Extracts from the personal journal of Ben Williams dealing with his life and interaction with Gay leaders in building and shaping the Queer communities of Salt Lake City, Utah in 1986 with additional anecdotal material from various resources.
I have purposefully deleted the last names of people mentioned in my journal, including my ex-wife, who probably would not care if I did mention them; but since it's not my intention to "out" anyone I decided not to do so.
I once made the mistake of mentioning the name of someone, in a column I write for a Salt Lake newspaper, that I had sex with when first coming out. I thought he was thoroughly out of the closet. I was wrong. He was very upset over it and I apologized to him. I learned that even though someone may be openly Gay in his or her circle of friends, they still may not want the world to know their sexual orientation.
However those who are identified by their last names, have identified themselves as being Gay through either acting as a public leader of a Gay organization, having had their names published in articles as Gay people, or having since died. Those who have died I have listed them in a section called "additional material". All information found in those sections are like footnotes and do not appear in my original handwritten journal.
I have taken the liberty of editing my own journal for spelling and grammar since most of my writings were reflections written before retiring to bed. I have also changed some sentences around for clarity also.
I noticed that in many, many of my entries I am either sobbing or on the verge of tears. While I admit I am an emotional guy who will cry during sad movies, sad songs, and sad memories, I generally do not salinely emote so much. I think I may have been close to being clinically depressed while going through all those rapid changes in my life. I often felt I was free falling and therefore trying to grab on to anyone I could for support.
I don't claim that my observations and opinions of people I met in 1986 are accurate just that they were my perceptions, no matter how limited, at the time. Apologize for an offense I may give anyone by publishing my private thoughts from twenty years ago. I truly felt like Alice In Wonderland Through the Looking Glass at times.
I also don't claim that my experiences are all that unique. In the mid-1980's many married Gay men were leaving their wives because of the AIDS epidemic, and people were gravitating towards social groups to meet other people rather then in anonymous sexual encounters.
Notice that I always capitalize Gay as a Proper Noun and Proper Adjective. That is because my social construct is that Gays are a Sexual Minority as different from heterosexuals as women are from men. I do not hold to the modern assimilationist view that we are the same as heterosexuals and are defined only by our sexual behavior not by our sexual being.
Finally I am publishing this journal and maybe later others for the sole reason of serving as a time capsule of what it was like to emerge with a Gay identity in the heart of Mormonism in the year 1986 for Gay hsitorians.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
January 1986
1 January 1986 Wednesday
As this New Year begins I am thirty-five years old and still working for Utah Title Insurance. I live at 1320 Roberta Street in Salt Lake City at a house that my wife and I rent for $450 a month. Our heating bill is almost half that a month and without my wife really making any money we are having a hard time paying the bills.
My wife is working at Taylor Maids in the Cottonwood Mall doing acrylic nails. She only made $80 the entire month of December. Needless to say it is not real lucrative.
I have two dogs, a black Labrador named Sam age ten and a Dingo mix named Toby age six. We also have three cats, Killer, Baby, and Jack. The dogs are my babies and my life or at least they are giving meaning to my life. Otherwise I'm not sure what I want out of life.
Where am I going? I am going to be thirty-five soon, the middle of my span of years and I feel like my life is passing me by. What will this New Year bring?
I haven't been to church since coming back to Utah last August. There doesn't seem to be any answers there any more. I am completely disgusted over the Clair Harwood mess. I’ve got to have some answers soon.
I am really upset over the death of Ricky Nelson in a plane crash on New Year's eve. I kind of grew up with Ricky Nelson watching him on Ozzie and Harriet. I didn't call anyone to wish them a Happy New Year. Really don't know anyone anymore.
• Additional Material Gay and Lesbian students at the Utah Technical College on Redwood Road attempt to organize a Gay student union.
• AIDS Project Utah hired Carol Ellison, a psychiatric nurse to conduct a day training program in basic counseling. Duane Dawson organized the Salt Lake workshop based on the Shanti program and was attended by 15 people.
2 January 1986 Thursday
I didn't go into work today. I was still too achy from the cold virus. My wife is slowly getting better by me pouring Gatorade into her to keep her from dehydrating. My throat is really raw and hurts even to swallow. Ouch. It was supposed to have gotten up to 40 degrees today. The house is absolutely scummy.
3 January 1986 Friday
I tried going into work today not that I was feeling any better. It was snowing lightly. President Ray-Gun is sending our war planes and ships to Libya in retaliation to the terrorists’ bombings in Rome and Vienna last month that killed several Americans. The inversion is gone. It's about time.
4 January 1986 Saturday
I am still breaking a fever all night long. I am just drenched in sweat in the morning. I must be as sick as my wife is. We are such a mess. In the afternoon felt well enough to get out of bed and fix us some supper. We have been shut ins for nearly a week because of this cold and flu.
Poor old Sam, he had his black butt kicked so much this week for just being his usual obnoxious self that he is starting to feel insecure. He's such a bed hog and he's getting so old that he just won't move and he gets all the covers. Toby is so much better because he just rolls with us and goes with the flow.
• Additional Material Number One song on National Charts is “Party All The Time" by Eddie Murphy
5 January 1986 Sunday
I am just as sick as ever but will go into work tomorrow. I have too. We need the money. My wife is not as deathly sick as she was last Sunday.
Additional Material 6 January 1986 -Cory De Young, an employee of the narcotic division of the SLC police department claimed that Joe Redburn, owner of the Sun Tavern, referred De Young to a drug dealer. Redburn claimed that he was out of town on that date and De Young a former felon was not telling the truth. Incident sets off a vice Squad raid to close down the Sun Tavern. Redburn dismissed De Young as a thief and a liar. “I like Joe. But drugs are getting so bad; people are dying right and left, and you don’t ever hear about it really. It’s too bad that he’s involved because he could definitely run a nice club.”, stated Cory De Young. Joe Redburn stated, “I didn’t know my employees were dealing in drugs. They all signed a paper before they worked here that says they will not sell or use illicit drugs and will submit to a lie detector test if asked.”
7 January 1986 Tuesday
Today is our 9th Wedding Anniversary but we just stayed in bed and toasted each other with non-alcoholic wine. We were still too ill to do much else.
8 January 1986 Wednesday
My boss Bob E. changed all our desks around at Utah Title and placed me at the computer terminal permanently since I am the only one in the office that has any experience with a computer and I know nothing but the little I learned at Ticor. I don't know how it will work out but at least I don't have to answer the damn phones anymore. I really don't like my job but it does pay the rent. Maybe it’s the weather that's gotten me down.
9 January 1986 Thursday
Today is my old high school friend, John F. C.'s thirty-fifth birthday. Happy Birthday to you even after all these years.
My wife has the house buying bug again. I really don't want to buy a house yet. Don't know why.
The weather has been cold and foggy again. It's terrible. It's only thirty degrees out and there's still snow on the ground from last November. I am tired of not having any friends.
• Additional Material Farrell R. Hurst age 33 died of suicide. Born 23 September 1952 in Delta, Utah. Graduated from East High. Received a degree in music education from U of U. Attended Musical Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. An accomplished violinist and organist and skilled at home restoration.
Additional Material 10 January 1986 Mormons Excommunicate Repentant AIDS Victim Clair Harward A homosexual dying of AIDS convinced he would “go to hell” and needing spiritual guidance said he confessed his sexual preference to his local Mormon bishop and was excommunicated. Ogden resident, Clair Harward said doctors have told him he only has a few months to live, but he will die a non Mormon because the church will not consider whether to readmit him for another year. Mormon bishop Bruce Don Bowen confirmed Harward was excommunicated and was asked not to attend church because of fears he could spread the disease AIDS which is spread by sexual contact, largely among Gays. Bowen said Harward was excommunicated because the church believes homosexuality is an abuse of God’s gift of procreation. “We are forbidden to take life- except where the government does in cases of capital offenses- and there are great restrictions and guide lines on procreation which hold men responsible on how they use the gift”, Bowen said. “A sexual relationship within marriage is appropriate for men and women in His sight. Otherwise it is a sin second only to murder in seriousness.” Harward said he was diagnosed in 1984 as having AIDS and that he recently went to the church seeking guidance and spiritual comfort. “there was just so much guilt, ”he said. “I was going nuts and I was convinced I ‘d go to hell if I didn’t. I wanted peace of mind.” Harward who is unemployed said his will to live diminished after his excommunication but his roommate and other Gay friends gave him a free home and solace. “I felt that was more Christian than the way the church was treating me. They had done nothing. I was feeling rejected.” Harward said adding he told the church “You’re more concerned about your ten % tithing.” Harward said he wanted to repent and ask for guidance to emerge from years of a Gay life style. Bowen said he advised Harward to shun homosexual friends and activities and assume personal responsibility “not to endanger the public by attending church services.” But Harward said the Mormon bishop also asked him for a list of people he had homosexual contact with and that soon afterwards his roommate also was excommunicated. Harward said doctors told him cancer associated with AIDS had spread to his lungs and they could not operate, meaning he had only a few months to live. “When I need my friends the most, they’re asking me to be alone,” he said. Church policy states excommunicated members must wait 1 year before being evaluated again for membership. (The first known photograph of a Utah Man with AIDS. Harward is shown without his shirt showing clearly his KS spots. (01/10/1986 SLTribune B1)
• Homosexuality is a sin that runs “counter to divine objectives” according to a statement to local church leaders from the 1st Presidency. A Mormon spokesman said there are no official guidelines for AIDS victims attending church but sufferers should consider possible consequences of spreading the disease. “Homosexuality in men and women runs counter to divine objectives and the intended destiny of mankind. Some claim homosexuality is incurable; therefore they seek to be considered a legitimate minority group protected by law. We should not be deceived by these false rationalizations. We must never lose our perspective admits the world’s clamor to justify and normalize immorality.” Spokesman Jerry Cahill said Clair Harward had the choice to attend church or not. “What would be the effect of a man who came to church with the flu? The other concern is that little is known about how AIDS spreads.” (01/10/1985 SLTribune B1)
Additional Material 11 January 1986 Saturday LDS Say They Have Helped AIDS Victim The Mormon Church provided food and counseling to an AIDS victim who was excommunicated for homosexual practices, a church spokesman said Friday. The church’s comments was made in response to criticism for AIDS victim Clair Harward, 26, Ogden who said in a newspaper interview that he felt abandoned by his family, friends, and church since contracting AIDS. Harward was excommunicated in May 1985 after confessing to a Mormon bishop he had had homosexual relations for several years. Church spokesman Jerry Cahill issued a press release Friday that said the church has continued to work with Harward since his excommunication. “the church has supplied regular food orders, and counseling assistants to Harward and has attempted to meet his needs as he has expressed them during this tragic period.” Cahill said. “Mr. Harward local church leaders desire to continue to assist in lifting his difficult burden.” “Mormons compare this (AIDS) to Sodom and Gomorra ,”Harward said of his condition. (D4 SL Tribune)
•"That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warrick & Friends number one song on national charts
Additional Material 12 January 1986 Sunday The Gay/Lesbian Alliance and Heterosexual Alliance, two controversial student clubs at Utah State University are now officially recognized. The Gay/ Lesbian Alliance is a support group for homosexuals that has met weekly on Campus since October 1985. Club goals include “educating the public that we are normal people” and providing emotional support for homosexuals, then friends and families according to club representatives. The Heterosexual Alliance advocates the “advantage of being heterosexual” according to club president Nyles Stoddard. They also plan to provide information about AIDS and will attempt to provide counselors for homosexuals who wish to change their life style. The Heterosexual Alliance began meeting in November 1985 in response to a three part series about homosexual groups in the Utah Statesman, the university’s student newspaper. The series began with a front page photograph of two bare chested males in a partial embrace. President Nyle Stoddard 27, pre-law student said his club will monitor valley publications and watch for further questionable, distasteful, or offensive material. Members of the Gay/Lesbian Alliance who attended the first meeting of the Heterosexual Alliance characterized it as a hate group. Stoddard said the club also seeks answers to many questions about the spread of AIDS “Does society have a responsibility to stop it? Does government? Do individuals? I point at homosexuals because they comprise 75 % of the spreaders of the disease.” Heterosexuals meets monthly with 25 members. Gay/Lesbian Alliance meets weekly with same amount. Darren was the co-President of the Gay/Lesbian Alliance. (SLTribune 2B 01/12/1986)
• Salt Lake AIDS Foundation Headed by Dr. Patty A. Reagan will Provide Information Dr. Patty Reagan, as founder director of the Salt Lake AIDS Foundation may have jumped in where angels fear to tread. It’s part of her academic training and humanitarian concern, she said, to provide accurate non speculative information about AIDS, a medical condition 1st discovered in the United States in 1981. AIDS attacking groups on the margin of society-Gay men, intravenous drug users, and certain immigrants from Haiti-leaving them vulnerable to diseases healthy people rarely contract. By background and training Dr. Reagan is a University of Utah associate professor of health education, who this fall began sharing ½ her professional time as the new director of the Women’s Studies Program succeeding Dr. Margo Sargman. Dr. Reagan has shared information on women’s health, sexuality, women’s issues and health issues on and off campus. She’s a frequent and popular community speaker whose topic now includes AIDS. She was recognized for her concerns as a recipient of the Susa Young Gates Award presented each year by Utah Women’s Political Caucus for service to the state of Utah and a commitment to human rights. Dr. Reagan returned to Utah in May from a Sabbatical at the University of California at Berkeley doing post doctoral work in public health. It was hard not to be involved with AIDS as a health concern while there. The Bay Area is at the hub of the AIDS crisis and UC Berkeley has a million dollar grant for AIDS epidemiology study. “My concern coming back to Utah was that no one was doing anything as far as AIDS education. I’ve discovered since, there are individuals and groups a lot with in the Gay men’s community doing everything from collecting money to provide emergency food and housing to forming AIDS support groups. The need for education remains. “For example the social implications for mothers, families, extended families, significant others need to be addressed. The SLAF can help people like the woman whose sun was hospitalized with AIDS at the UCLA medical center. He was within three days of death He hadn’t told her until then because he didn’t want her to know he was Gay.” Part of what the foundation does through an AIDS telephone line, is provide accurate health information and referred. AIDS myths abound, Dr. Reagan said. If people generally deal poorly with sexually, they deal even less well with a sexually transmitted disease. Adding to the misinformation is a social system hostile to Gay men. On the patient’s side is a concern for the right to privacy while dealing with illness “In addition to a concern for physical illness, Gay men face a whole new set of social stresses growing around AIDS- loss of job, loss of housing, loss of support, in and out of the Gay community. According to a National Gay Task Force study, ¼ of American families has a Gay member. Dr. Reagan said in a 4 year study conducted in her classes, 8 per cent of students surveyed said they were Gay. “The data remains the same in Utah with rational figures begun with the Kinsey Studies of 1949. What that means is that here or elsewhere, the chances are not good for wiping out lifestyles that people don’t like. She said there is a large Utah community of bisexuals, the least studied of sexual variations. She said she has anecdotal evidence of Utah men, sometimes married, active sexually with women and men. That puts Utah women general in a low risk AIDS group at risk in a bi sexual community. “It’s my job, as a sex educator, to help eliminates or eradicate the AIDS myths. The most serious is that AIDS is easily communicable. The medical research and now history say that is not true. A person really has to work hard to get AIDS, with repeated encounters as the passive recipient of multiple, anonymous partners.” Dr. Reagan said the foundation’s AIDS information line originates with a telephone at the Wasatch Women’s Center, Ste. 102, 3450 Highland Drive where space is donated. Dr. Sandra Weins-Bagley is director. Lori Gregory a clinic health educator and Kristine Wimmer, a graduating senior in health educator and University of Utah, answer calls media attention to AIDS seems to trigger concerns and questions. Dr. Reagan pays the $70 a month to maintain the phone line. Ms. Gregory said half the calls come from those probably at risk, seeking referrals for testing and/or treatment. Questions from the public indicate the caller is misinformed, after asking ridiculous, but serious questions. On a Friday by 1:45 p.m. she had juggled 12 AIDS questions with Wasatch Women’s Center calls. “Sometimes someone calls, asks a question, hangs up, and then calls back 2 or 3 more times,” Ms. Gregory said. “It seems that one question unleashes a whole lot of concerns. Some days I get calls from a university student who may have seen our number published and who’s concerned about a contact he may have had 2 years ago.” She said the number of calls from men and women are about the same. “We get a lot of calls from women who panic and need information.” Dr. Reagan said the AIDS crisis has brought into focus some philosophical questions for instance school districts may consider policy on children with AIDS. Boys with hemophilia are another at high risk AIDS group. Although there’s no evidence that boys with hemophilia present an infection health risk, some schools are setting policies keeping these children from attending public schools. “The public heath question is where to terminate the civil liberties of a few for the rights of the many. Medical evidence says there aren’t many kids with AIDS. This is a chance for people to be advocate for those who need advocacy. Besides the information line, the foundation publishes a newsletter keeping volunteers and interested persons informed. Funding is an on going concern. Dr. Reagan said telling AIDS jokes as telling ethnic and religious jokes is a form of bigotry and prejudice. It shows insensitivity and personal insecurity she said. “Besides there’s a danger in telling AIDS jokes. You can never be sure to whom you are speaking and for whom it won’t be funny. Especially if 1 in 4 families in America has a Gay member. AT a recent American Public Health associated meeting in Washington DC. Reagan said the largest number of participants attended sections on women’s health concerns and AIDS. She said there was a lot of interest among Professional health care givers as to the role of women and AIDS. “Women are playing a special role in the AIDS crisis. Not because we are biologically nurtures, Men are that too. Women are the best possible ones physically and emotionally to deal with AIDS. We are at least risk. Women are at a unique pace to turn their energy and personal resources against AIDS.” (SLTribune 01/12/1986)
• Space Shuttle Columbia is launched with the first Hispanic-American astronaut, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz.
Additional Material 14 January 1986 AIDS victim Clair Harward excommunicated from his church and abandoned by family and friends says recent publicity about his plight has generated an out pouring of sympathy calls, letters and money. Harward, 26, Ogden told the Ogden Standard Examiner in a copyright story that he is dying of AIDS related cancer and expects to live about 1 more month. Since his story appeared last week Harward said he has been inundated with calls and letters expressing sympathy for his condition. He said one caller promised to send Harward $1000 and patrons of the Sun Tavern which has a homosexual clientele have donated $500 to help him defray his expenses. Harward said his telephone had been ringing off the hook since the story appeared. “It was very rewarding to getting my story told, but I don’t want it to go on.” He said he probably would give the money to his roommate who has cared for him during his illness. “He’s been a real help. He’s taken care of me and I couldn’t have found that anywhere.” Harward said. The Standard Examiner reported it also has received numerous letters addressed to Harward and telephone calls expressing sympathy. Word of the support from strangers and friends elevated Harward’s mood described Friday as “dejected and depressed” by Sheldon Spears, a friend of Harwards who also has AIDS and founded the Utah AIDS Society last fall. (D7 SLTribune)
• Donna Reed, American actress died best known for role in It’s A Wonderful Life and the Donna Reed Show (1921-1986)
Additional Material 18 January 1986 "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warrick & Friends number one song on national charts
Additional material 19 January 1986 The first PC virus, Brain, starts to spread.
Additional Material 20 January 1986 The first federal Martin Luther King Day, honoring Martin Luther King Jr., is observed
Additional Material 22 January 1986 An excommunicated member of the Mormon Church suffering from AIDS whose plight received national attention earlier this month has been admitted to a hospital and doctors say he is expected to live only a few weeks. Inquiries from reporters through out the nation continued to trickle in after Clair Harward 26, Ogden, told his story about dying from AIDS. He was diagnosed as having AIDS related cancer in August 1984. Harward was admitted to St. Benedict’s Hospital last week after conditions worsened and he said the hospitalization was a welcome respite from the continual inquiries from reporters. Mean while the Mormon Church has offered to help and others are pitching in as well. Bishop Brent S. Farr who befriended Harward in his Ogden Ward after the AIDS victim was excommunicated by another bishop said he has received several letters for Harward and numerous callers have asked how Harward is doing and where to deliver food for him (C3 SLTribune 01/22/86)
24 January 1986 Friday
January is slowly dragging along but not fast enough for me. The weather has finally changed and the fog and cold weather has disappeared. The temperature is now in the high thirties and low forties.
Our Mountain Fuel Bill just came in the mail and from our last bill in December until now it has cost us $300. And we kept the thermostat down in the sixties so that goes to show how cold it’s been and how non-insulated this house is. It is depressing to have to pay that much money for a fuel bill and still be so cold. But we will be okay. Everything has a way of working out, I guess.
I can't believe how depressed I was during December because of the fog and cold. Just being able to see the sun shine has really lifted my spirits.
I am finally over my cold although I seem tired all the time. Its from not exercising I suppose. I haven't been to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting since before Christmas and I really need to find me a good meeting.
My wife is still looking for full time work since Taylor Maid just isn't cutting it. She's been applying up at the University but she is so discouraged because she can't seem to get hired anywhere.
Our cable TV was cancelled just the other day because we owed $7. Can you believe that? Well it’s just as well because it really sucks up too much of our time when we ought to be spending the money on food and the animals.
At my work it's still the same. I sit by myself at a computer all day. I don't have any friends at work like I did at Ticor in California. There aren’t any people here who really like me. I'm not Mormon enough with eight kids in preschool and four on a mission. Why am I so different? I thought I'm not supposed to have these feelings anymore.
The 19th of January was my dad's 61st birthday. When I called out there I only spoke to dad and not to mom as I usually do. It was the first time I ever called my dad to speak to him solely. It was really hard for me to do that but I felt like it was something I had to do, if not for him then for me. I asked him if he was having a nice birthday and he said at his age he didn't like birthdays.
I didn't get to send John F. C. a card for his thirty-fifth birthday but I did think about him a lot that day. Could I still be in love with John after all these years? Don’t those feelings ever go away? I wanted to send him a card but I couldn't find my old journal from last year that had his current address in it. I guess I could have called information in Oceanside and get his parent's address but I really didn't want to talk to him but rather just send him a card. The sound of his voice is too hard to listen to. Brings up too many memories.
I finished reading Woodward's biography of John Bulushi called "Wired". What a wasted life. He was a completely compulsive personality.
I've been following in the newspaper the story about this boy in Ogden, Clair Harwood, who has AIDS and is dying from it. He went to his bishop for spiritual reassurance during this time and instead he was excommunicated and told that he was not allowed to come back to church. The church embarrassed by all the negative publicity when it hit the national news wire, later came out saying that the Bishop Storehouse was providing Harwood with food and necessities.
But I am really disappointed in the LDS Church. I really don't understand their attitude. Christ came to save sinners and to heal the sick. The church just turns them away. My testimony of the LDS Church is at a all time low because of the way Harwood is being treated. Here this dying boy needs spiritual comforting at the hour of his greatest trial and the church kicks him in the face knowing that he will die in the state of excommunication. They washed their hands of him and salved their conscience by telling everyone, "Well we are feeding him." I don't know if I'm perfect enough to be a member of a perfect church.
• Additional Material L. Ron Hubbard, American writer and founder of Scientology died (1911-1986)
• Gordon MacRae, American musical actor, singer best remembered as Billy in Carousel died (1921-1986)
Additional Material 25 January 1986 "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne & Friends number one song on national charts.
26 January 1986 Sunday
Today is such a pretty sunshiny day and it has been for a while. The temperature has been in the forties. I just can't say enough how much I hated December and that awful foggy gloom. Today's weather is how I remembered Utah's winters and it's not bad at all.
Today is the Super hype Bowl Sunday and the Patriots are playing the Bears. I am not interested in the least who wins. In fact my wife and I got out of the house and went to the movies to see "Clue". It was cute, especially the line, "Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage." My wife and I have not made love together in months. I don't know why but I am just not interested anymore. I am so bored with my life.
We were so broke last week because of our $300 fuel bill and I was super depressed over our finances when out of the blue came a $100 refund check from Ticor for my wife's dental insurance. She was so shocked because she still believes that blessings are only predicated on obedience. However I know that the Lord loves me regardless, and I do believe He is just knocking himself out trying to do good things for me.
