The following is a story that appeared in the Bergen Record, a daily newspaper distributed in Northern New Jersey and the tri-state area. Ruth was remarkably kind and sympathetic as she researched this story. She did a comendable job on her piece. It's too bad the editor-in-cheif made her cut the story and burried it way in the back of the the second section of the paper!

Gay Mormons Seek Acceptance

When the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes a rare appearance in Manhattan on Sunday, 20,000 Mormons are expected to come hear his message of love and welcome.

Among them will be a handful of gay Mormons intent on delivering a quiet message of their own: Welcome us, too.

The delegates, from New York and New Jersey, are members of a national support group for gay Mormons called Affirmation. They are not firebrands, and they plan no disruptive protest of Latter-day Saints President Gordon B. Hinkley's appearance at Madison Square Garden.

Affirmation's goal, says New York chapter President Frank Susa, is to reach out to other lesbian and gay Mormons trying to reconcile their sexuality with a faith unequivocally opposed to gays and to remind church leaders that, "we are here, and we need their recognition and support."

No one knows how many of the 10 million Mormons worldwide are gay, but the ones who are struggle mightily. Like many other religions, the Church of Latter-day Saints has long disapproved of homosexuality, but the punishment it imposes is harsher than most. Leaders urge compassion for homosexuals, but they also say gays must either change their sexual orientation or commit themselves to a life of celibacy. Those who do not deny their sexuality are excommunicated.

Mormon teachings hold that to get into the "Celestial kingdom," believers must follow all commandments in the Gospel as interpreted by the Mormons. "One of these commandments is to live a morally clean life, and a homosexual life is not a morally clean life," said Richard DuBois of Mahwah, spiritual leader for 11 congregations in Bergen, Passaic, and Hudson counties, and Rockland County, N.Y. Some 23,000 Mormons live in New Jersey.

The pressure to deny their sexuality forces many gays to make a torturous choice between two elements central to their self-identity.

"The Mormon Church says, 'If you just ignore your sexuality, you can be part of us,' but your sexuality is who you are, it's how you love, and how can you separate that out?" said Kevin Maxwell, a Manhattan resident who grew up outside Salt Lake City in a family that has been part of the church for generations. After two years at a predominantly Mormon college and two years as a missionary, Maxwell left the faith, disillusioned.

"It's a horrible sense of betrayal, like you're being banished from this family that you love and is part of you," he said.

Some, like Maxwell, have broken from the church, but still need the support of gays who share their background. Others remain deeply devoted to the church. Of those, some struggle to stay chaste; others have lovers secretly.

For seven years, Paulo and Joseph attended weekly sacrament meetings and Bible classes at the Mormon church in Newark's Ironbound section. They held scripture readings in their Newark home and were leaders of their congregation.

All the while, they were also secret lovers.

"If we had been straight, we would have been the ideal Mormon couple, because we followed every Mormon custom, every commandment," said Paulo, who asked that their last names be withheld, fearing anti-gay harassment.

The deceit became unbearable. Three months ago, they moved to Union County, vowing to start over, this time without the lies.

"I want people to accept me as I am, but it's been very hard to leave," said Paulo, who attends a new Mormon church now, where he keeps a low profile. It was the church, he said without irony, that showed them how to live properly and treat each other well.

"I'm afraid that without the church, we'll forget about being with God, and we'll forget how to keep the relationship strong," he said.

Perhaps, some say, the church will one day throw open its doors to gays, just as it did to African-Americans in 1978, after Latter-day Saints President Spencer Kimball said he had a divine revelation. Until then, African-Americans were denied temple blessings, barring their ordination in the lay priesthood, involvement in church leadership, and a chance at the afterlife.

Church officials say the situations are not analagous. "Homosexual behavior is immoral; the color of one's skin is not," Mormon spokesman Don LeFevre said from his Salt Lake City office.

The church's long-standing position on sexuality has left many gays with an unshakable sense of guilt, duplicity, and despair.

"It's a very difficult choice: to retain your faith or have a chance at a loving relationship," said one devout man who attended a recent Affirmation meeting. The man, who did not want his name published, said that for all of his 52 years, he has remained celibate. When he meets men he's attracted to, he steels himself, deflecting friendships that could turn dangerously intimate. "I still haven't reconciled the church's stand with my own desires," he said.

For years, the church urged gays to enter traditional marriages as a way of fostering heterosexuality. John Adrian, who lives in Staten Island, says he was one of many urged to marry after therapists tried unsuccessfully to "cure" him of his homosexuality.

After 20 years of marriage and failed attempts to change him, Adrian's wife, also a Mormon, announced she had had a revelation: her husband needed to be true to himself. In January, she moved out, and he began dating men.

"I want . . . to be a model Mormon," said Adrian, who remains firm in his religious convictions. "I long for the day I can marry another man and finally have the kind of marriage my wife and I were never able to have."

Acceptance of such a union is unlikely to come soon, given church opposition. Last year, the Mormons filed a brief in the same-sex marriage case before the Hawaii Supreme Court, arguing that state-sanctioned gay marriage would be "devastating" to the traditional family. The case is still pending.

Meanwhile, gay Mormons continue struggling to find their way. Susa, Affirmation's New York president, had hoped that attending Brigham Young University and immersing himself in religion would cure him. In college he sought "reparative" therapy to find the heterosexuality that had eluded him. He tried hypnotherapy and dating girls. He even considered suicide.

"I kept wondering, if gay is so bad, what was God thinking when he made me this way?" Instead of shaking his homosexuality, it was his faith in church teachings that began to crumble.

In 1996, Susa penned a letter to the Bishop of Manhattan's 3rd Ward, asking that his name be removed from membership records and that he be released from the covenants that membership in the Mormon faith entailed.

"I seek this so that I may live freely by my own conscience," he wrote.

And as he did, he wept, both in sadness and in relief.

Origin: Organized in 1830 in western New York State.

Headquarters: Salt Lake City, Utah, since 1847.

Membership: 10 million; more than doubled in 15 years.

Beliefs: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith, whose revelations became the basis of the faith. In some ways, the theology is similar to other evangelical Christian doctrines, including the notion of eternal salvation through Christ, but Mormons also believe that souls can be baptized into the church after death, and that family life — including marriage — continues after death. The church, which is run by lay male clergy, requires its members to follow a rigorous conservative lifestyle, not only in sexual mores but in the roles men and women must follow at home.

Copyright © 1998 Bergen Record Corp.