Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is October 24, 2021, and I am super excited for today's episode. Today's episode is going to be all about responding to David Archuleta. So most of you will know, some of you maybe won't know that David Archuleta is someone who was raised Mormon. He was, I think, a finalist on American Idol way back in the day, and. And he's kind of a semi famous American pop star. And for a long, long time, people wondered about David. Maybe there was gossip or speculation that he might be gay, you know, but he was also just kind of a Mormon pop star. And then eventually he announced that he was going to go on a Mormon mission. And then just a while ago, I don't remember the dates, he came out and acknowledged some level of what Mormons and other evangelical Christians call same sex attraction. He also talked a little bit about possibly asexuality or intersex. And he kind of publicly announced what many people had known or wondered or speculated about for a long time, that he certainly belongs somewhere on the LGBTQIA spectrum. And so since then, he occasionally comments on various things. And recently he appeared on a YouTube channel. Basically, the episode was called David Permission to Make Mistakes. And it was with the host, Mayim Bial, I think she's known as being Blossom, I think, on Saved by the Bell and also on another TV show as well. But that interview that David Archuleta did has sparked some interest and some discussion. Also recently, after a Mormon apostle, Jeffrey R. Holland, gave a talk at BYU that was really controversial about the LGBTQIA community. David Archuleta also shared on Instagram or on TikTok some of his reactions to Elder Holland's talk and the controversy around that and all of that sort of caused my dear friend Gerardo. Hey, Gerardo. Thanks for joining us.

Gerardo Sumano [00:02:10] Hi. Yeah, thank you for having me. I do want to highlight Kara's comment. It's. She said, I slept on the sidewalk to see David at the American Idol finale. And I can't believe that that isn't enough credibility to get me on this podcast.

John Dehlin [00:02:26] Do we want. I mean, Kara's welcome. Kara's welcome to join us if she wants. So, Cara, you know how to carry. You know how to log into Streamyard, and if you want to join us, we would love to have you, Kara.

Gerardo Sumano [00:02:37] Yes, a hundred percent.

John Dehlin [00:02:38] I try not to bother Cara on the weekends as much as I can because she works so hard during the week. But Gerardo, you have a full time job. Anyway, I was just going to say that Gerardo, for those of you who don't know Gerardo, Gerardo works part time for the Open Stories Foundation. He's in charge of the lovely cinematography that you'll see. He also co hosts from time to time and, you know, he produces content for us. And if you look back, listeners, a few months ago Gerardo released his own Mormon story where he talked about growing up Mormon and gay in Mexico, going to byu, Idaho, serving a mission. And so Gerardo, we just always love to have you on Mormon stories. We're grateful when you help us create content that's useful and interesting to people. And you kind of find thought that, that this was something that you felt called to want to discuss, is that right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:03:27] Yeah, I actually saw this video of David and I started watching it and as soon as I heard a couple things that he had said, I just turned it off and I, I was not very happy about it. But then when you brought it up, I was like, oh yeah, I think for sure we should definitely discuss it. And then I watched the whole thing and there were some really interesting things. I think it was very interesting that. I don't know if I'm getting ahead of myself, but the podcast that David went on, he, he went on a podcast that. It's not a Mormon podcast. So the host and the co host of the podcast are not Mormon or not. They, they know about the Mormon religion, I think because they have had members of the church on the podcast before. But it was interesting that they are, they're not 100 religious. So they, they were calling out David a couple times on some things that he was bringing up and I thought that was very interesting. And I was like, yeah, which for sure should make a reaction video on, on the things that David said.