My wife feels spiritually low because she hasn't been attending church but I don't. I do miss true fellowshipping but I never got that from the church. It was always conditional. I just don't feel the need to attend a temporary Ward or at least at this point in my life. I just don't believe anymore in a conditional God that only bestows blessings based on obedience. I am so confused and turned off by the church's rejection of that boy who is dying of AIDS.
Yesterday at the Salt Lake Library I was “cruised” by a man who wanted to have sex with me in the bathroom there. I wouldn't but it was such a turn on to me. Why? Do I miss male companionship that much? A sponsor of mine in O.A. once told me that I wasn't Gay but that I was just attracted to men because I needed their approval.
That explanation seemed satisfactory for a while until out of the blue in 1983, when we were living on Bernadel Place in Santa Ana California, I had an epiphany. Without even asking, the Lord told me in no uncertain terms that I was unhappy because I kept rejecting his gift to me. I was told that homosexuality was a gift from God that allowed me to see the world in an entirely different perspective and that I should stop rejecting the gift.
I just want to find out who I am and what my potential is. I am a creative person but I feel as if I am dying inside by trying to measure up to the standards imposed by un imaginative people who have set themselves up to be my judge. The church has a stifling effect on me.
If my wife can't understand that then she really doesn't have the soul of an artist. An artist shouldn't be restrained by conventionality. Creativity is a God-like process and the more I am creative the closer I feel to the divine and stand in awe of His Creations. I have things locked up in my mind that no one else has, and I am frustrated by trying to find a medium in which I can express myself. I want to paint. I want to write. I want more from life then trying to be a good Mormon boy, afraid of experiencing life. I need to make some mistakes so I can learn from them and grow.
God has given me a gift that I had for so long considered a weakness because it is scorned in this world. But this gift has always made me remember God often and made me learn to depend on His love and goodness. I no longer believe that any man or church can separate me from that love. I have come to believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with a church that believes it has the power and authority to separate a person from his savior.
27 January 1986 Monday
At work today I was so surprised to hear a program on Radio Free Utah just for Gay and Lesbian people. I was at my computer in my cubicle listening to this neat station KRCL which I had just discovered and that plays Reggae music when all of a sudden I heard some Dave Brubeck intro music lead into a woman’s voice saying “Welcome to Concerning Gays and Lesbians. If you are, know, or love someone who is Gay or Lesbians you will find the next half hour entertaining as well as informative.” I nearly shit a brick but turned the radio down as low as I could and listened while watching over my shoulder.
At the end of the program they gave out a list of organizations in Salt Lake that act as support groups for homosexuals. They had a number for a Gay group for Mormons called Affirmation. I wrote the number down but I'm too scared to call it.
28 January 1986 Tuesday
What a tragic day. The space shuttle Challenger, carrying the first school teacher into space and six other astronauts, exploded about 90 seconds after lift off. They say the explosion was as strong as a small nuclear bomb and that they were killed instantaneously as their families watched in horror and stunned disbelief from the launch pad.
I was at work when I heard the news. It went through the office like wild fire. It just didn't seem like it could be true because all the space flights seemed so routine and safe. Especially the space shuttles. They made it sound like you were just taking a bus in to outer space.
What is even more upsetting to me is that school children all over the nation were watching the event because of the fact that the Challenger was carrying the first teacher into space. It's so very sad. Christy McAuliffe was so excited about being the first civilian in space. She was a school teacher from Concord, New Hampshire.
I've been so depressed all day over this terrible event and it feels very similar as to when President Kennedy was shot. Everyone seems to be in shock. This was so unexpected. At lunch when I came home to watch the news I started to cry. This us the first news story in years that actually made me cry.
I think after the initial shock wears off space exploration will go on. Fifty thousand people die in car crashes each year and we don't stop driving. Plane crashes are killing hundreds of people each year and we keep on flying. I think I would go up in a rocket if I could.
But still it’s so sad about Christy McAuliffe. She was so bright and optimistic about her great adventure in space and then BOOM! It really is a loss. All those astronauts who died. The flags are to be flown at half mast for 7 days to honor the seven crew members of the Challenger. Ironically yesterday was the 19th anniversary of the fire on a launch pad that took the lives the first astronauts to die in space exploration.
• Additional Material Names of Challengers Crew: Greg Jarvis (b. 1944) Christa McAuliffe (b. 1948) Ronald McNair (b. 1950) Ellison Onizuka (b. 1946) Judith Resnik (b. 1949) Francis R. Scobee (b. 1939) Michael J. Smith (b. 1945)
31 January 1986 Friday
The rest of the month of January was spent with flags at half mast as the nation mourned the loss of the crew of the Challenger. The experts now think a small crack in the rocket's boosters acted like a blow torch igniting the rocket fuel which caused the explosion. They say the Astronauts never knew what hit them.
It is just calamitous and I think America's belief in the supremacy of its own technology has vanished with the Challenger. Perhaps very much in the same way the British felt after the Titanic sank.
I wonder if the school children who watched Christy McAuliffe get blown to kingdom come will be less trusting in space travel and its technology than my generation who were raised with the Apollo Programs and landing on the moon.
We were led to believe that the space shuttle was as safe as taking a bus. We know better now. And for the rest of my life I will now hold my breath each and every time a rocket ship takes off with precious human cargo on board. But I do feel we must go forward and I hope someday to be able to go into space as in Space Odyssey 2001.
The space shuttle disaster has over shadowed all other news and events and it has really brought home to me how short and fragile life is. We have no guarantees. I must find out who I am before I die.
I still haven't decided what to do about Affirmation. I lost the number I had for it so I will have to wait until Monday when the next program comes on KRCL. I almost feel compelled to call. I am scared but excited at the same time like an adventure is about to happen to me.
As this New Year begins I am thirty-five years old and still working for Utah Title Insurance. I live at 1320 Roberta Street in Salt Lake City at a house that my wife and I rent for $450 a month. Our heating bill is almost half that a month and without my wife really making any money we are having a hard time paying the bills.
My wife is working at Taylor Maids in the Cottonwood Mall doing acrylic nails. She only made $80 the entire month of December. Needless to say it is not real lucrative.
I have two dogs, a black Labrador named Sam age ten and a Dingo mix named Toby age six. We also have three cats, Killer, Baby, and Jack. The dogs are my babies and my life or at least they are giving meaning to my life. Otherwise I'm not sure what I want out of life.
Where am I going? I am going to be thirty-five soon, the middle of my span of years and I feel like my life is passing me by. What will this New Year bring?
I haven't been to church since coming back to Utah last August. There doesn't seem to be any answers there any more. I am completely disgusted over the Clair Harwood mess. I’ve got to have some answers soon.
I am really upset over the death of Ricky Nelson in a plane crash on New Year's eve. I kind of grew up with Ricky Nelson watching him on Ozzie and Harriet. I didn't call anyone to wish them a Happy New Year. Really don't know anyone anymore.
• Additional Material Gay and Lesbian students at the Utah Technical College on Redwood Road attempt to organize a Gay student union.
• AIDS Project Utah hired Carol Ellison, a psychiatric nurse to conduct a day training program in basic counseling. Duane Dawson organized the Salt Lake workshop based on the Shanti program and was attended by 15 people.
2 January 1986 Thursday
I didn't go into work today. I was still too achy from the cold virus. My wife is slowly getting better by me pouring Gatorade into her to keep her from dehydrating. My throat is really raw and hurts even to swallow. Ouch. It was supposed to have gotten up to 40 degrees today. The house is absolutely scummy.
3 January 1986 Friday
I tried going into work today not that I was feeling any better. It was snowing lightly. President Ray-Gun is sending our war planes and ships to Libya in retaliation to the terrorists’ bombings in Rome and Vienna last month that killed several Americans. The inversion is gone. It's about time.
4 January 1986 Saturday
I am still breaking a fever all night long. I am just drenched in sweat in the morning. I must be as sick as my wife is. We are such a mess. In the afternoon felt well enough to get out of bed and fix us some supper. We have been shut ins for nearly a week because of this cold and flu.
Poor old Sam, he had his black butt kicked so much this week for just being his usual obnoxious self that he is starting to feel insecure. He's such a bed hog and he's getting so old that he just won't move and he gets all the covers. Toby is so much better because he just rolls with us and goes with the flow.
• Additional Material Number One song on National Charts is “Party All The Time" by Eddie Murphy
5 January 1986 Sunday
I am just as sick as ever but will go into work tomorrow. I have too. We need the money. My wife is not as deathly sick as she was last Sunday.
Additional Material 6 January 1986 -Cory De Young, an employee of the narcotic division of the SLC police department claimed that Joe Redburn, owner of the Sun Tavern, referred De Young to a drug dealer. Redburn claimed that he was out of town on that date and De Young a former felon was not telling the truth. Incident sets off a vice Squad raid to close down the Sun Tavern. Redburn dismissed De Young as a thief and a liar. “I like Joe. But drugs are getting so bad; people are dying right and left, and you don’t ever hear about it really. It’s too bad that he’s involved because he could definitely run a nice club.”, stated Cory De Young. Joe Redburn stated, “I didn’t know my employees were dealing in drugs. They all signed a paper before they worked here that says they will not sell or use illicit drugs and will submit to a lie detector test if asked.”
7 January 1986 Tuesday
Today is our 9th Wedding Anniversary but we just stayed in bed and toasted each other with non-alcoholic wine. We were still too ill to do much else.
8 January 1986 Wednesday
My boss Bob E. changed all our desks around at Utah Title and placed me at the computer terminal permanently since I am the only one in the office that has any experience with a computer and I know nothing but the little I learned at Ticor. I don't know how it will work out but at least I don't have to answer the damn phones anymore. I really don't like my job but it does pay the rent. Maybe it’s the weather that's gotten me down.
9 January 1986 Thursday
Today is my old high school friend, John F. C.'s thirty-fifth birthday. Happy Birthday to you even after all these years.
My wife has the house buying bug again. I really don't want to buy a house yet. Don't know why.
The weather has been cold and foggy again. It's terrible. It's only thirty degrees out and there's still snow on the ground from last November. I am tired of not having any friends.
• Additional Material Farrell R. Hurst age 33 died of suicide. Born 23 September 1952 in Delta, Utah. Graduated from East High. Received a degree in music education from U of U. Attended Musical Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. An accomplished violinist and organist and skilled at home restoration.
Additional Material 10 January 1986 Mormons Excommunicate Repentant AIDS Victim Clair Harward A homosexual dying of AIDS convinced he would “go to hell” and needing spiritual guidance said he confessed his sexual preference to his local Mormon bishop and was excommunicated. Ogden resident, Clair Harward said doctors have told him he only has a few months to live, but he will die a non Mormon because the church will not consider whether to readmit him for another year. Mormon bishop Bruce Don Bowen confirmed Harward was excommunicated and was asked not to attend church because of fears he could spread the disease AIDS which is spread by sexual contact, largely among Gays. Bowen said Harward was excommunicated because the church believes homosexuality is an abuse of God’s gift of procreation. “We are forbidden to take life- except where the government does in cases of capital offenses- and there are great restrictions and guide lines on procreation which hold men responsible on how they use the gift”, Bowen said. “A sexual relationship within marriage is appropriate for men and women in His sight. Otherwise it is a sin second only to murder in seriousness.” Harward said he was diagnosed in 1984 as having AIDS and that he recently went to the church seeking guidance and spiritual comfort. “there was just so much guilt, ”he said. “I was going nuts and I was convinced I ‘d go to hell if I didn’t. I wanted peace of mind.” Harward who is unemployed said his will to live diminished after his excommunication but his roommate and other Gay friends gave him a free home and solace. “I felt that was more Christian than the way the church was treating me. They had done nothing. I was feeling rejected.” Harward said adding he told the church “You’re more concerned about your ten % tithing.” Harward said he wanted to repent and ask for guidance to emerge from years of a Gay life style. Bowen said he advised Harward to shun homosexual friends and activities and assume personal responsibility “not to endanger the public by attending church services.” But Harward said the Mormon bishop also asked him for a list of people he had homosexual contact with and that soon afterwards his roommate also was excommunicated. Harward said doctors told him cancer associated with AIDS had spread to his lungs and they could not operate, meaning he had only a few months to live. “When I need my friends the most, they’re asking me to be alone,” he said. Church policy states excommunicated members must wait 1 year before being evaluated again for membership. (The first known photograph of a Utah Man with AIDS. Harward is shown without his shirt showing clearly his KS spots. (01/10/1986 SLTribune B1)
• Homosexuality is a sin that runs “counter to divine objectives” according to a statement to local church leaders from the 1st Presidency. A Mormon spokesman said there are no official guidelines for AIDS victims attending church but sufferers should consider possible consequences of spreading the disease. “Homosexuality in men and women runs counter to divine objectives and the intended destiny of mankind. Some claim homosexuality is incurable; therefore they seek to be considered a legitimate minority group protected by law. We should not be deceived by these false rationalizations. We must never lose our perspective admits the world’s clamor to justify and normalize immorality.” Spokesman Jerry Cahill said Clair Harward had the choice to attend church or not. “What would be the effect of a man who came to church with the flu? The other concern is that little is known about how AIDS spreads.” (01/10/1985 SLTribune B1)
Additional Material 11 January 1986 Saturday LDS Say They Have Helped AIDS Victim The Mormon Church provided food and counseling to an AIDS victim who was excommunicated for homosexual practices, a church spokesman said Friday. The church’s comments was made in response to criticism for AIDS victim Clair Harward, 26, Ogden who said in a newspaper interview that he felt abandoned by his family, friends, and church since contracting AIDS. Harward was excommunicated in May 1985 after confessing to a Mormon bishop he had had homosexual relations for several years. Church spokesman Jerry Cahill issued a press release Friday that said the church has continued to work with Harward since his excommunication. “the church has supplied regular food orders, and counseling assistants to Harward and has attempted to meet his needs as he has expressed them during this tragic period.” Cahill said. “Mr. Harward local church leaders desire to continue to assist in lifting his difficult burden.” “Mormons compare this (AIDS) to Sodom and Gomorra ,”Harward said of his condition. (D4 SL Tribune)
•"That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warrick & Friends number one song on national charts
Additional Material 12 January 1986 Sunday The Gay/Lesbian Alliance and Heterosexual Alliance, two controversial student clubs at Utah State University are now officially recognized. The Gay/ Lesbian Alliance is a support group for homosexuals that has met weekly on Campus since October 1985. Club goals include “educating the public that we are normal people” and providing emotional support for homosexuals, then friends and families according to club representatives. The Heterosexual Alliance advocates the “advantage of being heterosexual” according to club president Nyles Stoddard. They also plan to provide information about AIDS and will attempt to provide counselors for homosexuals who wish to change their life style. The Heterosexual Alliance began meeting in November 1985 in response to a three part series about homosexual groups in the Utah Statesman, the university’s student newspaper. The series began with a front page photograph of two bare chested males in a partial embrace. President Nyle Stoddard 27, pre-law student said his club will monitor valley publications and watch for further questionable, distasteful, or offensive material. Members of the Gay/Lesbian Alliance who attended the first meeting of the Heterosexual Alliance characterized it as a hate group. Stoddard said the club also seeks answers to many questions about the spread of AIDS “Does society have a responsibility to stop it? Does government? Do individuals? I point at homosexuals because they comprise 75 % of the spreaders of the disease.” Heterosexuals meets monthly with 25 members. Gay/Lesbian Alliance meets weekly with same amount. Darren was the co-President of the Gay/Lesbian Alliance. (SLTribune 2B 01/12/1986)
• Salt Lake AIDS Foundation Headed by Dr. Patty A. Reagan will Provide Information Dr. Patty Reagan, as founder director of the Salt Lake AIDS Foundation may have jumped in where angels fear to tread. It’s part of her academic training and humanitarian concern, she said, to provide accurate non speculative information about AIDS, a medical condition 1st discovered in the United States in 1981. AIDS attacking groups on the margin of society-Gay men, intravenous drug users, and certain immigrants from Haiti-leaving them vulnerable to diseases healthy people rarely contract. By background and training Dr. Reagan is a University of Utah associate professor of health education, who this fall began sharing ½ her professional time as the new director of the Women’s Studies Program succeeding Dr. Margo Sargman. Dr. Reagan has shared information on women’s health, sexuality, women’s issues and health issues on and off campus. She’s a frequent and popular community speaker whose topic now includes AIDS. She was recognized for her concerns as a recipient of the Susa Young Gates Award presented each year by Utah Women’s Political Caucus for service to the state of Utah and a commitment to human rights. Dr. Reagan returned to Utah in May from a Sabbatical at the University of California at Berkeley doing post doctoral work in public health. It was hard not to be involved with AIDS as a health concern while there. The Bay Area is at the hub of the AIDS crisis and UC Berkeley has a million dollar grant for AIDS epidemiology study. “My concern coming back to Utah was that no one was doing anything as far as AIDS education. I’ve discovered since, there are individuals and groups a lot with in the Gay men’s community doing everything from collecting money to provide emergency food and housing to forming AIDS support groups. The need for education remains. “For example the social implications for mothers, families, extended families, significant others need to be addressed. The SLAF can help people like the woman whose sun was hospitalized with AIDS at the UCLA medical center. He was within three days of death He hadn’t told her until then because he didn’t want her to know he was Gay.” Part of what the foundation does through an AIDS telephone line, is provide accurate health information and referred. AIDS myths abound, Dr. Reagan said. If people generally deal poorly with sexually, they deal even less well with a sexually transmitted disease. Adding to the misinformation is a social system hostile to Gay men. On the patient’s side is a concern for the right to privacy while dealing with illness “In addition to a concern for physical illness, Gay men face a whole new set of social stresses growing around AIDS- loss of job, loss of housing, loss of support, in and out of the Gay community. According to a National Gay Task Force study, ¼ of American families has a Gay member. Dr. Reagan said in a 4 year study conducted in her classes, 8 per cent of students surveyed said they were Gay. “The data remains the same in Utah with rational figures begun with the Kinsey Studies of 1949. What that means is that here or elsewhere, the chances are not good for wiping out lifestyles that people don’t like. She said there is a large Utah community of bisexuals, the least studied of sexual variations. She said she has anecdotal evidence of Utah men, sometimes married, active sexually with women and men. That puts Utah women general in a low risk AIDS group at risk in a bi sexual community. “It’s my job, as a sex educator, to help eliminates or eradicate the AIDS myths. The most serious is that AIDS is easily communicable. The medical research and now history say that is not true. A person really has to work hard to get AIDS, with repeated encounters as the passive recipient of multiple, anonymous partners.” Dr. Reagan said the foundation’s AIDS information line originates with a telephone at the Wasatch Women’s Center, Ste. 102, 3450 Highland Drive where space is donated. Dr. Sandra Weins-Bagley is director. Lori Gregory a clinic health educator and Kristine Wimmer, a graduating senior in health educator and University of Utah, answer calls media attention to AIDS seems to trigger concerns and questions. Dr. Reagan pays the $70 a month to maintain the phone line. Ms. Gregory said half the calls come from those probably at risk, seeking referrals for testing and/or treatment. Questions from the public indicate the caller is misinformed, after asking ridiculous, but serious questions. On a Friday by 1:45 p.m. she had juggled 12 AIDS questions with Wasatch Women’s Center calls. “Sometimes someone calls, asks a question, hangs up, and then calls back 2 or 3 more times,” Ms. Gregory said. “It seems that one question unleashes a whole lot of concerns. Some days I get calls from a university student who may have seen our number published and who’s concerned about a contact he may have had 2 years ago.” She said the number of calls from men and women are about the same. “We get a lot of calls from women who panic and need information.” Dr. Reagan said the AIDS crisis has brought into focus some philosophical questions for instance school districts may consider policy on children with AIDS. Boys with hemophilia are another at high risk AIDS group. Although there’s no evidence that boys with hemophilia present an infection health risk, some schools are setting policies keeping these children from attending public schools. “The public heath question is where to terminate the civil liberties of a few for the rights of the many. Medical evidence says there aren’t many kids with AIDS. This is a chance for people to be advocate for those who need advocacy. Besides the information line, the foundation publishes a newsletter keeping volunteers and interested persons informed. Funding is an on going concern. Dr. Reagan said telling AIDS jokes as telling ethnic and religious jokes is a form of bigotry and prejudice. It shows insensitivity and personal insecurity she said. “Besides there’s a danger in telling AIDS jokes. You can never be sure to whom you are speaking and for whom it won’t be funny. Especially if 1 in 4 families in America has a Gay member. AT a recent American Public Health associated meeting in Washington DC. Reagan said the largest number of participants attended sections on women’s health concerns and AIDS. She said there was a lot of interest among Professional health care givers as to the role of women and AIDS. “Women are playing a special role in the AIDS crisis. Not because we are biologically nurtures, Men are that too. Women are the best possible ones physically and emotionally to deal with AIDS. We are at least risk. Women are at a unique pace to turn their energy and personal resources against AIDS.” (SLTribune 01/12/1986)
• Space Shuttle Columbia is launched with the first Hispanic-American astronaut, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz.
Additional Material 14 January 1986 AIDS victim Clair Harward excommunicated from his church and abandoned by family and friends says recent publicity about his plight has generated an out pouring of sympathy calls, letters and money. Harward, 26, Ogden told the Ogden Standard Examiner in a copyright story that he is dying of AIDS related cancer and expects to live about 1 more month. Since his story appeared last week Harward said he has been inundated with calls and letters expressing sympathy for his condition. He said one caller promised to send Harward $1000 and patrons of the Sun Tavern which has a homosexual clientele have donated $500 to help him defray his expenses. Harward said his telephone had been ringing off the hook since the story appeared. “It was very rewarding to getting my story told, but I don’t want it to go on.” He said he probably would give the money to his roommate who has cared for him during his illness. “He’s been a real help. He’s taken care of me and I couldn’t have found that anywhere.” Harward said. The Standard Examiner reported it also has received numerous letters addressed to Harward and telephone calls expressing sympathy. Word of the support from strangers and friends elevated Harward’s mood described Friday as “dejected and depressed” by Sheldon Spears, a friend of Harwards who also has AIDS and founded the Utah AIDS Society last fall. (D7 SLTribune)
• Donna Reed, American actress died best known for role in It’s A Wonderful Life and the Donna Reed Show (1921-1986)
Additional Material 18 January 1986 "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warrick & Friends number one song on national charts
Additional material 19 January 1986 The first PC virus, Brain, starts to spread.
Additional Material 20 January 1986 The first federal Martin Luther King Day, honoring Martin Luther King Jr., is observed
Additional Material 22 January 1986 An excommunicated member of the Mormon Church suffering from AIDS whose plight received national attention earlier this month has been admitted to a hospital and doctors say he is expected to live only a few weeks. Inquiries from reporters through out the nation continued to trickle in after Clair Harward 26, Ogden, told his story about dying from AIDS. He was diagnosed as having AIDS related cancer in August 1984. Harward was admitted to St. Benedict’s Hospital last week after conditions worsened and he said the hospitalization was a welcome respite from the continual inquiries from reporters. Mean while the Mormon Church has offered to help and others are pitching in as well. Bishop Brent S. Farr who befriended Harward in his Ogden Ward after the AIDS victim was excommunicated by another bishop said he has received several letters for Harward and numerous callers have asked how Harward is doing and where to deliver food for him (C3 SLTribune 01/22/86)
24 January 1986 Friday
January is slowly dragging along but not fast enough for me. The weather has finally changed and the fog and cold weather has disappeared. The temperature is now in the high thirties and low forties.
Our Mountain Fuel Bill just came in the mail and from our last bill in December until now it has cost us $300. And we kept the thermostat down in the sixties so that goes to show how cold it’s been and how non-insulated this house is. It is depressing to have to pay that much money for a fuel bill and still be so cold. But we will be okay. Everything has a way of working out, I guess.
I can't believe how depressed I was during December because of the fog and cold. Just being able to see the sun shine has really lifted my spirits.
