My fourth son, Kenneth, pulled into the driveway as I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes. I had a sense of foreboding at the troubled look on his face and guessed that he’d waited until my husband, Kurt, was gone to work and I was alone. Kenneth had been distancing himself from the Mormon church lately, which had put a serious strain on his relationship with his father, the bishop of our ward.
“Mom? You home?” he called out, not bothering to knock on the door.
“In the kitchen!” I answered. I wiped my hands off and wished that I looked better, but he was my son. He’d seen me in my pajamas before, and without my hair done.
He came over and gave me a big hug. “I love you, Mom,” he said. He smelled like he’d been sweating on the drive over. “You know that, don’t you?”
This only made me feel more nervous about whatever Kenneth had come over to tell me. Of my five sons, he was the one I worried most about—well, after Samuel, my youngest, who had come out as gay last year and was currently far away in Boston on a Mormon mission.
“What’s up?” I asked cautiously.
“I’m getting married,” he said simply.
“What? How? To whom?” Was he so estranged from the family that he had gone as far as to get engaged without even introducing us to the woman?
“Her name is Naomi Carter,” Kenneth said.
“That’s a lovely name,” I said, trying to act normal about this. If he loved her, I was sure the whole family would love her, even if I had to make them do it.
“She’s great, Mom. I’m a lucky guy.”
I wished that I knew anything about her. I wished I could see them together, make sure they seemed happy together, right for each other. But I trusted Kenneth, and in the end, I hugged him fiercely. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so happy for you.” He wasn’t hugging back, though. Something was wrong. “So?” I said, when I released him.
“So what?” said Kenneth.
“Well, what aren’t you telling me? Why did you make sure I was alone to spring it on me? Does she have two heads or something? Is she a felon?” I was trying to joke, but I could tell it wasn’t going over well.
He sighed. “Naomi’s part of—well, her family is only kind of Mormon.”
“Kind of Mormon? What does that mean?” With Kenneth’s doubts about the church, I really hadn’t expected him to marry a devout churchgoer. But that was obviously why he was nervous about telling Kurt. He must want me to act as an intermediary, to get Kurt used to the idea that they weren’t going to get married in the temple—sealed as Mormon couples are in an eternal family in this life and the celestial kingdom, not just married till death, as in other religious traditions.
Kenneth sighed again, and rubbed at his head in a way that reminded me of Kurt, if Kurt had had more hair. “I guess there’s no easy way to say it, Mom. Her family is polygamous.”
I was so shocked I had to gather my thoughts. Of all my sons, Kenneth was the last one I would have expected to be interested in a polygamous branch of Mormonism. I was really not sure how I was going to handle it if Kenneth were about to tell me he’d be having multiple wives, if that was what he planned for the future with this Naomi Carter. I’d never really accepted the polygamous past of the Mormon church and had always assumed I’d never have to. I thought I’d raised Kenneth to think the same way.
“Are they FLDS?” I asked slowly. The Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints was the most infamous polygamist branch of Mormonism, led by the now-jailed “prophet” Warren Jeffs, who had been indicted for statutory rape after he married dozens of barely teenage girls, some of whom were also his close blood relatives. Just the idea of Kenneth sitting down for Sunday dinner with men who did that made me sick. I suddenly wished that Kurt were here, after all.
“Not the FLDS, Mom,” Kenneth said. “Her family is independent. And very modern. Her dad is an OB/GYN at Salt Lake Regional. One of the wives is an investment broker and another is an artist. Naomi is in med school, too. She wants to be an OB/GYN like her father.” He held my gaze as if he were begging me not to judge him just yet.
I struggled not to make a remark about it being a lot cheaper to have a lot of babies if you were a baby doctor yourself.
“Okay,” I said, hoping I knew my son as well as I thought I did. “Are you two planning to be polygamous?”
He snorted. “Of course not. Mom, I’m just trying to make sure you understand her history. And when you meet her parents—her father and her mothers—you aren’t caught by surprise.”
