I just got a phone call from my ex-mo niece, who came across a link to a recent interview of her uncle (my brother) in which he describes his life-long stuggle with the euphemistically described "same-sex attraction" through a long marriage, fathering 8 children, the death of his wife, and his recent remarriage to a very TBM woman.

The interview is very moving, even seen from an exmo viewpoint, and includes a subtle chiding of the church for not providing more resources and being more supportive of members going through this struggle.

The interview (about 45 minutes) is on the Northstar website:
http://www.ldsvoicesofhope.org/voice.php?v=20#.UagLBUDVBHe

I have sent him an e-mail expressing my support and continued love.

Wow! Shockeroni indeed!

Congratulations Richard. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a gay brother. Please report back on how this new information impacts your relationship with your brother, if indeed it does. I bet that you'll be a big support for him through this important time in his life.

That's a long long time to hide who you are. There must have been some very rough times in there.

That's taking it for the team all right.

Eight kids with your second favorite gender!

Good for him--took some guts.

Ana

or maybe NOT taking it for the team...


sorry, couldn't resist

I can't help but wonder how the new wife is taking this news. How does she fit into his world now that she knows he's gay?

Seems like a nightmare in the making.

mia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't help but wonder how the new wife is taking
> this news.

That's what I was wondering too.

How is his new wife taking the news? Likely, she is devastated. I know from personal experience that wrapping your mind around that kind of disclosure is the hardest thing a partner in a mixed orientation marriage goes through.

These "Voices of hope" videos are intended to provide putative models of heterosexual normalcy for gay LDS members. They also convey a set of values and a language for making sense of gay sexuality to members of the larger LDS community.

What kind of model do these narratives offer? When I watch them, every person profiled sounds miserable--choked up and tortured, delusional and repressed, consumed by guilt. To me, they sound more like voices of despair than voices of hope.

How can anybody watch these videos without experiencing a deep sense of sadness for these people and the self-acceptance, happiness, and love they lost out on because of a ridiculous belief system?

I wish your brother well. His story is breaking my heart tonight.

+1,00000000

I agree. And the video was so painful to watch, I had to stop half-way through. I just wanted to hug this man and tell him he can be himself. My heart was breaking as I listened to him talk until I couldn't listen any more.

Richard, take care of your bro if you can.

I agree. Having had the same journey, albeit at a younger age, I hurt for him. I also know that as long as he affiliates with Northstar or similar groups and as long as he continues believing what the church teaches him, the emotional damage he's suffering will only increase.

I hope he can continue to grow and be brave. Personally, these videos make me sick because even though these people have accepted (on some level) their homosexuality, they are still believing horrible, destructive lies.

You're right, Richard. That video is very moving. Your brother comes across as a very likeable man.

It's also very painful to watch, wondering how his life might be like without his Mormon beliefs. I can almost see his beliefs strangling him.

Good for him, for doing this video.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2013 01:40AM by spaghetti oh.

I can only imagine how it must be for you, Richard. It's much harder for me to imagine being as emotionally attached to Mormonism as Michael appears. I haven't really seen that many TBMs, but that's easily and by far the most convincing devotion I've ever seen. All because of some 19th-century con men. Ugh! Even if the organization they created had redeeming qualities, they could never outweigh the damage done to hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2013 03:49AM by munchybotaz.

+1

watching this broke my heart. That's all I can say.x

+1

Your poor brother couldn't give up mormon thinking and had to suffer so long from it.

Richard - I don't have time to watch the video right now, but what was your brother exed for?

I wish your brother the best, Richard. I'm glad Michael has you for a brother.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2013 04:16AM by robertb.

Fascinating.

;o)

my BIL is gay and the whole family knows it, yet he's married and was recently a stake Pres and has been a Bishop. Don't know if he's ever "acted upon impulses" but he does tend to work "long ours at the office" and is hardly home according to his kids.

I am usually the first one to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the church for anything...

but you have to remember that 65 years ago (or ~45 when he was getting married) the world was a different place and there was very little support for gay people anywhere. Homosexuals who made it into our public consciousness (Via TV and Radio) were camp, flouncing, limp-wristed figures of fun.... and that was nothing to do with TSCC.

But good luck to the guy for facing his true self.

That's my mom's excuse for everything. Can't help noticing how it never makes anything less glaringly wrong or stupid. It's the retroactive form of "but everybody else is doing it" that never worked for me.

But everybody else owned slaves!

But everybody else killed the natives and took their land!

But everybody else beat their wives and children!

But everybody else was a fucking idiot who couldn't tell there was something physical going on with the gays and lesbians, and assumed the god who had made them that way would punish them for it!

See? It just doesn't work.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2013 08:58AM by munchybotaz.

It's not an excuse.
I don't think like that myself

but if you think that you can simply dismiss society's mores at the time, you are wrong.

You cant re-invent history and put 2013's values on it.

and, no doubt, in 50 years time, there will be a new set of societal standards and people will think 'how the F* could people have those attitudes in 2013?'

Actually people used to care much less back in the day.
We've already had a gay president, but let's just hide THAT little factoid!
The prudes have been on the march for a while now, whitewashing history, pretending we are so much more "degenerate and lacking morals" these days, when that is simply not the case. Nope, most people have simply got their panties in a twist much worse nowadays than they ever did in the past.

It's important to remember different times and context in order to fully understand why a 65-year-old man is still torturing himself.