I am finally over my cold although I seem tired all the time. Its from not exercising I suppose. I haven't been to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting since before Christmas and I really need to find me a good meeting.
My wife is still looking for full time work since Taylor Maid just isn't cutting it. She's been applying up at the University but she is so discouraged because she can't seem to get hired anywhere.
Our cable TV was cancelled just the other day because we owed $7. Can you believe that? Well it’s just as well because it really sucks up too much of our time when we ought to be spending the money on food and the animals.
At my work it's still the same. I sit by myself at a computer all day. I don't have any friends at work like I did at Ticor in California. There aren’t any people here who really like me. I'm not Mormon enough with eight kids in preschool and four on a mission. Why am I so different? I thought I'm not supposed to have these feelings anymore.
The 19th of January was my dad's 61st birthday. When I called out there I only spoke to dad and not to mom as I usually do. It was the first time I ever called my dad to speak to him solely. It was really hard for me to do that but I felt like it was something I had to do, if not for him then for me. I asked him if he was having a nice birthday and he said at his age he didn't like birthdays.
I didn't get to send John F. C. a card for his thirty-fifth birthday but I did think about him a lot that day. Could I still be in love with John after all these years? Don’t those feelings ever go away? I wanted to send him a card but I couldn't find my old journal from last year that had his current address in it. I guess I could have called information in Oceanside and get his parent's address but I really didn't want to talk to him but rather just send him a card. The sound of his voice is too hard to listen to. Brings up too many memories.
I finished reading Woodward's biography of John Bulushi called "Wired". What a wasted life. He was a completely compulsive personality.
I've been following in the newspaper the story about this boy in Ogden, Clair Harwood, who has AIDS and is dying from it. He went to his bishop for spiritual reassurance during this time and instead he was excommunicated and told that he was not allowed to come back to church. The church embarrassed by all the negative publicity when it hit the national news wire, later came out saying that the Bishop Storehouse was providing Harwood with food and necessities.
But I am really disappointed in the LDS Church. I really don't understand their attitude. Christ came to save sinners and to heal the sick. The church just turns them away. My testimony of the LDS Church is at a all time low because of the way Harwood is being treated. Here this dying boy needs spiritual comforting at the hour of his greatest trial and the church kicks him in the face knowing that he will die in the state of excommunication. They washed their hands of him and salved their conscience by telling everyone, "Well we are feeding him." I don't know if I'm perfect enough to be a member of a perfect church.
• Additional Material L. Ron Hubbard, American writer and founder of Scientology died (1911-1986)
• Gordon MacRae, American musical actor, singer best remembered as Billy in Carousel died (1921-1986)
Additional Material 25 January 1986 "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne & Friends number one song on national charts.
26 January 1986 Sunday
Today is such a pretty sunshiny day and it has been for a while. The temperature has been in the forties. I just can't say enough how much I hated December and that awful foggy gloom. Today's weather is how I remembered Utah's winters and it's not bad at all.
Today is the Super hype Bowl Sunday and the Patriots are playing the Bears. I am not interested in the least who wins. In fact my wife and I got out of the house and went to the movies to see "Clue". It was cute, especially the line, "Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage." My wife and I have not made love together in months. I don't know why but I am just not interested anymore. I am so bored with my life.
We were so broke last week because of our $300 fuel bill and I was super depressed over our finances when out of the blue came a $100 refund check from Ticor for my wife's dental insurance. She was so shocked because she still believes that blessings are only predicated on obedience. However I know that the Lord loves me regardless, and I do believe He is just knocking himself out trying to do good things for me.
My wife feels spiritually low because she hasn't been attending church but I don't. I do miss true fellowshipping but I never got that from the church. It was always conditional. I just don't feel the need to attend a temporary Ward or at least at this point in my life. I just don't believe anymore in a conditional God that only bestows blessings based on obedience. I am so confused and turned off by the church's rejection of that boy who is dying of AIDS.
Yesterday at the Salt Lake Library I was “cruised” by a man who wanted to have sex with me in the bathroom there. I wouldn't but it was such a turn on to me. Why? Do I miss male companionship that much? A sponsor of mine in O.A. once told me that I wasn't Gay but that I was just attracted to men because I needed their approval.
That explanation seemed satisfactory for a while until out of the blue in 1983, when we were living on Bernadel Place in Santa Ana California, I had an epiphany. Without even asking, the Lord told me in no uncertain terms that I was unhappy because I kept rejecting his gift to me. I was told that homosexuality was a gift from God that allowed me to see the world in an entirely different perspective and that I should stop rejecting the gift.
I just want to find out who I am and what my potential is. I am a creative person but I feel as if I am dying inside by trying to measure up to the standards imposed by un imaginative people who have set themselves up to be my judge. The church has a stifling effect on me.
If my wife can't understand that then she really doesn't have the soul of an artist. An artist shouldn't be restrained by conventionality. Creativity is a God-like process and the more I am creative the closer I feel to the divine and stand in awe of His Creations. I have things locked up in my mind that no one else has, and I am frustrated by trying to find a medium in which I can express myself. I want to paint. I want to write. I want more from life then trying to be a good Mormon boy, afraid of experiencing life. I need to make some mistakes so I can learn from them and grow.
God has given me a gift that I had for so long considered a weakness because it is scorned in this world. But this gift has always made me remember God often and made me learn to depend on His love and goodness. I no longer believe that any man or church can separate me from that love. I have come to believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with a church that believes it has the power and authority to separate a person from his savior.
27 January 1986 Monday
At work today I was so surprised to hear a program on Radio Free Utah just for Gay and Lesbian people. I was at my computer in my cubicle listening to this neat station KRCL which I had just discovered and that plays Reggae music when all of a sudden I heard some Dave Brubeck intro music lead into a woman’s voice saying “Welcome to Concerning Gays and Lesbians. If you are, know, or love someone who is Gay or Lesbians you will find the next half hour entertaining as well as informative.” I nearly shit a brick but turned the radio down as low as I could and listened while watching over my shoulder.
At the end of the program they gave out a list of organizations in Salt Lake that act as support groups for homosexuals. They had a number for a Gay group for Mormons called Affirmation. I wrote the number down but I'm too scared to call it.
28 January 1986 Tuesday
What a tragic day. The space shuttle Challenger, carrying the first school teacher into space and six other astronauts, exploded about 90 seconds after lift off. They say the explosion was as strong as a small nuclear bomb and that they were killed instantaneously as their families watched in horror and stunned disbelief from the launch pad.
I was at work when I heard the news. It went through the office like wild fire. It just didn't seem like it could be true because all the space flights seemed so routine and safe. Especially the space shuttles. They made it sound like you were just taking a bus in to outer space.
What is even more upsetting to me is that school children all over the nation were watching the event because of the fact that the Challenger was carrying the first teacher into space. It's so very sad. Christy McAuliffe was so excited about being the first civilian in space. She was a school teacher from Concord, New Hampshire.
I've been so depressed all day over this terrible event and it feels very similar as to when President Kennedy was shot. Everyone seems to be in shock. This was so unexpected. At lunch when I came home to watch the news I started to cry. This us the first news story in years that actually made me cry.
I think after the initial shock wears off space exploration will go on. Fifty thousand people die in car crashes each year and we don't stop driving. Plane crashes are killing hundreds of people each year and we keep on flying. I think I would go up in a rocket if I could.
But still it’s so sad about Christy McAuliffe. She was so bright and optimistic about her great adventure in space and then BOOM! It really is a loss. All those astronauts who died. The flags are to be flown at half mast for 7 days to honor the seven crew members of the Challenger. Ironically yesterday was the 19th anniversary of the fire on a launch pad that took the lives the first astronauts to die in space exploration.
• Additional Material Names of Challengers Crew: Greg Jarvis (b. 1944) Christa McAuliffe (b. 1948) Ronald McNair (b. 1950) Ellison Onizuka (b. 1946) Judith Resnik (b. 1949) Francis R. Scobee (b. 1939) Michael J. Smith (b. 1945)
31 January 1986 Friday
The rest of the month of January was spent with flags at half mast as the nation mourned the loss of the crew of the Challenger. The experts now think a small crack in the rocket's boosters acted like a blow torch igniting the rocket fuel which caused the explosion. They say the Astronauts never knew what hit them.
It is just calamitous and I think America's belief in the supremacy of its own technology has vanished with the Challenger. Perhaps very much in the same way the British felt after the Titanic sank.
I wonder if the school children who watched Christy McAuliffe get blown to kingdom come will be less trusting in space travel and its technology than my generation who were raised with the Apollo Programs and landing on the moon.
We were led to believe that the space shuttle was as safe as taking a bus. We know better now. And for the rest of my life I will now hold my breath each and every time a rocket ship takes off with precious human cargo on board. But I do feel we must go forward and I hope someday to be able to go into space as in Space Odyssey 2001.
The space shuttle disaster has over shadowed all other news and events and it has really brought home to me how short and fragile life is. We have no guarantees. I must find out who I am before I die.
I still haven't decided what to do about Affirmation. I lost the number I had for it so I will have to wait until Monday when the next program comes on KRCL. I almost feel compelled to call. I am scared but excited at the same time like an adventure is about to happen to me.
February 1986
1 February 1986 Saturday:
I called our landlord today and said we could only pay half our rent until the 15th because our fuel bill is so high. If we don't pay it, they will cut it off. Gee I hated doing that.
I went to the LDS Genealogical Library and spent most of the day looking up my wife's Norwegian Ancestors in the 1840's. I don't know Norwegian but can figure enough out to find things.
I walked home from the Library, about two miles because it was such a pretty day and I didn't have the bus fare. It's only 40 cents but I didn't even have that on me.
In the evenings our married friends from Provo invited my wife and I to the show. We saw "Down and Out In Beverly Hills". I just love Bette Midler so I thought the movie was great: especially Matisse the dog. The theme of the movie was that rich or poor if you don't have people in your life that love you, then you really don't have much.
Additional Material Vice Squad arrested 12 people in a drug raid at the Sun Club. Seven of those arrested were Sun employees. Attorney Howard Johnson represented the Sun against the city. The vice squad prompted the city to hold a hearing with the department of business to take away the Sun’s business license. Joe Redburn as owner of the Club stated that closing the Club would hurt paying off creditors since the private club had been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Sun began requesting “from our patrons a cover charge of one dollar for members and $4 for non members for a legal defense fund.”
• "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne & Friends number one song on national Charts.
3 February 1986 Monday:
While listening to Radio Free Utah's program "Concerning Gays and Lesbians" at work, they mentioned at the end of the show a list of organizations and their phone numbers. I wrote down the numbers for Affirmation, the Metropolitan Community Church, and Gay Alcoholics Anonymous. Now that I have these numbers what do I do with them?
4 February 1986 Tuesday
While at the central library downtown, near the men's room on the 3rd floor, I was “cruised” again by this guy wanting sex. I was so turned on by his making a pass at me but I was petrified to do anything. Then this third man blatantly came up to the two of us and makes a pass at us and invites us over to his apartment at the Ben Albert on 5th East. I was drawn to these guys like a magnate, even thought my head kept saying, "No! No! No!"
I drove over to this kid's place where we fumbled getting out of our clothes and falling upon each other as we scrambled into bed. After we were spent of our passions and before I could start feeling guilty something simply illuminating happened. We began to talk.
We began to talk openly about being Gay. I awkwardly confessed that I was a married man, sure that they would shrink from me but they simply said that it didn't matter to them. We laid in bed, in a bond of sweet familiarity, and we began to talk about our work, our feelings, and strangely even our relationships with our fathers. We talked about so much more then that but because my senses are reeling I cannot recall all that we talked about. It was magic. It was unbelievably soul fulfilling.
For the first time in my thirty-four years I am really communicating. I am communicating with people who speak the same language that I do. I am finally talking to people I can understand and who understand me! To say that I was almost giddy is not quite right because I also almost wanted to cry; because something deep and longing within me, long parched and barely viable, was being renewed, reborn, saved.
I realized during this epiphany that I have spent the majority of my life as a wanderer in a foreign land, among people, while appearing to be like me, are not. I even learned to speak their language which is truly not mine and I have learned it well enough to communicate fluently with them, enough to pass among them, but I am not of them. I always knew that fundamentally there is no understanding between us. But now, today with these beautiful men I discovered that there are others like me who are seemingly also strangers in a strange land and who like I, have been searching for others of our kind.
I can't explain it any better then this. Something transcendental poured through me today. Call it my Gay Pentecostal revival. It is soul satisfying to be with your own kind. It is like I was dying of thirst and being with these men, I reached an oasis of clear cool water from which all thirst has been quenched.
I want male sex so much but I am afraid of what the guilt will do to my marriage and my relationship to the church. What about my wife? We have been married for nine years and I love her so much but this is something so basic to my nature. So deep in me and is a well spring of my entire being. Even if my wife could forgive me for what I did today, would the church? I think not.
But it feels so right, so good, being with these men. I feel like I have come into my own, finally. I am therefore resolved to come to terms with my sexuality no matter where it leads me. I have no choice. Something deep within me, struggling to stay alive compels me. If I don't go forward with this I literal feel like I will die.
O Father in Heaven, help me find out who I am and why I am. If being Gay is not an issue with you but indeed a spiritual gift to me then help me learn what I must do. Like Lot’s wife I must not look back.
6 February 1986 Thursday:
I called the Salt Lake Affirmation's hot line number and spoke only to a recording. Thank God! I was afraid I would have to speak to some one live. I am not ready for that. The recording said that Affirmation meets downtown at the Crossroads Urban Center, twice a month on Wednesdays. Yesterday was the first meeting of February so I missed that one. There won't be another meeting until the 17th.
My wife will want to know where I am going that night. I hate to lie but I will simply tell her that I am going to an Overeater's Anonymous meeting. If I told her the truth, I'm afraid that she would freak out. Besides if Affirmation is too weird, I'll never go back and none will be the wiser.
7 February 1986 Friday:
This week has gone fast and nothing special going on at work. Today my wife went out to dinner with her Taylor Maid friends so I decided to go up to the University of Utah and sit in the sauna there in the HPER* Building. I need to soak my pores and get some of the toxins out. To be truthful I know I like sitting in the sauna for other reasons too. Why are men such a turn on?
Additional Material -*Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Building
Additional Material 8 February 1986- Elder Antonio A. Feliz and Pamela Calkins and David Ewing addressed a dozen curiosity seekers in Salt Lake Public Library representing The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ. Purpose was “to see if there was a need for a branch of the church here, and if so, what the reception would be.” Antonio Feliz co-founder stated: “We have established a church based on the Mormon beliefs set forth by the first prophet of the Mormon Churches, Joseph Smith…We feel that the Lord is guiding our steps for the blessing of all people, including Gay and Lesbians.
• The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, alternately known as the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter-day Saints, provides a setting in which Gay and Lesbian Mormons can practice the faith of their fathers and mothers supportive of their needs. The RCJC is set up similarly to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, with a First Presidency (presently Douglas B. Madrid, President, and Larry Tidwell, Counselor) and Quorum of the Twelve (Robert McIntier, President). They accept as scripture the four standard works of the LDS Church, the Lectures of Faith, which were included in the original 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, the RLDS D&C (in a limited sense), and their own book of revelations, Hidden Treasures and Promises. They operate a Temple, which is actually more a Tabernacle after the style of the Israelites' mobile Beth Elohim.
• The Restoration Church was founded in August 1985 by Antonio A. Feliz, Lamar Hamilton, John Crane, Pamela Calkins and other members of the Los Angeles Chapter of Affirmation. It is sometimes called the "Gay Mormon Church" due to its overwhelmingly homosexual membership. Antonio A. Feliz by revelation originally named the church the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints, but when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints informed him of their intent to sue, he changed the name to legally the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ. At a church conference in Sacramento, California, in May 1987, Antonio A. Feliz resigned as president after a vote of no confidence. He was succeeded by Robert A. McIntier, an engineer, current president of the church (as of 2006).
• A Brief Overview of the History and Teachings of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ from their web site; The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ was officially organized in Los Angeles, California, in 1985. Most of the original members were people who had been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ("Mormons") because of their sexual orientation. These were good people who loved the Lord and His gospel. They wanted to serve Him, and keep the commitments they had made to Him, both at the waters of baptism and (in some cases) in His holy temple. But they were not allowed because they refused to deny who they really were. These people believed that the Lord was willing to reveal Himself to ALL people who would strive to keep His commandments. They believed then, and we are witnesses today, that the Lord can and does reveal Himself "...to persons of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples according to their own understanding, culture, time, and society." (Mission Statement) Those things which God has revealed to the leaders of this church are compiled in a book called Hidden Treasures and Promises, which we accept along with "traditional" restoration scriptures as the word of the Lord to us. We believe that there are many churches who have great truth for the benefit of all who seek it, and we do not claim to be "the only true church." We believe that the LDS and RLDS churches do a great service in their part of the Lord's work, but we also testify that God has called us to extend the blessings of the Gospel to those who cannot be reached by these and other restoration churches. We testify that God has called prophets and apostles from among our people, in addition to those whom He has called among other peoples. We believe the role of the Church is not to dominate our lives, but to be a tool, which we may choose to use, in furthering our own spiritual progression. It is the duty of each individual, not the Church, to do those things which will lead to Eternal lives. We believe in the Holy Priesthood, and we claim all of its benefits for all who are willing to accept the responsibility that goes with it, including women. The sacred authority to seal loving individuals for time and all eternity also exists among us, and is used to bless the lives of those who are prepared to keep the covenants that go with this blessing, regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Our local units are called "families," rather than wards or stakes. We feel this better describes their functions, because for many, their Church associations are the only family they can really turn to for help in some of the most important aspects of their lives. We have organized families and/or individual members in many parts of the country. We are legally incorporated in the states of California and Utah. We invite all who seek the truth to investigate our claims, because we know that the Spirit of the Lord will confirm our witness to those who sincerely seek to know about us.
• Antonio (Tony) Feliz was a High Priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A graduate of BYU, he worked for the Church in various capacities including service in the Church Welfare System and served as the Director of Church Welfare for the Andean Region of the LDS Church during the 1970's. He is the father of three children. In the process of doing some research in the Church archives, he ran across some information concerning Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and others, that bothers him. He begins to read the early documents to support the idea that same sex unions can be blessed as well as heterosexual unions. He also reads in the early documents the idea that women were ordained to priesthood during Joseph Smith's years. Both practices were discontinued after Joseph's death. Central to Feliz's premise is that priesthood authority can be exercised outside the auspices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He believes that the endowments he received while in the Church are still with him, and he needs no permission to continue exercising this authority. As he distanced himself more and more from the modern-day Church, he found himself more and more attracted to the raw religion of the early Joseph Smith days. He authored a book Out of the Bishop's Closet in 1992 detailing his coming out and spiritual journey but excluding any of his experiences as a leader in the Restoration Church, and Becoming Open Souls, “an unabashedly theological work which explores the connection between the LDS church and Native American traditions”.
• "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going" by Billy Ocean is number one song on national charts
Additional material 9 February 1986 Comet Halley reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Earth, during its second visit to the solar system in the 20th Century.
Additional material 14 February 1986 The Murray School District policy on AIDS follows recommendations from the CDC in Atlanta calls for a student to be placed in an alternative study program away from school when AIDS is first diagnosed. Employees with the disease will not be allowed to work until a decision is made in how to deal with the problem. A contracted employee may be entitled to benefits while off the job. (B3 SLTribune)
Additional Material 15 February 1986 “How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston number one song on national charts
17 February 1986 Wednesday
I can't believe that I went to Affirmation, a support group for Gay and Lesbian Mormons. They meet at seven-thirty p.m. at 347 South 400 East in an old two story Victorian House. I was so nervous about going for the first time that I sat in my car for twenty minutes deciding whether to go inside or go home.
It was the same gut wrenching feeling I had back in 1971 when I paced back and forth deciding whether to attend a Gay Student group on the campus of Cal-State Fullerton. And that did not go well. All kinds of fearful thoughts flooded my mind. What if some one I know sees me? What if the police are there? What if...What if... What if... I was paralyzing myself with what ifs.
Finally around a quarter to eight I saw some guys go inside the building who I felt were obviously Gay so I steeled my nerve and decided to get out of the car. I thought to myself, "What do I care if they think I am Gay or not? They must be Gay themselves or they wouldn't be here either."
Steadied by this bit of strange logic, I walked across the street, climbed the porch steps, and entered the Crossroads Urban Center for the first time. Crossing the threshold, to my left I saw an open parlor filled with couches and men sitting on them. I knew that there was no going back now. I had crossed the Rubicon.
I nonchalantly sauntered in, treating the meeting the same as I would an OA session. I found a seat and discreetly started to observe then men in the room. I must say that I was slightly turned on at first being in a room with so many Gay men at one time. There must have been nine or ten men there. I couldn't help looking them over. They all seemed normal enough.
A kid named Paul, dressed in levis and kind of a hippie with a pony tail, about 25 years old, was the moderator of the group. He welcomed everyone to the meeting and then this skinny blond boy named Gordon J. stood up. He had on a leather civil war looking cap and a levi vest and spoke with a Southern accent. Gordon asked if they could start the meeting with a prayer, but Paul vetoed that idea. He did agree to have a poetry reading as a spiritual opening for the meeting. Then Gordon spoke up again to announce that Elders from a group calling themselves The Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints were coming to Salt Lake to tell of the founding of a Gay Mormon Church.
Paul told Gordon that he was welcome to attend Affirmation but not to proselytize for this new church. Gordon was put out and I think had his feelings hurt. I found it all fascinating! It was thrilling to hear people actually conversing about being Gay and Mormon without the usual guilt trips.
Since the meeting was geared to being more or less a consciousness raising rap group of sorts, I was comfortable joining in with the others to talk about my experiences in the church as a Gay man. I introduced myself to the group as Edgar which felt kind of weird. I didn't really want to share my real name with the group but in actuality my so called fake name is my real name. Bizarre I know. But I have gone down the rabbit hole where I know things will get "curiouser and curiouser".
On the whole, I really enjoyed my Affirmation experience. It felt like a safe place to talk about being Gay and Mormon and to express myself to people who understand my language. I am going to go back but the next meeting isn't for two weeks and then it will be March. I am also very interested in meeting with those
Additional Material 18 February 1986 State Senator Jack Bangerter (R-Bountiful) introduced bill in Utah Legislature to make it a 3rd degree felony to knowingly transmit a communicable disease. Bill was intended to punish people with AIDS. Bill was killed in Senate ten-14.
Additional Material 19 February 1986 The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
Additional Material 20 February 1986- Michael Aaron, Gay and Lesbian liaison to the Utah State Senate District 1 sought an amendment to an existing Heath Department appropriation bill to provide funding for AIDS education. Senator Terry Williams (D-SLC) spokesman for the measure. To date agencies such as the Salt Lake AIDS Foundation have not received funding from the state.
Additional Material 22 February 1986- The In-between opens at 579 West 2nd South. Grand opening held for the In-between which occupied the building once known as the Three Aces. Bar owners were Bob Dubray and his lover Donny Eastepp. Home bar of the Gay Rodeo Association. Dubray is president of the Gay Rodeo Association while Donny Eastepp served as Mr. Utah Gay Rodeo for the past two years. Bobby Joe Dubray died 18 Sept 1990 age 42 of AIDS. Donald Eastepp born 19 February 1961 died July 1, 2004 in Houston Texas of complications from AIDS.
• How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston number one song on national charts
Additional Material 25 February 1986 Michael Dan Buttars died of AIDS at age 38, co-creator of perennial barbed witted “Saturday’s Voyeur”. Michael Dan Buttars was born in Lewiston, Cache County Utah on April 17, 1948 to Ted and Nadean Buttars. He died in Los Angeles, CA, on February 25, 1986.
• President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines goes into exile in Hawaii after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president, first as an interim president.
