The Gay Mormon Pioneer

You can call me GMP.  I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon or LDS Church.  I was born into and raised in a loving LDS family and have gone to church almost every Sunday of my life.  I had a happy childhood with my older brothers and sister and I get along very well with my parents most of the time.  Currently, I am a communication student at one of the LDS colleges.  I am living a fairly typical life for a faithful LDS guy of my age.

There is one qualifying difference, however, between my life and the lives of many other LDS men.  I am, in simplest terms, gay.  However, I don't love the oversimplification that the term "gay" suggests.  Perhaps a more fitting term would be "same-gender attracted," because the sexual connotation of the word "gay" doesn't apply to me, for I've never acted on a sexual inclination with another person.  Still, "same-gender attracted" is a mouthful, so I'll stick with "gay" when referring to myself and within the title of this blog.

Same-gender attraction is a heretofore relatively unexplored issue within the LDS Church, in spite of its surprising prevalence among men and women of my generation and the generations preceding and following.  In June 1930, an ancestor of mine said this in a letter to his posterity:

You, my children, are living in a new age, but you, too, will have your frontiers to explore, your divides to cross, your own deserts to subdue. Most important of all, you will have home and state problems to solve that will challenge the pioneer blood that runs in your veins. Trust in the Lord, be true to yourselves and all will be well with you.

-David King Udall, 1851-1938

My father wrote those words to me in a letter one day and ever since reading them, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that same-gender attraction is one of those frontiers I will explore and that intolerance among members of the LDS Church is one of those deserts I will subdue.  That "pioneer blood" in me is what has prepared me for this unique struggle of reconciling a faithful Mormon life with a proclivity towards a lifestyle not endorsed or permitted within the LDS Church.  It's that pioneer blood that compels me to take this journey.