Richard Teerlink and Paul Trane, 4/26/2010

P: There are some 45 diaries in there.

J: Wow.

P: That… I just caught it up today as of yesterday. So you'll be in today.

J: Cool! If you guys want to...

P: But I don't know what to do with them. Dick's asked me, when you go, what do you
want me to do with these, and I say, well, I don't know, maybe my kids will want them. If
I knew I was going to die, I'd probably take them out and burn them. He said, no you
wouldn't.

If you want to print your names here, then sign, and that's all we need. Unless you have
any questions.

P: So anyway, there's a lot of stuff we have, some of it we don't really want to go back
over again.

Are there topics that you want us to avoid?

R: No. It's wide open.

Shall we share what has been shared in the past, to give an example? We've talked
with people about growing up, their first experience growing up, when they first realized,
oh, something's a little different.

P: About when I was 2, *laugh* a little later than that.

or their coming out stories, we've had a bunch of people who were in the bishopric or
whatever, who talked about that experience.
I could see you as being in the Bishopric, Paul.

P: I was a bishop. I've had people say, you look just like my bishop! There's something
to cover that up.

I think that's an interesting juxtaposition actually, in the Church being a bishop is a proud
station, and then coming out of the closet and spending so many years as a gay man,…

P: It's like I've been reincarnated, two lives at least without dying that I know of,
because it's that different.
Some people have talked about their first exposure when they first realized there was a
gay community?

P: Do you want me to do that?

Or their experience with bars or the Pride Center, or anything like that. First sexual
experience.

R: So are you going to ask us questions about that?

P: You can kind of guide us.

And i'll be doing some guiding, following up different lines of thought, but if there is
something you really want to talk about, I'll follow up on that.

(arranging the space)

Alright. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Let's start off with introducing
yourselves and saying how long you've been in Utah, how you came to be here.

R: I was born in Utah, so I've grown up here, and lived in Salt Lake City all of my life
except going on an LDS mission. And so I'm very much familiar with Utah, and the
culture and so on. So this is home for me.

P: And I was born in Salt Lake up at LDS Hospital, and we lived here for, until I was
about 4 or 5, then my father became very ill. And so I went to live with my grandparents
in Lehi, which is a few miles right by Provo, that's where I really grew up, and lived until I
graduated from high school. So I've lived in Utah. (unintelligible) I've been back here
for many many years.

J: So you both grew up in Utah, then, and you both went on missions?

R: Question - we should have stated our names, shouldn't we have?

P: Oh, we didn't do that, did we? Should we start it again?

R: OK, I'll start. My name is Richard Teerlink, and I was born in Salt Lake City, and
grew up in Salt Lake City, so this is my home, and the only time I left Salt Lake City was
to go on a mission for the Mormon Church. And we were training when I was in the
National Guard.
P: And my name is Paul Trane. I was born in Salt Lake at the LDS Hospital, and lived
here until I was about 4 or 5, when because of my father's serious illness, I went to live
with my mother's parents in Lehi, and then when Dad died, I was six, and continued to
live there. And that's where I lived until I graduated from high school. It was very
different place than Lehi now.

J: How do you think Lehi has changed?

P: well, for one thing, when I grew up, it was more like a… big tribe. There may have
been 3,000 people max. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody was somehow
part of… related. And now I think there is 35, 36,000 or something. We went down
there last spring, and I almost had a panic attack, because it just… I knew it was where
all those buildings and places used to be, but it was also changed, and different. But it
was a wonderful place as a kid to grow up, because there were all these fields, places
to play, horses to ride, and just wonderful. But it changed.

J: When did you first realize either that you were gay, or that something was a little bit
different? Do you want to tell that story a little bit?

R: Um, I don't think that I could put the label on it myself until I was 18 years of age, and
that's when I labeled myself as a homosexual. It was during my freshman year that I did
that, and I think what finally made it happen, was I noticed that I was looking at another
male as I crossed campus, and when they sat down in the lecture hall, suddenly
something went DONG, DONG, you're a homosexual. And I was just absolutely baffled
what that meant, or what I was to do about that, or how I was to live my life. I couldn't
hear the lecture, and by the next day, it all submerged again, and disappeared. It was
repression, or suppression, or just useful forgetting, but it did pop up quite frequently
after that while I was a beginning freshman at the University.