John Dehlin [00:04:39] I love it. I'm getting, I'm getting deeply criticized by listeners, rightly so. Jenny writes, john, you are murdering the pop culture references. And then Kara writes, blossom, you need a millennial. It's true. Kara, save us. But I will go ahead and do justice to Mayim Bialik. Mayim Chaya Bialik is an American actress, game show host. I think she was just selected to co host Jeopardy. With interestingly, fellow Mormon Ken Jennings. Anyway, she's an American actress, game show host and author. She played the title character on the NBC sitcom Blossom. So she wasn't on Saved by the Bell. We do need millennials on this show. Harada, you should have corrected me. No, I'm Just kidding. She also played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom the Big Bang Theory. That's the TV show that I was mentioning. And then she also has. Yeah, she's gonna be co hosting Jeopardy. And. And she has a popular YouTube channel. So that's. That's a more. That's doing my imbialik a little bit more justice. So thanks, listeners, for keeping me a little bit more honest and accurate. Gerardo, really quickly, we. Even when we just announced that we were gonna be doing this episode, we started getting some criticism. And I think it came on the heels of that important episode that we did. Talking about Charlie. Charlie Bird and Ben Shalatti. Yeah. And people were just like, it's so rude. Why would you. Why wouldn't you just bring David Archuleta on instead of just trash him when he's not around? Other people just feel like you shouldn't ever. No one should ever talk about anything David Archuleta says if he's not there to defend himself. So I thought it was important for us to kind of begin with some disclaimers and some intentions. And I'll respond to the first one because it's directly related to me. I have directly invited David Archuleta onto Mormon stories. In the great tradition of people like Benji Schwimmer, former so youo Think youk Can Dance champion, and Tyler Glenn, lead singer of Neon Trees, I have warmly invited David Archuleta onto Mormon stories. I hope he'll accept the invitation. I promise to treat David kindly and respectfully, as I do all my guests. So just. Just to dispel any rumors that we would just attack him but not invite him on? He's been invited, and we hope he comes on. Gerardo, do you want to address kind of the other intentions that we have since this kind of came from you?

Gerardo's Background and Mormon Story

David Archuleta [00:07:35] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:07:36] So, yeah, we definitely want to address the fact that this is not an attack. We're just going to be talking about what David said. And I think as someone who was part of the same religious organization that maybe had a different experience than David, I think I. I could give some perspectives that maybe David hasn't seen or didn't experience that could also talk to other people's experience. And that, as a matter of fact, I think the most common reaction for LGBT people, especially at the time David came out to his family, were not as. As great reactions, you know, so. So I just want to give my. My perspective. John, you've had. You've done great work regarding just the same topics we know that your PhD dissertation was all about this subject. So I think we, we are just giving our perspective on the questions that David was asked on and, and the way he experienced coming out as a Latter Day Saint.

John Dehlin [00:08:58] I love it.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:59] So, yeah, we definitely want to be kind and we're gonna be respectful. And I think because David is a public figure, we, we feel like it's, it's a, it's healthy for us to have a, an open conversation about what he says, especially when it affects or it involves other vulnerable populations.

John Dehlin [00:09:23] Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for that. And I'll just add that I would never, I hope that I would never, as a straight, white, cisgender, middle, you know, middle aged Mormon male, you know, be criticizing, for example, you know, an LGBT person's experience, believer or non believer. And that's why, Gerardo, it's really important that this kind of, I feel like it kind of came from you. And I feel like you're going to be the main person talking about this. And again, the point isn't to criticize David. It's just to have an open dialogue. And if David is a public figure, he has influence, believing Mormons are gonna listen to him, non Mormons are gonna listen to him. And there's a lot at stake in what people think and feel about the Mormon Church and both in and out of the church. And yeah, I feel at least somewhat qualified to be a part of this conversation just because I have a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology and my entire dissertation was on the LGBTQ Mormon experience. And I've probably published 12 scientific, peer reviewed journal articles on this topic. So I feel like I have some things I might be able to add. But Gerardo, obviously you're going to be leading this discussion and what I've asked you to do is to tease out. We're not going to play the entire interview because it's an hour long. So I asked you, Gerardo, to kind of select just some of the clips that were most interesting to you and we'll have you respond to them. And then we're going to. Also, one of the reasons we do a livestream is because we want to invite listeners to give their feedback and thoughts and suggestions. So we really want, want this to be a dialogue. And again, we hope in the future David would come on a couple other things. We're getting some really fun comments from our listeners, and this is when we want to welcome our listeners on both YouTube and Facebook. This is one of the funnest things that we do is just have kind of an exchange and a dialogue with. With our listeners. And so I just want to share a couple of the comments as we go. Lots of people are saying Gerardo is their favorite or they love Gerardo or they think he's amazing. Joe says Gerardo is my favorite. Amy says Gerardo's Mormon story was great. Leslie writes something I didn't know. Leslie writes Mayim Bialik's ex husband grew up Mormon. Did you know that, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:54] No, I didn't know.

John Dehlin [00:11:55] That's kind of cool.

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:57] She does know quite a bit about the Mormon experience, so.

John Dehlin [00:12:01] Yeah. Yeah. Well, also, my dear friend Cecile Shelman. Shout out to Cecile. She writes maim Bialik is also a neuroscientist. And that's true.

Gerardo Sumano [00:12:11] She added a lot of like, really interesting. Like, honestly, she did a great job at. Just because she was herself responding to the things that David was saying and just kind of like either making clarifications or just explaining David's experience a little bit to her audience. So, yeah, she's. She was awesome.

