http://ldsvoicesofhope.org/voice.php?v=35#.UngGF_msh8F

This trend of gay Mormons who force themselves to get married despite being homosexual in order to please the lord is very troubling to me.

Not because I think they should live their lives in any certain way, that's their call, not mine, but because I feel like it perpetuates the notion among other gay LDS teens and young adults that same sex attraction feelings are wrong and bad and that they can just push them down and get married like they're 'supposed to.'

Seriously, live your life however you want, including, if you really want to, forcing yourself to not be with the gender you're attracted to. But when young LDS tweens and teens who feel same sex attraction see this they begin to think that this is the answer. They begin to start the impossible and psychologically damaging process of pushing away those feelings with the hope that they can keep them 'under control' and find a nice LDS girl who will accept them and get married to her so they can be relieved of the feelings after death.

What an awful way to live! Again, if that's what you want fine, but don't give such false hope to kids struggling with their inner feelings being in conflict with what they're being told in church.

It makes me sick that the LDS church is passing this off as the answer. "You're gay? No problem! Just marry a girl and have sex with her so you'll have kids and you can just deal with not ever being with the gender of people you feel naturally attracted to."

This isn't an answer, it's a sad delusion. Any member of the top 15 who would tell a homosexual that the answer is to just get married and have sex with a member of the opposite sex in order to procreate as God tells them to should be forced to do the same. They should be forced to date, marry, have sex, and live with someone of the same sex. The relationship would of course fail because it isn't natural for them. It's not any more natural for them than it is for the gay person forced to live in an unnatural relationship for them.

I really like this guy and I wish him the best. Him being gay was one of those things that people always assumed, but was never confirmed. When he got married I think some were surprised. Seeing this wasn't too much of a surprise. I figured eventually this would happen.

I just wish they weren't perpetuating unrealistic lifestyle options to young LDS members who have same sex attraction.

They are finally stopping this practice as official church policy but telling a gay person to live celibate their whole life is not really any better.

And what of the spouses of these gay people?

How fair is it to be married to someone who doesn't *really* want you? There's a number of spouses of teh gays here on this board. Their pain is palpable through the internet. I think that is just as cruel to the straight partner as it is to the gay person.

It sucks for the women read the story of Emily Pearson who had both a gay mormon father and husband.

http://www.dancingwithcrazy.com/

I agree.....

"Who cares if you are gay! You can still conform to the mormon family ideal....this is the most important thing in the world, and your eternal salvation is on the line! Oh happy day!"

As long as it's possible..... who cares how hard it will be and how miserable (if it's miserable then you are not being righteous enough, try harder). Or that you will be soooo much happier living authenticity....cause thats not true happiness, just satans imitation. As long as we try and act happy, in the most cheesy way possible, then we know it must be what jesus wants!

These stories just make me so sad...

It's a sad situation all around. These guys (and lets face it I'm sure there are more than a few homosexual women married to men for the same reason) are so indoctrinated that they feel it's better to deny a huge part of who they are and make a decision that they think will open doors for them in the afterlife.

They HAVE to justify it to themselves and those around them. I understand your frustration at wishing that those who sadly make this choice wouldn't deludedly share it with others in a manner that suggests that their lives are all rosy, when it's usually obvious to see that they are not, but how can they do that? They can't very well say, well, I wanted to feel like I had companionship and a partner, the church said that I couldn't unless it was with a member of the opposite sex, so that, being my only choice, is what I did. It sucks, so you shouldn't do it.

I'm glad that the church is no longer actively encouraging these types of relationships, at least they're not officially. What they are doing now isn't much better, but at least they aren't getting into false relationships.

I feel bad for the people who have been put in these situations, both spouses, because lets face it, they both have a lot to deal with. The mental gymnastics has got to be incredibly painful.

Here is a quote from Oaks--that I've posted many times. It is probably 4 or 5 years old, but they've been telling us for years now that they no longer tell gays to get married. WRONG!

OAKS: We are sometimes asked about whether marriage is a remedy for these feelings that we have been talking about. President Hinckley, faced with the fact that apparently some had believed it to be a remedy, and perhaps that some Church leaders had even counseled marriage as the remedy for these feelings, made this statement: “Marriage should not be viewed as a therapeutic step to solve problems such as homosexual inclinations or practices.” To me that means that we are not going to stand still to put at risk daughters of God who would enter into such marriages under false pretenses or under a cloud unknown to them. Persons who have this kind of challenge that they cannot control could not enter marriage in good faith.

On the other hand, persons who have cleansed themselves of any transgression and who have shown their ability to deal with these feelings or inclinations and put them in the background, and feel a great attraction for a daughter of God and therefore desire to enter marriage and have children and enjoy the blessings of eternity — that’s a situation when marriage would be appropriate.

_____

Back in the day--they told me NOT TO TELL anyone. Now they are coming out and announcing it? MOST people did not know my ex was gay until he left me. Even then, the ward members didn't know--just my family. Very few friends, only immediate family.