I did not fully accept being gay until 2008! Growing up, the media accepted gays, but everyone around me was "abomination" this and "AIDS-jokes" that. Furthermore, most of what the news media showed did not appeal to a Mormon kid. I didn't want to lick other men in public and prance around in women's clothes on a parade float. All the yelling and fist pumping scared me. That was the context in which I grew up.

I would have had to objectively look at a religion that, if I rejected it as a boy or a teen, would have devastated my family, and it would have entailed a lot of painful, studious research in a library. That was beyond my ability.

Hardly anyone back in 1968, when Richard's brother was 20, would have had the courage to stand against a culture where the majority didn't know anything about homosexuality except that they occasionally got arrested. Changing the minds of millions takes time. Thankfully, now the media is showing more and more normal people who happen to be attracted to the same sex, who are living normal lives, and are happy. Back then, even the experts thought it was a disease.

In this regard, mentioning that it was a different time is, no pun intended, quite apropos.

I too am a gay 65 year old male. Temple married, five kids, still married. While I applaud that Michael is doing some needed processing and I am certain you, Richard, can and will be of great help and support to him, I find him far from being authentic. He is self flagellating. Been there. Done that. Not self empowering.

Great he is to where he is but as long as he continues to give his power away to something/someone outside of him self (the TSCC and it's reapresentatives) the healing within can't begin.. JMHO.

For myself, I am glad for the experience and the journey. I wouldn't be who and where I am today if I had not tread that path. I am now to a place where I can adore me without any reservations. And FWIW, I am still married, my kids all know "about" me and continue to be loving and supporting, as is my wife. It's been an "interesting" journey.

For years I thought of suicide on a daily basis (hourly sometimes). Glad I made it through the dark times and can see the TSCC for the bull*&@! organization that it is. Many of my acquaintences, friends and people I know of, have chosen to suicide. I don't blame them but am glad I am at the place of happiness, joy and authenticity that I am to at present.

My best desires go to Michael and to you too Richard. You are a dynamic awesome family. I am pleased that you are there to help them through the rough spots.

Wow, I agree that this was so, so painful to watch and it's great that he's got you in his corner, Richard, even if he doesn't look ready to embrace himself.

Why is it that, among Mormons, gays always "struggle" with "same-sex attraction?" Are we sure that they are "struggling." I suppose that being gay and Mormon will, indeed, be a "struggle."

Many people go down that path. Not easy, each day wondering if you're going to slip up and say or do something that gives it away.

To me, it underscores the fact that no one chooses to be gay.

Stayed up late last night to watch your brother's video. What torture for him. I certainly admire his fortitude to continue the endless struggle of reconciling his inborn nature with the demands of his faith tradition. It must be overwhelming. He keeps giving credit to the Atonement, his wife, and church leaders but he makes it clear he has had to go it alone for a long time. I'm glad he doesn't seem to condemn himself for the way he is. I'm glad he has you for a brother. The hope he has that someday the nature of gender will be fully understood is heartwarming. I'm glad TSCC has not taken away his sense of internal self-worth. Thanks for sharing your discovery.

I have not watched the video yet, but I was wondering why he remarried another TBM woman? Wouldn't it have been easier to stay single?

I was hoping to read that after the death of his wife he had come up and was living happily with a same-sex partner, after dumping the church. At least, it's probably good for him to just be able to say who he is instead of keeping it all in side.

I haven't watched the interview, but for the comments here seems to be all faith promoting for the church. I think the lds church is now using gay members to say, see we love them, they just must conform. This is after ignoring them for so many years. What else can be expected of this organization.

It's great that he has a lof of support in you, Richard.

I'm glad you are there to support him. At the same time, it's so sad to see someone carry such a burden around for the whole of their life; seeing something as a flaw that is just part of who they are. Seeing someone repress something that is, in reality, part of their identity.

sorry for my earlier trite comments.

just watched the shorter version.

the tragedy continues and deepens. so he was SO cut off from his own feelings that he didn't know he was gay until he was in his 60's? this poor man is so far gone, he would have to live in a therapist's office for 20 years to come to terms with his life.

watching him express his love for the cult that has so cruelly devastated his life was hugely disturbing. the mormon cult is simply ghoulish.

Richard, my heart goes out to your brother for all that he has endured in trying to square his life with the evil mormon fraud. i hope that he has an awakening to the truth, to his truth. the victory can still be his. i hope that future updates will be more encouraging.

The comments below the video are all from TBMs. And they are soul-sucking awful.

"Michael, your testimony brought me to tears. Thank you for your incredible example of strength and righteous desire. You are a beacon, sir. Thank you so much."

What drives me to despair is that this obviously intelligent man is torturing himself as much as being tortured by TSCC. He has internalized all the mechanisms of torture and applies them daily.

Sickness. His being gay is not the sickness. This twisted approach to being gay is deeply sick.

Mr. Packham was the band teacher at my Jr. High. I was friends with one of his daughters. His new wife was a member in our ward before DH and I left and the daughter of the patriarch who gave me my blessing. If I remember right she had never been married before him. I watched this video a few weeks ago and it broke my heart that he has gone through so much pain and felt so much guilt from the church.

He is shaking his head "no" while he speaks of his joy & his love of the church. I had a hard time watching it.

He is so lucky to have you as a brother, Rpackham.


KJ/AnonyMs