Breaking News: Yet Another Coming Out

I can’t believe this is my third post in three weeks about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are generating a lot of LGBT news these days!

To catch you up… Matt Easton, this year’s Valedictorian at Brigham Young University (BYU), came out during his Commencement speech on April 28th. About a month earlier, Charlie Bird came out. He had been “Cosmo the Cougar,” the school’s mascot, between 2015 and 2018. I reported all this on May 4th in my post Mormon Valedictorian Comes Out.

Also in April, the Mormon Church reversed a policy that penalized the children of same-sex couples. Until last month these children had been forbidden baptism and church membership unless they denounced their same-sex parents before turning 18. I reported on the history and current evolution of the Mormon Church on May 11th in my post Gay. Transgender and Mormon.

Now this week, Nathan Ivie, a conservative County Commissioner in Utah County just outside of Salt Lake City, has come out. He’s Republican, Mormon — and gay. He made his announcement on Facebook and YouTube three days ago.

As I write this there are 188 comments and 109 shares. Scanning through them quickly I spotted just one negative response — just one! The rest is an outpouring of support. These two were typical.

The fact that Ivie has lived in the closet till age 40 is a testament to the depth of pain and destruction caused by the oppression of LGBT people, caused by hatred. Yet the outpouring of support he’s receiving is a testament to the fact this is less and less necessary. We can live authentic lives. It’s our right. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to the world.

This is Ivie’s statement on YouTube.