Evan’s journey to celebrating Pride
Celebrating LGBTQ people is needed because many cultural attitudes, religious beliefs, and laws in our society still treat them unequally - simply for being LGBTQ.
My journey to celebrating Pride involved learning how harmful the discriminatory religious beliefs I had espoused for decades actually were. It was hard to realize how my beliefs had hurt people I loved, especially my own son, Wes.
To try to make up for that in some way, I wrote my book Gay LDS Crossroads (as a nuanced believer at the time) and went on podcasts (Listen, Learn & Love with Cheryl while still members of our church - and later Mormon Stories with Wes after our entire family left the church). While I’m grateful people have said those public efforts helped them, I now wonder in hindsight whether I unknowingly did all that mostly to unpack my own church-induced trauma (which I know is less than what marginalized folks experience in the church).
But I suppose it doesn’t much matter what the underlying reasons might be for why any of us try to help foster LGBTQ equality. As long we try to do so in some way. I’m amazed at how prevalent those efforts are now among younger generations.
Because we get to read stories in applications about what high school students in our local area are doing on that front, my favorite thing our family does to encourage equality is the Smith Family Advocacy Scholarship that Cheryl thought of starting five years ago. I love that our high school’s scholarship awards night falls near the start of Pride each year (see the video of Cheryl presenting the scholarship at that event a couple of nights ago).
While I will always be sad for the struggle Wes endured in high school to come to terms with his identity, I’m glad it inspired efforts to try to improve things for others going forward.
There are tons of ways we can all try to help. Efforts can be private if you’re not comfortable being public. But I guarantee you love someone who is LGBTQ (even if you don’t know who yet). So please embrace the reminder that Pride month offers all of us to examine how we can better be a part of making things easier for LGBTQ people.
-Evan Smith, author of GayLDSCrossroads: My Journey, Your Journey, and a Scripture-based Path Forward
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