This article on gay & lesbian Mormons appeared in The Event this week, with Duane Jennings on the cover, and quotes by Duane, Gary Watts, and Alan Blodgett among others.

By Joey Marquart

Their endurance has divided families, communities and churchgoers for decades. In Utah, they've become such hot-button items that mere mention of their existence strikes fear and aversion in the hearts of the faithful. But as support groups unite and increasing numbers of Utah's hidden community come out, they're claiming their voice, they're planning summer activities and they're moving next door. They're gay Mormons, and they're looking for new definitions.

An oxymoron? Heck no, says Duane E. Jennings.

"I am a Mormon in the cultural, spiritual, and ethnic sense of the word," says Jennings. "I live and testify to God working in my life, and I believe the Book of Mormon is the Second Testament of Christ." Having served a mission in South Africa and answered all his church callings, Jennings, now 42, has found that his lifelong faith in the LDS church - strengthened by over six generations of Mormon ancestry - has placed him in a precarious position. As he is, a homosexual in a committed relationship, the church doesn't want him.

But what if he wants the church?

An Activist of Faith

"People inquire about our position on those who consider themselves so-called gays and lesbians. My response is that we love them as sons and daughters of God. They may have certain inclinations which are powerful and which may be difficult to control... If they do not act upon these inclinations, then they can go forward as do all other members of the Church." -Gordon B. Hinckley.

Faced with the threat of excommunication from the fastest-growing religion in the world - counting 10,752,986 members who practice the LDS faith in 175 different languages - Jennings has shifted his focus from church leaders to private scriptural study and personal prayer. He also serves in the local chapter of the international organization, "Affirmation."

Founded in Salt Lake City in 1977, the Wasatch Chapter of Affirmation counts over 200 members who go to meetings, firesides, mission reunions and service projects. Their goal - to provide a safe place for all homosexual, bisexual or transgendered Mormons to determine their Mormon identities - goes largely ignored by the LDS denomination. Church spokespersons declined comment on the group's existence and declined to comment on the church's advice that gay Mormons practice celibacy.

Unanswered letters to President Gordon B. Hinckley and Elder Boyd K. Packer have been drafted by Jennings, citing scriptures he deems incongruous with the church's stance. Packer, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, is the author of "To the One" and "To Young Men Only," two controversial pamphlets still printed by the LDS church, the latter of which instructs young men to "vigorously resist" sexual advances from other men and has been perceived to promote anti-gay violence.

Arguing that he should be able to marry a man of his choosing, in the temple, Jennings points out what he perceives as a double standard in the church's traditional view of marriage. The 1999 LDS Church Handbook states, "sexual relations within marriage are divinely approved not only for the purpose of procreating, but also as a means of expressing love and strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds..."

Jennings sees a double standard. "It is precisely for 'expressing love and strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds' that gay and lesbian couples seek for the recognition... of equal civil marriage rights," he says. And as for procreation, he asks, what about elderly couples and infertile couples who are allowed to marry? "Do they fulfill the biblical commandment to 'multiply and replenish?'"

Still waiting for an answer, Jennings makes do with official church announcements. "God-sanctioned marriage between a man and a woman has been the basis of civilization for thousands of years," Hinckley told church members last summer. "There is no justification to redefine what marriage is. Such is not our right, and those who try will find themselves answerable to God."

Jennings, however, finds himself not only answerable to God, but to a politically involved church and government who disallow any attempts to marry another man. "Not once in the Bible are loving, committed, same-sex relationships condemned," says Jennings. "Though I believe in the Bible, the Book of Mormon and other canonized scriptures, they were still written by humans and subject to a human understanding of the spirit. The human church has repeatedly shown itself to be imperfect and subject to various prejudices - at times failing to meet the spiritual and social needs of all God's children."

Polygamy, exclusion of black males and women from the priesthood, refusal to sanction gay marriage: all mistakes, says Jennings, by a well-meaning church.

Forging a Path: Mormon Lesbians

The often-overlooked Mormon lesbian finds little hope in the ranks of the Relief Society or in the words of church authorities emphasizing their duty to bear children for a man. With few models to follow, some sisters are finding their own way.

Meet Linda: An Ogden elementary school teacher recently called into the Primary presidency and a lesbian who feels unworthy in the eyes of the church.

"I've been a member of the church my whole life," says Linda. "I've always been the most righteous of my siblings, [largely] to overcompensate for my gayness." Recounting the horror she felt when, as a young lesbian, she read the words of former President Spencer W. Kimball likening homosexuality to murder, she says, "I felt overcome with hatred for myself."

Indeed, Kimball was never easy on homosexuals. In a 1980 address to the faithful, he states, "The unholy transgression of homosexuality is either rapidly growing or tolerance is giving it wider publicity... The Lord condemns and forbids this practice with a vigor equal to his condemnation of adultery and other such sex acts. And the Church will excommunicate as readily any unrepentant addict."

Repentance, perhaps, was the driving force in Linda's childhood. Maintaining straight A's, participating in school sports and assuming various leadership positions didn't lessen her "addiction" to women. Suicide seemed the only way out. "I remember thinking [when I was younger], 'I'm going to kill myself this weekend but I can't because I have to give a sharing time in Primary.'"

Today, Linda's tactic for reconciling homosexuality with Mormonism is simple: she doesn't. "As human beings, we are fallible," she says. "The church is fallible."