What, they are 3 years in? Oh, our life was rosy 3 years in, too. We had darling 2 year old twins. We were the envied couple of the ward--AND the singles ward bishops and SP were telling other gays to get married and using us as an example of how we were making it work. The bishop who first counseled us to marry--nor the LDS SS therapist--let alone the SP have no clue he left me 17 years ago.

Just like Josh Weed--I'd like to see this couple in another 10 to 15 years. I doubt their followup will be nearly as nice as mine is--considering he and I are friends. He also has friends from high school (who both live in Rexburg) who are still for all intents and purposes--56 and still married with 6 to 8 children a piece. The husbands cheat all the time.

It is the children I'm most concerned with. I'd prefer a gay couple have children and the children be raised in a loving environment--than to put kids through what my kids have been through.

Oh--whoops! I forgot. I'm still married to him. I must have made it work???!?!?!



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2013 05:18PM by cl2.

Hey cl2, I'm still married to mine too (26 years) so I must have made it work too!!! hahahahahah.

That is why my kids hate him half the time, why he is living in our basement and has no car....

I could go on and on. Right now we are sort of friends, he is trying to be a dad again. But as soon as he meets someone then he will drop us like a hot potato.

Yep, 3 years in we were doing fucking great!! Couldn't have kids, but sure were trying.

I caught that deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes a few times. I wonder if that's how I look, sans the hand holding.

This is just a different way of saying "get married so you will be cured" which was the case when I married my gay ex. I didn't know, but he did. But he was told to marry a good Mormon girl.

Life has been hell, especially for kids the past several years.

Not worth it!!!!

Not only does it hurt the gay individual but their spouse. I can't imagine the heartache I would feel to be married to someone who wasn't attracted to me no matter what I did. Or having to constantly worry they are living another life without my knowledge and exposing me to others.

This just keeps happening over and over again, no matter what lip service the suits in Salt Lake give. As this woman will soon realize is that she has joined a club she never asked to be a member of--ex wife of a gay man.

My gay ex husband and I are friends. But THANK HEAVEN we are not married to each other anymore... this year marks 20 years since our divorce.

When will this ever stop happening???? It breaks my heart.

mondaymorning Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> http://ldsvoicesofhope.org/voice.php?v=35#.UngGF_m
> sh8F
>

>
> Not because I think they should live their lives
> in any certain way, that's their call, not mine,

But it not just their lives that get ruined down the road. It is the life of the wife and the any children born into the charade.

The wife knows and willingly goes along with the situation. That's her call. The daughter is a victim, I agree.

I'm just saying nobody should be told how to live their lives. That's one of here best revelations after leaving TSCC. However, I think it's wrong to publish this lifestyle as a solution to gay teens struggling to live who they truly are while being Mormon as well.

take my word on that one. I knew before I married my husband, too. I didn't understand what it is to be gay--what it means to HIM. You can suppress your natural feelings for only so long . . . If you had put me on that couch 20 some odd years ago, I would have said the same thing.

We were doing something special. I was saving a soul. Blah, blah, blah, blah. We had PURPOSE. We were GOING TO DO IT. WE WERE SPECIAL! We were beating the odds.

I never really GOT IT until I had sex with a heterosexual. Chances are VERY, VERY STRONG that this guy WILL at least CHEAT. If not leave.

She has NO CLUE what she is dealing with here. She has no choices in the matter--when he decides he can't suppress it any longer.

Thing is--as I've talked to more and more ex-wives of gays, what I find out is that many of them rationalize a lot of things they do. I had one woman tell me that her ex had never had sex with another man up until just before she kicked him out. Oh sure. They'd been married 26 years. He had been kissing, BJs, etc., everything but "intercourse"--but he rationalized that that wasn't sex. My ex told me that he had never had a "lover." He meant he had never LIVED with someone.

I'll say again SHE HASN'T A CLUE.

I will add--as someone below said--my heart breaks for him, too. I saw my ex's pain. He tortured himself for cheating on me. He was SOOO miserable. We were all victims--not just my kids and I--but the kids the most. They had NO CHOICE in the matter. They didn't even have a chance to buy into the "dream" the church offered. We chose to have them--because we wanted to believe.

And THANK YOU to all you gay guys who post here who CHOSE not to marry a woman. THANK YOU!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2013 11:12AM by cl2.

This makes me so incredibly angry!!! Both personally and for them and the church. Where will they be in 15 years?

I would hope the best for them but I know better. Been there, still there in many ways.

They are so young and only married a few years, so they have no clue. They at least know about it. How many times will he have to "act out" before she gets it.

I just want to slap the both of them!!!!

So unfair for all of them, and their baby.

...marriage.
Lots of mormon straight couples have passionless marriages too.
Its wrong for the church to pressure anyone to get married gay or straight. They stuff marriage into their little box which doesnt account for the diversity of peoples own intuition about it. They should stay out of marriage but they are a marriage cult. Its their product.