Additional Material 26 February 1986 Five new cases of AIDS have been reported in Utah this year all within the Wasatch Front. The reports bring the total number of Utah victims to thirty-five since 1980. Roughly ½ of those patients and 2 who reported disease since January 1 have died. Of the five new 1986 cases all the patients are male and members of high risk group. Those afflicted with AIDS in Utah include 3 females and 2 children, who were male have died as have two of the 3 women. (C8 SLTribune)
• In Fealty and homage Gay royalty from all over the western United States and Canada convened in San Francisco over a weekend in late February for the Last Walk of The Imperial Butterfly Galactica Court of Empress Sissy Spaceout and the coronation of their successors. The Third International Court Conference of the Americas was held in conjunction with the coronation.
Additional material 27 February 1986 The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
28 February 1986 Friday
My wife and I spent much of February trying to stay on top of our bills which were compounded by very high fuel bills. My wife only made $100 during the whole month and that didn't even begin to pay the gas bill. Half of my month's salary went to pay rent alone.
It would have been a tough month with just the two of us but on the 15th last, Tony S., the twenty-two year old son of a friend of my wife, asked if he could stay with us while he looked for work in Salt Lake. My wife felt like she had to for her friend's sake. Tony and I have nothing in common. He's a fairly good looking kid but between the two of them I have really felt put upon for the past two weeks.
Not only am I the only one working full time, I had to cook dinner, and manage to scrape up enough food for all of us. I am just wearing myself out. The house is a wreck unless I clean it. I cook the food, do the grocery shopping, and when those two are together I feel completely shut out. They play games, they laugh and tell stories, while I worry about how I am going to keep this all together.
One of the reasons we were so broke was a $150 phone bill my wife racked up that I had to pay to keep it from being disconnected.
Shortly after Tony came to live with us, my wife's nephew and his buddy called me at four-thirty a.m. to take them back to Camp Williams after spending the night out drinking. Since our car's heater is broken, I had to drive with my window partially down to keep the windshield from fogging up and I caught a cold again. I've been sick for two weeks but not nearly as miserable as I was in January. I think that is one of the reasons I am so aggravated with Tony and my wife.
At work Bob put me totally in charge of entering all the title searches in the computer to search the General Index. I don't have to do searches myself any more unless I want to. I have created my own little department, my own niche, where my boss can't push me because he doesn't understand what I am doing.
I still don't have any people at work who I could call friends. Lynn F. and I hang out because we are both outsiders. The rest of the people I work with are typical Mormons, distrustful of those without a solid Utah connection. I think the main reason I don't have a lot of friends at work is because I don't go along with the flow. For example I stand up for human rights and call people on the carpet when they say totally asinine things.
Like last January, Coretta King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., came to Utah to lobby the state legislature to make her late husband's birthday a state holiday.
I think Arizona and we are the last hold outs in the nation. Almost everyone at work was so upset that they might even consider Martin Luther King's birthday for holiday. It pissed me off so I left work and went up to the First Baptist Church on 13th East to hear Mrs. King speak. I had my own reasons also. I needed to atone for my teenage racial prejudice.
The state compromised over the issue and officially made Martin Luther King's birthday a state holiday but they called the day "Human Rights Day" rather then honor Dr. King. Even this made people at work mad. I know that it is not my job to change their thinking but I do let these narrow minded kids know that their bigoted views won't go unchallenged. At least by me.
Also in the news the Marcos government in the Philippines was over thrown. I really didn't think Marcos would ever give up his power over a country he ruled as a dictator for 20 years. He's in Hawaii now with millions of dollars he looted from the Philippine people. I think he should be shot but our President Reagan couldn't wait to give him refuge like we did the Shah of Iran. Well enough of that.
The weather has been absolutely beautiful for the past two weeks and very spring like. The cold and the inversions are gone and the temperatures have been in the mid-sixties. Plants are starting to bud and it is really nice outside. We deserve the break after such a nasty December and January
I called our landlord today and said we could only pay half our rent until the 15th because our fuel bill is so high. If we don't pay it, they will cut it off. Gee I hated doing that.
I went to the LDS Genealogical Library and spent most of the day looking up my wife's Norwegian Ancestors in the 1840's. I don't know Norwegian but can figure enough out to find things.
I walked home from the Library, about two miles because it was such a pretty day and I didn't have the bus fare. It's only 40 cents but I didn't even have that on me.
In the evenings our married friends from Provo invited my wife and I to the show. We saw "Down and Out In Beverly Hills". I just love Bette Midler so I thought the movie was great: especially Matisse the dog. The theme of the movie was that rich or poor if you don't have people in your life that love you, then you really don't have much.
Additional Material Vice Squad arrested 12 people in a drug raid at the Sun Club. Seven of those arrested were Sun employees. Attorney Howard Johnson represented the Sun against the city. The vice squad prompted the city to hold a hearing with the department of business to take away the Sun’s business license. Joe Redburn as owner of the Club stated that closing the Club would hurt paying off creditors since the private club had been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Sun began requesting “from our patrons a cover charge of one dollar for members and $4 for non members for a legal defense fund.”
• "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne & Friends number one song on national Charts.
3 February 1986 Monday:
While listening to Radio Free Utah's program "Concerning Gays and Lesbians" at work, they mentioned at the end of the show a list of organizations and their phone numbers. I wrote down the numbers for Affirmation, the Metropolitan Community Church, and Gay Alcoholics Anonymous. Now that I have these numbers what do I do with them?
4 February 1986 Tuesday
While at the central library downtown, near the men's room on the 3rd floor, I was “cruised” again by this guy wanting sex. I was so turned on by his making a pass at me but I was petrified to do anything. Then this third man blatantly came up to the two of us and makes a pass at us and invites us over to his apartment at the Ben Albert on 5th East. I was drawn to these guys like a magnate, even thought my head kept saying, "No! No! No!"
I drove over to this kid's place where we fumbled getting out of our clothes and falling upon each other as we scrambled into bed. After we were spent of our passions and before I could start feeling guilty something simply illuminating happened. We began to talk.
We began to talk openly about being Gay. I awkwardly confessed that I was a married man, sure that they would shrink from me but they simply said that it didn't matter to them. We laid in bed, in a bond of sweet familiarity, and we began to talk about our work, our feelings, and strangely even our relationships with our fathers. We talked about so much more then that but because my senses are reeling I cannot recall all that we talked about. It was magic. It was unbelievably soul fulfilling.
For the first time in my thirty-four years I am really communicating. I am communicating with people who speak the same language that I do. I am finally talking to people I can understand and who understand me! To say that I was almost giddy is not quite right because I also almost wanted to cry; because something deep and longing within me, long parched and barely viable, was being renewed, reborn, saved.
I realized during this epiphany that I have spent the majority of my life as a wanderer in a foreign land, among people, while appearing to be like me, are not. I even learned to speak their language which is truly not mine and I have learned it well enough to communicate fluently with them, enough to pass among them, but I am not of them. I always knew that fundamentally there is no understanding between us. But now, today with these beautiful men I discovered that there are others like me who are seemingly also strangers in a strange land and who like I, have been searching for others of our kind.
I can't explain it any better then this. Something transcendental poured through me today. Call it my Gay Pentecostal revival. It is soul satisfying to be with your own kind. It is like I was dying of thirst and being with these men, I reached an oasis of clear cool water from which all thirst has been quenched.
I want male sex so much but I am afraid of what the guilt will do to my marriage and my relationship to the church. What about my wife? We have been married for nine years and I love her so much but this is something so basic to my nature. So deep in me and is a well spring of my entire being. Even if my wife could forgive me for what I did today, would the church? I think not.
But it feels so right, so good, being with these men. I feel like I have come into my own, finally. I am therefore resolved to come to terms with my sexuality no matter where it leads me. I have no choice. Something deep within me, struggling to stay alive compels me. If I don't go forward with this I literal feel like I will die.
O Father in Heaven, help me find out who I am and why I am. If being Gay is not an issue with you but indeed a spiritual gift to me then help me learn what I must do. Like Lot’s wife I must not look back.
6 February 1986 Thursday:
I called the Salt Lake Affirmation's hot line number and spoke only to a recording. Thank God! I was afraid I would have to speak to some one live. I am not ready for that. The recording said that Affirmation meets downtown at the Crossroads Urban Center, twice a month on Wednesdays. Yesterday was the first meeting of February so I missed that one. There won't be another meeting until the 17th.
My wife will want to know where I am going that night. I hate to lie but I will simply tell her that I am going to an Overeater's Anonymous meeting. If I told her the truth, I'm afraid that she would freak out. Besides if Affirmation is too weird, I'll never go back and none will be the wiser.
7 February 1986 Friday:
This week has gone fast and nothing special going on at work. Today my wife went out to dinner with her Taylor Maid friends so I decided to go up to the University of Utah and sit in the sauna there in the HPER* Building. I need to soak my pores and get some of the toxins out. To be truthful I know I like sitting in the sauna for other reasons too. Why are men such a turn on?
Additional Material -*Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Building
Additional Material 8 February 1986- Elder Antonio A. Feliz and Pamela Calkins and David Ewing addressed a dozen curiosity seekers in Salt Lake Public Library representing The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ. Purpose was “to see if there was a need for a branch of the church here, and if so, what the reception would be.” Antonio Feliz co-founder stated: “We have established a church based on the Mormon beliefs set forth by the first prophet of the Mormon Churches, Joseph Smith…We feel that the Lord is guiding our steps for the blessing of all people, including Gay and Lesbians.
• The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, alternately known as the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter-day Saints, provides a setting in which Gay and Lesbian Mormons can practice the faith of their fathers and mothers supportive of their needs. The RCJC is set up similarly to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, with a First Presidency (presently Douglas B. Madrid, President, and Larry Tidwell, Counselor) and Quorum of the Twelve (Robert McIntier, President). They accept as scripture the four standard works of the LDS Church, the Lectures of Faith, which were included in the original 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, the RLDS D&C (in a limited sense), and their own book of revelations, Hidden Treasures and Promises. They operate a Temple, which is actually more a Tabernacle after the style of the Israelites' mobile Beth Elohim.
• The Restoration Church was founded in August 1985 by Antonio A. Feliz, Lamar Hamilton, John Crane, Pamela Calkins and other members of the Los Angeles Chapter of Affirmation. It is sometimes called the "Gay Mormon Church" due to its overwhelmingly homosexual membership. Antonio A. Feliz by revelation originally named the church the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints, but when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints informed him of their intent to sue, he changed the name to legally the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ. At a church conference in Sacramento, California, in May 1987, Antonio A. Feliz resigned as president after a vote of no confidence. He was succeeded by Robert A. McIntier, an engineer, current president of the church (as of 2006).
• A Brief Overview of the History and Teachings of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ from their web site; The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ was officially organized in Los Angeles, California, in 1985. Most of the original members were people who had been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ("Mormons") because of their sexual orientation. These were good people who loved the Lord and His gospel. They wanted to serve Him, and keep the commitments they had made to Him, both at the waters of baptism and (in some cases) in His holy temple. But they were not allowed because they refused to deny who they really were. These people believed that the Lord was willing to reveal Himself to ALL people who would strive to keep His commandments. They believed then, and we are witnesses today, that the Lord can and does reveal Himself "...to persons of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples according to their own understanding, culture, time, and society." (Mission Statement) Those things which God has revealed to the leaders of this church are compiled in a book called Hidden Treasures and Promises, which we accept along with "traditional" restoration scriptures as the word of the Lord to us. We believe that there are many churches who have great truth for the benefit of all who seek it, and we do not claim to be "the only true church." We believe that the LDS and RLDS churches do a great service in their part of the Lord's work, but we also testify that God has called us to extend the blessings of the Gospel to those who cannot be reached by these and other restoration churches. We testify that God has called prophets and apostles from among our people, in addition to those whom He has called among other peoples. We believe the role of the Church is not to dominate our lives, but to be a tool, which we may choose to use, in furthering our own spiritual progression. It is the duty of each individual, not the Church, to do those things which will lead to Eternal lives. We believe in the Holy Priesthood, and we claim all of its benefits for all who are willing to accept the responsibility that goes with it, including women. The sacred authority to seal loving individuals for time and all eternity also exists among us, and is used to bless the lives of those who are prepared to keep the covenants that go with this blessing, regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Our local units are called "families," rather than wards or stakes. We feel this better describes their functions, because for many, their Church associations are the only family they can really turn to for help in some of the most important aspects of their lives. We have organized families and/or individual members in many parts of the country. We are legally incorporated in the states of California and Utah. We invite all who seek the truth to investigate our claims, because we know that the Spirit of the Lord will confirm our witness to those who sincerely seek to know about us.
• Antonio (Tony) Feliz was a High Priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A graduate of BYU, he worked for the Church in various capacities including service in the Church Welfare System and served as the Director of Church Welfare for the Andean Region of the LDS Church during the 1970's. He is the father of three children. In the process of doing some research in the Church archives, he ran across some information concerning Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and others, that bothers him. He begins to read the early documents to support the idea that same sex unions can be blessed as well as heterosexual unions. He also reads in the early documents the idea that women were ordained to priesthood during Joseph Smith's years. Both practices were discontinued after Joseph's death. Central to Feliz's premise is that priesthood authority can be exercised outside the auspices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He believes that the endowments he received while in the Church are still with him, and he needs no permission to continue exercising this authority. As he distanced himself more and more from the modern-day Church, he found himself more and more attracted to the raw religion of the early Joseph Smith days. He authored a book Out of the Bishop's Closet in 1992 detailing his coming out and spiritual journey but excluding any of his experiences as a leader in the Restoration Church, and Becoming Open Souls, “an unabashedly theological work which explores the connection between the LDS church and Native American traditions”.
• "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going" by Billy Ocean is number one song on national charts
Additional material 9 February 1986 Comet Halley reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Earth, during its second visit to the solar system in the 20th Century.
Additional material 14 February 1986 The Murray School District policy on AIDS follows recommendations from the CDC in Atlanta calls for a student to be placed in an alternative study program away from school when AIDS is first diagnosed. Employees with the disease will not be allowed to work until a decision is made in how to deal with the problem. A contracted employee may be entitled to benefits while off the job. (B3 SLTribune)
Additional Material 15 February 1986 “How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston number one song on national charts
17 February 1986 Wednesday
I can't believe that I went to Affirmation, a support group for Gay and Lesbian Mormons. They meet at seven-thirty p.m. at 347 South 400 East in an old two story Victorian House. I was so nervous about going for the first time that I sat in my car for twenty minutes deciding whether to go inside or go home.
It was the same gut wrenching feeling I had back in 1971 when I paced back and forth deciding whether to attend a Gay Student group on the campus of Cal-State Fullerton. And that did not go well. All kinds of fearful thoughts flooded my mind. What if some one I know sees me? What if the police are there? What if...What if... What if... I was paralyzing myself with what ifs.
Finally around a quarter to eight I saw some guys go inside the building who I felt were obviously Gay so I steeled my nerve and decided to get out of the car. I thought to myself, "What do I care if they think I am Gay or not? They must be Gay themselves or they wouldn't be here either."
Steadied by this bit of strange logic, I walked across the street, climbed the porch steps, and entered the Crossroads Urban Center for the first time. Crossing the threshold, to my left I saw an open parlor filled with couches and men sitting on them. I knew that there was no going back now. I had crossed the Rubicon.
I nonchalantly sauntered in, treating the meeting the same as I would an OA session. I found a seat and discreetly started to observe then men in the room. I must say that I was slightly turned on at first being in a room with so many Gay men at one time. There must have been nine or ten men there. I couldn't help looking them over. They all seemed normal enough.
A kid named Paul, dressed in levis and kind of a hippie with a pony tail, about 25 years old, was the moderator of the group. He welcomed everyone to the meeting and then this skinny blond boy named Gordon J. stood up. He had on a leather civil war looking cap and a levi vest and spoke with a Southern accent. Gordon asked if they could start the meeting with a prayer, but Paul vetoed that idea. He did agree to have a poetry reading as a spiritual opening for the meeting. Then Gordon spoke up again to announce that Elders from a group calling themselves The Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints were coming to Salt Lake to tell of the founding of a Gay Mormon Church.
Paul told Gordon that he was welcome to attend Affirmation but not to proselytize for this new church. Gordon was put out and I think had his feelings hurt. I found it all fascinating! It was thrilling to hear people actually conversing about being Gay and Mormon without the usual guilt trips.
Since the meeting was geared to being more or less a consciousness raising rap group of sorts, I was comfortable joining in with the others to talk about my experiences in the church as a Gay man. I introduced myself to the group as Edgar which felt kind of weird. I didn't really want to share my real name with the group but in actuality my so called fake name is my real name. Bizarre I know. But I have gone down the rabbit hole where I know things will get "curiouser and curiouser".
On the whole, I really enjoyed my Affirmation experience. It felt like a safe place to talk about being Gay and Mormon and to express myself to people who understand my language. I am going to go back but the next meeting isn't for two weeks and then it will be March. I am also very interested in meeting with those
Additional Material 18 February 1986 State Senator Jack Bangerter (R-Bountiful) introduced bill in Utah Legislature to make it a 3rd degree felony to knowingly transmit a communicable disease. Bill was intended to punish people with AIDS. Bill was killed in Senate ten-14.
Additional Material 19 February 1986 The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
Additional Material 20 February 1986- Michael Aaron, Gay and Lesbian liaison to the Utah State Senate District 1 sought an amendment to an existing Heath Department appropriation bill to provide funding for AIDS education. Senator Terry Williams (D-SLC) spokesman for the measure. To date agencies such as the Salt Lake AIDS Foundation have not received funding from the state.
Additional Material 22 February 1986- The In-between opens at 579 West 2nd South. Grand opening held for the In-between which occupied the building once known as the Three Aces. Bar owners were Bob Dubray and his lover Donny Eastepp. Home bar of the Gay Rodeo Association. Dubray is president of the Gay Rodeo Association while Donny Eastepp served as Mr. Utah Gay Rodeo for the past two years. Bobby Joe Dubray died 18 Sept 1990 age 42 of AIDS. Donald Eastepp born 19 February 1961 died July 1, 2004 in Houston Texas of complications from AIDS.
• How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston number one song on national charts
Additional Material 25 February 1986 Michael Dan Buttars died of AIDS at age 38, co-creator of perennial barbed witted “Saturday’s Voyeur”. Michael Dan Buttars was born in Lewiston, Cache County Utah on April 17, 1948 to Ted and Nadean Buttars. He died in Los Angeles, CA, on February 25, 1986.
• President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines goes into exile in Hawaii after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president, first as an interim president.
Additional Material 26 February 1986 Five new cases of AIDS have been reported in Utah this year all within the Wasatch Front. The reports bring the total number of Utah victims to thirty-five since 1980. Roughly ½ of those patients and 2 who reported disease since January 1 have died. Of the five new 1986 cases all the patients are male and members of high risk group. Those afflicted with AIDS in Utah include 3 females and 2 children, who were male have died as have two of the 3 women. (C8 SLTribune)
• In Fealty and homage Gay royalty from all over the western United States and Canada convened in San Francisco over a weekend in late February for the Last Walk of The Imperial Butterfly Galactica Court of Empress Sissy Spaceout and the coronation of their successors. The Third International Court Conference of the Americas was held in conjunction with the coronation.
Additional material 27 February 1986 The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
28 February 1986 Friday
My wife and I spent much of February trying to stay on top of our bills which were compounded by very high fuel bills. My wife only made $100 during the whole month and that didn't even begin to pay the gas bill. Half of my month's salary went to pay rent alone.
It would have been a tough month with just the two of us but on the 15th last, Tony S., the twenty-two year old son of a friend of my wife, asked if he could stay with us while he looked for work in Salt Lake. My wife felt like she had to for her friend's sake. Tony and I have nothing in common. He's a fairly good looking kid but between the two of them I have really felt put upon for the past two weeks.
Not only am I the only one working full time, I had to cook dinner, and manage to scrape up enough food for all of us. I am just wearing myself out. The house is a wreck unless I clean it. I cook the food, do the grocery shopping, and when those two are together I feel completely shut out. They play games, they laugh and tell stories, while I worry about how I am going to keep this all together.
One of the reasons we were so broke was a $150 phone bill my wife racked up that I had to pay to keep it from being disconnected.
Shortly after Tony came to live with us, my wife's nephew and his buddy called me at four-thirty a.m. to take them back to Camp Williams after spending the night out drinking. Since our car's heater is broken, I had to drive with my window partially down to keep the windshield from fogging up and I caught a cold again. I've been sick for two weeks but not nearly as miserable as I was in January. I think that is one of the reasons I am so aggravated with Tony and my wife.
At work Bob put me totally in charge of entering all the title searches in the computer to search the General Index. I don't have to do searches myself any more unless I want to. I have created my own little department, my own niche, where my boss can't push me because he doesn't understand what I am doing.
I still don't have any people at work who I could call friends. Lynn F. and I hang out because we are both outsiders. The rest of the people I work with are typical Mormons, distrustful of those without a solid Utah connection. I think the main reason I don't have a lot of friends at work is because I don't go along with the flow. For example I stand up for human rights and call people on the carpet when they say totally asinine things.
Like last January, Coretta King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., came to Utah to lobby the state legislature to make her late husband's birthday a state holiday.
I think Arizona and we are the last hold outs in the nation. Almost everyone at work was so upset that they might even consider Martin Luther King's birthday for holiday. It pissed me off so I left work and went up to the First Baptist Church on 13th East to hear Mrs. King speak. I had my own reasons also. I needed to atone for my teenage racial prejudice.
The state compromised over the issue and officially made Martin Luther King's birthday a state holiday but they called the day "Human Rights Day" rather then honor Dr. King. Even this made people at work mad. I know that it is not my job to change their thinking but I do let these narrow minded kids know that their bigoted views won't go unchallenged. At least by me.
Also in the news the Marcos government in the Philippines was over thrown. I really didn't think Marcos would ever give up his power over a country he ruled as a dictator for 20 years. He's in Hawaii now with millions of dollars he looted from the Philippine people. I think he should be shot but our President Reagan couldn't wait to give him refuge like we did the Shah of Iran. Well enough of that.
The weather has been absolutely beautiful for the past two weeks and very spring like. The cold and the inversions are gone and the temperatures have been in the mid-sixties. Plants are starting to bud and it is really nice outside. We deserve the break after such a nasty December and January
March 1986
1 March 1986 Saturday:
Such a pretty, almost spring like day. People are outside washing their cars and doing yard work. The air smells so clean and fresh. I cleaned the house while my wife went off to Taylor Maid. My little dog Toby is sound a sleep, laying in the sunshine in the front room. He sure likes being nice and warm. So this is March! I wonder what you will bring to me besides the warmth of spring. I had a longing to hear John F. C.'s voice. When I called him his mother said he was on his way to Vegas.
Additional Material March 1986- First Issue of The TRIANGLE Magazine published by Triangle Publications. Editor-Scott Dunn, Art Director-Michael Aaron, Contributing Artist-Mark Skeem, Distribution Manager-Richard McCall , Business Manager- John Sasserman. Featured Article was on the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ
• Rick Shenkman reporter for KUTV charged that the LDS Church censored an AIDS story by Glen Warchol of the Deseret News. Warchol stated that his article claimed that AIDS has placed bishops and stake presidents in a dilemma. These lay leaders of the Mormon congregations feel the compassion and understanding they can offer AIDS patients is limited by Mormon policy toward homosexuality.”
• "Kyrie" by Mr. Mister number one song on national charts
Additional Material 2 March 1986 The first meeting of Wasatch Affirmation held at the home of Randy H. in Sugarhouse, to gather interest in forming a new group under the leader ship of Russell Lane. The Wasatch Affirmation, a Support Group for Gay and Lesbian Mormons was established by Russell Lane. Russ Lane the Wasatch Chapter director had recently returned to Salt Lake City from San Jose, California where he was also a chapter director. Wasatch Affirmation founded to establish a chapter based on the National Charter. “Its meetings are for people, friends, who can share experiences, information, support, and encouragement. Its activities are designed for meeting others in a social environment that differs from bars, bath houses, or other places that have been negatively stereotyped. Its policy to adhere to the Word of Wisdom at Affirmation functions contributes to a unique way of life--the life of a gay latter-day Saint”.
