C (8:56)

This is a big crowd, John.

B (8:57)

It is.

C (9:00)

It'S really big. I first met John, we did a little interview with him and I was struck that here is a gay man married to a man and really active in the church. But you're not actually a member, are you?

B (9:18)

No. Yeah, I'm the most. My bishop has called me the most active non member in the church.

C (9:26)

Right, and you must be. Absolutely. As a mom of three, with my middle child being gay, watching that film with John and knowing his story, it makes my heart break that he wrestled on his own. As a 14 year old and a 15 year old and a 16 year old. He wrestled and he struggled. And I mean those words like if I am just faithful enough, if I, you know, he's a Kimball scholar at byu. How much harder could you possibly try? But he didn't feel worthy to pray. And just seeing you alone in my mind's eye breaks my heart. It really like that you were alone, doing this. How old were you when you came out to your parents?

B (10:24)

I was about 25 years old when I came out to the.

C (10:27)

What year? Just so everyone can.

B (10:29)

This would have been 1989.

C (10:31)

1989.

B (10:32)

Scary.

C (10:33)

Yeah, really scary. How did that go?

B (10:38)

It was tough. My brother actually outed to me, my dad, like a day or two before I went out to Boston to talk to them.

C (10:49)

And as all good siblings do.

B (10:54)

It'S a long story. He thought I wanted him to and I thought I told him not to, but anyway, dad told me later that he was glad that Mark had told him because he said he might have said some things to me that he would have regretted for the rest of his life. When I went out there and talked to them, the first words out of their mouths were so sorry that you had to suffer alone. That was a good thing for them to say so. And it took a while to work things through. My mom knew instantly she got a revelation. The Holy Spirit spoke to my mother in an audible voice and said, you son is okay. And she knew it from that point on that there was nothing she needed to worry about. My dad took a few more years of struggle and he wrestled with the Scriptures and eventually he called me one night and said, this is all going to work out.

C (11:58)

But what did that acceptance, what did that mean to you?

B (12:06)

Gosh, I thought I was going to have to live my life without my family. I really thought that for a long time. And that was when it dawned on me. I didn't have to. That I could have my family. I could have my family of choice, my friends, and all of those who understood my journey all along and who supported me. And I could also have my eternal family, my parents, my siblings.

C (12:40)

Yeah, it was important.

B (12:42)

So important.

C (12:42)

So important. Yes. You talked about not being able to pray.

B (12:47)

Pray, yeah.

C (12:48)

And this is something that I find when I work with LGBTQ individuals who are young and coming out or family members, they feel like, how can I take this to the Lord? And I think you had that feeling. Yeah.

B (13:04)

I was in a very dark place. There's no question about it. And I was very close to not making it. And I can't attribute it to anything other than the grace of God. It was God who reached out to me. Those hymns that talk about I love you because you first loved me, and that scripture, that's what it feels like to me. I don't think. There I was in a pit. I was in a hole that I could not dig myself out of. And I feel it was literally God reached down and spoke to me and in a very loving way said, please, let's talk. And God's had to do that a couple of times in my life, and thank God.

C (14:05)

Well, you stayed in that wrestle with him. You engaged. You were there.

B (14:13)

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I think that there have been times in my life where I've kind of checked out. But life has a way of bringing you back around into the wrestle.

C (14:24)

And did your parents support. I mean, their love of you, did that help? Did that help you to come back?

B (14:33)

I'd say that my. My journey, in many ways, is a very. It's. It's a journey that only I could be on and that my parents couldn't help me with. But to have them be there with me, That's. That's heaven, right? That's the celestial kingdom.

C (15:01)

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, as you know, I had a little chat with your husband. Your.

B (15:06)

Yes.

C (15:06)

We talked about you, and I was touched by how protective he is of you. He's a wonderful man. Yeah. He's creative and fantastic and all the things, but he was very protective of you, and he talked about when you were feeling drawn back to church and how he was kind of angry. And I said, who. What were you angry at? He said he was angry at you because he knew it would be painful, and he didn't want you hurt, and he was really honest about that, and I appreciate that. And as a wife and a child, a mother, I totally understand protectiveness. That tension is good that you had, and it was a good thing. And Euron is. He says he's spiritual but not religious, clearly very spiritual. How did you manage this as a married couple, this tension?

B (16:01)

Yeah. When I first came out to him as a testimony bearing Mormon, I bet.

C (16:11)

That was a big talk.

B (16:12)

Well, he, he was, he was, he was angry. He. He yelled at me. He said, this is a big mistake. So that was, that was really painful. It was really tough. But I somehow believed that if I had some integrity in this, that he would eventually sort of get it. And I think that's exactly what's happened. And my sense is he doesn't have to be in the same place that I'm. I mean, I would love it if he would come to church with me every Sunday and if he loved the book. We read the Book of Mormon together, which was a great thing. He kept saying, why can't they live it? Like this book is so good. Why can't they live it? But it's, you know, we've. What I've realized is we don't need to be in the same space. I need to love him. That's what God has said to me. Is my job as his husband is just to love him. Absolutely. Everything's going to work out in the end. So I just trust that. And that makes things work.

