Affirmation Leader Comes Out to Ward in Testimony Meeting On June 7, Let's Come Out to Our Wards Come Out to Your Ward on June 3, 2007 Affirmation DC Members Come Out to Their Wards Sam Wolfe's Testimony David Melson's Testimony Eduk's Testimony On May 7, Let's Come Out to Our Wards Writer Bears a “Gay Mormon Testimony” See also: Personal Voices Coming Out Resources

A lot of people have asked me how my “Come Out to [Your] Ward” Day went. It went really well. I didn’t deliver the testimony I thought I would have, but I got a lot of very good responses after fast and testimony meeting ended.

I got up about half way through, which was maybe kind of a gamble, but it went pretty well. No one said anything condemning afterward. And there was at least one kind of sideways affirming supportive statement—actually the testimony immediately following mine, the guy who was sitting two people down from the pew from me.

A lot of people spoke to me right afterward, shook my hand, thanked me for the testimony I gave. They really liked what I had to say. I got an invitation to the DIY “Break the Fast” at a member’s home where there was going to be a huge number of people, but I had other obligations Sunday evening.

In short, it went really well. However, I did this in a young single adult ward in San Francisco. So take those two big grains of salt with my story. Not everyone has such a good experience. Not everyone has in the past. Not everyone will in the future. But now the hard work begins: I’ve done this step, where I’ve told a bunch of people I barely know that I’m gay. And though I felt rejected for so long, and though I don’t think I necessarily have a place, I think there is room for me, and other people like me, in the gospel.

So, the hard part is, talking to them. Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with them. Granted, [in this particular ward] they’re all under 30, and they’re all unmarried—which is going to color my experience. If I were doing this in a family ward, where most people have kids about ten years younger than I am, it would be a very different experience. But I’m doing it with my own peers. So this is where it’s going to be most effective for me.

If you’re an older person who got married to someone of the opposite sex and had a bunch of kids and then came out, speak to other people who are about your age and have a bunch of kids… You’re going to relate stories to them that I don’t know, that I don’t share.

Continue the dialogue. This is where the real work gets done.

I learned something at the creating change conference in Denver last January: If we want equality, we have to show up as equals. It’s a different spot for me, having been excommunicated already. I’m an automatic non-participant. But I got to show up, and I got to do it. Even if I don’t really want to rejoin the Church, even if I don’t believe all the doctrine, there’s a spot for people like me. And until they stand up and speak for themselves, someone has to speak for them.

I’m going to do it. I hope you do, too.