4 March 1986 Tuesday:
My wife got $9 in tips yesterday so we decided to treat our selves to a movie. We went and saw Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters and loved it.
5 March 1986 Wednesday:
I went to Affirmation for the second time tonight. It was easier to go into the meeting this time. Paul led the meeting again, starting it off by reading a poem. Gordon J. was not at the meeting so I wonder if he got mad from his treatment last time. During the meeting we talked about the church's attitude towards Gays and the people there detailed their experiences with the church. I even talked about my being disfellowshipped back in 1976, for the first time in public and in real depth. It felt so good to get a lot of the hurt I have been carrying all these years out and especially to people with similar experiences and who could commiserate.
I found out tonight that this guy named John Cooper, who about 40 years old is the real leader of Affirmation. It is his phone number that is given out on the program Concerning Gays and Lesbians. I am feeling much more relax at the meeting now. It feels less likely that some church goon squad is going to arrest us for talking about the church.
Additional Material March 6 1986 Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist best known for her paintings of flowers suggestive of women’s sexual organs died. (1887-1986)
8 March 1986 Saturday:
Yesterday I went down to Mountain Fuel to make a payment schedule so our gas won't be turned off. I don't think we are going to have anymore really cold weather like December and January but my wife is freaked out about having the heat switched off. We owe over $300 on the fuel bill. It’s no longer spring like weather but it only rained today instead of snow so for that I am grateful.
Additional Material Japanese spacecraft Suisei flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.
• "Kyrie" by Mr. Mister number one song on national charts
Additional Material 9 March 1986 United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger; the bodies of all 7 astronauts are still inside.
• The 2nd meeting of Wasatch Affirmation held at Randy H.’s home in Sugar House with a pot luck dinner
10 March 1986 Monday
My wife is at a YWCA meeting for unemployed women so I am home watching a TV show called Dressed Gray which is pretty good. It's about the murder of a homosexual at an undergrad cadet academy.
There are changes on the horizon at Utah Title. My boss is leaving soon to start his own title company in St. George and Bob is going to be taking his place.
We are low on funds as usual and living on credit which is the fastest way I know to go in the hole. I haven't heard a word back from the school districts, where I have been applying, either. I guess Utah's schools are in turmoil anyway with talks of a teacher's strike this fall.
President Ray-Gun wants $100 million sent to Central America for the Contras. He actually said that if Congress doesn't give him the money he wants, then American soldiers may be deployed there. I have always said Reagan is a president in search of a war. Bonzo Goes to War.
Listening to Radio Free Utah this morning, I heard Bishop Tutu of South Africa relate the effects of Apartheid on his country. For the first time, I finally got it. I finally understood the evil of a political system that allows an uneducated 18 year old white man to vote while denying the same right to an educated 60 year old black man. Bishop Tutu, as articulate as he is, can not vote simply because of the color of his skin. Ridiculous.
Concerning Gays and Lesbians came on following the program with Bishop Tutu. Their guest was Elder Antonio Feliz of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints.
He told the co-hosts that the church was brought forth to bring the gospel to the despised and rejected of this world. And who are more despised and rejected then Gay men and women? I liked what I heard on the program. It touched my spirit.
I have been struggling with the Mormon Church to understand my place in it. From the very beginning I have been made to feel like I was an outsider. I am also torn by many of its doctrines which support conservative dogmas which I do not believe are supported by the teachings of Jesus Christ or Joseph Smith. In my heart I cannot accept anymore certain precepts that they teach, with blind obedience. I believe many of the teachings of the church are completely alien to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do believe in the restored gospel of the Prophet Joseph Smith but I am not sure I have a place in the Corporation of the First Presidency Church that professes to be the direct successor to the church founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.
Christ made it clear that His kingdom is not of this world and that the Kingdom of God is within us. So why do Mormons insist on building up a kingdom in this world? I thought we were not to treasure up the things of this world? I don't understand it anymore.
Christ also said that the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed that would grow to accommodate all the birds of the world. Where do Gay birds fit within the Mormon vision of that mustard tree? They are so quick to expel any bird that does not conform to its narrowly defined code of conduct which I find neither very Christian nor inspired. I think I will have to investigate this new Restored Church.
Additional Material Ray Milland, Classic Hollywood actor best remembered for portraying an alcoholic in Lost Weekend (1905-1986)
12 March 1986 Wednesday
While listening to Radio Free Utah at work, I heard this man claim that men are taught to hate other men because of the competitive world we live in. He stated that in sports men are taught to hate losing and therefore in effect to hate losers. In the real world, since most of us are losers in society, in some form or another, men develop a sense of self hatred. This man went on to say that in a non competitive world, there would be nothing to struggle against and thus we would have the beginnings of a non violent society. His arguments were very interesting to me and in some ways capsulated why I have a hard time with organized sports that pit people against people. I always preferred games where people compete against personal bests not each other. I wonder if we will ever teach young people skills where we all can win?
I went to Affirmation again today. There were at least fifteen people there the biggest turn out that I have seen. I feel very comfortable attending the meeting now. I feel more like a regular then a newcomer. Gordon J. was at the meeting again and announced that Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints is having Sacrament Meetings at the Crossroads Urban Center on Sundays. The rest of the meeting was facilitated by John Cooper. Paul wasn't here tonight.
13 March 1986 Thursday
Changes are taking place at Utah Title; however I don't know how they will affect me yet. I took off during my lunch hour and drove to the University of Utah where Geraldine Ferraro was to speak at noon. Ferraro is the first woman nominated to run for the office of Vice Presidency of the United States. However her plane was delayed and she didn't give her talk until after 1 p.m. and I had to return to work.
I can't believe how quickly gas prices are falling. Right now you can get unleaded gas at 81 cents a gallon when just last December we were paying a $1.25! The price for a barrel of oil keeps falling and as it does the price of gasoline is going down. It sure is good on the old pocketbook. Still its hard to absorb the change so quickly. It's like what they call future shock.
President Reagan still wants Congress to send money to the Contras in Central America. I say let's stay out of it. If we would not have supported the Samoza's dictatorship for all these years perhaps we wouldn't have the Communists sympathizers in Central America in the first place. When Vice President Bush was CIA director he made deals with the devils down there all over the place. I am sure it won't be long until we have advisors there training the Contras and then WHAM it’s another Viet Nam.
I've been thinking about the Savior lately and my personal relationship to Him and what the gospel means to me. I have decided to go to church services, of the All LDS Sacrament meeting, this Sunday at the Crossroad Urban Center. I don't make this decision lightly because attending this meeting is something I could be excommunicated for by the LDS Church. But I don't seem to care anymore. I joined the Mormon Church in 1972 when I was 21 years. I have been in the church my entire adult life and I still do not feel welcomed. Upon hearing Elder Feliz on the radio, for the first time in a long time, I feel excited about religion again.
As I said I have never truly felt quite at home in the Mormon Church but since I was taught the restored gospel there, I use to feel that they had it all. I am not so sure anymore. I am not sure if the Corporation of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has a place for me, without my being so utterly deformed so that I can conform to their vision of what the gospel is. If the gospel is to be preached to Jew and Gentile; is it not also to embrace Gay and Straight?
I am beginning to really feel as the LDS church is so constricted by the Law of Moses that it is entirely incapable of mobilizing to meet my needs anymore. Isn't the one as important as the many?
Then there is this divisiveness that prevails in Salt Lake City between the haves and the have nots. Why is there a west and east side to Salt Lake City? That question has always bothered me ever since I moved here in 1976. The west part of town is ghetto-ized by the indifference of the eastsiders. And the west keeps creeping further east! I am almost at the 3rd East block in SLC and yet we are considered on the west side. I don't want to get caught up in western-materialism where even Mormons feel that if someone is rich God is blessing them for being good.
All I really understand anymore is that my Father in Heaven only requires two things from me. That is to love Him with all my mind, strength, and being and to love one another as I love myself. It really seems so simple. God does not care what we do as long as we do it out of love for Him and each other. I feel like I am changing inside myself faster then I can momentarily comprehend. It's too much to think about right now. Good night. It rained most of the morning but the weather was fine for most of the day.
Additional Material GAY VIOLENCE Terry William Cunard alias Steven L. Fox B1-6 see also3/19 B2-5, 4/11 B5-1, March 2 B-2/4 July 11 B11-1 Preying upon vulnerable Gay men.
Additional Material 15 March 1986 “Sara” by Jefferson Starship is number one song on national charts.
16 March 1986 Sunday
I attended church for the first time since returning to Utah last August. It was not my local LDS Church Ward either. I went to what was the third meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints here in Salt Lake City.
I had heard from Gordon J. that the meetings were held at the Crossroads Urban Center around 2:00 p.m. so I came about a half hour early. There was just one other person downstairs in the foyer, a pleasant looking young fellow but we did not speak. I dared not or I was afraid I would bolt from the place. I just sat down on one of the old couches in the parlor and waited to see what was happening.
Eventually this sweet looking older man, dressed in a comfortable business suit, came down the stairs, noticed me, introduced himself as Elder Lamar Hamilton and welcomed me. He then talked to the young man whose name is David Ewing telling him that the business meeting was taking longer then expected and that Sacrament wouldn't be ready until two-thirty.
After Elder Hamilton disappeared back upstairs, David and I began to visit some. He is the Church's historian so I asked him about the background of the church. He told me little except that church was started in Los Angeles last August by members of the Los Angeles Chapter of Affirmation. Coincidently the church was started on the very same day I had left California to return to Utah. He also said that Elder Hamilton as well as Elder Feliz were instrumental in organizing the church.
Ewing had come to Salt Lake City from Los Angeles with the men upstairs to bring the church to Salt Lake City. Ewing said they had been busy having been on Radio Free Utah, talked to some of the Gay organizations, I can't remember which, and the church was even featured in a Gay magazine called the Triangle. Ewing showed me a copy of it and the church was on its cover. I guess the magazine is brand new.
At two-thirty, Ewing and I went upstairs to a central meeting room where several other men were already sitting and waiting for Sacrament to begin. Lamar Hamilton, the man who had welcomed me downstairs conducted the meeting while Antonio A. Feliz presided. Elder Feliz was who I had heard on Concerning Gays and Lesbians. The only person in the room whom I knew from before was Gordon B. J.. He was that blond Southern boy from Norfolk, Virginia, who first brought the church to my attention.
It was a very informal Sacrament meeting but felt very familiar. The bread and water was blessed and we sang LDS Hymns. I did not take the Sacrament. I came strictly to observe and to learn what this church is all about. I learned that Elder Feliz and Elder Hamilton were like the presidency or something similar. Elder Feliz was not at all what I expected. He was very polished, very aware of his image. I imagine that he's in his late forties or early fifties. He's Latin and his hair has gone salt and pepper. Kind of a slick Caesar Romero. Something about his aural made me skeptical although his words were soothing and authoritative. He could speak LDS-ese very well.
Elder Feliz's talk was on the priesthood. He basically stated that since priesthood is eternal and originated before there was any Church authority, it can never really be taken away and it can be exercised outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He stated that he doesn't need permission to continue exercising his priesthood authority and that all churches that have received priesthood authority from Joseph Smith are valid. There's no doubt that Elder Feliz is eloquent and what he said about the priesthood being eternal made sense to me.
But it was Elder Hamilton who spoke to my spirit not my intellect. When he talked, he said something seemingly out of the blue that just grabbed a hold of me. He said that we are only bound to what he called the Royal Law, that being the two greatest commandments to love God and one's neighbor. He said that they are truly the only requirements for a Christian life. The Holy Spirit seemed to witness to me that the words of Elder Hamilton were true and all my fears about this church being some type of wacky cult dissipated.
I feel like God is bringing about a new beginning to bless the lives of his Gay and Lesbian children and all others who had a belief in the message of the Restored Gospel.
As the meeting was winding down, I took note of the others attending this Sacrament meeting. There were probably nine men including myself. They were Elders Hamilton and Feliz of course, Gordon B. Jones, David Ewing, Bob McIntier, who had to leave early because he is on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Community Church, Jon B., a handsome man with a neatly trimmed beard who sat quiet all through the meeting, and Russ Lane, a tall lanky handsome Scottish looking man. I was mostly impressed by Elder Hamilton and the vibrant enthusiasm of Russ Lane.
After closing prayer, Russ Lane invited everyone to an Affirmation meeting. I was really confused at first but Russ said that this one is different from the Salt Lake Affirmation. I told Russ that I would come back for his meeting.
I left the Crossroads Urban Center riding on a cloud. I felt uplifted and committed to further attending the meetings of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints. In fact I knew that I had to come clean with my wife and tell her what I have been doing.
At home I sat her down and told her that I had been attending Affirmation, a support group for Gay Mormons and not Overeaters Anonymous. I took a deep breath and then also told her that I had been at a so-called Apostate church meeting and that I am going back tonight to attend another Affirmation meeting.
She took it really well and so I asked her if she would like to come with me to Affirmation. I was not really surprised when she said yes because my wife is a people person and likes to socialize so much so that if I said we were going to a snake eating contest, she would grab her coat and away we would go. She loves to meet new people and that is one of the qualities of hers that I really love.
Affirmation was at seven p.m. at the Crossroads Urban Center and there was a much larger turn out for it then there were for church maybe about fifteen people. Russ Lane conducted the meeting and his enthusiasm for the group is just contagious. I felt the spirit so much stronger at this meeting then at the Wednesday Night group. I almost feel disloyal saying that because I love that group for helping me come out of the closet. That was the first place I had ever admitted in public that I was a Gay married man, Jeez!
It was really fun for my wife and I to get out and meet new people. When my wife introduced herself to the group, she said she had no problems being here because she has always liked fags! Then she said I even married one. That got a laugh. But it's true. Prior to marrying my wife her best friend was a Gay guy named Michael.
At home I talked to my wife about how strongly I feel about joining this Gay church and it freaks her out to no end. But I feel like the Savior wants be to be apart of this new movement and if it be of God, it will stand. When Lamar Hamilton's spirit spoke to me, I had a witness that the spirit of the Lord is with this undertaking. There is something new and exciting in the air and I want to be a part of it. I want the anointing of the spirit. It was amazing that all the things that I heard spoken at Sacrament Meeting, were words that the Lord had already told me in my own way.
This feeling reminds me of how much the Lord loves all and it echoes from my past when the Lord tried to use me back in 1972 when I was too young and fragile to understand the meaning of a Jaredite Priesthood. But now someone is also preaching the same message to be kind, to be gentle, to be loving, to be charitable, and to love God with all thy mind, heart, and soul and all will be well.
Aligning myself with this church does make me nervous and fearful of being hated for being Gay but if God is with us who can be against us. I feel like I have been reborn. A new beginning. And so many neat people! Gay people! My wife now knows the direction that my life is heading. I don't have to sneak around and lie to her about where I go. Big question. How will this affect our marriage? Don't know. I know I can't go back to my former life. If I do I shall be as dead as a pillar of salt.
I heard on the news that Clair Harwood died of AIDS at St. Benedict Hospital in Ogden. He was only 26 years old. I have been given a second chance to live my life.
Additional Material: Robert McIntier is a descendant of Utah Mormon Pioneers Robert McIntier and Catherine Rose.
18 March 1986 Tuesday
I am having a very hard time keeping up with this journal but I feel like I must really try to record the events of this year as accurately as I can. I know it will only be through my eyes and perception, and I wonder if that can ever be considered truly accurate, but it’s a beginning.
At work I am being jerked around by my boss who is on a power trip because he can not stand the fact that he doesn't know what I am doing or how. But he knows I get results, so he agreed to let me stay in my department for a little while longer until he gets another wild hair up his butt. Because of other changes at Utah Title I guess they will be hiring two new title examiners.
My wife is tired tonight and she fell asleep as I was reading to her revelations from the Hidden Treasures and Promises. They are a collection of revelations given to people in the Restoration Church regarding its organization. Most are written by Antonio Feliz but some are by others.
As I understand it, the Restoration Church sees itself somewhat like the Reorganized LDS Church. The founders believe that God has to raise up a new church because the LDS Church refuses to preach the Gospel to all nations, kindreds, and tongues, because they will not preach the Gospel to practicing homosexuals. Therefore they were not keeping God's commandments. If missionaries go to a house with open homosexuals they are told not to teach them the gospel.
Tony Feliz says that Gays are like a separate nation, like Gypsies, and we are only recognizable to each other. I always felt like that when I stated that I felt like a stranger in a strange land. Only when I am with Gay people do I feel a sense of kinship; of familia.
Tony Feliz is also preaching that since priesthood exists independent of churches, they may confer priesthood but they can never take it away. That is why when some one is excommunicated and then reinstated, his priesthood is not given anew but the authority to use it is only restored. Churches might not recognize a person's authority to exercise that priesthood in their church, but that is all they can do. The Restoration Church therefore recognizes all priesthood as continuing with a person even if they have been excommunicated from the Mormon Church.
The Restoration Church also will confer the Melchizedek Priesthood on women as does the Reorganized LDS Church. My priesthood lineage is from Steven Madsen who received his from N. Eldon Tanner, who received his from David O. McKay who received his from Joseph F. Smith who received his from Brigham Young, who received his from Joseph Smith. I am seven degrees away from Joseph Smith.
I tried calling Jon B. today. He's staying in Centerville. I couldn't catch him at home. We talked last Sunday briefly about going to California this coming weekend for the Spring Conference of the Restoration Church. I left a message for him to call me but he hasn't yet. He's really cute and spiritual. I am attracted to him a lot.
Additional Material Salt Lake City School Board enacted policy to bar any student or employee who contracts AIDS from the classroom. Box Elder and Granite School Districts previously passed same ordinance. The Salt Lake City Board of Education adopted a policy that will prohibit students and employees with AIDS from going to school. However students will be provided with home study. Employees with AIDS will immediately be suspended and placed on sick leave or be temporarily suspended with pay until a review of the employee’s medical records can determine job status. No cases of AIDS has been reported to the district. (03/19/1986 SLTribune B6)
• Clair Harward excommunicated from the Mormon Church when he admitted his homosexuality died from complications resulting from AIDS. Harward died Sunday at St. Benedicts Hospital. He was 26 years. Funeral Services scheduled for Tuesday in Salt Lake City. “Right now I have found the peace I need and that I want,” Harward said last January. “I don’t need any organization or any person lay all. I don’t want to go looking out for any more opinions or beliefs.” He was diagnosed or having AIDS in August 1984. Mormon Church officials in Ogden excommunicated him from that religion last year. After they learned of his Gay life style. The Mormon Church views homosexuality as a sin in the same degree as adultery and premarital sex said Jerry Cahill, church spokesman. “The only acceptable sexual relations occur within the family between husband and wife.” After learning he had AIDS Harward said he went to his Mormon bishop to seek spiritual guidance. But he said Bruce Don Bowen, his lay bishop told him to give up his friends and identify his past sexual partners. Harward said it would be unethical to identify his Gay Friends “When I need my friends the most, they’re asking me to be alone.” Church officials offered to help Harward through counseling and medical assistance. He had been hospitalized off and on since mid January. Harward said he had been Gay since he was 17. (03/18/1985 SLTribune 2C)
19 March 1986 Wednesday:
I went to John Cooper's Salt Lake Chapter of Affirmation tonight and had a good experience there. It was a small turn out but it was fun. John Cooper led the meeting. It was good to see Russ Lane again there but he was kind of down. He said that his perspective job that he thought he had fell through. Now he's afraid that he will have to go back to San Jose, California if he can't find work right away.
20 March 1986 Thursday:
Today is the first day of spring! The leaves have for the most part budded out and there are flowers every where already.
Today is my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. I haven't been able to get a hold of either Jon B. or Gordon J. so I doubt if I'll be going this weekend to Spring Conference in California. Russ Lane has been on my mind so much. I can't shake this feeling of despair.
Additional Material Gays Want Spot on Demo’s Family Panel. The Democratic Party’s mission to represent the needs of “all the people” could once again pose a political problem as it considers a request by the National Gay and Lesbian Caucus to be heard in a party sponsored event during Mormon Conference Weekend in Salt Lake City. But since Democrats fear that if Gay issues become part of the panel with the highly visible Mormon Conference occurring the same weekend, Republican opponents would be able to blow the situation out of proportion and attach an unfair image to the party. (SL Tribune B1)
21 March 1986 Friday:
After work, my wife and I decided to take in a movie at the Arcade Theater on 9th West and 2nd South. But during the show I could not concentrate on the movie. I had the most overwhelming feeling of despair come over me and I told my wife that I didn't want to stay for the second show.
After coming home, my wife went to bed and I sat in the front room watching TV but I was still very agitated. Finally turning off the television and in the darken front room I got down on my knees and asked the Lord why I had such a feeling of melancholy about me when earlier this week I had been the happiest I had been in years! The answer came to me so distinctly and in a form so clear and precise. I never had an answer to prayer come to me so strongly in years.
I was told that my feelings of despair was because Russ Lane was leaving Salt lake City, and that he must not for the Lord had work for him here. The Savior told me that he brought Russ Lane here to be an instrument in blessing the lives of thousands of Latter Day Saints. By this time I was weeping and I asked but what can I do? And the Lord replied, "Do all you can for him, for by serving Russ Lane you are serving me."
Although it was late at night after I finished my prayers, I knew exactly what I had to do. I called Russ Lane up on the phone and asked him to meet with me tomorrow. He said he would. Then I hung up. Some way or somehow, I will keep Russ here in Salt Lake City as long as the Lord wants him here.
22 March 1986 Saturday
I am really tired tonight so I won't write much but I do want to record what happened today. I had to go into work at Utah Title this morning to get caught up on some assignments. While there I made copies of various types of title documents and searching forms because I have decided if I am to keep Russ Lane here, I am going to have to teach him how to do title work. Then I am going to have to get my boss to hire him as an entry level examiner.
I was done at noon so I called Russ Lane, the leader of the Sunday night Affirmation. and asked him if he could still meet with me. He said he could so I drove to where he was staying on 12th East. Russ has been sleeping on the couch while staying with Duane Dawson and his roommate. Dawson is the founder of AIDS Project Utah which he started last fall.
Visiting with Russ I found out that he came to Utah around the 27th of February, on a bus from San Jose, California because he felt that the Lord had called him to come to Utah to start a chapter of Affirmation that was following the General Charter of Affirmation. The first meeting of his group was at Randy H.'s, his cousin, home. That was the 2nd of March and then the following Sunday, he had a pot luck meeting which Randy H. again hosted at his home. This was just before I met Russ at the Restoration Church. So Russ hasn't been in Utah much more than three weeks.
At Duane Dawson's apartment I told Russ that I might be able to get him on at Utah Title insurance as an entry level title examiner, if he thought he might like to do that kind of work and if he had the aptitude for it.
It was such a pretty day that we decided to get out and go down to Liberty Park where we found a park bench to study at. However before leaving the apartment, Russ and I got down on our knees, held each other's hands, and asked for a blessing on our endeavors; that Russ might quickly find work, that he might stay in Salt Lake to accomplish all that the Lord wants him to do. At Liberty Park, we sat at a picnic bench and went over all the different types of documents in real estate that a title examiner would have to know. Russ is bright and a quick learner. I know that he is capable of doing this type of work and now its up to me to sell Russ Lane to Bob E.. I pray that it is God's will. Tomorrow, Sacrament Meeting with be conducted by Jon B.
Additional Material “These Dreams" by Heart number one song on the national charts.
23 March 1986 Sunday
Today is the first Spring Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints. The Saints are meeting in Los Angeles and in Salt Lake City. There were only a few of us in attendance in Salt Lake but the spirit was strong among us. We all bore our newly acquired testimonies of the Restoration Church and then we sang as our closing hymn, "God Be With You Until We Meet Again." Jon B. conducted the meeting. I took Sacrament for the first time in almost a year. I feel more worthy then I have in years because I have thrown out that millstone called the Law of Moses. I really feel the Lord's spirit in this little flock.
