Category: Family issues

Our Families (Paul and Tony–Remembering Love, Marriage and Children on Valentine’s Day)

Often it feels there’s a lot of heat and little light generated around the topic of marriage for gay and lesbian couples.  In my personal experience, we must never lose track of the real impact that the political has on…

A Valentine to My Gay and Lesbian Friends–Welcome to the World of Romantic Love!

I have a story I want you to listen to and remember on Valentine’s Day and hopefully beyond. When my former husband Gerald was staying with me at the end of his life in 1984, preparing to die from AIDS…

Blind Follower Or Active Seeker Of Truth?

I asked a lot of questions about the church growing up. I would ask my parents, my seminary teacher, my young women’s leaders, etc. If my question was one of those to which we don’t have answers, or falls in…

Ryan Andresen Is My Son (Boys Scouts, Mormons and Inclusion)

Having a teenager in the home is an always fascinating experience in parenting.  I heard one parent describe it as having a movie or food critic living in your own home!  But I find it a source of fun and…

The Catalyst

I am the father of a young gay son.  I am also a lifelong member of the LDS Church, a temple recommend holder and the Elder’s Quorum President in my ward.  Having been thrown into the teeth of one of…

Transgender Children: An Easy Way for the LDS Church to Get it Right

  While shadowing Dr. Norm Spack in his work with the GeMS clinic at Children’s hospital Boston, I couldn’t help but wonder what my Mormon pioneer ancestors would think if they could see me now. Dr. Spack is one of…

My Birth Defect

I’ve always had an excellent memory.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  Some of my earliest memories are feelings of frustration, inferiority, and wanting to be someone different that I was.  I learned very young that I didn’t…

Born of Goodly Parents

Most Mormon LGBT are traumatized by their Mormon experience; I was not.  My narrative begins with the question “Why, as a gay youth, was my Mormon experience so positive?