J: The University of Utah?

R: Right. But as I look back over the experiences I had as a youth, there were
experiences galore, that provided wide evidence, but because no one talked about it,
and because there were no books available, I went to the library, and all the books on
sex were behind the counter, and this mean old woman was sitting there, and I thought,
I'm not going to ask her for those books! Not a kid who's twelve years old, or thirteen, or
something like that.

J: When you talked about episodes that provided evidence, what did those look like?

R: Well, this one might be a bit graphic. But in our neighborhood, there was quite a lot
of same sex play around the age of 12 and 13. And so it happened when we pitched a
tent in the backyard, and slept in the backyard, or it happened when we went camping
in the mountains with the Scouts, and places like that. And I thick that we'd discover
that hey, we've got this nifty gadget, and it's just grown to enormous size, and wow, what
it can do! And we had to share that with each other. But all those boys I did that with
I'm quite sure were straight, but it had a really powerful effect on me, and stuck with me,
all of those experiences did. And eventually, that group of boys that I belonged, to I
think they had the notion that I was a gay person, and possibly, they just shut me out,
because I found myself friendless after a couple of years.

P: First of all, there wasn't the language and the words; just the term "gay" associated
with homosexuality, I think I was married and had two kids, before somehow I read in
Time, or Life, or something, and it clicked that way. So it was really in lots of ways. I'm
talking about the 40s and 50s. It was really kind of the dark ages, because people didn't
talk about it. If they said anything at all, it was queer, and some other terms that I won't
use, but there was very little of any kind of information that we could get. Now in my
case, I was a sissy boy from the time I was little little, in school, and I remember I
wanted to play softball when they were playing, and I'd always be the last one chosen.
I'd go and cry, and as I sort of grew up, I realized, I wouldn't choose me either, because
I was just terrible! I didn't like that sort of stuff. So early on I knew that somehow I was
not the same kind of kid that a lot of boys were. And again when I was about junior high
age, there was a certain amount of sex play and different things, and I just began to
realize that although I couldn't put a name on it, that there was something different in the
way I felt about my relationships with girls, boys. And I sort of thought I'm really a
normal man, 85% of me, but I've got this 15% that wants to have sex with other guys.
But other than that, I'm fine. So I had that kind of weird way of thinking about myself.
And I think me and Dick, as we've talked about it, when we were in junior high and high
school, we weren't harassed, or called fags, or any of that, because we passed pretty
easily. We were just kids! And I was at a very small high school, was editor of the
yearbook, and band, and the orchestra, and debate club, and everything else besides
sports. And I really had a wonderful schooling. I really did, I enjoyed it. When I went to
college, I went to BYU. But I became very very active Mormon, I think very early on in
my life, I really had to be a good little boy, and part of that was because of Dad's illness.
I remember the family saying, shh, you might wake up your dad. Why don't you go out
and play? And I was an only child. And so I just grew up being by myself, and being
quiet, and good, and wanted very much to have the acceptance and approval of adults
around me. That's just part of the way I started out. But it was always there.
People have said to me, at certain times at church or whatever, or at parties,
when did you know you were gay?! And I don't mean to be rude, but I'd sometimes
respond back, when did you know you were straight? Well, probably about 13, 14, when
some boy wanted to peak in at the girls' locker room, or whatever, as a kid. And I said,
yeah, and I wanted to go in the boys' locker room, but I also had a lot of anxiety about
that. I wanted it very much, but I was also frightened. So with that tension that was
going on,
J: I think it's interesting when you talk about not being really teased or harassed too
much in school, in high school especially, and you kind of pointed out that you think it's
because you both could pass for straight if you wanted to…

R: Right, I was never called anything like sissy or gay or anything like that. And I was a
high school teacher and apparently passed pretty well as straight, because I never
received any harassment, until… I did marry eventually, to a woman, for 21 years, and
when I had the divorce and I took my wedding ring off, then I did have some
harassment. That was the first time in my whole career. A lot of my students stopped…
you remind me of someone… I don't remember who it is, but someone on TV… I says,
was it Mr. Rogers? And they said, Yeah! Then I would tell them, well, Mr. Rogers is my
brother. And they said, Oh, no, that couldn't be, because your name's Teerney - oh,
that's just his stage name. I'll give you 100 points if you can prove if that statement is
true of false. So I guess I wasn't the model of macho-ness if I looked like Mr. Rogers.

