lots of things together. We all had VW bugs and hung out all the time
at each other’s houses. During much of this time, it was just me and my
dad at home and the Underwood family kind of adopted me, often having me over
for dinner. They were a wonderful family and I loved them dearly.
Grant had a sister and younger brother Bruce who I was also friends with.
Bruce was a wonderful kid…extremely smart, outgoing, and friendly. (The
picture below is of Me, Cole, Bruce and the Underwoods in front of their
Anaheim house after my mission, approx. 1974).
After Grant and I both
returned from our missions, we continued our close friendship. We both
left for BYU that September and were roommates for my first year at BYU.
I think it was the next year when Grant’s younger brother came out as
gay. He was still totally active in the Church. This was like 1978
or 79, and homosexuality was not understood at the time. Unfortunately, Grant
and his parents were not accepting of Bruce being gay. His dad was bishop
at the time and he excommunicated him. Grant never spoke his brother’s
name again and two year later, Bruce committed suicide. I remember feeling at
the time what a terrible loss this was because Bruce was such a great person
and had so much potential. In hindsight, I view it as a tragedy that didn’t
need to happen.
And so when Greg hosted this
event, I wanted to attend. The Montogomery’s, who are active LDS, told
their story of how their son Jordan came out to them when he was 13 and about
how he had by that time already contemplated suicide. They told their
story of how they chose to accept him and love him, and how they have adjusted.
Their story has become part of a film called “Families are Forever,”
produced as part of the Family Acceptance Project. We got to see the
entire film but you can see the trailer at the above link and read their
story. The group of about 100 people at the Greg Prince event was a mixed
group consisting of a Stake President, some Bishops, former Bishops, active
LDS, LDS parents with gay children, gay ex-Mormons, gay ex-Catholics, members
of LDS Affirmation, and non-LDS. In the question and answer session,
several told their stories. I had a strong emotional response to the
film, to the Montgomery’s, and to the other stories there, a feeling akin to
“feeling the Spirit” that I had at other times in my life and it brought back
to my mind the tragedy of Bruce’s suicide.
I’ve also known personally of
two other LDS young people who committed suicide over being gay and unaccepted
by their families. I don’t want to see other LDS kids committing suicide
over this so am glad that people like the Montgomery’s are in the Church and
are telling their story of acceptance and love. They also told of their
relationship with LDS Apostle Todd Christopherson, who has a gay brother, and
their meetings with him in which he encouraged them to continue doing what they
are doing, speaking and sharing the film.
I share this with you because
of the way it affected me and hope that you might find it informative as well
and perhaps may help other families that you may encounter.
All my love,
Dad
