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Brigham Young University

Earl Baird Kofoed

Kent G. Taylor

Richard Snow

Memories of Being Gay at BYU

by Earl Kofoed
Affinity, April 1993, pp. 5, 9.

Picture this: Fall Quarter, 1946, Brigham Young University. Enrollment is about 5,000. You're in a beginning French class of about 30 people, equally divided between men and women. Look around you and, if you are gay, you will be amazed to realize you are not alone.

I spotted Stan, a recently discharged Navy submariner, as a distinct possibility. He and I later became good friends and spent a lot of time together. A native of Provo and living at home, Stan knew many of the local gay men and introduced me to them.

Then there was Irv [Irvin Lavar Foutz, 1923-1996], who to this day is one of my very best pals. He lives in southern California [Palm Desert] and we manage to get together once or twice a year.

Jack, who had all the "qualifications" for being gay, wasn't out at BYU. He became a poet.

(There may have been others, but at least I cited my 10%!)

One member of my French class, Colleen Hutchins, later became Miss America in 1952, but I digress...

My greatest political achievement at BYU was to be elected vice-president of the French Club. I took a lot of French to meet the requirements for a B.A. degree. French seemed to attract gay men so there were many others in my classes throughout the two years I spent at the university.

All of my roommates at BYU were gay. We lived off-campus so we could be independent and have parties and meals with our gay friends. And we were quite a crowd. There was on whose father was a department head at the university and another whose father was an instructor. One friend's brother-in-law later became president of BYU. Another's father was a local stake president [Pres. Arthur D. Taylor, father of Kent]. Then there was the handsome young man who later became student body president [actually Junior Class president]. Of course, there were others, including our lesbian and straight girl friends. We didn't have access to a large meeting place so our crowds were limited. But we had each other.

One of the young men on the fringes of our crowd, when asked if he was gay, said, "No, but I'm a little jolly." He accepted himself for the way he was--and so did the rest of us--and we were much healthier and happier than those who were denying their deepest needs.

We attended classes at the lower campus where the old Academy was the major building. At the upper campus there were a few buildings, the newest of which was the Joseph Smith Building, where we had classes, dances, socials and lectures. World War II had just ended and mobs of discharged GI's were starting or continuing their education. BYU got its share and things were crowded. The men who were coming to campus at that time had been exposed to life overseas, as well as on the seas, and brought with them rather cosmopolitan attitudes. We were no longer Mormon kids fresh off the farm; we had our own ideas about how to live our lives.

I had many gay friends during my three years in the Navy and I knew that I, myself, was gay. I had applied to and was accepted by both Stanford and BYU, but chose the latter because I could not afford Stanford on $75 a month. I also had a vague hope that I could return to the Church by going to BYU. It didn't quite work out that way, but I stayed long enough to get my degree and was glad to leave Provo [in 1948]. There wasn't much to do there except for church activities. We went to Salt Lake City for fun and games and once in a while we would go to California for a really big time. There were so few distractions in Provo however, that I was able to study and do fairly well in my classes.

So, we had quite a healthy gay community functioning on campus and around town. We had lots of good times together and some of us fell in and out of love. I suppose that the more "worldly" straights at school were aware of us, but I don't recall any confrontations. Certainly we weren't summoned by authorities to be grilled or excommunicated or given bad advice on how we could "change." The climate was much less hostile that it would be three decades later.

The Church's seeming "live and let live" policy is exemplified by the experience of two of my friends at the time [Kent Goodridge Taylor of Provo and Richard Snow of southern California]. They were in love and felt a need to get clarification concerning their "status." Accordingly, they went all the way to the top and got an appointment with Church President, George Albert Smith. They stated their case to him and acknowledged their love for each other. President Smith treated them with great kindness and told them, in effect, to live the best lives they could. They felt they had gambled and could have been excommunicated right then and there; instead they went away feeling loved and valued. Wouldn't it be great if gays and lesbians could leave the Church President's office feeling that way today?

It has been more than a few years since my gay days at BYU. I haven't seen or heard from many of those old friends in a long time. I know that some of them have died. I hope that it has been long enough since that time that I have not violated anyone's anonymity. I have written this because I think it is good for the LDS Church to know that we were there and we are still there and that mean-spirited policies which hurt and alienate us are neither kind nor Christian.

Earl Kofoed is a member of the San Francisco chapter and is now serving on its Board of Directors [in 1993].