J: I wonder if too… you talk about there not being any sort of conception of "gay
identity" in the 40s and 50s, and I wonder if there's some relation between that, the fact
that there was literally no language or visible community, a link between that and maybe
less harassment over sexual orientation in school. The weakness is that you didn't have
anything to think of yourself as, but they also didn't have anything to think of you….

P: I think that was one of the things that kept us…

R: Just huge.

P: Sort of safe and not harassed -

R: and unknowing about ourselves.

P: And I dated girls, and we'd double date, someone in the back seat would be making
out like crazy, and I'd sort of like, I'd put my arm around a girl, and… what is this? what
am I doing this for? But I wanted to, again, belong, and try to be normal. And it was
very different than nowadays. Very very different.

R: For me, high school wasn't a very pleasant experience, because I didn't fit into the
sports scene, I didn't fit into the social scene, I missed dating, and going to the proms.
Whenever I did go to one of the dances, I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable with the girl
the whole evening. And it was just confusing, as to why; why was this not the same
exciting experience that my friends were having, and I simply didn't understand it. I
remember at Christmas time in my senior year, I went through the lobby of our school,
and because it was the last day, everyone was being very endearing, and there were
couples in the shadows behind the Christmas tree, in places, and they were making out.
And I went home and wept into my pillow, and I didn't know why. I just knew that I just
didn't fit in. And watching and seeing how straight kids now… their whole identity can
just slip into slots that are pre-made for them. But there were no pre-made slots
whatsoever. We'd - I simply didn't know where I fit. And I didn't know what was going
on. It was just really a huge amount of confusion, and depression through most of high
school. I did much better when I got up to college.

P: I think back on my childhood, and adolescence, there were really two lives, I suppose
that's true of a lot of us. There was the public, church and being good, and being
president of the seminary and all that stuff, and then there was the secret life, and there
was regularly shame, and guilt, confusion, and fear that somehow somebody was going
to really figure out about me. And that would have been almost worse than death.

J: Why do you say that?

P: They didn't, but there were those feelings. To me a lot of confusion. And guilt.

J: Why would it have been worse than death?

P: (deep breath) The loss of my parent, well, mother, because dad was gone,
grandparents, and all those people that I really… was very close to. And some kids that
were very close friends. And to think that they would think I was queer, or any of that
kind of stuff, would have been just devastating. It didn't happen, but it was always a
certain anxiety that I'd feel, buried myself away.

J: So now we have this idea of gay marriage, LGBTQ community, gay is very well
defined, so we kind of do have these slots now, so that people coming out can fit
themselves into. When you're talking about there being no slots. What did that mean,
do you think at that time?

R: The only word that I can think of, and I think that perhaps there was one person in
that group of boys, at age 12, 13, we chummed together, and we did have mutual same
sex experience, masturbation…

P: Scott?

R: I'm going to have to come back to that one.

J: What queer/sissy meant…

R: Oh, queer. I think that I was terrified that one of my friends had called me a homo.
And later when I was excluded from the group, I had a strong suspicion that that was the
reason why. And for some reason or other, and I didn't understand exactly what "homo"
meant, that was really bad. I think that I had an experience when I was much older,
where I heard my dad and my uncle discussing one of my cousins who was married,
and who was picked up soliciting sex in the park. And the words that they described this
boy, absolutely disgusted, and disgraceful, this person was. I could figure out the notion
that, it's really bad if you do something sexual with another boy.

P: At least in my case, growing up in this small town, sex itself nothing that was really
spoken and talked about. I remember when we watched "I love Lucy" and they said she
was pregnant! And that, my grandmother about had a fainting spell, that they talked that
openly. It was that kind of society. Obviously everyone was having sex, kids and adults,
but there wasn't any knowledge of that. And a lot of other things, it wasn't just that. But
there was a lot of… and then the Mormon Church certainly did not help me with dealing
with guilt - it taught me to lie, and I did, and got really good at it. But it didn't give me the
kind of help and support… I suppose that's still the case.

J: So do you think, what is your relationship to the LDS Church now?

