I was born in 1963 in the heart of Mormondom, in Provo, Utah. I was a fifth generation Mormon, the descendant of Utah pioneers and polygamists. My paternal grandparents moved from Utah to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the Great Depression, where my dad was born. Later they moved to East Arora, New York, where my dad grew up. He eventually served a mission for the Mormon Church in Finland, where he met my mom. Mom came to the U.S. as an exchange nurse, where she connected with my dad while he was a student at Brigham Young University. Dad proposed to Mom on their first date, and she accepted.

I grew up in the Rochester, New York area, the first of five kids. My parents devoutly brought us up in the Mormon faith. We never missed a Sunday going to church. We were taught to pay our "tithing" (ten percent of all our income to the church), to live the "word of wisdom" (the Mormon prohibition on alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea), and stay close as a family. We were raised on "Book of Mormon stories" and taught to revere the prophet Joseph Smith, whose story had unfolded in nearby Palmyra, New York. I went to high school in Brigham Young's hometown, Mendon, New York.

As a kid, I prayed to God to know if the Mormon Church was true, and received my own personal testimony, which I was not afraid to bear tearfully at monthly Mormon "fast and testimony" meetings. I did everything "right," the Mormon way. I was baptized at the age of eight, a star student in Sunday School, ordained a deacon at age twelve, a teacher at age fourteen and a priest at age sixteen. I was a leader in my "priesthood quorums" and an Eagle Scout. At Pittsford-Mendon High School, I spoke out against drugs, listened to classical music instead of Rock n' Roll, and told my health class teacher that birth control was wrong and gays deserved to be bashed (and was voted an award by my classmates for standing up for my beliefs). After graduating, I attended the only university any good Mormon is expected to attend: my dad's alma mater, Brigham Young University. At nineteen, I became a Mormon Elder, went to the temple, and honorably served an 18-month mission in France and Switzerland.

Of course, my life was a bit more complicated than all that... I was aware of my attraction to members of the same sex from the time I was about twelve years old, a growing shadow over my young adulthood. At the time, it seemed to me that something must be terribly wrong with me, that I was tainted with some horror no amount of prayer and piety could cleanse. These struggles almost led to my suicide.

My crisis of faith came to a head when I was a young student at BYU. My release documents said I had completed my mission "honorably." But it didn't feel honorable to me, because I had been concealing an increasingly intense attraction to my male companions. Apostle Boyd K. Packer's attack on Mormon intellectuals was just getting heated up, making it increasingly evident to me that it was not permissible to be a Mormon and have an inquiring mind. (In 1994 Apostle Packer eventually maneuvered the excommunications of a number of Mormon intellectuals, including one of my professors and mentors at BYU, D. Michael Quinn, for sins ranging from revisionist history to feminist theology.) The more questions I asked, the more dead ends I ran into.

Far from openly rebelling, I painfully internalized all of this struggle. I fell into a deep depression. The summer of 1986, I returned home from BYU with a plan to end my life.

I was "saved" by a no-nonsense, ex-marine, ex-drunk Episcopal priest who could swear like a sailor, and claimed to have been "born again" when he saw Jesus in a jail cell. The Rev. David Works was a neighbor. I reached out for help, and he recognized the call and hired me to work as his gardener that summer. We talked about God and he told me about his calling, and we became friends. Through that friendship, I slowly became convinced that maybe life was worth living after all.

That summer I traveled to Helsinki, Finland on an internship, and there decided to cut all my ties to the Mormon Church. I wanted to become a "mere Christian," and joined the Lutheran Church. A Lutheran pastor in Helsinki baptized me in the Baltic Sea in the name of the Holy Trinity. My parents disowned me and told me I was in the control of Satan, and my best friends told me I was now officially "apostate" and a "tool in the hands of the Devil." I left BYU, gave up what was left of my four-year Kimball Scholarship there, and transferred to Northern Michigan University, where some Upper Peninsula Finlanders took me in and helped me out until I could get on my own feet. I eventually found my way to the University of Minnesota, where I was awarded a University Fellowship and enrolled in the History Department's Ph.D. program.

At the University of Minnesota, I could finally do what I had not dared to do as a Mormon: come to terms with being gay. Accepting my gayness was a spiritual gift. I gradually came to an awareness that I would never be heterosexual, and that to marry would be a curse on me as well as whatever poor woman I married. So I began to pray to God to tell me what to do. Should I try to be straight? Should I live a life of abstinence? I could not imagine that accepting my homosexuality was an option. I went without food for three days, and praying for God to tell me his will for me.

I still remember when the message came to me, half way across the University of Minnesota footbridge connecting the east bank of the Mississippi to the west bank. I heard a voice clearly speaking to me, a voice I recognized as the voice of God. It said: "I have created you good. Be open to all the possibilities." That message surprized and frightened me. The next day, I met the first openly gay man I had ever known at a retreat of the Lutheran Campus ministry. As I came to know Paul better, the meaning of those words on the bridge became clear to me. For the first time I came to accept that I was gay, that God had created me this way, and that I no longer needed to live in shame about who I was. Since then I have tried to live a life more open to possibilities of many different sorts.

The person I became after that is the person I am today (if somewhat mellowed). I took an interest in campus activism of many different kinds: gay rights, peace activism and the pro-choice movement. I was very active in the Lutheran Church, getting involved in various efforts to educate about sexuality and justice. Some Lutherans told me I was "in the control of Satan" and "a tool in the hands of the Devil." I was involved in student organizing that eventually established the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Programs Office at the University of Minnesota, one of the first offices of its kind in the country. I protested against the first Bush's war in Iraq, just as I have protested the second Bush's even more misguided middle eastern adventures. I have joined members of NOW in efforts to keep abortion clinics free of harassment and intimidation. I played with the Radical Faeries. I wrote a book about gay men and the Young Men's Christian Association...

I'm over forty now and not too ashamed to admit I've grown more bourgeois about some things as I've gotten older. In 1993, while I was still finishing grad school, I married the beautiful man who has become my life-long better half, and who grows better to me every day. Most of the really important lessons in life -- which I can't enumerate right here -- I've learned from him. In 2000 I gave up working for non-profits and joined the corporate world and became a law firm manager because I want a roof over my head when I'm too old to work, though I admit there are no guarantees in this brave, new, neo-conservative, capitalist heaven called America. I live behind a white picket fence in a tight-knit neighborhood in south Minneapolis, where artist communities thrive side-by-side with drive-by shootings. My partner and I attend Lyndale United Church of Christ, and hang out with our (mostly straight) friends in our spare time. Recently, as a result of my participation in the July 2005 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City, I've also begun to re-explore my Mormon roots, to look at progressive, life-affirming possibilities for faith within a "Restoration Christian" context. It's an American life.

I still dream about a better world, and I have become convinced of the salvific potential of art, which is the reason for this web site.