I felt an enormous wave of relief. Mormons hadn’t been polygamous since the late 1800s, when the prophet and president Wilford Woodruff had ended the practice. Sometimes I heard older Mormons say that God was polygamous or that polygamy was still going to be required in heaven, but it wasn’t a topic I’d heard mentioned in General Conference and I figured that was clear evidence that it wasn’t part of the modern church anymore.
“How did you meet her?” I asked, glad to get back to being a nosy mother.
There was a long pause and I realized we weren’t done with the difficult part of the conversation. “We met at a former Mormons group. We call it Mormons Anonymous.”
Mormons Anonymous—like Alcoholics Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous? As if my religion were some kind of addictive behavior that you had to recover from?
“I knew you were having trouble with the church,” I said carefully, waiting for him to explain.
“Mom, the final straw was the exclusion policy.”
I felt a gut punch at this and found myself holding onto the kitchen counter to keep from sinking to the floor. The exclusion policy had been leaked to the press in November of 2015, and it directed that all same-sex married members must be excommunicated and their children disallowed saving ordinances like baptism, as well as participation in other church activities. I had always loved my church, but this was the one thing about it that I simply could not defend. Samuel had struggled with the policy right after he turned in his mission papers, but he had decided to go anyway. Kurt and I had argued viciously about the policy, especially its consequences for Samuel.
I had never even considered that the new policy might have affected Kenneth, as well. I must have been too wrapped up in my own anger and pain.
“You weren’t one of the people who went to that mass resignation event, were you?” I asked Kenneth. It had been all over the news. Ten days after the leak, thousands of people had lined up in City Creek Park in Salt Lake City to have their names struck from the Mormon church’s register in protest.
I hadn’t thought seriously about resigning, but I hadn’t known how to go to church the next week, or the week after that. My marriage had been on edge ever since because Kurt, who was the kind of man called to be bishop, would never admit that he thought the policy might be a mistake, that it could be anything less than a revelation from God. Kurt hoped that Samuel could find a nice woman to marry who could accept him as he was—that Samuel would reject his sexuality and live a heterosexual life. This had infuriated me on my own account as well as Samuel’s—Kurt knew that I’d been married to a gay man—my first marriage, to Ben Tookey—and he knew how awful that experience had been for me. How could he want that for his own son, or for the poor woman?
I’d also argued with my best friend, Anna Torstensen, who had defended Kurt. We hadn’t spoken since. I couldn’t get her words out of my head—she’d told me I should be open-minded about the idea of Samuel’s marrying a woman, that I had hit the jackpot with Kurt as a husband and didn’t understand that other women accepted much less in marriage in order to find someone to be sealed to for time and all eternities. But how could I hope anything less for my sons than a loving marriage to a partner they were actually sexually attracted to?
So over the last few months, as I struggled to accept what was happening in my church, I couldn’t share my pain with my husband or with my best friend. The only thing that had saved me had been joining a closed Facebook group called “Mama Dragons,” a group of Mormon women who were fierce in defending their LGBTQ kids. I could say anything I wanted to them and no one else (including Kurt) would see it. Some of them had left the church, but others were trying to stay, like I was, and change it from the inside.
“We didn’t go to the mass resignation,” Kenneth said. “Actually, Naomi and I hadn’t met yet in November. And I didn’t want to do anything rashly that would affect the rest of my life and my relationship with all of you. But ultimately, I felt sick about having my name connected to the church in any way. So I looked for a support group and started going to the Mormons Anonymous meetings. Naomi was there, too.”
“But you’ve officially had your name removed since?” I had to ask. It would hurt Kurt deeply, and even though I understood Kenneth’s choice, it hurt me, too. It meant our eternal family now had a Kenneth-sized hole in it, since he would not allowed to be part of our family in the celestial kingdom of heaven. The covenant that sealed us forever to our children even before they were born had been broken by the resignation.