R: My relationship to the Mormon Church is very long and complex, so I'll speak some
of it, I don't know all, but growing up my father was a bishop for 7 years, counselor to the
stake president for another 7, and stake president for 17 years. Those were the years I
was growing up. My father was a strange man, because he attended as many as 50
meetings in one month. And so he was essentially not there, he was gone. And as far
as I was concerned, I was to be expected to have good behavior since I was the stake
president's son, but that was never hard for me. Because I was always kind of
agreeable, some might say, and I kind of hid behind a mask of congeniality and
sweetness, and politeness.

P: Good boy.

R: I was a good boy through and through. But where the crunch really happened is
when I was 14, the bishop had all the priest hood members in a room and he said
sexual sins are next to murder, and masturbation is a sexual sin. And after he said that,
I wanted to die. But I think probably the most important experience between me and
Mormonism was what happened once I went on my mission, because what happened is
I had fallen in love, not with my first companion, I was a bit choosy, but with my third
companion, and I really did. I had intense… and the thing is, it wasn't just a matter of,
you now, interest in genitals, it was really a matter of a close and loving relationship, and
I had placed on myself already the label of "homosexual." So this just brought into a
huge collision. What I did was I decided to have, do a little bit of truth testing. I though
I'm just going to tell my companion that I have same sex attraction. I didn't say it was
about him. Just to see what his reaction would be. Well, we talked about it for a while,
he was very interested in the fact that he was so different internally compared to me,
even though externally we had a lot in common. After a couple of days, he said we
really need to go over and see the mission president. So when I saw the mission
president, he was looking down when I walked into his office, he was working on some
papers, and he just kind of matter of factly said, "well, what is it? Is it animals? Is it
children? Have you been playing with girls? Is it homosex?" And I said, it's the last
one. And then we sat down and he looked straight at me, and he more or less gave the
lecture that was just a set of, kind of rules about how I should take care of this for the
rest of my life. And it was the pattern that I had followed for a long time. First of all, I
was not to ever reveal it to another single person my sexual orientation, they didn't call it
that back then, not to reveal it. So I would keep it completely to myself. I was not to
read any literature, because it was all of the devil. By the way, what was this thing that I
had? It was simply the temptations of the devil, and I had to overcome these
temptations.

P: You had a cross to bear.

R: That was my cross to bear. And so he said, then you are expected to marry. And
marriage is essential for salvation in the hereafter, and so you must marry. He also
said, do not go to any psychotherapists, because those people are of the devil, and will
only give you wrong information. If you need counseling, go to the general authorities
and they will counsel you. And don't ever buy, or look at, pornography of any kind. It
just absolutely puts you in a closet. And this big… and if you stick to that, you will be in
that closet forever.

P: I had a different experience. First of all, I grew up in a Mormon home, but compared
to Dick's, it was a really casual… we even had coffee! We even had whiskey once in a
while. It was wonderful. Tom and Jerry at Christmas time, and there was a joke in the
family that for some people it was eggnog, and for others, the more liberal, or Jack
Mormons, it was Tom and Jerry. So it was a different kind of growing up. It was
important, especially to my grandmother, who very much was Mormon, she was born in
1886, she was on the tail end of being a pioneer (unintelligible) And so it was different
than Dick. But, I, as I said before, I really got religion, when I was about 14 or 15, and
became seminary president, and I don't know. Kids would sometimes, not often, I'd
here them say, here comes Pope Paul. And I knew what they meant. And I probably
was. The real story would be told. And then I went to BYU when it was only 8,000
students. And tried to get some idea of what was going on. Sociology, and… I got
some books from the library, even back then, in the 50s, 60s, get to homosexuality, and
they describe it as a mental illness, which it was considered. People were imprisoned.
And I remember once it was talking about men that hide in bushes and sort of jump out
and molest little boys, and I thought, that's not me, I don't want to hide in bushes or
anywhere else and molest anybody. So it was just kind of like, I am, but I'm not that…
That's not me. So I ended up going on a mission. Went to Independence, a very
important part of Mormon history, and served an honorable mission, but like Dick, I fell
in love with my second companion. And he was a fine man, still is. And it was very
difficult… I was with him about 9 months, which was quite a long time, because mission
presidents would normally switch you around every 2 or 3 months. But we worked well
together, I admired him, but in some ways I would have followed him to the ends of the
earth. He really was the first person that I thoroughly loved. And we didn't talk about
getting involved, very secret.

