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A recent cover article in The Advocate, a national LGBT magazine, exposed the Mormon Church's anti-gay politics along with examples of gay Mormons driven to suicide and other traumatic events when religion and homosexuality don't reconcile. In 1980, at the age of 17, I converted to the Mormon faith. One year later, after being taught incessantly that I needed to marry a woman, I went up to one of the missionaries and to my bishop and told them that yes I wanted to get married—to another man. This was 1981 when there wasn't too much talk of gay marriage.

Being a sexually repressed gay youth brought with it depression, suicidal thoughts, self-hatred, unhappiness and a sense that my life wasn't worth living. This is common in many gay youth who lack community support. Since I was reaching 19, my church leaders told me that I needed to be un-selfish and become a full-time missionary. I did just that.

Within four months of my full-time mission, I swallowed a bottle of pills as a reaction to the strong gay feelings that persisted in my life. When I told my mission president about this he arranged for me to meet with a Mormon therapist. For almost two years, he tried to teach me that gay people always ended up being alone in old age because they were too selfish and self-centered to take care of seniors in their youth. He said they ended up becoming pedophiles, that they had no place in heaven or in God's plan—producing hundreds of bible passages to prove this—and he ominously acknowledged that I was going to have to fight my gay feelings for life. If I remained abstinent or if I married a woman and had children, he said things would be okay.

When I finished my mission I was more depressed and hopeless than when I started, but I continued reparative therapy. I went to a Mormon hypnotherapist who assured me that through hypnosis I would be able to defeat my homosexuality. After many sessions that included seeing nude pictures and incomplete masturbation sessions, I was still as gay as ever. It was suggested to try aversive electroshock therapy, but I decided against it. The idea of sending electric shocks into my brain, or possibly my genitals, gave me the creeps.

In 1984, when I was 22-years-old, and with the help of a former missionary, I was able to say, "I am gay and that's it!" It was a definite step on a very long and traumatic coming-out process, but a coming-out nonetheless. I felt empowered and in charge of my life for the first time.

I believe that all religious groups should lead its gay youth into gay-affirmative services that will help them accept their gay orientation. To promote the destruction of our gay identity is an outline for tragedy, trouble and for a deadly dissolution of our very souls.

I am now 43 years old and have lived a gay life since that day in 1984 when I came out of the closet and stopped being a member of the Mormon Church. And for the last eleven years I have been in a relationship with my male partner. There is indeed a God that loves us after all.