Bob Christensen jokes that he can't help being this way — it's in his genes. He means being Mormon, not gay.

"To be a Mormon is almost ethnic, like being a Jew," the 55-year-old Eugene man says. "You are part of a tribe with a noble birthright. It is part of who you are."

But Christensen says being gay is also a part of who he is - which is why he's planning to spend Labor Day weekend in Portland at the 20th annual conference of Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons.

Christensen is well aware that "gay Mormon" strikes many as an oxymoron. While virtually every Christian denomination has wrestled with the intertwined issues of homosexuality and scriptural intent, few are as adamant as the Mormon church about the sanctity of family and marriage.

"We feel that sexual relationships outside of legal marriage are not condoned by the Lord," says Leland Nebeker, president of the Eugene stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "(People) have to decide whether to live their lives in accordance with that."

Many observers credit the church's emphasis on traditional family values as a big reason for its popularity.

Founded in New York in 1830, Mormonism has evolved into a major world religion with nearly 10 million followers. Latter-day Saints make up the second-largest denomination in Oregon with 126,000 members, trailing only Roman Catholics.

The church does not condemn individuals for being gay, but teaches that homosexuals must either change their sexual orientation or commit themselves to a life of celibacy.

Christensen, who spent 20 years teaching and editing in Taiwan, is among the few openly gay people within the Mormon flock. He speaks reverently of both Christ and Mormon founder Joseph Smith, and says he has no desire to leave the only church he's known since his Utah childhood.

"I look at the church as a human institution that God manages to bend to his uses from time to time," he says. "I have never come close to feeling forsaken because I know God loves me."

Christensen says he's involved with Affirmation out of concern for others who do feel forsaken.

"I know the loneliness and great pain that comes with thinking, `Am I the only one?' " he says.

The Affirmation conference is expected to draw between 200 and 300 people, says coordinator Rick Fernandez, a Portland lawyer. Affirmation claims about 400 members, but the number of closeted homosexuals in the church is presumed to be in the thousands, Fernandez says.

Most of Affirmation's members are men, and many have been married and have children, Fernandez says. The reason, he says, is the church's historic emphasis on early marriage - in part as a "cure" for homosexual tendencies.

Eric DeLora, a 39-year-old musician who recently moved to Eugene from Roseburg, fits the pattern. Raised in the Mormon church in Fresno, Calif., DeLora divorced after 13 years of marriage. He and his ex-wife share custody of their four children.

On June 1, 1997, a few weeks after his father died, DeLora "came out" to his wife and children, and then to church leaders. He was "disfellowshipped" for violating church standards.

"I was told I could remain in the church and be homosexual, so long as I didn't engage in any sexual activity for the rest of my life," he says.

Today, DeLora says he thinks "he's moving closer to not being a Mormon." It's a difficult admission to make, because the church has been so central to his life.

Like Christensen, DeLora served abroad for two years as a Mormon missionary. He was active in church leadership, serving on his stake's high council and overseeing its missionary work. A talented musician, he played the organ when church President Gordon Hinckley - revered within the church as a living prophet - addressed the faithful in Eugene in 1996.

Still, DeLora says he has no other option but to distance himself from the church.

"I sacrificed who I was so others would feel good about themselves," he says. "That kind of dishonesty wears you down."

Will the church ever change? DeLora is doubtful, but he finds hope in what happened in 1978, when the church unexpectedly altered 150 years of teaching and declared that black men could enter the priesthood. Change is possible, he says.

Fernandez, in Portland, says the church has been more active in recent years in its anti-gay efforts, urging church members, for example, to lobby their legislators in support of measures that would ban the recognition of same-sex marriages.

At the same time, Fernandez cites evidence of "small but significant shifts" in the church's view toward gay members. The church no longer blames parents for their children's homosexuality, and no longer advocates marriage as a "cure" for homosexuality, he says.

Some observers even find hope in the church president's use of the word "gays" in a newspaper interview last year. Gay advocates say church leaders have long avoided the word, for fear of implying that people may be "born that way" instead of having a correctable behavioral problem.

Fernandez says some Mormon leaders have embraced the idea of "reparative therapy," in which gays are told they can change their sexual orientation through prayer and religious instruction. Many Affirmation members have attempted and then rejected such efforts, he says.

Nebeker, the Eugene stake president, says he's intrigued by the notion that sexual orientation may be related to differences in brain chemistry.

"I think it's prudent to do less condemnation and more understanding," he says.

But Nebeker adds that it's hard to imagine how the church could ever abide homosexuality. The church teaches that marriage between a man and woman is essential to God's eternal plan, and is ordained by divine design.

Even dissent can be problematic.

"There's no action against a person for being gay," Nebeker says. "But if a person attacks the church or tries to convince others to attack the church, that's different."

Christensen, for his part, says he's questioning, not attacking. But it's a tightrope walk.

He is gay, he says, and he is Mormon.

"It would be easier for me to be ex-communicated than to leave on my own," he says.

"It's my tribe."

MORE INFORMATION
You can contact Affirmation by mail at P.O. Box 46022, Los Angeles, CA 90046, by phone at (323) 255-7251, or at its Web site, www.affirmation.org

Copyright © 1998 The Register-Guard
Reprinted with permission.