J: What was that like emotionally?

P: I think it expends an incredible amount of energy, that I wish could have been used
for other things. So it was very sad. And there was this period when I was getting out of
the Mormon Church about 20 years ago, by the time I got my divorce, I started leaving
Mormonism, and I was very angry, at the Mormon Church, for a lot of reasons. And that
was certainly one of them. One of the biggies. And I asked for an interview with the
bishop, and I'd never met him before, because I didn't go. And he wasn't necessarily
totally thrilled, because he had the records that they keep, knew I was married in the
temple and had five children, and had been in the bishopric and a bishop, and he was
just like, this is… I don't know what to do with this; and I'd been on his side of that table,
so I knew what he was dealing with. And I just said, you don't have to do anything. All I
want you to do is make sure I am excommunicated. Now. So for me it was a really
easy thing. Much easier than expected. Now Dick had another kind of experience.

R: I was excommunicated not for sexual reasons, but for apostasy. And what
happened is I had an intense interest in science that started when I was young, and
eventually science is what I studied in college. And I especially studied the biological
sciences. The thing is so much of my scientific knowledge came into conflict with the
Church. For example, when I went to the Temple, I was quite surprised that an
important part of it was actually recreating and play acting the Biblical story of Adam
and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And I thought, evolution and Adam and Eve - how does
this work together? While I was in the Temple in England, I just felt this confusion
running through my mind, and then when I came out and saw all these innocent young
men dressed in white, and I felt attracted to them, it was just one awful, terrible
experience. Just terrible.
One aspect of the Church I did investigate is its history. And one piece of its history I
did a very thorough check on had to do with the Book of Abraham. And what happened
in the mid 60s the papyri that Joseph Smith had supposedly lost were rediscovered, and
when he translated the papyri, it became an erroneous scripture called the Book of
Abraham. Once the papyri turned up, there were Egyptologists that were able to read it
and say, this is not the Book of Abraham; what this script is, is it's not thousands of
years old, if it had been Abraham, it would have been the oldest piece of paper on earth
if it had been, if the hand of Abraham had written it. What it was is it was 2,000 years
old, dating to the time of Christ, and the papyri was a part of the Egyptian religion that
was buried with every person who could afford to have a scroll buried in their
sarcophagus. And so after investigating this, I though, Joseph Smith's not a translator,
he's a prevaricator. It wasn't too long after that that I decided I wanted out. But that was
only one of many many problems that I collided with with Mormonism. That happened
over a period of years, and it took a while to want out. But what actually happened is,
they had heard that I was kind of a mischievous person, reading things that I wasn't
supposed to be reading, like Dialogue, and going to the Unitarian Church, so the Bishop
came and said, well, if you join another Church, that's grounds for excommunication.
What I said is, well, I'm not going to lie, you can do what you do. I like the Unitarian
Church, it's a place where I feel comfortable. And so I was called to a trial of love, as
they call it, and what the stake president said essentially was no, joining another church
is not an excommunicable offense; the question is, do you sustain the general
authorities? And they said, THAT is an excommunicable offense. And so I was out, and
was served my excommunication notice. And I was really kind of pleased to have that,
because my parents and my family knew I was going through this tussle with
Mormonism, and thought this was a phase, and I'd get over it. And I wanted them to
take it seriously. When I got excommunicated, they saw.

P: Very courageous. That was not easy.

R: So as far as the coming out, I came out of Mormonism first. That was the first step.

J: Paul, as a bishop, did you ever have to counsel anyone underneath you who was
dealing with similar sorts of "same sex attraction?"

