My story is quite unique, I feel.

I knew was was gay from a young age, my mother remarried a TBM, he is a great man, and been an amazing role model as a father. I remember being sat in church and being told that only heterosexual relationships were ordained of good and being gay was not natural and wrong. I struggled with this for many years. When I was 14 at young men's camp they beat me up and poured fuel on me, they were calling me gay and made me beg as one of them was finding a lighter, ( I still wake up crying and can't go near filling stations without having flashbacks from the smell). Of course the stake prez was informed and what happened was swept under the carpet, no police were called and no disciplinary took place for this. I continued to go to church as it kept my mother happy and made home life easier.

At 16, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she was my rock and like another parent to me. I watched for 2 years as the cancer took over her body and she lost all dignity, the last time I looked in her eyes I saw a broken lady, who just looked as though she wanted to die. When she died I realised that if there was a loving god, I certainly had no time for him. I left church and decide to just enjoy being me, feeling no guilt about being gay, something I never had a choice over, I had many partners and had my heart broken several times, but I loved me for the first time in my life. My old bishop (a man I have still a lot of respect for as a human being) came to my home, he asked me about my new lifestyle, I was open and honest, I told him that while at church as a member of youth the church beliefs had led me to being suicidal and that I had tried to kill myself several times after the camp experience, he was confused and tried to recite the church line that I could have counselling to "overcome my sexuality problem" with that I became close with him and showed him the door.

In 2010, I met a girl, who I saw being hurt by men, I was in a very bad relationship also. We became good friends, we laughed and cried together, I loved her and how she made everything seem ok. She is pagan and had many questions about the Mormon faith I explained all the believes including sealing. She laughed and said as a pagan when you die, you are with the ones you loved anyway and didn't need some man to do a ceremony to make it happen. Anyway, I saw her get hurt by another man, I decided that to save her from being hurt by another idiot I would become her boyfriend sort of thing. We decided to have a child together, and become a family, we have been married 3 years and have 3 children. My Mother thinks that I changed my sexuality and it is thanks to god... I haven't but the church has it's claws truly sunk in to her.

I learned more about people and how wonderful they are out of church than I ever did in church. I love to walk in the feuds near our home and just appreciate beauty without it having to have some designer who wants my freedom and liberty.

Love is beautiful and life is to be lived, make the most of the time you have and stop thinking of when you die.

Razzi D