When I came out on my mission and my mission President decided I simply needed counseling, the counselor showed me a bunch of videos like this. (By coincidence it was the same week that mormonsandgays.org was released).

I think they thought showing videos of people saying "look its possible, see? I did it" would snap something into me. but honestly all I feel after videos like this is a sickening feeling. Like I needed another reason to hate who I am.

And they keep saying they do not counsel marriage as a remedy anymore... well that's true, they no longer claim it will be a remedy, but I have been counseled three times now to go ahead and marry a woman anyway. "It won't make you straight, but it is still your duty"

So now the wife has to deal with the fact that she's been 'used' for religious conformity and what is their daughter going to think when she grows up and has to face the fact that Daddy produced her out of religious conformity?

I feel sorry for all these people involved, they are all victims of spiritual abuse and I wish them all nothing but the best going forward. I hope they can produce some semblance of normality out of all of this, not least for their daughters sake.

I will say this, they've got balls coming out and dealing with it head on.

SMH

They are under the delusion that if the just "live the gospel" they will be blessed and everything will be fine.

Watching this film, I have to wonder if he really believes what he is saying.
Or does he already know it is all wishful thinking?

The wife is a naive little girl who bought into the fantasy.But chances are high that hubs will be out the door, by the time he hits middle age at the latest.

Life can be such a cruel awakening. Most of us have seen this cycle play iiself out in the lives of friends.

TSCC may not focus on this as a solution anymore but the bloggers and culture are starting to revive it. The weed blogger and stories published like this are giving false hope to millions of LDS teens. TSCC may not say it anymore but they let the apologists say it for them.

This just ruined my morning! I only got half way through when he began to bear his testimony. That's when I had to stop listening! THis breaks my heart. NOt just because he is a gay man married to a straight women but because he has fallen into a trap of he is not good enough the way he was. HE needed to sacrifice to be more then he already was.

I'm angry about this and I don't even know these people. And who is the saint sitting next to him. Does she deserve to have less in her marriage just because god said so. HEll he must have not been that bad of a kid because they still let him go on a mission.

Uuh! This is just disappointing on so many levels!! Praise the lord, he followed the church and he is healed!!

Just take a look at the gleam in his eyes LOL

This won't work longterm, no matter how hard he tries to fit a square peg into a round hole.

If this 'marriage' experiences the slightest difficulty, the whole structure will come crashing down.

You always wish the best for people but gosh, this is hard to witness.
Two babes in the woods.

The church's claim that it doesn't pressure gay single members to date and marry people of the opposite sex is bogus. When I left last year, the stake I was in was still actively pressuring gay men (whether they were active or not) to get married, and they were pressuring women to date and "entice" these men. Periodically there would be an uproar about it and the stake leaders would back off for awhile, but at the time I finally bailed on the church it was still going on.

"Trend?" I don't think so. Gay people have been marrying straight people since who knows when.

In 1992, GAMOFITES (Gay Mormon Fathers) was organized. We're not all that active a group now, but in our "heyday" we were more than 500 strong.

At the time, I commented to the group that hopefully, there will some day no longer be a need for GAMOFITES.

Maybe the gay-straight LDS marriages have slowed down some lately.... but I'm guessing that there is still enormous pressure for young gay LDS kids to follow the prophet in every way, and that includes heteromarrying & raising kids.

As for me, I'm still bewildered by, on the one hand, the wrongness of being a gay man & marrying a straight woman .... and on the other hand, being so very grateful for the chance to be a father & loving my kids and grandkids.

I feel sorry for any young gay person, LDS or not, who gives in to the social pressure to get hetero-married. Today there's no need to do it. I wish & hope that young people will realize that they have any number of choices about marriage & family, if they do it at all.

I don't get what would compel these people to sit down and do such and interview. Seriously. They clearly believe that homosexuality (excuse me, homosexual activity) is a sin. It is BAD. It will lead you down to HELL. It is UGLY and DISGUSTING and there IS something wrong with you if you feel these feelings. If that's how they view homosexuality, what's with the compulsion to tell the world that one of the spouses suffers with temptations to engage in it? Even as a TBM, I wouldn't be doing videos telling everybody of all the "sins" I am struggling with. Why invite all of the judgmental TBMs to look at you differently, and wonder if this guy is attracted to their husband or, of course, their 13-year old Boy Scout. Every time people in his ward see him, they will be wondering "what's it like for him to have sex with his wife; does he imagine it's a guy?" or "I wonder if he's slept with a guy yet?" Also, it's one thing to be gay and raise a child in the knowledge that it is normal and acceptable to be gay. But what about when their daughter gets old enough to have all of her friends, who are being taught LIKE HER that gay is bad and gross, see her dad talk about how he likes other dudes? They are being used and it disgusts me, and I think they will regret this video some day. Unfortunately, the internet is forever.