P: It was mostly young men and masturbation. And I don't think I ever inquired. There
was a young man who was on a mission who would come in every 2 or 3 weeks and
confess - it was almost humorous, but also sad. And I tried to guide him a bit, but no, I
didn't have anyone. In the neighborhood ward, I remember, and it may very well have
been Kevin and Peter, a couple of men moved into the same home, and they must be
homosexuals, is what the other bishop was saying, and what was he going to do about
it, and I don't know why I spoke up, I shouldn't but I thought at the time, you don't do
anything about it. You let them get on with their lives. But he was at in a real state. But
no, there were a number of things that I think I was a good bishop, I helped a lot of
people, I conducted many funerals, married people, but I didn't follow the line as far as
delving into people's quote "morality." Because I thought it was none of my business,
nor the Church's. And so I tried to deal with it in a different way. But I told other people,
being a bishop was like the agony and the ecstasy, the book about Michaelangelo, it
was a very high inspirational, wonderful experiences with people, and there were some
very low… I became depressed and suicidal. I had plans made how I was going to do
it. And make it appear as an accident. So my family, by that time I was married and
had 5 children, that they not have the shame of suicide, came very close to it, but
fortunately I didn't. But when I was in that state, I lost a lot of weight, people thought I
might have cancer, but I was in bad shape. No medication, no help. And what started
to get me into a healthy way of living, in a lot of ways, was to take responsibility for my
life, and not have everybody else telling me how and what I should do. And I went to
the stake president who was a nice guy, young man, and I said, I need to be released. I
cannot do this. I've been a bishop about 4 years or so. And he said, yes, you do. I had
problems. So I had no problems with that. But it was part of my life, and I started
moving further and further out of the Mormon Church, after I came out as a gay man,
people assumed the reason I got out of Mormonism was because I was gay. That was
a factor. But if I had been as straight as an arrow, I would have left Mormonism, for
some of the same reasons that Dick just mentioned. We didn't know each other at the
time, but our stories really run parallel. He was reading Dialogue up in Rose Park, I was
reading Dialogue - and you may or many not know what that is, it's a Mormon journal,
scholarly, not published by the Church, and I investigated, I started to get doubts about
Mormonism when I was on my mission. When I was in Independence. So it went way
back. And the more and more I studied, the more I realized that this wasn't what I'd
believed it was, I felt angry and betrayed. But I got over all that. But it was a tough,
rough time, and I had these kids to raise, three boys and two daughters, and it had an
effect on them. I was married 29 years before my wife and I decided to separate and
divorce, and get on with our lives. And it's been wonderful, the last 20 years, especially,
with Dick, 17 years we've known one another, and it's been a, in some ways the best
part of my life. That doesn't mean I wasn't happy married to a woman with children, I
wanted that, and it was. But I couldn't be authentic, I couldn't be really me; now
especially after working in Granite School district, in the school district, I was a social
worker, head of the department for 21 years, then I was a school principle, so essentially
in those jobs I had to be very discrete, and Dick taught science 31 years at Kearns, so
we learned together, we had to be pretty careful, and it was nice when we retired
together in, what, 97? Yeah. And we could be out, authentic, no one could take our
retirement, it was like being liberated. Wonderful. And that I joined the Unitarian
Church; I had gone when I was still married, to the South Valley, and it caused many
problems with the marriage that was already problems, and I decided I won't go, but
someday. When someday happened, when Dick and I got together, and he had been
going for many years. So I became a member of the Unitarian Church about, oh, 15
years ago.

J: So when you're talking about the space where you were suicidal, making all these
plans, what was it that made you decide not to?

P: I didn't have the guts. Got kind of scared. And I moved beyond that. Somehow,
there was a life force that was saying, this is not an answer. And it's very very dark now,
but there is light at the end of the tunnel, even this. Don't do anything stupid. And so I
clung to that. But it took a while for that to play out. I didn't know at the time that… that
was the other thing, was we were going after the whole… we didn't know, that men go
out together, and start a relationship, a home and a relationship; that wasn't thought
about.
R: I was in my 30s when on the front of Time Magazine was, I can't remember his
name, Paul, but he was in the service, and he was drummed out of the service because
he was gay, and he made it a cause, which got him on the front of Time Magazine. And
I read that article that gay men were with each other, like a married couple would do!
And all of a sudden, something went, wow, really! They really do that? And then it was
clear to me my own friend Alan, who I'd fell in love with years before, he was another
person who was a missionary, If you were gay, that's who I would marry, and that's who
I'd like to settle down with! But of course, I was already married.

P: We all fell in love with straight men!

R: We were very good at falling in love with straight men.

J: (laugh) Asking for trouble. When were you first aware that there is actually a
community, that it wasn't just you by yourself?