My wife came with me to Affirmation tonight and there was a pretty big turn out crowded into the parlor of the Crossroads Urban Center. Russ discussed formally organizing the Wasatch Chapter of Affirmation as the official chapter of Affirmation in Salt Lake City by the adoption of the rules of the General Charter. A sticking point was having an opening prayer at the meeting. The General Charter states that all Affirmation meetings should start with an opening prayer. However some in the group really opposed the notion of praying at Affirmation. But Russ was quite adamant about following the rules of the General Charter and could not be swayed.
This really cute young guy, named Scott M., gave Russ Lane the most trouble over whether we should open the meeting with prayer or not. It was finally voted on by all paid members and it passed. Wasatch Affirmation would follow the rules of the General Charter.
I then spoke up and suggested that if there are those who do not care to pray in public they might consider joining the Salt Lake Chapter of Affirmation which doesn't open with prayer but is a very good group.
It was a good meeting but a long one. So Wasatch Affirmation is official as of tonight. It was a good spiritual feast of a day.
24 March 1986 Monday
First thing this morning, I went into Bob's office and told him that I have a friend who is looking for work and who is an excellent candidate for an entry level title examiner position. Bob looked at me really skeptically so I poured it on. I told Bob that if he would hire Russ, I would personally guarantee his production every day and that I would personally train him as well as get all my work done.
What clinched it, I think, is that I said to him, "Bob, as a new manager, you need to hire people who only know you as the supervisor and who will not question everything you want done around here. I will promise you that Russ and I will support you in all your decisions, and further more if you hire Russ, you will always have me in your back pocket because I will owe you one."
Bob then asked when can Russ come in and I said he can come in today for an interview. So Bob said, "Fine, have him come in at three O'clock". So after leaving Bob's office I called Russ to come in for an interview.
When Russ came in later in the afternoon, Bob was so impressed with Russ' appearance that he just had him fill out an application and simply asked him, "When can you start?" That was all the interviewing Russ had to do. Russ told Bob that he needed time to go back to California to pack and ship his things out to Utah. He also needed to unload his apartment out there in San Jose. So Bob said be ready to start on April 1st.
I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. The Lord's hand was so evident in this. Russ has a job now and Affirmation can continue under his dynamic and enthusiastic leadership. I heard a song on KRCL's Radio Free Utah with the lyrics that in part went like this, "You got here by the grace of God. What an elegant way to arrive." I just love that because that is how I am feeling. What an elegant way to arrive.
26 March 1986 Wednesday
Russ Lane left for California after he was hired at Utah Title by the grace of God. He will start as an entry level title examiner. I know the hand of the Lord was in this. Because of my prayers and fasting over the weekend, the Lord granted me the desire of my heart to have a friend at work.
I told Russ Lane that he could come stay with my wife and I when he returns become we have a spare room in the house we are renting. My wife better not squawk after I put up with her friend Tony last February.
Russ went back to San Jose to finalize some things he left hanging there. I told him that I would take him down to the Greyhound Bus Station on South Temple so when he was ready, I went over to Duane Dawson's apartment where Jon B., Gordon J., and a friend of Jon's named Johnny W. were already there. They had come to see Russ off.
Before taking Russ to the bus station, I really felt impressed to give Russ a blessing. So Jon, Gordon and I went to the laundry room where we wouldn't be disturbed and we laid our hands on his head. I was impressed to bless him that his health would endure and that he would be able to accomplish all the things he had to do in San Jose. In closing I heard these words come out of my mouth, which said, "Russ Lane, thou art my daily delight." It was a sweet blessing and we all felt filled with the spirit.
After we finished, I drove Russ down to Greyhound where Jon, Gordon, and Johnny met us. We waited with Russ until his bus came. He looked so cute, tall and ruddy, wearing a black Iowa Letterman jacket and a tweed cap.
As his bus pulled away an empty feeling swept over me but it soon was replaced when Jon B. suggested we all go over to Kent A.'s place just south of McDonald's on 7th East. There we picked up a cot that Kent said Russ could use to sleep on. Johnny W. had to leave after that.
While driving around town with Jon and Gordon, I felt so close to them and we talked about how we felt that God is bringing a wonderful thing to pass and how exciting it was to be part of it.
Jon B. is also unemployed and he said that he would be interested in getting on at Utah Title too. He had just lost a job at the University of Utah. I said I would most certainly try, and there is a good chance that Bob might hire him on my suggestion too.
I felt so much love and brotherhood for Jon and Gordon, almost like I was a kid again. Last Sunday was Gordon's birthday and at Affirmation he got carried around and spanked! He was wearing leather chaps and looking so cute. Today I gave him an old brass belt buckle that had embossed on it the Salt Lake Temple. Gary R gave it to me years ago but I never wore it. I told Gordon that it was a belated birthday present. I am truly grateful for Gordon because if not for him I would not have heard about the Restoration Church and not have met Jon B. and Russ Lane.
27 March 1986 Thursday:
When I came home from lunch I felt such an overwhelming feeling that I had to write down something that was flooding my mind. It is very hard to describe the feeling but it was like words were being placed in my mind and my hand was just writing them down. It was like the Spirit of the Lord was revealing his love for Gay and Lesbian people and their place in the Celestial Kingdom.
It came so quickly and clearly to me during my lunch hour and was several notebook pages long. I felt so utterly drained and wiped out for the rest of the day. When I came home from work, I reread what I had written and I started to cry. It was so beautiful. My first thoughts was to share it with my wife but I am afraid that she would just scoff at me and it, so I sealed it in an envelope and mailed it to Tony Feliz. As head of the church I felt that he should read it first before anyone else.
I think my wife feels threatened by my increasing involvement with the Restoration Church and my desire to serve the Lord as I understand Him. I feel like a great and marvelous work is about to be poured out upon the heads of Gay and Lesbian people of this world.
I have invited Jon B. and Gordon J. over for Easter dinner. I've also heard that Elder Feliz and Elder Hamilton are coming back up to Salt Lake this weekend. So I'll offer our house as a place to stay if they do. I am just so grateful that I can be instrumental in helping the Lord achieve his purpose of blessings the lives of Gay and Lesbian people and especially for being able to help Russ Lane establish himself so that he can bless the lives of hundreds perhaps thousands of Gay Latter Day Saints.
Affirmation is a great work but my heart is with the Restoration church. I will give the Brethren my application for membership this weekend. I am seriously considering being baptized this weekend as a member of the Church. My wife is totally freaking out about the events that have taken place in my life so quickly these past few weeks. I am really tired now so I'll go to bed.
28 March 1986 Friday:
Came home from work today and spent much of the evening cleaning the house and grocery shopping for our weekend guests. My wife and I are both excited about having company this weekend.
I learned from Jon B. that Lamar Hamilton isn't able to come and I'm disappointed because of that. Nevertheless Elder Feliz is coming up with another fellow from the church and Elder Pamela Calkins, who is the first female Melchizedek Priesthood holder in the church, is coming also with her lover. So we should have a house full for sure.
The cot I borrowed from Kent A. for Russ Lane will come in handy. I will put it in the front room as sort of a day bed. I am really looking forward to this weekend
29 March 1986 Saturday
After my wife left for work at Taylor Maid, I got up early also to prepare for tomorrow's Easter dinner. Additionally I made a platter of egg salad and tuna salad sandwiches for the California Saints when they arrive. I know that they will be hungry when they get here, and tired. I was looking for them to come in around noon but it was nearly 2 p.m. before they pulled up to the house.
While waiting, I made use of the time by making some lemon cookies because I was so antsy for them to get here. Well they finally arrived in this little foreign car, and they wobbled out, having been crammed into the small sedan for some 750 mile and for 16 hours. I was so excited when they finally arrived that I just scooped them all up and brought them into the house where I offered them rest and refreshments.
Pamela J. Calkins was a stocky looking woman, wearing blue jeans, a color t-shirt, work shoes and a leather man's belt. I'd say she was about thirty years old sporting short cropped hair which framed her mannish face and square jaw. But she had the rosiest cheeks and the friendliest manner that betrayed her stereotypical Lesbian dress. However next to her lover Lynn L., Pam looked absolutely girlish! Lynn looked much younger then Pam and was a blond while Pam was a brunette. Lynn also wore blue jeans with a turtle neck knit shirt over which she wore a flannel plaid cotton work shirt. Lynn's blond hair was swept back into a Jimmy Dean duck tail.
Looking past the outwardly Dyke appearance, the more I visited with Pam and Lynn, the more I grew to love them. They are so full of hearty goodness, and love, and I think they are sweet women although I am sure they wouldn't want to be called that by me.
Tony Feliz looked haggard from the long journey and he wore dark sun glasses because he couldn't find his regular glasses. He looked every bit his age and was dressed like a middle aged fashionable Mormon Bishop. His traveling companion was a much younger man, named Eddie M.. He is a nice looking slender well built Filipino, slightly shorter then me. I found out later that he's just 19 years old.
The travelers were still so keyed up from their trip that I brought chairs out on the front porch and we sat and visited while they unwound. It was a gorgeous spring day. I served them the sandwiches and cookies, and of course the dogs ran out to greet them and say hi and sniff and be generally obnoxious, but hey its their home too. When my wife came home from work there was a houseful of "faggots" as she says and I was happy.
About three o'clock, Tony Feliz and Pamela Calkins had to leave for an interview they were giving on Concerning Gays and Lesbians. The show wanted to interview Pam because she is the first Lesbian to ever hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. Pamela Calkins is an Elder in the church and her lover Lynn holds the Aaronic Priesthood. I believe Lynn said she was a Priest.
Eddie M. and Lynn L. are both converts to the gospel specifically from the efforts of the Restoration Church. They had never been Mormon before. Pam taught Lynn the gospel and Lynn became the first person to be baptized into the Restoration Church who had no LDS background. I believe she said she was baptized last November. Could be wrong.
While Tony and Pam were gone, Eddie and Lynn caught up on some much needed sleep and crashed in the living room on the cot I made into a bed. My dog Toby found a friend in Lynn and curled up with her to sleep. Both Lynn and Eddie love our animals especially sweet natured Toby and our cat Fat Jack. Yes Sam it’s true you are a rotten dog that only your daddy can love. Everyone could not get over how huge Fat Jack is. They said he should be a Bob Cat not just a house cat. He's like Garfield a red tabby with a humongous tail. Poor misunderstood Jackie. He ain't fat. He's fluffy.
When Tony and Pam returned from taping the program, I fixed a pot of soup and we all finished off the rest of the sandwiches. A busy evening was planned because I learned that Tony and Pam are here to interview people for positions in the branch that is going to be organized in Salt Lake City. It will be the first branch of the church.
The rest of the evening was spent in a flurry of comings and goings as people dropped by the house to visit with the California Saints and to make their appointments for their interviews. Jon B. and Gordon J. were over much of the evening and it looks like Gordon is really in love with Jon. They appear to have become an item since the last time I saw them. I was really attracted to Jon B. at first, but I kept thinking what can I do about it? I am a married man. And besides I like Gordon too much and if he has his eyes set on Jon, I won't get in the way. Although truthfully, I'm a little jealous.
When it was my time to be interviewed I gave Tony my application for membership however I told him that I was not ready to be formally baptized this weekend because I want Russ Lane to be present. Then we talked and I told Tony about my experiences back in 1972 and 1973 with the spirit writings that I had given to Paul Mike H. Dunn and how from those writings I knew even back then that homosexuality was not an issue with the Lord. I don't know if he believed me and he said that he had not received the letter I had sent the other day. It was hard to make out what he thought, but I know that if he is sincere and not on just some type of ego trip he will recognize my sincerity.
After all that, Tony cut to the chase and asked me if I was called to be Branch President who would I call for counselors. I thought back to the love that Jon B., Gordon J., and I shared and had for each other after taking Russ to the bus terminal and I did not hesitate to say I would choose Jon and Gordon. I immediately sensed by the expression on his face that this was not the answer he wanted to hear, so I told him,
I know the Lord wants me to be instrumental in this movement, and I am willing to serve where ever the Lord calls me to serve.
After my interview I visited with Bob McIntier and Jon B. who was waiting with Gordon J.. Tony earlier informed me that he developed a reaction to our cats in the house and is going to sleep at Bob's house, where bob has more room, and a bed.
All in all it was a very special day. I feel like I've known these people for a long time not just having met today. I feel like I finally belong, and what I always felt the Mormon Church should be like. I am with people who understand and care about me rather then sit in judgment of me. I can tell that my wife just loves having women in the house, and I know she likes Pam and Lynn. I wonder although what she really thinks when she sees them kiss? What does a straight man feel when he sees two men kiss? All I see is something perfectly natural and wonderful. An expression of love.
Additional Material Elder Pamela J. Calkins 1956-1994 Pamela J. Calkins was the daughter of James and Glennda Calkins. She was born in California 17 May 1956 and died there 24 October 1994. She was the first Lesbian to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, and when excommunicated from the LDS Church she was brought before a High Priest Stake Council. She was a founding member of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ established August 13, 1985. She held the positions of Apostle and was a member of the First Presidency. Despondent over some legal troubles and Mormon homophobia, Pamela J. Calkins took her own life in 1994. She was 38 years old. She taught that Gay people, being a tenth of the world's population, were God's special tithing back to our world with the purpose of making it a more beautiful and just place.
• "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco number one song on national charts
30 March 1986 Easter Sunday
Busy, busy, busy day with baptisms, Easter Dinner, Sacrament Meeting, and Affirmation all today. Lynn L. and Pamela Calkins spent the night at the house while Tony Feliz and Eddie M. stayed over at Bob McIntiers to sleep. Bob lives on the western edge of Salt Lake City, off of 700 North and Redwood Road.
When I got up I fixed Lynn, Pam, my wife and I a light breakfast before everyone started arriving over here. At first there had been only two baptisms scheduled today, but John Crane, the Church's Evangelist, arrived last night with his Filipino lover and he wanted to be baptized also this Easter morning.
After the rest had left to go down to a house on 5th East and 27th South, where they knew someone willing to let his hot tub be used as a baptism font, my wife started dragging her heals and almost made me late. I believe she was really freaking out about attending an "apostate" baptismal service, and I lost my patience with her. I told that "I am going, with or without you." Then I, frustrated, asked, "Why do you always have to spoil everything spiritual that I feel I need to do?"
Needless to say my attitude could have been better but soon the little fight I had with my wife was dissipated as I stepped out into the absolutely gorgeous bright morning light. The sky was dazzlingly deep and clear. Spring flowers, tulips, crocuses, hyacinths were everywhere. All the trees were brightly sporting their new little green leaves, and truly the world seemed like it was wearing its new Easter clothes.
When I reached the house where the baptismal services were taking place, in South Salt Lake, I went to the backyard where people were already dressed in their baptismal robes. We sang a few hymns and Pamela Calkins gave a talk on baptism being a symbol of the Lord's resurrection and how appropriate it seems to perform this sacred ordinance on Easter Sunday.
The only real difference I could see between this baptismal service and an LDS one was the taking of the oath of the Baptismal covenant. In the Restoration Church baptismal candidates recite a passage from the Book of Mormon and then lift their arm to the square to take an oath that they will lived by the covenant that the Prophet Alma administered at the Waters of Mormon.
And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life
Baptismal candidates of the Restoration Church take this oath to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. It was really touching and moving to see Bob McIntier, Gordon J., and John Crane raise their arms to the square and promised to keep the above Baptismal Covenant as recorded in the Book of Mormon.
Baptism by the All Latter Day Saint Church is not essential for membership in the church because since priesthood is eternal, the Restoration church recognizes any baptism that was performed with proper priesthood authority whether it was done in the LDS Church, the RLDS Church or the FLDS Churches. So once baptized into any of the restoration churches, that received its authority from Joseph Smith, it is really not necessary to be rebaptized into the All Latter Day Church. It's more symbolic then necessary.
Gordon B. Jones was baptized by Jon B., Bob McIntier was baptized by Lynn L., and John Crane was baptized by Eddie M.. The service was over by 11 a.m. and it was one of the best baptisms I had ever witnessed and the Holy Spirit was abundant and strong there.
I left before the others did because I had to race home to play "Martha" and get Easter dinner ready. I fixed glazed ham with pineapple slices, creamed corn, fresh green beans, creamy scalloped potatoes, candied yams, Mormon coleslaw, and a marinated broccoli and cherry tomato salad. I also had rolls, and for desert I made strawberry short cake.
When the Saints all came back to the house, they couldn't believe that I had time to whip this all up with how busy we all have been this weekend. The house was packed for Easter dinner and we just spread out onto the porch, the front room, as well as the dining room. I just loved having a house full of Gay people. In all there were my wife, Pamela Calkins, Lynn L., Tony Feliz, Eddie M., John Crane and his lover who spoke so little English that I never learned his name, Bob McIntier, Jon B., Gordon J., and this boy from Provo, Mike H. who just happened to have heard about the church and dropped by.
We ate, and drank fruit punch, laughed at stories about our Gayness, and I really felt the Lord's spirit among us. It was such a sweet day and was truly wonderful to have the Saints gathered in my house and to have the first branch of the church established here in my home.
Near two o'clock we had to leave our dinner and rush down to the Crossroad Urban Center to prepare Sacrament. At the meeting Tony Feliz presided and Pam Calkins conducted. A lot of the meeting was taken up with Tony relating the business of the Spring Conference in Los Angeles and what had transpired there last weekend. I smiled when Tony Feliz stated that at the closing of conference he said he was prompted to changed the scheduled closing hymn to "God Be With You Until We Meet Again", which was the very same hymn that I was prompted to close last week's Sacrament meeting with also. I believe the Lord was indeed sending his spirit to each of his small Gay flocks to bond us together in spirit.
During the meeting we officially voted to organize the Salt Lake members into a Branch of the Church. Actually we will be the only branch of the church since the Los Angeles flock is not nearly so organized. It was at this meeting that Bob McIntier was called to be the first Branch President and to my surprise I was called to be a Bishop Agent. I had no Idea what that even entailed until after Sacrament when Tony explained each of our responsibilities.
Bob McIntier's responsibility is to oversee the spiritual growth of our little flock in Salt Lake City and I am to oversee the temporal growth of the church here. I am suppose to find a more suitable place to meet for Sacrament then the Crossroad Urban Center. I am still not sure what a Bishop Agent is since I never heard of it before in the LDS Church. But I am responsible directly to Lamar Hamilton, who is now the Presiding Bishop of the Church. I am to send all offerings and tithing monies to Los Angeles and things like that. I am not one of Bob's counselors but rather we are supposed to have separate authority and yet do everything in harmony and act like counselors.
I really don't know Bob McIntier all that well. He is kind of hard to get to know but I think he is genuinely kind hearted. Though it sort of bothers me, that he left the gospel to join the Metropolitan Church for a while. But again I do feel that he is a sweet man, and if Bob is the one that the Lord wants to direct this flock, I will sustain him with all my heart.
After church some of us went back to the house where we took a nap. Eddie stayed with us while Tony went back over to Bob's place.
Affirmation was at seven p.m. and my wife and I went although there was a small turn out. Without Russ Lane, the meeting was a dud. I see so clearly now why the Lord wants the charismatic Russ Lane here in Salt Lake. Now if I could just get him to join the Restoration Church! What a dynamic leader we would have.
At Affirmation my wife invited Stan D. home to join us for dinner. "Stinky Stan", as my wife and I refer to this character, because he doesn't bathe much, is eccentric to say the least and is really funny. Short, frumpy, sporting always a two day old beard, my wife took a liking to this portly Stan but then she is always looking to take in strays. That is why we ended up with three cats.
Anyway Pam, Lynn, Eddie, Stinky Stan, Jon B., Gordon, and my wife and I played card games and when it was getting late, Stan asked if he could spend the night so we said yes. He didn't have any night clothes so my wife gave him one of her frilly flannel night gowns to wear. He looked so at home in it. Bizarre.
Eddie also decided to spend the night because I guess he was having more fun here then over at Bob's. As the evening got late, I sat on the couch, holding Eddie in my arms, visiting with Jon, Gordon, Stan, Lynn, and Pam. My wife was having a great time reveling in being the center of attention, and telling funny stories with her outrageous gregarious personality at full tilt. Here it is the end of March and I have met such neat people in such a short time. I feel blessed.
Additional Material James Cagney, American Hollywood actor best known for playing gangsters and George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy died (1899-1986)
31 March 1986 Monday
What a whirlwind month, and how my world has turned topsy-turvy. I have admitted to myself and others, finally, that I am indeed a Gay married man. I have become a member of a Gay Mormon Church, and not just a member, it's Bishop Agent for the Salt Lake Branch of the church. Because of the changes in my life and not despite of them, I am happier now then I have been in years.
After going to bed last night with a house full of Gay people, my wife and I laid in bed and talked. I told her that my life would feel complete if she was on my left and Eddie was on my right. My wife kissed me and told me to go to Eddie and its okay because she loves Eddie too. So Eddie and I clung to each other all night doing nothing but holding each other.
This morning I got up to get ready for work while Eddie went and climbed into bed with my wife, Pam Calkins, and Lynn L., and soon even "Stinky Stan" joined them as they all watched the morning news. They looked so happy there in bed, warm and snuggly so much so that I hated to leave them and go to work, but I had no choice.
I was sad at work today knowing that when I get home they will all be gone. Still its been a fun raucous weekend.
Russ Lane flew back to Utah today and that news gladdened my heart. I went out to the Salt Lake airport to pick him up and I held his hand driving back to the house. I was so excited that he's back in Utah. He's sending his things parcel post. I told him about all the excitement we had over the weekend and what a glorious time we had. I told him that a branch of the church had been established for the first time and it was here in Salt Lake City. I am so glad that Russ is back and is going to be staying with my wife and I. It will make the house not feel so lonesome after the big to do we had this weekend.
Needless to say the house was a wreck when I got home. We didn't do any dishes over the entire weekend. My wife was a little put out that no one had offered to help clean up. But I didn't mind because it gave me something to do now that everyone is gone.
I moved Russ' cot from the front room to the back bedroom where he can have his privacy. He is so clever and funny. I am just going to love having him here, and I know it's what the Lord wants me to do.
Changes in my life. It's thrilling to feel alive again. Each day is bringing a new adventure and new people into my life. I really hate to see March end. It was such a wonderful happy month for me. My wife is happy that I am happy, but deep down I think she is scared of what is going to happen to us. It can never be the same as before pretending to be a heterosexual man. I'm sure it is just a matter of time before the LDS Church catches up with me and excommunicates me but I don't care. I have already replaced them in my heart.
Sunday, when Pam Calkins was here, this fellow, I don't remember his name, attended Sacrament meeting and he asked her to give him a blessing. I went with Pam and she and I laid our hands on his head and gave him a blessing of comfort. He was so very frightened because he had been summoned to a High Stake Court and he was sure he was going to be excommunicated. He was so scared. Both Pam and I gave him a blessing, and the Lord's spirit spoke through me telling him that whenever a door closes, another opens. And I do believe this in my heart. I also do believe in the mission of the Restoration Church to take the cast offs from the Mormon Church. We will take in the despised and the rejected, whom the Lord loves and wants to bless but yet do not fit into the narrow confines of the Pharisaic LDS Church.
Such a pretty, almost spring like day. People are outside washing their cars and doing yard work. The air smells so clean and fresh. I cleaned the house while my wife went off to Taylor Maid. My little dog Toby is sound a sleep, laying in the sunshine in the front room. He sure likes being nice and warm. So this is March! I wonder what you will bring to me besides the warmth of spring. I had a longing to hear John F. C.'s voice. When I called him his mother said he was on his way to Vegas.
Additional Material March 1986- First Issue of The TRIANGLE Magazine published by Triangle Publications. Editor-Scott Dunn, Art Director-Michael Aaron, Contributing Artist-Mark Skeem, Distribution Manager-Richard McCall , Business Manager- John Sasserman. Featured Article was on the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ
• Rick Shenkman reporter for KUTV charged that the LDS Church censored an AIDS story by Glen Warchol of the Deseret News. Warchol stated that his article claimed that AIDS has placed bishops and stake presidents in a dilemma. These lay leaders of the Mormon congregations feel the compassion and understanding they can offer AIDS patients is limited by Mormon policy toward homosexuality.”
