Reconciling Orientation and Faith

 A personal essay by Barry Donakey. 

It was impossible for me to understand how quickly my life could change, and how happy I could be sitting in the tension between two essential parts of my identity. 

“I’m gay.” 

I was shocked to actually hear the words come out of my mouth. They were new and felt so unfamiliar. We were sitting in my car, waiting for the traffic light at the intersection of Cougar and Freedom Blvd next to where we had just finished lunch. After what felt like an eternity, but was actually somewhere around two seconds, my best friend of 20 years reached over the middle console and bear-hugged me. “My man, thank you for telling me!”

The exchange was simple and yet it felt like a mountain had been taken off my shoulders. We spent the next hour driving circles around Provo as I unloaded concerns, fears, and misconceptions onto my patient and listening friend. He asked questions, hesitantly at first, not wanting to overreach but seeking to understand more about a situation that was entirely unfamiliar to him. No question could possibly be too personal as I poured out everything I had buried inside for so many years. 

I entered a new world that day. One by one, I began meeting with my family members to come out to them. With seven siblings near and far, it took multiple months and plane flights before I had the chance to sit down with each of them. Their reactions were heart-warming, as each of them assured me of their love, regardless of where the future took me. One brother nearly made me faint when he so casually asked what type of guys I was “into.” Across the board it was easy to be overwhelmed with gratitude because of how quickly this became a normal part of our conversations.

"How do you feel about the Church?"

Although I didn’t resent it, the question that I was invariably asked whenever I came out to a friend or family member was, “How do you feel about the Church?” For my family, our faith is at the core of who we are. My father, after a miraculous string of events, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a teenager. He later attended BYU where he met and proposed to my mother. Although they didn’t pressure any of their children, their eight kids each decided to serve full-time missions for the Church. The candle of faith they had given to each of their children grew into a torch, and for me it was no different. 

Navigating my faith and orientation was never a conscious action at first. It didn’t need to be, because “same-sex attraction” wasn’t something I needed to navigate; it was just something I needed to overcome. For years it never dawned on me that my life would look any different from that of the typical “Happy Valley” Latter-day Saint. This was my opportunity to prove to God that I would do what He wanted and live so worthily He would be forced to give me a woman to marry. In the meantime, I looked down with moral superiority at my high school friends who dated exclusively instead of waiting till after the mission, as many Church leaders had recommended. 

When I returned from the mission, I dated. I was a serial dater, driving all over the state of Utah for blind dates with friends of friends. I asked out high school friends, cashiers, waitresses. First dates were always fun; I loved the opportunity to connect with new people. However, as second or third dates rolled around, I would find myself in the familiar situation of her wanting to pursue the relationship, whereas I couldn’t stand the thought. I doubt any of them could have appreciated just how true the statement, “it’s not you, it’s me” was in our case. As ridiculous as it may sound, I kept dating girls because I had no reference for any other ways to live my faith. Statistically, it was laughable, but I felt like the only closeted gay member in my entire church. 

Rainbow Day

My reckoning came one day when my roommate casually mentioned a podcast he’d listened to about LGBTQ Latter-day Saints. I feigned casual interest, then after he left, I grabbed my phone and proceeded to listen to four episodes of the podcast. I sat in shock as I realized I wasn’t alone. I consumed stories of other gay men and women, then trans men and women. After listening to a number of personal accounts, I realized I had never actually taken the time to sort through my experience or how it impacted my beliefs. I had finally accepted my orientation, and even began to embrace it, but I felt like a child, re-learning what it meant to have faith.

Even as I moved into this new space, beginning the beautiful process of reconciling these two aspects of my identity, I also felt the friction of old misconceptions that refused to die. On March 4, 2021, one year after BYU’s Honor Code confusion that led to miscommunication and ultimately a great deal of pain for LGBTQ students, an unofficial student group, Color the Campus, attempted to reclaim the day as an opportunity to show support for BYU’s LGBTQ students. The organizers clarified that the event, nicknamed “Rainbow Day,” was not intended to be a protest, but a gesture of love to marginalized students. Some students, feeling threatened by this show of solidarity, organized groups to read the Family Proclamation at the LGBTQ students and allies who congregated together on campus. The fact that such misconceptions exist was no surprise to me or anyone in the BYU community; however, as I read the libel and vitriol posted to Twitter by these groups, I felt hurt that the BYU administration remained silent while members of its student body pulled Church doctrine out of context and used it as a battering ram against an already marginalized community. 

Later that night, a friend texted me to look up at Y mountain. I walked outside my apartment and my heart leapt for joy when I saw that the Y had been lit in rainbow colors, a symbol visible across the valley testifying of BYU’s love for their LGBTQ students. I returned to my room content that they were no longer silent. They had chosen to acknowledge their students and demonstrate their love for them. Less than two minutes later, while still musing on the scene I had witnessed, my heart dropped. No text had come in, and no headline caught my eye; my heart dropped because I realized there was no chance the university would make such a bold move after how long they had been silent. Not long after, my suspicion was confirmed when BYU’s official Twitter account clarified the administration had not approved the lighting of the Y and warned that any forms of public expression required BYU approval. The statement was factual but cold. Like previous university communiques, it felt devoid of compassion towards their LGBTQ students. 

Freedom to Choose

When my family initially told me how they’d love me regardless of what my future looked like, I didn’t realize what an amazing gift they had given me. However, when contrasted against my experience on Rainbow Day, their gift was more clear. In essence, my family gave me the power to choose the path I wanted, without having to fear about them becoming collateral damage if I ever chose to leave the Church. Ben Schilaty, another gay Latter-day Saint, wrote of his experience after his parents had just learned he’d been dating another man. After they assured him of their love, regardless of whether or not he married his boyfriend, he said:

Until that moment, I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that from my mom. I had felt trapped in a doctrine and culture that seemed to have no place for a gay man like me, wedged between wanting to be in a same-sex relationship and wanting to stay in the Church. Having my mom tell me that she would support me in my choice set me free (Schilaty 70; emphasis added).

Similarly, when my family made the same assurance, I was able to confidently say, “This is where I want to be” and rather than abandon my faith, do my best to forge a new path between what felt in the past to be two conflicting truths. 

Now, my life is nothing like I could have imagined just six or twelve months ago. As I rush from church to Queer Potluck then back for a “Come, Follow Me” scripture study group, I finish the night with my entire family, seated in a semicircle as we watch an LGBTQ fireside devotional over Zoom. I haven’t come across any earth-shattering secrets and I definitely don’t have it “all figured out.” However, as I continue to explore how my faith and orientation complement each other, it is impossible to not appreciate how much better these foundational aspects of my life are when I allow myself to sit in the tension between them.