“I knew you were busy getting Samuel on his mission, Mom, and I didn’t really want to open it up for family discussion. But yeah, I went to see a lawyer who said he’d file the letter officially, so I didn’t have to go through the harassment and the waiting period the church wanted to set. It was official in March.” His words were clipped and sounded almost rehearsed.
“Oh,” I said softly.
Then Kenneth started apologizing. “Mom, I know I should have told you about all this before now. I kept telling myself I should bring it up at every family dinner, let it all hang out. But I guess I was a bit of a coward. I knew how disappointed you and Dad would be.”
“I love you, Kenneth. I will always love you.” That was the most I could manage.
Kenneth sat on one of the stools and after a little silence said, “I’ve never told you this before, but one of my companions during my mission, Elder Ellison, was gay. He told me in confidence, but I was scared of him. I’d been told so many times that gay people were pedophiles and perverts that I believed it. I called the mission president and outed Ellison to him.” Kenneth shivered at this.
“What happened?” I asked, feeling a well of sympathy for the poor gay elder who must have felt so alone in the world.
“The mission president immediately came to interview him and Ellison was transferred to the mission office, assigned directly to the Prez instead of another missionary companion.” He took a shuddering breath, and couldn’t seem to look at me. He was ashamed of himself. “And then, two months later, I heard Ellison was sent home because of ‘emotional problems.’” There were air quotes around those two words. “He committed suicide the day before I was released from my mission. He was only twenty-one.” He looked at me, and then looked away.
I’d never known any of this back when Kenneth had returned from his mission, and I could see now why he hadn’t told me. I thought of Samuel, who could be hurt by a companion who treated him like this. At least Samuel wasn’t in the closet, but there had to be hundreds of other missionaries who were. I was glad Kenneth was ashamed of himself. I felt a bit of shame, as well, that I had raised a son who could do this.
But sadly, it made sense of so many things. No wonder Kenneth had refused to go back to church for weeks after coming home from his mission. No wonder he hadn’t done the typical post-mission talk in church, telling everyone about his converts and funny stories about his companions. No wonder he’d become inactive since then, and had struggled with the new policy.
Kenneth rubbed at his face, and his hand lingered there, half-obscuring his eyes. “Mom, I’ve been sorry about this every day of my life since then. I’ve tried to think of some way I could make it up to Ellison, but I never will. The only thing I can do is to figure out how to prove to myself that I’m not the person I was then, that I’m never going to be like that again. I’m not going to be part of making more gay Mormons commit suicide. I’m doing everything I can to make sure they know I’m not like that, that I understand them.”
I reached for Kenneth’s arm, but he pulled away, as if he didn’t believe he deserved my sympathy.
“The truth is that Ellison was the best companion I ever had,” Kenneth added, talking more to himself than to me, I think. “He was a really good person. He wanted to help others. And he believed in God. Really believed that every prayer he said was being heard and answered in some way. And still, I was afraid of—I don’t even know what.” He clenched a fist and then looked back at me, his eyes bleeding emotion.
“Whenever I think about Samuel on a mission,” he said, his voice almost testimonial, “I can’t help but think of Ellison, and how things turned out. I really hope Samuel never has a companion like me. But the way the Mormon church talks about gay people, I don’t know if the average church member is any more enlightened now than they were when I was a missionary. Or maybe they’re worse, if they think that their prejudices have been justified by this ridiculous policy.”
I felt horribly guilty about this. What kind of person was I, that I hadn’t talked to my sons about loving the whole rainbow spectrum before now? I hadn’t even told them about my marriage to Ben until last year, as if I was ashamed of it—and him.
“I had planned to tell you after I resigned, but it was harder than I thought it would be. I mean, I probably hadn’t gone to a church meeting in my own ward for a year. But that Sunday, I felt horribly guilty. I couldn’t sleep for fear that God would punish me somehow.” He rubbed at his eyes.
“Punish you? You mean about Ellison?”