P: That's a good question…

R: It happened in an unusual way, as far as most of the men, and here's the reason.
My wife after she joined the Unitarian Church, it took her a while for her to discover that
she didn't believe in Mormonism. She had to read all this literature, and check it out
herself. But we both joined the Unitarian Church, and so we were kind of pushing
ourselves into this a bit. And she said one day, Richard, there's going to be a men's
consciousness raising group at the Unitarian Church, and the previous minister is going
to conduct that consciousness raising group, and she said, you know, I think that you
are very strong intellectually, but I don't think you're in touch with your feelings. So I
think you ought to join this group and you might learn something. So I went to this
group, and I heard these other men start talking, and i was so terrified I could not open
my mouth. So I went home from the group and I said to Jamie, I didn't say shit! So she
says, well, you should go back next week and the first thing you should do is say shit!
So I went back the next week, and it was just as scary as it could be, and 20 minutes in,
I just yell, SHIT!! And the whole group stopped and looked at me, and I said, I am too
terrified to even speak about this, it's so locked up inside myself. And that was the
beginning of my loosening up this very, just unimaginable straight jacket that I had. I'd
given up Mormonism, but I still believed that homosexuality was wrong. And I was
married and had two kids! Anyway, the group went along, and a few weeks later, one
person said, I'm married, but I'm gay, and I have a lover. And I just about flipped out. I
was just, that was just more than I could imagine. I thought, oh, you're asking for
trouble. That's going to ruin your marriage in no time. And I thought, he may talk about
his homosexuality, but I'm not talking about mine! A few weeks later, another person
said, I have same-sex attraction. There were about a dozen. And I sat there just
sweating, and I couldn't think straight, and I thought, should I, or shouldn't I? And just
toward the end of the group, I raised my hand and said, "Me too…" And the thing is,
that night, I finally found, it was meant for me to go. Those men accepted me, and gave
me permission to be myself. It didn't mean I had to write a book or do something with
my life, but it was for myself. And I knew there were other homosexuals, in the group or
not, I learned where I could get books about it. I had this place in the attic where I kept
them stocked away. I had a zillion books up there finally, and I got myself educated
about homosexuality. I was afraid my wife would find them.
So I got them all up and put them is a black plastic bag on garbage day, and took them
out waiting for the truck. And as soon as the truck came by, I put it in the can, and
watched as they put it in the back of the truck, and lifted it in. And I thought, thank god.

P: He did that about 3 times.

R: You see, it all happened in stages. I was still married, and I had two children, and I
have to be here to raise them.

P: And we took that, fatherhood, very seriously. We wanted to be with our children.

R: The scariest thing about saying I'm gay it it would destroy my marriage! I went home
after my wife was asleep, it was October, I went into the back yard, and I just wept.
(unintelligible) It took a long time.

P: Yeah. Mine was a little different in that, when I was in college, i stayed 2 years, my
freshman and sophomore year, in the dormitory. And not my first year, but second year,
I roomed with a guy named Jerry, a convert to Mormonism, who was older than I, who
had been in the air force, and was doing everything that he could, as I was, to get ready
to go on missions, we wanted that, and later discovered that he was gay. And we
remain friends to this day, but there was never anything sexual between us. But Jerry
was a great help to me. He did his mission with an honorable release, as I did, went to
the Y, I got married about the same time, 1960, and he knew he couldn't stay at BYU,
and so before I graduated, while he was capable, bright guy, he moved to Los Angeles.
So I kept in touch with him, but not… for the first year he was very close, and I had his
address, but as I was starting to realized what was going on in my life, he was a great
help to me, because I'd come up here and we'd talk, and sometimes he'd take part of a
summer vacation to come up. And Margaret liked Jerry, we'd taken classes together at
the Y. Later on she thought he had influenced me, recruited me or something. But he
helped me gradually become aware that there was very different way of living as a gay
person. And of course he had lovers, and many many friends. And that's when I began
to realize that men really did get together and live, and have a home, and relationship,
and that never happened to me, but that's something they did in California. But not
around here.

R: But they do now!

P: They did, but we didn't know about it.

J: So our time is actually coming to a close, but there's a ton I still want to talk with you
guys about. Would you be interested in setting up another appointment…?