This is going to be long and I apologize in advance, but I feel like I have a lot I need to say. Thank you in advance to those who take the time to read this all and “listen.” I am not an eloquent writer or a very smart person for that matter, but I hope I can adequately portray what I’m trying to.

Our son, Weston, is gay. He came out to Evan & me when he was 16, after a year of serious depression & suicidal thoughts. He had even tried dating girls and had a girlfriend for a short amount of time. To be totally honest, I knew he was gay from the time he was 8 years old. Certain things he would do or say just made me, as his mom, know. I remember one time he came off the bus in elementary school, clearly upset. One of the boys had called him a faggot. I was so angry. I immediately started driving my kids to and from school. This was just a foreshadowing of the emotional turmoil Wes would have to endure.

I felt lucky that I had grown up with lots of exposure to wonderful LGBTQ people. I knew many were good, loving, kind people & I also knew that they were who they were. Born that way. It was not a choice or a “lifestyle.” 

Wes didn’t want to be “out” in public at that point in life, so we respected his privacy, but assured him of our endless and unconditional love for him. I think it must have been so hard and lonely for him, knowing his sexuality but trying to hide it from his friends & family members. It was hard for Evan & me to keep it from our friends & families. Many would make comments that were hurtful, not realizing they were making comments to us about our own son. We would always try to correct viewpoints or comments that weren’t kind in a loving way, but it was and is very hard.

This is when my struggle to balance the love of my child and the love of my church began. Those of you who know me, know I’m a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Evan and I have sacrificed our time & talents in many ways over the years to serve in many different church positions on the local and for Evan, the regional level. We do our best to be good, kind, faithful people and have taught our children to do the same. The problem I had encountered is that our church teaches that “homosexuality” is a sin. Well, let me rephrase that, they say that ACTING on it is a sin. Now, even before Wes came out to us, this didn’t sit well with me. I believe in a loving God. A God who will accept all His children & I just can’t fathom that He would send some of us to earth saying we should actively avoid seeking lifelong companionship and that true love & passion that is felt in a committed and loving marriage. Despite my feelings about this doctrine the church teaches, I have remained active in our faith. I wanted to try to be the “voice” in the room when people would make comments that were judgmental or unkind. I would always preach love & acceptance, no matter who you are and how you have chosen to live your life. I wanted to be seen as a “safe” person for any youth or adults struggling with this issue. I was also able to try to focus more on other elements of our doctrine - the doctrine of love, acceptance, repentance & forgiveness.

Weston applied to our church college, BYU, and was accepted there. It was the only school he applied to and was his first choice. He then decided at age 18, just before high school graduation, that he wanted to defer his college acceptance & serve a mission for the church. I pleaded with him not to go. I knew it would be difficult for him to be submersed 24/7 in the church culture. I knew many would say hurtful things. I was worried about his mental health. I was worried about a lot of things. But to his credit, he loves Jesus Christ. He wanted to go to show his devotion. I prayed that people would be kind & that he would be okay. For those of you who are not members of our church, when young men and women serve missions, their families have limited contact with them. Once a week they are allowed to email their families (in February 2019 that policy changed to allow weekly phone/video calls). Before he left on his mission, he opened up to just a few people about his sexuality including our stake president (the man in the church assigned over our region), my sister Lisa & her husband Tagg, & our dear friends, Gordon & Lauren Laws. I was relieved that we at least now had a few people we could talk to & that I knew he could talk to.

When he got his assignment to the Brazil Curitiba mission, we were so excited for him! He had really wanted to experience a different culture and learn a new language. He was only on his mission for 2 weeks when we got the first email that one of the other missionaries found out he was gay, and the name calling and chastising began.  

Wes somehow handled it well, throwing himself deeper into learning the language and studying the scriptures. In fact, when he arrived to his mission in Curitiba, the mission president (the man in charge of all missionaries in that area) told my sister-in-law (a former neighbor of his in Utah) that they had never had an English speaking, American missionary arrive there speaking Portuguese so well. I will forever be grateful to that mission president. He is a kind, compassionate & loving man. He helped Wes with his struggles & tried to empathize as best he could.

For the first year of his mission, Wes was pretty happy. He loved the culture & people of Brazil. He was placed with some wonderful companions and when the mission president saw how gifted he was with organizational skills, computer skills & the language, he assigned him to work in the mission office as a liaison for the housing of all the missionaries in their mission. He spent his days finding suitable apartments for the missionaries & managing other housing problems, along with other things the president would assign him to do. He had started to open up to other missionaries about being gay. Some were loving & kind. Others were not. He didn’t tell me all of the things said to him. He knew I would worry. He would send long emails to his dad, Lisa & Gordon. They were the ones who heard most of his thoughts & experiences in a non-filtered way. I think Wes knew that my Mom heart just couldn’t handle hearing some of the things that he experienced.