“I don’t know if it was about anything specific. But maybe. You grow up believing that God protects the people who are righteous and obey Him, and that everyone else has to deal with hurricanes and droughts and stuff. And yeah, even if you’re trying to give it up, it can be hard to stop thinking about God that way, as someone who punishes.”
I wanted to ask him if he’d given up belief in God entirely or if he was thinking of joining another church, but it seemed too invasive of his privacy somehow, even if I was his mother.
“I was so jittery I started buying some pretty hard liquor to try to combat it. And maybe to flip off the church’s rules. But I didn’t actually want to get drunk to numb myself out. I needed to figure out how to deal with the change. So I called up Naomi, who I’d met in Mormons Anonymous, and talked to her about everything, and well, we got closer and closer after that.”
“I’m so sorry you went through all that alone, Kenneth.” I wish he’d told me. But it was so tricky now, with Kurt as bishop. Even with my own son, maybe I couldn’t be completely honest about my feelings for the church anymore.
Kenneth shook his head, “No, Mom. Samuel was the one who needed your attention the most. But I just needed to explain to you what was going on at the time so you’d understand how much Naomi means to me. And why we’re not getting married in the temple. Or in the church.”
I let out a long breath. “If Naomi was from a polygamous family, did she even have to have her name removed from the records like you did?”
“It’s complicated,” Kenneth sighed. “Her parents were married in the Salt Lake Temple and they weren’t polygamous until way after she was born. So, yes, her name is on the records of the mainstream church.”
“And did she leave for the same reason that you did?” I asked. “The new policy?”
Kenneth’s mouth twisted. “Partly that, and partly other things,” he said.
“Such as?” I prompted
“Well, to be honest, she couldn’t stand the way the mainstream church covers up so much about polygamy in church history. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are treated like these heroes who never did anything wrong.”
“But the new essays on Joseph Smith and polygamy admit he married a fourteen-year-old girl,” I pointed out. There was a new series of “Gospel Topics” essays on the church website, even if they weren’t that easy to find if you didn’t know about them. Kurt still had people in church complaining about teachers teaching them because they didn’t believe they were official.
“They admit it but don’t condemn it. Naomi thinks that’s even worse. It’s okay to take a fourteen-year-old bride if you’re the prophet?”
That was definitely a problem in my book, as well. But how could the church condemn Joseph Smith’s polygamy without simultaneously disavowing the other things he had done, like translating The Book of Mormon, and restoring the sacred temple rites and proper priesthood power? Without Joseph Smith’s contributions, we’d just be the same as most other Christian churches, not the “one true Church.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “If her family is polygamist, wouldn’t they all have been excommunicated?”
Kenneth seemed almost amused. I guess now that he was out of the church, this wasn’t his problem anymore. “The bishop of the Carter family ward excommunicated her father but thinks the wives and children aren’t culpable. Naomi thinks it’s all hypocritical. A wink and a nod kind of thing.”
I mulled this over, hoping that I would like Naomi as much as I agreed with her views of polygamy. “So if Naomi resigned from the church because of polygamy, does she still have any contact with her family?” Kenneth had sounded as if he expected me to meet them in the near future.
Kenneth drummed his fingers on the countertop. “Some contact. She’s trying to figure out how to negotiate things.”
I heard uncertainty in my son’s voice. He didn’t know how he was going to negotiate things with his family, either. This was all such a mess.
“Will they be attending the wedding?” I asked, because it was easier to focus on the particulars than on the emotions behind them.
“She wants to talk to you about all that herself. I’m hoping that you and Dad will come to dinner with us next week. We can meet in Salt Lake whenever is convenient for you two.”
“You want me to smooth things over with your father by then?” I asked.
“Could you? If you need more time than that, I can postpone it for a few more weeks, but we’re hoping to get married this summer,” Kenneth said.
Kenneth so rarely asked for anything, how could I say no? I thought about how careful I’d have to be and how strained my relationship with Kurt was at this point. I could have tried to explain to Kenneth, but he didn’t need to have more on his plate than he already did.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.