C (17:31)

Yeah. Well, he did tell me that when you were feeling ready to go back to church, that you actually sent him first to make sure it would be okay for you to make it.

B (17:41)

No, no.

C (17:43)

That's what he's.

B (17:44)

No, no, you're mixing the story up. This was when we joined the gospel choir.

C (17:48)

Oh, this is right.

B (17:49)

And I was the one who went to make sure the gospel choir was safe.

C (17:52)

Oh, wow. And then you guys are gonna have to get your stories. You there. There are likely people who wonder if you should be coming to church, who think that your marriage is, is false and everything, even that everything is wrong, what you're doing. There are likely people that feel that way. You answered these comments a little bit in your beautiful video. But you say this most remarkable thing. You say, I, I want to love them into understanding. I want to have a relationship with them that I will cherish into eternity. Do many of us think of having a. A relationship that will cherish with other members of our ward or outside of our family? Like, it struck me, it was beautiful. And I think we can all say we want to have these relationships that we are understanding of people. But does it really work?

B (18:58)

Yeah, I think it does. And I've been active in my ward now for almost 20 years, and I've seen some really dramatic. I've developed some pretty amazing relationships. And there's a brother in my ward who I used to go to church, and he'd be up on the stand, and he'd be, like, shooting lightning bolts at me from the stand. And I think he was suspicious of me. He thought maybe I was there to make trouble. But I remember one time I needed a priesthood blessing. I asked the Elders Quorum president, and he decided to send this brother, that very one, that very one, to give him a blessing. He put his hands on my head. I thought, of all people, this guy, like, how does he feel about me? But he put his hands on my head, and he gave me a beautiful blessing. And that melted that barrier that had existed between us. And there was another time. I remember at some point, there was something. Something challenging in the Sunday school, and he came up to me afterwards, and he acknowledged the difficulty of that, and we embraced and we wept together. And that's. I. He. He gives me rides to church now all the time. He. He says, I wish you, Ron, would come to church with you. And the relationship that I cherish with him, with his wife, I wouldn't trade that for anything. And that is. That's an eternal friendship. I saw that on the board with the podcast. You know, form eternal friendships. There are some eternal friendships in my ward that have developed over the 20 years, and I've just seen hearts and understandings transformed. Yeah.

C (21:07)

And is it really. Just talking about it? Is it sticking in there together through the, like, discomfort?

B (21:15)

I think it's that we have. All have journeys that are tough.

C (21:19)

Yeah.

B (21:19)

And so we're all there together on those journeys, supporting each other. There's points where my testimony or my love can be a strength to him, where his love and support is transformative for me, and that's how we become Zion.

C (21:43)

Yeah, I. I believe that. I really believe.

B (21:53)

So.

C (21:53)

John, you said you came out at 25.

B (21:55)

Yeah. Well, to my parents.

C (21:57)

To your parents.

B (21:57)

Yeah.

C (21:58)

To your friends before, probably. Right. That's how this works. So are you a boomer? Is that terrible to say, like, a cool boomer?

B (22:07)

I was born in 1963, so I'm.

C (22:09)

Kind of right along the edge.

B (22:11)

I'm kind of cusp.

C (22:11)

Yeah. Okay. So research shows that LGBTQ people in your. My era came out at about 26 as an average 25. Right. Nowadays, millennials started coming out, the average is 16. And the reason this is so important is because for the first time ever in the history of the world, children are coming out while they're still living at home with their parents. So all the wrestling is done with a parent there. They know what their children are hurting. They're hearing the messages that are falling on these kids. And the parents, of course, are taking these messages in. And I'll tell you, as a mother, it is brutally hard. I don't know how John did it, but taking these blows for your kids is so hard. What would you say to these parents whose children are coming out?

B (23:17)

I, I It's hard for me to tell anybody what I think they should do. I can certainly talk about my experience with my parents. My parents love the gospel, and they love the church with their whole hearts. And they were. They have been. My father's still active in the church. My mom was up until she died, and they, they loved me and there was a little bit of wrestling, but ultimately they came to a place of full acceptance of me. They embraced my husband as their son. They let me know that I was loved unconditionally. And this was at a time when I was far from the church and when I was very angry at the church and when any conversation that I'd had with my parents about the church was not a pleasant conversation. But their love of the gospel showed in the kinds of loving people that they were. And at the deepest level, I knew that. And their love and their support of me, whether I was in or out of the church, in many ways gave me permission to come back to the church. And I that's not necessarily everybody's journey, and it's not necessarily supposed to be everybody's journey, but it gave me permission to come back. It was my decision. I knew that if I stayed away from the church for the rest of my life, they would love me exactly for who I was. And if I came back to the church, they would love me as well. I knew that. And so I knew it was completely my decision. And that has to be the decision of the individual who makes that decision.