Most missionaries serve for a 2-year period. After 18 months on his mission, Wes started struggling with whether he wanted to stay for that whole 2 years. I won’t go into all the private details & I know Wes wouldn’t want me to share some of the insensitive and totally ludicrous conversations of why he decided he just couldn’t do it anymore and what tipped him to a breaking point, but he decided to pray to ask God what he should do. He got the answer to go home, be happy, find a husband & have a family. Now this is the opposite of what the church teaches. They teach to find happiness in a celibate lifestyle and that God will “work it out” in the afterlife. So people questioned whether this answer could really be from God because it would take Wes down a different path in life. Wes still firmly believes that the church is good. He told us he didn’t want us to leave on his account. He loves many of its teachings, but just knows there is no place for him in it right now. He still believes in Jesus Christ.

He was finally ready to come home & be out to the world! I was so happy that he didn’t have to hide who he really was anymore, but I also prepared myself for what people would do and say. Evan and I spent many sleepless nights worrying about how our church congregation & family members would react when they found out. I’m now ashamed that I even worried. We experienced an outpouring of love like I have never experienced in my whole life. I can’t tell you how many texts I received from people that touched my heart. Friends from within the church and friends from our community. I have actually saved many of those texts so when I feel discouraged, I can go back and read them. Our extended families were loving. Many of them wept when we told them. Many of them felt bad Wes had suffered in silence. Some made great effort to travel on short notice to be here for Weston’s homecoming. 

After Wes came home, he told us he didn’t want to attend BYU anymore. This complicated things a bit because now we were past the deadline to apply to other schools he was interested in. He decided to apply to a private college he had never thought of before on a whim (at the suggestion of my brother & brother-in-law), since they had rolling admission. To our delight he received a full academic scholarship & has since been attending there. He has been having a great experience and is loving life as he makes new friends and figures out his path in life. He is finally happy! We have been and always will be 100% supportive of what our son chooses, and he will always be a part of our family. Wes has never asked any of us to leave the church on his behalf & encouraged us to keep going.

Evan, the other kids & myself have been content continuing to attend and serve in church. I was teaching a daily youth Bible study class (known as seminary) in our home every morning & had 12 high school teenagers in my class. Evan continued to serve in his regional calling which he thoroughly enjoyed because it took him to different congregations on a weekly basis & he got to work with many different people. Owen is attending BYU.

Last weekend our regional leadership had to have a change. The stake president (or leader of our region), whom Evan had been working with as a counselor, was moving. Normal protocol is that the church sends in some “higher ups” (an Area Authority and a General Authority of the church) to pick who the new president will be…For personal reasons, and because I do believe everything happens for a reason, I will not go into details here as to what happened or what was said...  

I believe in kindness, empathy & forgiveness, but my soul has literally been crushed. I used to think I could happily attend church, serve & still be a safe place & a voice for the LGBTQ community within our church, but after this weekend I am no longer feeling that way. I have NEVER cried the way I cried last weekend. The pain was so intense I almost fell to the ground, but Evan was there to catch me.   

I am beyond distraught, heartbroken and a little angry. For almost a week now I have barely slept or ate. We have sacrificed for years. I was alone many nights with young children while Evan was putting in more than 60 hours every week at work for years, trying to make partner, & still valiantly serving for up to 20 hours a week as the bishop of our local congregation. I could list off 10-20 other positions we have served in over the years. We have both sacrificed. Last weekend, it felt to me that my sacrifices weren’t enough because I had a moment of reaction of love & protection for my son. To put it in “horse terms,” I needed a gentle pat on the neck and encouragement to keep going & instead I felt like I got a heavy-handed slap from a whip. For the first time, I felt like I had to pick between my faith and my family. And I pick my family. 

Evan, I, and each of our kids have had different reactions, responses, and decisions about how they are going to proceed from here. I have personally decided I need a “church break” to heal and process what has happened. I am giving myself until Christmas to regroup and figure out where I can best continue to be a voice and ally of my LGBTQ Latter-day Saint friends. And there are many. Even if they are not “out” yet, they are among us.   

I am not pushing for change. Change can only happen when people’s hearts and minds are open & I believe that the general population of our church is not ready. I am warning the church though. I’m pretty sure none of the “higher ups” sit in a class with 12 teenagers 6 days a week and listen to what their concerns & thoughts are, whether those kids are gay or straight. This younger generation will be lost if we don’t have a better message of love & acceptance for ALL people. They will not only lose younger millennials, but they will also lose long-time faithful members, like me. 

Be kind. Be loving. Be a voice for the minority among us. Befriend those who are different than you. Jesus was the greatest example of teaching the undesired & outcasts of His time. I know that if we just follow His example of love we can get there.