By Laura Hancock, Deseret News staff writer
May 9, 2003, p. B3
As the sun set over Memory Grove Park Tuesday, candles were lit and names of people who had taken their own lives were read in remembrance of their struggle between being homosexual and active in their religious communities.
One was Stuart Matis, 32, Santa Clara, Calif., whose body was found behind a ward house of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2000 before residents of California were to vote on whether to legally recognize marriages of gay couples. Vigil organizer Duane Jennings said Matis' death could have been an attempt to "preserve his dignity and honor" with the LDS Church, whose leaders were among those urging residents to vote against recognizing such marriages.
Jennings said the event Tuesday was to remember gay suicide victims of all faiths. "What the burden in their hearts it must have been," he said.
Speakers at the vigil cited numerous studies on the connection between homosexuality and suicide, such as one showing gay and lesbian youths are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than youths who are "straight."
"With the leadership of the LDS Church, where absolute authority is given, there is also absolute responsibility," said David Hardy, a former bishop who, with his family, distanced himself from his church after his gay son tried to commit suicide.
The people who commit suicide over their sexuality should weigh on the minds of Christians every day, speaker and activist Frank Mensel said.
Mensel also said parents should remove their sons from Boy Scouts to let churches that support the program know homophobia is unacceptable.
Carlie Hardy said it was difficult to tell her son, who was 16 years old when he tried killing himself, to follow the LDS Church teaching of celibacy for homosexuals. "There's no curriculum to be celibate. Do you stay home every Friday? What if you went to a dance and you might meet someone you're attracted to? Would you send (him) out with all girls?"
Nor did speakers at the vigil believe that reparation therapy works.
"When you know gay people and hear the story of their pain you know it's not a choice," Carlie Hardy said.
Carlie Hardy also said she was discouraged when she heard Brigham Young University suspended two gay students.
"If there's an institution that doesn't allow these people, there is a license to be mean and it trickles down to kids" in their treatment of other young people, she said.