• "Kyrie" by Mr. Mister number one song on national charts
Additional Material 2 March 1986 The first meeting of Wasatch Affirmation held at the home of Randy H. in Sugarhouse, to gather interest in forming a new group under the leader ship of Russell Lane. The Wasatch Affirmation, a Support Group for Gay and Lesbian Mormons was established by Russell Lane. Russ Lane the Wasatch Chapter director had recently returned to Salt Lake City from San Jose, California where he was also a chapter director. Wasatch Affirmation founded to establish a chapter based on the National Charter. “Its meetings are for people, friends, who can share experiences, information, support, and encouragement. Its activities are designed for meeting others in a social environment that differs from bars, bath houses, or other places that have been negatively stereotyped. Its policy to adhere to the Word of Wisdom at Affirmation functions contributes to a unique way of life--the life of a gay latter-day Saint”.
4 March 1986 Tuesday:
My wife got $9 in tips yesterday so we decided to treat our selves to a movie. We went and saw Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters and loved it.
5 March 1986 Wednesday:
I went to Affirmation for the second time tonight. It was easier to go into the meeting this time. Paul led the meeting again, starting it off by reading a poem. Gordon J. was not at the meeting so I wonder if he got mad from his treatment last time. During the meeting we talked about the church's attitude towards Gays and the people there detailed their experiences with the church. I even talked about my being disfellowshipped back in 1976, for the first time in public and in real depth. It felt so good to get a lot of the hurt I have been carrying all these years out and especially to people with similar experiences and who could commiserate.
I found out tonight that this guy named John Cooper, who about 40 years old is the real leader of Affirmation. It is his phone number that is given out on the program Concerning Gays and Lesbians. I am feeling much more relax at the meeting now. It feels less likely that some church goon squad is going to arrest us for talking about the church.
Additional Material March 6 1986 Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist best known for her paintings of flowers suggestive of women’s sexual organs died. (1887-1986)
8 March 1986 Saturday:
Yesterday I went down to Mountain Fuel to make a payment schedule so our gas won't be turned off. I don't think we are going to have anymore really cold weather like December and January but my wife is freaked out about having the heat switched off. We owe over $300 on the fuel bill. It’s no longer spring like weather but it only rained today instead of snow so for that I am grateful.
Additional Material Japanese spacecraft Suisei flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.
• "Kyrie" by Mr. Mister number one song on national charts
Additional Material 9 March 1986 United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger; the bodies of all 7 astronauts are still inside.
• The 2nd meeting of Wasatch Affirmation held at Randy H.’s home in Sugar House with a pot luck dinner
10 March 1986 Monday
My wife is at a YWCA meeting for unemployed women so I am home watching a TV show called Dressed Gray which is pretty good. It's about the murder of a homosexual at an undergrad cadet academy.
There are changes on the horizon at Utah Title. My boss is leaving soon to start his own title company in St. George and Bob is going to be taking his place.
We are low on funds as usual and living on credit which is the fastest way I know to go in the hole. I haven't heard a word back from the school districts, where I have been applying, either. I guess Utah's schools are in turmoil anyway with talks of a teacher's strike this fall.
President Ray-Gun wants $100 million sent to Central America for the Contras. He actually said that if Congress doesn't give him the money he wants, then American soldiers may be deployed there. I have always said Reagan is a president in search of a war. Bonzo Goes to War.
Listening to Radio Free Utah this morning, I heard Bishop Tutu of South Africa relate the effects of Apartheid on his country. For the first time, I finally got it. I finally understood the evil of a political system that allows an uneducated 18 year old white man to vote while denying the same right to an educated 60 year old black man. Bishop Tutu, as articulate as he is, can not vote simply because of the color of his skin. Ridiculous.
Concerning Gays and Lesbians came on following the program with Bishop Tutu. Their guest was Elder Antonio Feliz of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints.
He told the co-hosts that the church was brought forth to bring the gospel to the despised and rejected of this world. And who are more despised and rejected then Gay men and women? I liked what I heard on the program. It touched my spirit.
I have been struggling with the Mormon Church to understand my place in it. From the very beginning I have been made to feel like I was an outsider. I am also torn by many of its doctrines which support conservative dogmas which I do not believe are supported by the teachings of Jesus Christ or Joseph Smith. In my heart I cannot accept anymore certain precepts that they teach, with blind obedience. I believe many of the teachings of the church are completely alien to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do believe in the restored gospel of the Prophet Joseph Smith but I am not sure I have a place in the Corporation of the First Presidency Church that professes to be the direct successor to the church founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.
Christ made it clear that His kingdom is not of this world and that the Kingdom of God is within us. So why do Mormons insist on building up a kingdom in this world? I thought we were not to treasure up the things of this world? I don't understand it anymore.
Christ also said that the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed that would grow to accommodate all the birds of the world. Where do Gay birds fit within the Mormon vision of that mustard tree? They are so quick to expel any bird that does not conform to its narrowly defined code of conduct which I find neither very Christian nor inspired. I think I will have to investigate this new Restored Church.
Additional Material Ray Milland, Classic Hollywood actor best remembered for portraying an alcoholic in Lost Weekend (1905-1986)
12 March 1986 Wednesday
While listening to Radio Free Utah at work, I heard this man claim that men are taught to hate other men because of the competitive world we live in. He stated that in sports men are taught to hate losing and therefore in effect to hate losers. In the real world, since most of us are losers in society, in some form or another, men develop a sense of self hatred. This man went on to say that in a non competitive world, there would be nothing to struggle against and thus we would have the beginnings of a non violent society. His arguments were very interesting to me and in some ways capsulated why I have a hard time with organized sports that pit people against people. I always preferred games where people compete against personal bests not each other. I wonder if we will ever teach young people skills where we all can win?
I went to Affirmation again today. There were at least fifteen people there the biggest turn out that I have seen. I feel very comfortable attending the meeting now. I feel more like a regular then a newcomer. Gordon J. was at the meeting again and announced that Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints is having Sacrament Meetings at the Crossroads Urban Center on Sundays. The rest of the meeting was facilitated by John Cooper. Paul wasn't here tonight.
13 March 1986 Thursday
Changes are taking place at Utah Title; however I don't know how they will affect me yet. I took off during my lunch hour and drove to the University of Utah where Geraldine Ferraro was to speak at noon. Ferraro is the first woman nominated to run for the office of Vice Presidency of the United States. However her plane was delayed and she didn't give her talk until after 1 p.m. and I had to return to work.
I can't believe how quickly gas prices are falling. Right now you can get unleaded gas at 81 cents a gallon when just last December we were paying a $1.25! The price for a barrel of oil keeps falling and as it does the price of gasoline is going down. It sure is good on the old pocketbook. Still its hard to absorb the change so quickly. It's like what they call future shock.
President Reagan still wants Congress to send money to the Contras in Central America. I say let's stay out of it. If we would not have supported the Samoza's dictatorship for all these years perhaps we wouldn't have the Communists sympathizers in Central America in the first place. When Vice President Bush was CIA director he made deals with the devils down there all over the place. I am sure it won't be long until we have advisors there training the Contras and then WHAM it’s another Viet Nam.
I've been thinking about the Savior lately and my personal relationship to Him and what the gospel means to me. I have decided to go to church services, of the All LDS Sacrament meeting, this Sunday at the Crossroad Urban Center. I don't make this decision lightly because attending this meeting is something I could be excommunicated for by the LDS Church. But I don't seem to care anymore. I joined the Mormon Church in 1972 when I was 21 years. I have been in the church my entire adult life and I still do not feel welcomed. Upon hearing Elder Feliz on the radio, for the first time in a long time, I feel excited about religion again.
As I said I have never truly felt quite at home in the Mormon Church but since I was taught the restored gospel there, I use to feel that they had it all. I am not so sure anymore. I am not sure if the Corporation of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has a place for me, without my being so utterly deformed so that I can conform to their vision of what the gospel is. If the gospel is to be preached to Jew and Gentile; is it not also to embrace Gay and Straight?
I am beginning to really feel as the LDS church is so constricted by the Law of Moses that it is entirely incapable of mobilizing to meet my needs anymore. Isn't the one as important as the many?
Then there is this divisiveness that prevails in Salt Lake City between the haves and the have nots. Why is there a west and east side to Salt Lake City? That question has always bothered me ever since I moved here in 1976. The west part of town is ghetto-ized by the indifference of the eastsiders. And the west keeps creeping further east! I am almost at the 3rd East block in SLC and yet we are considered on the west side. I don't want to get caught up in western-materialism where even Mormons feel that if someone is rich God is blessing them for being good.
All I really understand anymore is that my Father in Heaven only requires two things from me. That is to love Him with all my mind, strength, and being and to love one another as I love myself. It really seems so simple. God does not care what we do as long as we do it out of love for Him and each other. I feel like I am changing inside myself faster then I can momentarily comprehend. It's too much to think about right now. Good night. It rained most of the morning but the weather was fine for most of the day.
Additional Material GAY VIOLENCE Terry William Cunard alias Steven L. Fox B1-6 see also3/19 B2-5, 4/11 B5-1, March 2 B-2/4 July 11 B11-1 Preying upon vulnerable Gay men.
Additional Material 15 March 1986 “Sara” by Jefferson Starship is number one song on national charts.
16 March 1986 Sunday
I attended church for the first time since returning to Utah last August. It was not my local LDS Church Ward either. I went to what was the third meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints here in Salt Lake City.
I had heard from Gordon J. that the meetings were held at the Crossroads Urban Center around 2:00 p.m. so I came about a half hour early. There was just one other person downstairs in the foyer, a pleasant looking young fellow but we did not speak. I dared not or I was afraid I would bolt from the place. I just sat down on one of the old couches in the parlor and waited to see what was happening.
Eventually this sweet looking older man, dressed in a comfortable business suit, came down the stairs, noticed me, introduced himself as Elder Lamar Hamilton and welcomed me. He then talked to the young man whose name is David Ewing telling him that the business meeting was taking longer then expected and that Sacrament wouldn't be ready until two-thirty.
After Elder Hamilton disappeared back upstairs, David and I began to visit some. He is the Church's historian so I asked him about the background of the church. He told me little except that church was started in Los Angeles last August by members of the Los Angeles Chapter of Affirmation. Coincidently the church was started on the very same day I had left California to return to Utah. He also said that Elder Hamilton as well as Elder Feliz were instrumental in organizing the church.
Ewing had come to Salt Lake City from Los Angeles with the men upstairs to bring the church to Salt Lake City. Ewing said they had been busy having been on Radio Free Utah, talked to some of the Gay organizations, I can't remember which, and the church was even featured in a Gay magazine called the Triangle. Ewing showed me a copy of it and the church was on its cover. I guess the magazine is brand new.
At two-thirty, Ewing and I went upstairs to a central meeting room where several other men were already sitting and waiting for Sacrament to begin. Lamar Hamilton, the man who had welcomed me downstairs conducted the meeting while Antonio A. Feliz presided. Elder Feliz was who I had heard on Concerning Gays and Lesbians. The only person in the room whom I knew from before was Gordon B. J.. He was that blond Southern boy from Norfolk, Virginia, who first brought the church to my attention.
It was a very informal Sacrament meeting but felt very familiar. The bread and water was blessed and we sang LDS Hymns. I did not take the Sacrament. I came strictly to observe and to learn what this church is all about. I learned that Elder Feliz and Elder Hamilton were like the presidency or something similar. Elder Feliz was not at all what I expected. He was very polished, very aware of his image. I imagine that he's in his late forties or early fifties. He's Latin and his hair has gone salt and pepper. Kind of a slick Caesar Romero. Something about his aural made me skeptical although his words were soothing and authoritative. He could speak LDS-ese very well.
Elder Feliz's talk was on the priesthood. He basically stated that since priesthood is eternal and originated before there was any Church authority, it can never really be taken away and it can be exercised outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He stated that he doesn't need permission to continue exercising his priesthood authority and that all churches that have received priesthood authority from Joseph Smith are valid. There's no doubt that Elder Feliz is eloquent and what he said about the priesthood being eternal made sense to me.
But it was Elder Hamilton who spoke to my spirit not my intellect. When he talked, he said something seemingly out of the blue that just grabbed a hold of me. He said that we are only bound to what he called the Royal Law, that being the two greatest commandments to love God and one's neighbor. He said that they are truly the only requirements for a Christian life. The Holy Spirit seemed to witness to me that the words of Elder Hamilton were true and all my fears about this church being some type of wacky cult dissipated.
I feel like God is bringing about a new beginning to bless the lives of his Gay and Lesbian children and all others who had a belief in the message of the Restored Gospel.
As the meeting was winding down, I took note of the others attending this Sacrament meeting. There were probably nine men including myself. They were Elders Hamilton and Feliz of course, Gordon B. Jones, David Ewing, Bob McIntier, who had to leave early because he is on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Community Church, Jon B., a handsome man with a neatly trimmed beard who sat quiet all through the meeting, and Russ Lane, a tall lanky handsome Scottish looking man. I was mostly impressed by Elder Hamilton and the vibrant enthusiasm of Russ Lane.
After closing prayer, Russ Lane invited everyone to an Affirmation meeting. I was really confused at first but Russ said that this one is different from the Salt Lake Affirmation. I told Russ that I would come back for his meeting.
I left the Crossroads Urban Center riding on a cloud. I felt uplifted and committed to further attending the meetings of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints. In fact I knew that I had to come clean with my wife and tell her what I have been doing.
At home I sat her down and told her that I had been attending Affirmation, a support group for Gay Mormons and not Overeaters Anonymous. I took a deep breath and then also told her that I had been at a so-called Apostate church meeting and that I am going back tonight to attend another Affirmation meeting.
She took it really well and so I asked her if she would like to come with me to Affirmation. I was not really surprised when she said yes because my wife is a people person and likes to socialize so much so that if I said we were going to a snake eating contest, she would grab her coat and away we would go. She loves to meet new people and that is one of the qualities of hers that I really love.
Affirmation was at seven p.m. at the Crossroads Urban Center and there was a much larger turn out for it then there were for church maybe about fifteen people. Russ Lane conducted the meeting and his enthusiasm for the group is just contagious. I felt the spirit so much stronger at this meeting then at the Wednesday Night group. I almost feel disloyal saying that because I love that group for helping me come out of the closet. That was the first place I had ever admitted in public that I was a Gay married man, Jeez!
It was really fun for my wife and I to get out and meet new people. When my wife introduced herself to the group, she said she had no problems being here because she has always liked fags! Then she said I even married one. That got a laugh. But it's true. Prior to marrying my wife her best friend was a Gay guy named Michael.
At home I talked to my wife about how strongly I feel about joining this Gay church and it freaks her out to no end. But I feel like the Savior wants be to be apart of this new movement and if it be of God, it will stand. When Lamar Hamilton's spirit spoke to me, I had a witness that the spirit of the Lord is with this undertaking. There is something new and exciting in the air and I want to be a part of it. I want the anointing of the spirit. It was amazing that all the things that I heard spoken at Sacrament Meeting, were words that the Lord had already told me in my own way.
This feeling reminds me of how much the Lord loves all and it echoes from my past when the Lord tried to use me back in 1972 when I was too young and fragile to understand the meaning of a Jaredite Priesthood. But now someone is also preaching the same message to be kind, to be gentle, to be loving, to be charitable, and to love God with all thy mind, heart, and soul and all will be well.
Aligning myself with this church does make me nervous and fearful of being hated for being Gay but if God is with us who can be against us. I feel like I have been reborn. A new beginning. And so many neat people! Gay people! My wife now knows the direction that my life is heading. I don't have to sneak around and lie to her about where I go. Big question. How will this affect our marriage? Don't know. I know I can't go back to my former life. If I do I shall be as dead as a pillar of salt.
I heard on the news that Clair Harwood died of AIDS at St. Benedict Hospital in Ogden. He was only 26 years old. I have been given a second chance to live my life.
Additional Material: Robert McIntier is a descendant of Utah Mormon Pioneers Robert McIntier and Catherine Rose.
18 March 1986 Tuesday
I am having a very hard time keeping up with this journal but I feel like I must really try to record the events of this year as accurately as I can. I know it will only be through my eyes and perception, and I wonder if that can ever be considered truly accurate, but it’s a beginning.
At work I am being jerked around by my boss who is on a power trip because he can not stand the fact that he doesn't know what I am doing or how. But he knows I get results, so he agreed to let me stay in my department for a little while longer until he gets another wild hair up his butt. Because of other changes at Utah Title I guess they will be hiring two new title examiners.
My wife is tired tonight and she fell asleep as I was reading to her revelations from the Hidden Treasures and Promises. They are a collection of revelations given to people in the Restoration Church regarding its organization. Most are written by Antonio Feliz but some are by others.
As I understand it, the Restoration Church sees itself somewhat like the Reorganized LDS Church. The founders believe that God has to raise up a new church because the LDS Church refuses to preach the Gospel to all nations, kindreds, and tongues, because they will not preach the Gospel to practicing homosexuals. Therefore they were not keeping God's commandments. If missionaries go to a house with open homosexuals they are told not to teach them the gospel.
Tony Feliz says that Gays are like a separate nation, like Gypsies, and we are only recognizable to each other. I always felt like that when I stated that I felt like a stranger in a strange land. Only when I am with Gay people do I feel a sense of kinship; of familia.
Tony Feliz is also preaching that since priesthood exists independent of churches, they may confer priesthood but they can never take it away. That is why when some one is excommunicated and then reinstated, his priesthood is not given anew but the authority to use it is only restored. Churches might not recognize a person's authority to exercise that priesthood in their church, but that is all they can do. The Restoration Church therefore recognizes all priesthood as continuing with a person even if they have been excommunicated from the Mormon Church.
The Restoration Church also will confer the Melchizedek Priesthood on women as does the Reorganized LDS Church. My priesthood lineage is from Steven Madsen who received his from N. Eldon Tanner, who received his from David O. McKay who received his from Joseph F. Smith who received his from Brigham Young, who received his from Joseph Smith. I am seven degrees away from Joseph Smith.
I tried calling Jon B. today. He's staying in Centerville. I couldn't catch him at home. We talked last Sunday briefly about going to California this coming weekend for the Spring Conference of the Restoration Church. I left a message for him to call me but he hasn't yet. He's really cute and spiritual. I am attracted to him a lot.
Additional Material Salt Lake City School Board enacted policy to bar any student or employee who contracts AIDS from the classroom. Box Elder and Granite School Districts previously passed same ordinance. The Salt Lake City Board of Education adopted a policy that will prohibit students and employees with AIDS from going to school. However students will be provided with home study. Employees with AIDS will immediately be suspended and placed on sick leave or be temporarily suspended with pay until a review of the employee’s medical records can determine job status. No cases of AIDS has been reported to the district. (03/19/1986 SLTribune B6)
• Clair Harward excommunicated from the Mormon Church when he admitted his homosexuality died from complications resulting from AIDS. Harward died Sunday at St. Benedicts Hospital. He was 26 years. Funeral Services scheduled for Tuesday in Salt Lake City. “Right now I have found the peace I need and that I want,” Harward said last January. “I don’t need any organization or any person lay all. I don’t want to go looking out for any more opinions or beliefs.” He was diagnosed or having AIDS in August 1984. Mormon Church officials in Ogden excommunicated him from that religion last year. After they learned of his Gay life style. The Mormon Church views homosexuality as a sin in the same degree as adultery and premarital sex said Jerry Cahill, church spokesman. “The only acceptable sexual relations occur within the family between husband and wife.” After learning he had AIDS Harward said he went to his Mormon bishop to seek spiritual guidance. But he said Bruce Don Bowen, his lay bishop told him to give up his friends and identify his past sexual partners. Harward said it would be unethical to identify his Gay Friends “When I need my friends the most, they’re asking me to be alone.” Church officials offered to help Harward through counseling and medical assistance. He had been hospitalized off and on since mid January. Harward said he had been Gay since he was 17. (03/18/1985 SLTribune 2C)
19 March 1986 Wednesday:
I went to John Cooper's Salt Lake Chapter of Affirmation tonight and had a good experience there. It was a small turn out but it was fun. John Cooper led the meeting. It was good to see Russ Lane again there but he was kind of down. He said that his perspective job that he thought he had fell through. Now he's afraid that he will have to go back to San Jose, California if he can't find work right away.
20 March 1986 Thursday:
Today is the first day of spring! The leaves have for the most part budded out and there are flowers every where already.
Today is my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. I haven't been able to get a hold of either Jon B. or Gordon J. so I doubt if I'll be going this weekend to Spring Conference in California. Russ Lane has been on my mind so much. I can't shake this feeling of despair.
Additional Material Gays Want Spot on Demo’s Family Panel. The Democratic Party’s mission to represent the needs of “all the people” could once again pose a political problem as it considers a request by the National Gay and Lesbian Caucus to be heard in a party sponsored event during Mormon Conference Weekend in Salt Lake City. But since Democrats fear that if Gay issues become part of the panel with the highly visible Mormon Conference occurring the same weekend, Republican opponents would be able to blow the situation out of proportion and attach an unfair image to the party. (SL Tribune B1)
21 March 1986 Friday:
After work, my wife and I decided to take in a movie at the Arcade Theater on 9th West and 2nd South. But during the show I could not concentrate on the movie. I had the most overwhelming feeling of despair come over me and I told my wife that I didn't want to stay for the second show.
After coming home, my wife went to bed and I sat in the front room watching TV but I was still very agitated. Finally turning off the television and in the darken front room I got down on my knees and asked the Lord why I had such a feeling of melancholy about me when earlier this week I had been the happiest I had been in years! The answer came to me so distinctly and in a form so clear and precise. I never had an answer to prayer come to me so strongly in years.
I was told that my feelings of despair was because Russ Lane was leaving Salt lake City, and that he must not for the Lord had work for him here. The Savior told me that he brought Russ Lane here to be an instrument in blessing the lives of thousands of Latter Day Saints. By this time I was weeping and I asked but what can I do? And the Lord replied, "Do all you can for him, for by serving Russ Lane you are serving me."
Although it was late at night after I finished my prayers, I knew exactly what I had to do. I called Russ Lane up on the phone and asked him to meet with me tomorrow. He said he would. Then I hung up. Some way or somehow, I will keep Russ here in Salt Lake City as long as the Lord wants him here.
22 March 1986 Saturday
I am really tired tonight so I won't write much but I do want to record what happened today. I had to go into work at Utah Title this morning to get caught up on some assignments. While there I made copies of various types of title documents and searching forms because I have decided if I am to keep Russ Lane here, I am going to have to teach him how to do title work. Then I am going to have to get my boss to hire him as an entry level examiner.
I was done at noon so I called Russ Lane, the leader of the Sunday night Affirmation. and asked him if he could still meet with me. He said he could so I drove to where he was staying on 12th East. Russ has been sleeping on the couch while staying with Duane Dawson and his roommate. Dawson is the founder of AIDS Project Utah which he started last fall.
Visiting with Russ I found out that he came to Utah around the 27th of February, on a bus from San Jose, California because he felt that the Lord had called him to come to Utah to start a chapter of Affirmation that was following the General Charter of Affirmation. The first meeting of his group was at Randy H.'s, his cousin, home. That was the 2nd of March and then the following Sunday, he had a pot luck meeting which Randy H. again hosted at his home. This was just before I met Russ at the Restoration Church. So Russ hasn't been in Utah much more than three weeks.
At Duane Dawson's apartment I told Russ that I might be able to get him on at Utah Title insurance as an entry level title examiner, if he thought he might like to do that kind of work and if he had the aptitude for it.
It was such a pretty day that we decided to get out and go down to Liberty Park where we found a park bench to study at. However before leaving the apartment, Russ and I got down on our knees, held each other's hands, and asked for a blessing on our endeavors; that Russ might quickly find work, that he might stay in Salt Lake to accomplish all that the Lord wants him to do. At Liberty Park, we sat at a picnic bench and went over all the different types of documents in real estate that a title examiner would have to know. Russ is bright and a quick learner. I know that he is capable of doing this type of work and now its up to me to sell Russ Lane to Bob E.. I pray that it is God's will. Tomorrow, Sacrament Meeting with be conducted by Jon B.
