There is an article in the Salt Lake Tribune about gay/straight married Mormons. These are relationships in which straight women knowingly marry gay men. While the article does not go far into the motivations of the women, it does discuss some of the reasons that these men decided to marry, a mixture of faith and genuine affection.

The interesting aspect of this article is that the men are not claiming to have become heterosexual. In fact, one of them went through ex-gay therapy without a change to his orientation.

Ben had been through therapy before and after his two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That helped him resolve issues with his father and other men, but it didn’t diminish the strong attractions he felt for other men. He doubted those would ever go away. He felt strongly that God wanted him to marry anyway.

These men have chosen their faith over a life-partner consistent with their orientation. The admirable thing is that in doing so they were honest with their wives and do not appear to have unrealistic expectations about their own nature.

The article did note that these marriages are not often successful.

Idaho State University professor Ron Schow has studied LDS homosexuals. Of 136 he surveyed in 1994, 71 percent were returned missionaries and 36 had tried marriage. Only two of the 36 were still married.

“Many of these mixed heterosexual/homosexual marriages, even when they do not end in divorce, result in marriages in which there is no true intimacy nor a mutually nourishing relationship,” Schow reported.

However, it appears that each of them knows their odds and seem to have their eyes open to both the rewards and the limitations that are inherent in their type of relationship.

I wish the individuals profiled the very best in their lives. While religious and social rewards seldom prove adequate in the long run, I hope for the sake of their families that they will for these men and women and that they continue to find their relationships sustaining and their marriages fulfilling.

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