Still, despite her condemned lifestyle, Linda continues to love the church. "I love meeting with people who love God, who love the process of spiritual refinement...that's why I'm so afraid of losing my membership." Living in Weber County, Linda is gentle about her ideology. When asked to provide material for a Sunday school lesson, she chose tolerance, bringing up a specific example from her school involving a group of boys who threatened to rape a lesbian girl. When she started crying, she feared that she'd given herself away. Instead, two mothers who were struck by her compassion asked if she'd be willing to date their sons.

At age 29, however, Linda is ready to get married. "I hate the fact that the church doesn't provide me with the opportunity to be a 'good' person, to go through the temple, to have a valued family, to commit to someone completely." Currently committed to another woman, Linda still struggles for a place that feels right.

Confused by Relief Society reminders that she is forfeiting important growth by remaining unmarried, she muses, "Either I forfeit growth and keep the commandment of celibacy, or I obtain growth in a relationship but break the commitment of celibacy. It's lose-lose."

Adding to these struggles, Mormon lesbians can have a difficult time finding other Mormon lesbians. Men easily outnumber women in LDS-groups like Affirmation, maintains 19 year-old Jessica of Murray. A spiritual Mormon with a dangerous letter attached to her church records -a forma brief warning by a former bishop of her lesbian tendencies, Jessica and her girlfriend of two years do their best to nurture their spirituality. They hold their own firesides, read scriptures, plan Relief Society-style homemaking evenings and bear witness of their Mormon faith to each other. Jessica is currently learning to quilt with her girlfriend's LDS mother.

"We make each other's faith stronger," she says. "I wish we could get married." Though she rarely attends church for fear of provoking an ex-communication, Jessica is confident that, as gay-friendly politics gain ground, the church will change its position.

"Every time there's a political movement," she says, "the church changes their mind -from women's suffrage to the civil rights movement. It's good that way. The church and state naturally go together."

LDS Gays and the Parents that Love Them

Crises abound when gays come out in LDS families. For some parents, however, a middle ground affords peaceful coexistence of two seemingly disparate things: their religious values and their gay children. Such is the case with the 200-plus members of Family Fellowship, a service born in 1993 to support LDS families with homosexual members.

"It's kind of a Mormon PFLAG [Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays]," says Family Fellowship co-chair Gary Watts.

FF members share their witness that gay and lesbian Mormons can be blessings in the lives of their families, says Watts. To that end, the organization has pulled in national speakers to address LDS-specific issues at their annual Intermountain Conference on Homosexuality, to be held in the Behavioral Science Auditorium at the University of Utah this Friday and Saturday. Addressing issues from reparative therapy to gay spirituality, the $25 conference aims to integrate the concepts of homosexuality and family values.

Still a practicing Latter-Day Saint, Gary Watts lives with his wife in Provo. While raising six kids in the Church, the couple learned that two of their children -a son and a daughter - were homosexuals.

"It's a blessing," says Gary of his gay children. "Because of them, we are more sensitive of other minorities and aware of the inequality many people deal with. When everything's going your way," he says, indicating his LDS family's upper-middle class status in Utah County, "you don't notice the pains of others."

The nuclear family, Watts maintains, can benefit by including gays. "Many view gays as a threat to the family," he says. "But there's compelling evidence that suggests the opposite. Take Denmark, where civil unions are legal [between homosexuals]." After 11 years, he says, there is no data to suggest the country's crime or divorce rates have been affected. "Perceptions that homosexuals are anti-family are not valid."

When confronted with fellow Mormons who disagree with Watts' support of sanctioning same-sex couples, he enthusiastically responds, "My gay son and my lesbian daughter would make terrific parents." Forced celibacy, he says, is an unacceptable option, leaving the gay Mormon lonely and desperate.

"If I had to choose between the church and my wife, it would be a slam dunk -my wife."

What Now?

Rhetoric aside, what's a gay Mormon to do? Gary Watts urges gays to reclaim family values. "I'm tired of religions co-opting the idea that they are the only ones with family values," says Gary Watts. "My family -including my gay son and lesbian daughter -has many of the same traditional values advocated by higher authorities. But the church tears my family apart. The idea that any church has a corner on family values is nonsensical."

Watts urges Mormon homosexuals to stand up for themselves and for gay-friendly Mormons to come out of the closet.

Linda from Ogden contemplates coming out to her bishop. "I need to be putting a face to the word lesbian," she says. "I do notice that homosexuality is not referred to as directly in the church as it used to be," she added. "I think many Mormons are realizing someone they love is gay, but I don't know how there could be a paradigm shift in my lifetime." A former church employee foresees a crack in church policy under social pressure. "The church authorities will change their anti-gay stance only when society at large presses for it," says Alan Blodgett, an excommunicated gay Mormon with three bishopric positions and a high council post on his resume.

"Church authorities have a difficult time changing their position on anything because they claim to be inspired in what they are doing. A change throws a cloud over their past inspiration."

Affirmation's Duane Jennings sees persistent attempts at dialogue with church authorities as key. "The gay Mormon's plea for recognition is falling on deaf ears," he says.

"The church needs to continue the restoration of truth, to continue to gain new understanding -line upon line and precept upon precept," says Jennings, borrowing from church doctrine.

But, with little response from higher authorities, Mormon "sexual minorities" strengthen their LDS ties -put in peril by the threat of ex-communication -with non-denominational groups like Affirmation and Family Fellowship. How does the church respond to the efforts of its actively gay sisters and brethren to enrich their LDS identity?

For now, no comment.