Additional Material “These Dreams" by Heart number one song on the national charts.
23 March 1986 Sunday
Today is the first Spring Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints. The Saints are meeting in Los Angeles and in Salt Lake City. There were only a few of us in attendance in Salt Lake but the spirit was strong among us. We all bore our newly acquired testimonies of the Restoration Church and then we sang as our closing hymn, "God Be With You Until We Meet Again." Jon B. conducted the meeting. I took Sacrament for the first time in almost a year. I feel more worthy then I have in years because I have thrown out that millstone called the Law of Moses. I really feel the Lord's spirit in this little flock.
My wife came with me to Affirmation tonight and there was a pretty big turn out crowded into the parlor of the Crossroads Urban Center. Russ discussed formally organizing the Wasatch Chapter of Affirmation as the official chapter of Affirmation in Salt Lake City by the adoption of the rules of the General Charter. A sticking point was having an opening prayer at the meeting. The General Charter states that all Affirmation meetings should start with an opening prayer. However some in the group really opposed the notion of praying at Affirmation. But Russ was quite adamant about following the rules of the General Charter and could not be swayed.
This really cute young guy, named Scott M., gave Russ Lane the most trouble over whether we should open the meeting with prayer or not. It was finally voted on by all paid members and it passed. Wasatch Affirmation would follow the rules of the General Charter.
I then spoke up and suggested that if there are those who do not care to pray in public they might consider joining the Salt Lake Chapter of Affirmation which doesn't open with prayer but is a very good group.
It was a good meeting but a long one. So Wasatch Affirmation is official as of tonight. It was a good spiritual feast of a day.
24 March 1986 Monday
First thing this morning, I went into Bob's office and told him that I have a friend who is looking for work and who is an excellent candidate for an entry level title examiner position. Bob looked at me really skeptically so I poured it on. I told Bob that if he would hire Russ, I would personally guarantee his production every day and that I would personally train him as well as get all my work done.
What clinched it, I think, is that I said to him, "Bob, as a new manager, you need to hire people who only know you as the supervisor and who will not question everything you want done around here. I will promise you that Russ and I will support you in all your decisions, and further more if you hire Russ, you will always have me in your back pocket because I will owe you one."
Bob then asked when can Russ come in and I said he can come in today for an interview. So Bob said, "Fine, have him come in at three O'clock". So after leaving Bob's office I called Russ to come in for an interview.
When Russ came in later in the afternoon, Bob was so impressed with Russ' appearance that he just had him fill out an application and simply asked him, "When can you start?" That was all the interviewing Russ had to do. Russ told Bob that he needed time to go back to California to pack and ship his things out to Utah. He also needed to unload his apartment out there in San Jose. So Bob said be ready to start on April 1st.
I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. The Lord's hand was so evident in this. Russ has a job now and Affirmation can continue under his dynamic and enthusiastic leadership. I heard a song on KRCL's Radio Free Utah with the lyrics that in part went like this, "You got here by the grace of God. What an elegant way to arrive." I just love that because that is how I am feeling. What an elegant way to arrive.
26 March 1986 Wednesday
Russ Lane left for California after he was hired at Utah Title by the grace of God. He will start as an entry level title examiner. I know the hand of the Lord was in this. Because of my prayers and fasting over the weekend, the Lord granted me the desire of my heart to have a friend at work.
I told Russ Lane that he could come stay with my wife and I when he returns become we have a spare room in the house we are renting. My wife better not squawk after I put up with her friend Tony last February.
Russ went back to San Jose to finalize some things he left hanging there. I told him that I would take him down to the Greyhound Bus Station on South Temple so when he was ready, I went over to Duane Dawson's apartment where Jon B., Gordon J., and a friend of Jon's named Johnny W. were already there. They had come to see Russ off.
Before taking Russ to the bus station, I really felt impressed to give Russ a blessing. So Jon, Gordon and I went to the laundry room where we wouldn't be disturbed and we laid our hands on his head. I was impressed to bless him that his health would endure and that he would be able to accomplish all the things he had to do in San Jose. In closing I heard these words come out of my mouth, which said, "Russ Lane, thou art my daily delight." It was a sweet blessing and we all felt filled with the spirit.
After we finished, I drove Russ down to Greyhound where Jon, Gordon, and Johnny met us. We waited with Russ until his bus came. He looked so cute, tall and ruddy, wearing a black Iowa Letterman jacket and a tweed cap.
As his bus pulled away an empty feeling swept over me but it soon was replaced when Jon B. suggested we all go over to Kent A.'s place just south of McDonald's on 7th East. There we picked up a cot that Kent said Russ could use to sleep on. Johnny W. had to leave after that.
While driving around town with Jon and Gordon, I felt so close to them and we talked about how we felt that God is bringing a wonderful thing to pass and how exciting it was to be part of it.
Jon B. is also unemployed and he said that he would be interested in getting on at Utah Title too. He had just lost a job at the University of Utah. I said I would most certainly try, and there is a good chance that Bob might hire him on my suggestion too.
I felt so much love and brotherhood for Jon and Gordon, almost like I was a kid again. Last Sunday was Gordon's birthday and at Affirmation he got carried around and spanked! He was wearing leather chaps and looking so cute. Today I gave him an old brass belt buckle that had embossed on it the Salt Lake Temple. Gary R gave it to me years ago but I never wore it. I told Gordon that it was a belated birthday present. I am truly grateful for Gordon because if not for him I would not have heard about the Restoration Church and not have met Jon B. and Russ Lane.
27 March 1986 Thursday:
When I came home from lunch I felt such an overwhelming feeling that I had to write down something that was flooding my mind. It is very hard to describe the feeling but it was like words were being placed in my mind and my hand was just writing them down. It was like the Spirit of the Lord was revealing his love for Gay and Lesbian people and their place in the Celestial Kingdom.
It came so quickly and clearly to me during my lunch hour and was several notebook pages long. I felt so utterly drained and wiped out for the rest of the day. When I came home from work, I reread what I had written and I started to cry. It was so beautiful. My first thoughts was to share it with my wife but I am afraid that she would just scoff at me and it, so I sealed it in an envelope and mailed it to Tony Feliz. As head of the church I felt that he should read it first before anyone else.
I think my wife feels threatened by my increasing involvement with the Restoration Church and my desire to serve the Lord as I understand Him. I feel like a great and marvelous work is about to be poured out upon the heads of Gay and Lesbian people of this world.
I have invited Jon B. and Gordon J. over for Easter dinner. I've also heard that Elder Feliz and Elder Hamilton are coming back up to Salt Lake this weekend. So I'll offer our house as a place to stay if they do. I am just so grateful that I can be instrumental in helping the Lord achieve his purpose of blessings the lives of Gay and Lesbian people and especially for being able to help Russ Lane establish himself so that he can bless the lives of hundreds perhaps thousands of Gay Latter Day Saints.
Affirmation is a great work but my heart is with the Restoration church. I will give the Brethren my application for membership this weekend. I am seriously considering being baptized this weekend as a member of the Church. My wife is totally freaking out about the events that have taken place in my life so quickly these past few weeks. I am really tired now so I'll go to bed.
28 March 1986 Friday:
Came home from work today and spent much of the evening cleaning the house and grocery shopping for our weekend guests. My wife and I are both excited about having company this weekend.
I learned from Jon B. that Lamar Hamilton isn't able to come and I'm disappointed because of that. Nevertheless Elder Feliz is coming up with another fellow from the church and Elder Pamela Calkins, who is the first female Melchizedek Priesthood holder in the church, is coming also with her lover. So we should have a house full for sure.
The cot I borrowed from Kent A. for Russ Lane will come in handy. I will put it in the front room as sort of a day bed. I am really looking forward to this weekend
29 March 1986 Saturday
After my wife left for work at Taylor Maid, I got up early also to prepare for tomorrow's Easter dinner. Additionally I made a platter of egg salad and tuna salad sandwiches for the California Saints when they arrive. I know that they will be hungry when they get here, and tired. I was looking for them to come in around noon but it was nearly 2 p.m. before they pulled up to the house.
While waiting, I made use of the time by making some lemon cookies because I was so antsy for them to get here. Well they finally arrived in this little foreign car, and they wobbled out, having been crammed into the small sedan for some 750 mile and for 16 hours. I was so excited when they finally arrived that I just scooped them all up and brought them into the house where I offered them rest and refreshments.
Pamela J. Calkins was a stocky looking woman, wearing blue jeans, a color t-shirt, work shoes and a leather man's belt. I'd say she was about thirty years old sporting short cropped hair which framed her mannish face and square jaw. But she had the rosiest cheeks and the friendliest manner that betrayed her stereotypical Lesbian dress. However next to her lover Lynn L., Pam looked absolutely girlish! Lynn looked much younger then Pam and was a blond while Pam was a brunette. Lynn also wore blue jeans with a turtle neck knit shirt over which she wore a flannel plaid cotton work shirt. Lynn's blond hair was swept back into a Jimmy Dean duck tail.
Looking past the outwardly Dyke appearance, the more I visited with Pam and Lynn, the more I grew to love them. They are so full of hearty goodness, and love, and I think they are sweet women although I am sure they wouldn't want to be called that by me.
Tony Feliz looked haggard from the long journey and he wore dark sun glasses because he couldn't find his regular glasses. He looked every bit his age and was dressed like a middle aged fashionable Mormon Bishop. His traveling companion was a much younger man, named Eddie M.. He is a nice looking slender well built Filipino, slightly shorter then me. I found out later that he's just 19 years old.
The travelers were still so keyed up from their trip that I brought chairs out on the front porch and we sat and visited while they unwound. It was a gorgeous spring day. I served them the sandwiches and cookies, and of course the dogs ran out to greet them and say hi and sniff and be generally obnoxious, but hey its their home too. When my wife came home from work there was a houseful of "faggots" as she says and I was happy.
About three o'clock, Tony Feliz and Pamela Calkins had to leave for an interview they were giving on Concerning Gays and Lesbians. The show wanted to interview Pam because she is the first Lesbian to ever hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. Pamela Calkins is an Elder in the church and her lover Lynn holds the Aaronic Priesthood. I believe Lynn said she was a Priest.
Eddie M. and Lynn L. are both converts to the gospel specifically from the efforts of the Restoration Church. They had never been Mormon before. Pam taught Lynn the gospel and Lynn became the first person to be baptized into the Restoration Church who had no LDS background. I believe she said she was baptized last November. Could be wrong.
While Tony and Pam were gone, Eddie and Lynn caught up on some much needed sleep and crashed in the living room on the cot I made into a bed. My dog Toby found a friend in Lynn and curled up with her to sleep. Both Lynn and Eddie love our animals especially sweet natured Toby and our cat Fat Jack. Yes Sam it’s true you are a rotten dog that only your daddy can love. Everyone could not get over how huge Fat Jack is. They said he should be a Bob Cat not just a house cat. He's like Garfield a red tabby with a humongous tail. Poor misunderstood Jackie. He ain't fat. He's fluffy.
When Tony and Pam returned from taping the program, I fixed a pot of soup and we all finished off the rest of the sandwiches. A busy evening was planned because I learned that Tony and Pam are here to interview people for positions in the branch that is going to be organized in Salt Lake City. It will be the first branch of the church.
The rest of the evening was spent in a flurry of comings and goings as people dropped by the house to visit with the California Saints and to make their appointments for their interviews. Jon B. and Gordon J. were over much of the evening and it looks like Gordon is really in love with Jon. They appear to have become an item since the last time I saw them. I was really attracted to Jon B. at first, but I kept thinking what can I do about it? I am a married man. And besides I like Gordon too much and if he has his eyes set on Jon, I won't get in the way. Although truthfully, I'm a little jealous.
When it was my time to be interviewed I gave Tony my application for membership however I told him that I was not ready to be formally baptized this weekend because I want Russ Lane to be present. Then we talked and I told Tony about my experiences back in 1972 and 1973 with the spirit writings that I had given to Paul Mike H. Dunn and how from those writings I knew even back then that homosexuality was not an issue with the Lord. I don't know if he believed me and he said that he had not received the letter I had sent the other day. It was hard to make out what he thought, but I know that if he is sincere and not on just some type of ego trip he will recognize my sincerity.
After all that, Tony cut to the chase and asked me if I was called to be Branch President who would I call for counselors. I thought back to the love that Jon B., Gordon J., and I shared and had for each other after taking Russ to the bus terminal and I did not hesitate to say I would choose Jon and Gordon. I immediately sensed by the expression on his face that this was not the answer he wanted to hear, so I told him,
I know the Lord wants me to be instrumental in this movement, and I am willing to serve where ever the Lord calls me to serve.
After my interview I visited with Bob McIntier and Jon B. who was waiting with Gordon J.. Tony earlier informed me that he developed a reaction to our cats in the house and is going to sleep at Bob's house, where bob has more room, and a bed.
All in all it was a very special day. I feel like I've known these people for a long time not just having met today. I feel like I finally belong, and what I always felt the Mormon Church should be like. I am with people who understand and care about me rather then sit in judgment of me. I can tell that my wife just loves having women in the house, and I know she likes Pam and Lynn. I wonder although what she really thinks when she sees them kiss? What does a straight man feel when he sees two men kiss? All I see is something perfectly natural and wonderful. An expression of love.
Additional Material Elder Pamela J. Calkins 1956-1994 Pamela J. Calkins was the daughter of James and Glennda Calkins. She was born in California 17 May 1956 and died there 24 October 1994. She was the first Lesbian to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, and when excommunicated from the LDS Church she was brought before a High Priest Stake Council. She was a founding member of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ established August 13, 1985. She held the positions of Apostle and was a member of the First Presidency. Despondent over some legal troubles and Mormon homophobia, Pamela J. Calkins took her own life in 1994. She was 38 years old. She taught that Gay people, being a tenth of the world's population, were God's special tithing back to our world with the purpose of making it a more beautiful and just place.
• "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco number one song on national charts
30 March 1986 Easter Sunday
Busy, busy, busy day with baptisms, Easter Dinner, Sacrament Meeting, and Affirmation all today. Lynn L. and Pamela Calkins spent the night at the house while Tony Feliz and Eddie M. stayed over at Bob McIntiers to sleep. Bob lives on the western edge of Salt Lake City, off of 700 North and Redwood Road.
When I got up I fixed Lynn, Pam, my wife and I a light breakfast before everyone started arriving over here. At first there had been only two baptisms scheduled today, but John Crane, the Church's Evangelist, arrived last night with his Filipino lover and he wanted to be baptized also this Easter morning.
After the rest had left to go down to a house on 5th East and 27th South, where they knew someone willing to let his hot tub be used as a baptism font, my wife started dragging her heals and almost made me late. I believe she was really freaking out about attending an "apostate" baptismal service, and I lost my patience with her. I told that "I am going, with or without you." Then I, frustrated, asked, "Why do you always have to spoil everything spiritual that I feel I need to do?"
Needless to say my attitude could have been better but soon the little fight I had with my wife was dissipated as I stepped out into the absolutely gorgeous bright morning light. The sky was dazzlingly deep and clear. Spring flowers, tulips, crocuses, hyacinths were everywhere. All the trees were brightly sporting their new little green leaves, and truly the world seemed like it was wearing its new Easter clothes.
When I reached the house where the baptismal services were taking place, in South Salt Lake, I went to the backyard where people were already dressed in their baptismal robes. We sang a few hymns and Pamela Calkins gave a talk on baptism being a symbol of the Lord's resurrection and how appropriate it seems to perform this sacred ordinance on Easter Sunday.
The only real difference I could see between this baptismal service and an LDS one was the taking of the oath of the Baptismal covenant. In the Restoration Church baptismal candidates recite a passage from the Book of Mormon and then lift their arm to the square to take an oath that they will lived by the covenant that the Prophet Alma administered at the Waters of Mormon.
And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life
Baptismal candidates of the Restoration Church take this oath to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. It was really touching and moving to see Bob McIntier, Gordon J., and John Crane raise their arms to the square and promised to keep the above Baptismal Covenant as recorded in the Book of Mormon.
Baptism by the All Latter Day Saint Church is not essential for membership in the church because since priesthood is eternal, the Restoration church recognizes any baptism that was performed with proper priesthood authority whether it was done in the LDS Church, the RLDS Church or the FLDS Churches. So once baptized into any of the restoration churches, that received its authority from Joseph Smith, it is really not necessary to be rebaptized into the All Latter Day Church. It's more symbolic then necessary.
Gordon B. Jones was baptized by Jon B., Bob McIntier was baptized by Lynn L., and John Crane was baptized by Eddie M.. The service was over by 11 a.m. and it was one of the best baptisms I had ever witnessed and the Holy Spirit was abundant and strong there.
I left before the others did because I had to race home to play "Martha" and get Easter dinner ready. I fixed glazed ham with pineapple slices, creamed corn, fresh green beans, creamy scalloped potatoes, candied yams, Mormon coleslaw, and a marinated broccoli and cherry tomato salad. I also had rolls, and for desert I made strawberry short cake.
When the Saints all came back to the house, they couldn't believe that I had time to whip this all up with how busy we all have been this weekend. The house was packed for Easter dinner and we just spread out onto the porch, the front room, as well as the dining room. I just loved having a house full of Gay people. In all there were my wife, Pamela Calkins, Lynn L., Tony Feliz, Eddie M., John Crane and his lover who spoke so little English that I never learned his name, Bob McIntier, Jon B., Gordon J., and this boy from Provo, Mike H. who just happened to have heard about the church and dropped by.
We ate, and drank fruit punch, laughed at stories about our Gayness, and I really felt the Lord's spirit among us. It was such a sweet day and was truly wonderful to have the Saints gathered in my house and to have the first branch of the church established here in my home.
Near two o'clock we had to leave our dinner and rush down to the Crossroad Urban Center to prepare Sacrament. At the meeting Tony Feliz presided and Pam Calkins conducted. A lot of the meeting was taken up with Tony relating the business of the Spring Conference in Los Angeles and what had transpired there last weekend. I smiled when Tony Feliz stated that at the closing of conference he said he was prompted to changed the scheduled closing hymn to "God Be With You Until We Meet Again", which was the very same hymn that I was prompted to close last week's Sacrament meeting with also. I believe the Lord was indeed sending his spirit to each of his small Gay flocks to bond us together in spirit.
During the meeting we officially voted to organize the Salt Lake members into a Branch of the Church. Actually we will be the only branch of the church since the Los Angeles flock is not nearly so organized. It was at this meeting that Bob McIntier was called to be the first Branch President and to my surprise I was called to be a Bishop Agent. I had no Idea what that even entailed until after Sacrament when Tony explained each of our responsibilities.
Bob McIntier's responsibility is to oversee the spiritual growth of our little flock in Salt Lake City and I am to oversee the temporal growth of the church here. I am suppose to find a more suitable place to meet for Sacrament then the Crossroad Urban Center. I am still not sure what a Bishop Agent is since I never heard of it before in the LDS Church. But I am responsible directly to Lamar Hamilton, who is now the Presiding Bishop of the Church. I am to send all offerings and tithing monies to Los Angeles and things like that. I am not one of Bob's counselors but rather we are supposed to have separate authority and yet do everything in harmony and act like counselors.
I really don't know Bob McIntier all that well. He is kind of hard to get to know but I think he is genuinely kind hearted. Though it sort of bothers me, that he left the gospel to join the Metropolitan Church for a while. But again I do feel that he is a sweet man, and if Bob is the one that the Lord wants to direct this flock, I will sustain him with all my heart.
After church some of us went back to the house where we took a nap. Eddie stayed with us while Tony went back over to Bob's place.
Affirmation was at seven p.m. and my wife and I went although there was a small turn out. Without Russ Lane, the meeting was a dud. I see so clearly now why the Lord wants the charismatic Russ Lane here in Salt Lake. Now if I could just get him to join the Restoration Church! What a dynamic leader we would have.
At Affirmation my wife invited Stan D. home to join us for dinner. "Stinky Stan", as my wife and I refer to this character, because he doesn't bathe much, is eccentric to say the least and is really funny. Short, frumpy, sporting always a two day old beard, my wife took a liking to this portly Stan but then she is always looking to take in strays. That is why we ended up with three cats.
Anyway Pam, Lynn, Eddie, Stinky Stan, Jon B., Gordon, and my wife and I played card games and when it was getting late, Stan asked if he could spend the night so we said yes. He didn't have any night clothes so my wife gave him one of her frilly flannel night gowns to wear. He looked so at home in it. Bizarre.
Eddie also decided to spend the night because I guess he was having more fun here then over at Bob's. As the evening got late, I sat on the couch, holding Eddie in my arms, visiting with Jon, Gordon, Stan, Lynn, and Pam. My wife was having a great time reveling in being the center of attention, and telling funny stories with her outrageous gregarious personality at full tilt. Here it is the end of March and I have met such neat people in such a short time. I feel blessed.
Additional Material James Cagney, American Hollywood actor best known for playing gangsters and George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy died (1899-1986)
31 March 1986 Monday
What a whirlwind month, and how my world has turned topsy-turvy. I have admitted to myself and others, finally, that I am indeed a Gay married man. I have become a member of a Gay Mormon Church, and not just a member, it's Bishop Agent for the Salt Lake Branch of the church. Because of the changes in my life and not despite of them, I am happier now then I have been in years.
After going to bed last night with a house full of Gay people, my wife and I laid in bed and talked. I told her that my life would feel complete if she was on my left and Eddie was on my right. My wife kissed me and told me to go to Eddie and its okay because she loves Eddie too. So Eddie and I clung to each other all night doing nothing but holding each other.
This morning I got up to get ready for work while Eddie went and climbed into bed with my wife, Pam Calkins, and Lynn L., and soon even "Stinky Stan" joined them as they all watched the morning news. They looked so happy there in bed, warm and snuggly so much so that I hated to leave them and go to work, but I had no choice.
I was sad at work today knowing that when I get home they will all be gone. Still its been a fun raucous weekend.
Russ Lane flew back to Utah today and that news gladdened my heart. I went out to the Salt Lake airport to pick him up and I held his hand driving back to the house. I was so excited that he's back in Utah. He's sending his things parcel post. I told him about all the excitement we had over the weekend and what a glorious time we had. I told him that a branch of the church had been established for the first time and it was here in Salt Lake City. I am so glad that Russ is back and is going to be staying with my wife and I. It will make the house not feel so lonesome after the big to do we had this weekend.
Needless to say the house was a wreck when I got home. We didn't do any dishes over the entire weekend. My wife was a little put out that no one had offered to help clean up. But I didn't mind because it gave me something to do now that everyone is gone.
I moved Russ' cot from the front room to the back bedroom where he can have his privacy. He is so clever and funny. I am just going to love having him here, and I know it's what the Lord wants me to do.
Changes in my life. It's thrilling to feel alive again. Each day is bringing a new adventure and new people into my life. I really hate to see March end. It was such a wonderful happy month for me. My wife is happy that I am happy, but deep down I think she is scared of what is going to happen to us. It can never be the same as before pretending to be a heterosexual man. I'm sure it is just a matter of time before the LDS Church catches up with me and excommunicates me but I don't care. I have already replaced them in my heart.
Sunday, when Pam Calkins was here, this fellow, I don't remember his name, attended Sacrament meeting and he asked her to give him a blessing. I went with Pam and she and I laid our hands on his head and gave him a blessing of comfort. He was so very frightened because he had been summoned to a High Stake Court and he was sure he was going to be excommunicated. He was so scared. Both Pam and I gave him a blessing, and the Lord's spirit spoke through me telling him that whenever a door closes, another opens. And I do believe this in my heart. I also do believe in the mission of the Restoration Church to take the cast offs from the Mormon Church. We will take in the despised and the rejected, whom the Lord loves and wants to bless but yet do not fit into the narrow confines of the Pharisaic LDS Church.
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