C (25:14)

We believe in agency.

B (25:16)

We believe in agency. But more importantly, like, in order for that decision to be significant to me, it has to be my decision. My dad once said something to me, and I was like 10 years old at the time, but we were in a sacrament meeting, and he leaned over to me and he said, son, there might come a time when you will leave the church and you have to explore other options. And he said, I want you to know that I love you and support you no matter what. That was a great message to hear from a dad who never displayed anything but utmost devotion to the church and strong testimony. And I think dad understood the importance of agency in our own testimonies.

C (26:20)

So I love the idea that maybe.

B (26:22)

Yeah, for sure.

C (26:25)

Definitely. I love the idea that your dad maybe was inspired.

B (26:31)

He might have been.

C (26:32)

Maybe saw something coming that. That he addressed in a really loving, kind way, whether he knew or not, who knows? But I love that.

B (26:42)

Well, I was their angel son. You know, I was. I was totally into the gospel from the time I was young, very young. I got my own spiritual witness, my own testimony at the age of eight. And my parents always said I was their angel son. So I think if he had any insight at that moment in my journey, it was. It came from the Holy Spirit.

C (27:06)

Yeah, I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it. I. That's one of the things. And throughout the whole video, you see these faithful moves that you make that I think some of us are probably like, how did you keep coming back? And how did you. How did you fight through that idea? Because there's this sense when you're young of like, I'm not worthy enough.

B (27:28)

Right.

C (27:29)

And I. I would assume that that is a battle. Yeah, that rages with you.

B (27:37)

So I. I really, really loved what Thomas McConkey did this morning. I tuned into that. I sort of followed him, and as he sort of led us on that meditation, I thought, this is familiar to me. This feels really familiar. I've done this before. And what I realized is I have remembered all of those situations, like in November 2015, when I heard about that policy for the first time, just being devastated, wounded at my core. And I had 24 really bad hours after that. I learned about that. And I got on my knees the next morning, and I was like, that had to be a nightmare. Like, that couldn't be true. But I got on my knees the next morning and I just poured my heart out to God and. And I got this incredible enveloping love, warmth. God telling me, I love you. I am proud of you. You are where you need to be, and you're okay. And I'm going to take care of this. By the way, God said, I'm going to take care of this. So I said, okay, I trust that. But what I realized is that time and time again, I've been in that headspace where the information coming at me, and I'm starting to have all these thoughts And I'm starting to have an argument going. And then there's this moment where I pull back, where I go down to, I guess, the root of my being, the core of my being, and that's where God speaks to me. And I was telling Thomas afterwards, so many of the experiences in my life that should have been the worst experiences of my life ended up being the best experiences, because it was in that experience that I regained that knowledge that God knows who I am at my inmost being. And.

C (29:53)

Yeah, so we talked about this last night. How this experience. Yes, please. How for so many, this experience is the. Is the time that we learn to really rely, like, really rely on the Savior, know that he is there, know that he's with us. So quickly. Last question would be. Some people are going to be surprised that you said at the end that you can't leave, that if you love LGBTQ people, you can't leave the church, because I think that goes against kind of common, kind of the common idea right now. What would you say? How would you.

B (30:42)

Well, that section of the interview, I was asked what I would say to straight allies in the church there. I learned something from a yoga instructor once. She taught me to differentiate between pain and discomfort. And she said, pain is when you're being injured. You don't want to injure yourself. So when you're going into pain, maybe it's time to back off. But if you're in discomfort, and that's a judgment call in itself, like, when is it discomfort? When is it pain? Only you can figure that out. When you're in discomfort, go into the discomfort. And what I can say is that if you stick with it, the rewards are so profound. The relationships that we build with each other are so profound. They are eternal relationships that we're building with one another. It's so worth it. So just imagine that as our future. I imagine a time. I don't want to go in over the fence. I want to go in through the gate. I want the brethren to receive the revelation. I want us to have a moment of unity and unanimity, and we're not there right now. And when that moment happens, like, I've had visions of that moment, literal visions of that moment and the joy of that moment. I want us all to be there. Just stick around so we can all be there for that moment, please. And you'll find the role that you can play.

C (32:40)

I think John's story is so important because of the faith that he shows. He continues to stay in connection with the Savior. And I think if we can see each other not for our differences, but our acts of faith, our faithful clinging, we can find unity. We can become one in people who are here working on our faith, strengthening it, because faith really doesn't matter. But as we look at each other for the faith that we hold, and as you see, John's this is where we come together, and this is where we become one.

B (33:21)

Yeah.

C (33:21)

Yeah. Thanks so much, John.

A (33:31)

All right. Thanks so much for listening. We really hope that you enjoyed this session from last year's RESTORE Gathering with Alison Dayton and John Gustav Rathal. We hope you'll join us this year on September 25th through 27th at UVU in Orem, Utah. You can go to faithmatters.org for tickets.