John Dehlin [00:12:33] Yeah. So those are really good comments. A lot of people are talking about David Archuleta's relationship with the church. My understanding is that David is still an active and believing Mormon and he's trying to make his faith. He's trying to make his LGBTQIA identity work within Mormonism. Is that your understanding, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:12:57] That is my understanding. But as it will come evident hopefully in the clips that we're going to show, David has a lot more nuanced views than I would say, the average orthodox member.

John Dehlin [00:13:13] Yeah, that's right. And you kind of have to be unorthodox to be, you know, in any way openly LGBTQ and Mormon.

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:22] And this is really important. Tani says she loves your purple hair, Gerardo. That's like, maybe the most important comment so far, but. But it wasn't David Archuleta. Didn't he, like, sing at a recent byu, like, diversity event? Isn't that right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:39] Yeah. So I know if I'm the audience can correct me if I incorrect, but I'm pretty sure Ben Shellotti was the organizer of this big event, kind of like an inclusion concert where David went and sang. And this all came in the midst of. Of after Jeffrey Hahn had given his speech at byu and. And Ben took a big risk, I think, through by organizing this concert where there was some performers, I think Charlie Bird performed with, with some cheerleaders and. And then I know the. Another performer was David who. Who was there and sang for the Audience and this was a closed event only for BYU students. And I think in the middle of each performance they were reading people's experience like being a person of color at BYU or being LGBT at byu. And just I think the purpose was create awareness about what other, what minority minorities experiences are at byu.

Speaker D [00:14:52] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:54] All right, well why don't we. Should we just jump in And I will thank Lou Skunt, who made a Super Chat donation by clicking the little dollar sign on YouTube. He says, hey guys, keep the great content coming. I want to thank everyone who does donate to the Open Stories foundation, to Mormon Stories podcast or who donates on these super chats because that's how we pay Gerardo. We pay Kara Burrell. We pay, you know, Brooklyn and just keep the lights running. Pay me. So your, your support to you by clicking on the donate button in mormonstories.org or by making Super Chat donations. That's how this all continues. So if you do value this content, we really appreciate your support that way.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:39] And we are always upgrading our equipment, buying new equipment, buying more cameras, buying more. She just recently purchased a big new system for, for the in person interviews. Right, John?

John Dehlin [00:15:53] Yeah, totally.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:54] Yeah, like donations every. All that goes towards that for sure.

John Dehlin [00:15:59] Yep. So. All right, so let's go ahead and begin. What I'm going to do, Gerardo, is you've given me some time codes for some various excerpts from the interview and some various topics. So the first clip that you had prepared for us is about his decision to go on a mission. Do you want to give any background on. Because you kind of follow David Archuleta probably before he, you know, you probably had suspicions about him before he went to serve a mission. Do you want to talk anything about that?

David Archuleta's Decision to Go on a Mission

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:35] Yeah, I think. Well, as growing up Mormon and being around David's age, I followed him when he was an American Idol for sure. Even being raised and born and growing up in Mexico, we still heard about David Archuleta. And so it was pretty, I think most Mormons were proud to have such a big important figure in, in the United States being Mormon. And, and for me, like, yeah, I could kind of tell. And, and this is horrible because I know a lot of LGBT people take offense at that. And like when people say that, oh, when they come out and people say like, oh, I already knew or like, oh, I could tell, like those things for some people can be, I don't know, they, A lot of people can't. Not, not like those, those kind of comments. But, but I will say that, yeah, I, I Could kind of tell that. That maybe David could be gay or in the LGBT spectrum.

Speaker E [00:17:50] And.

Gerardo Sumano [00:17:51] And he was a little bit of a hero for me, for. He was up there there with my icons, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:18:00] And as a gay, it was at the end. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker E [00:18:03] Sorry.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:03] Sorry. He was actually at the MTC with. With the brother of my best friend in Mexico. So my best friend in Mexico, his brother was going on a mission, and they were together at the mtc, so. So we're kind of, like, on the same generation kind of thing. So he was going on his mission a couple years before I was gonna go, and. Yeah. So kind of like, what he was doing, people were definitely looking. I think youth were looking at what he was doing about his decision and going on a mission. And. Yeah, so it's kind of a big deal.

John Dehlin [00:18:41] Yeah. Yeah. And so. Yeah. And so we all. We all wondered when he left on his mission, how that would work. And so. So in this first clip, he kind of talks about it. Is there anything you want to have us look for before we play this clip, or should we just play it and then discuss it?

Gerardo Sumano [00:19:02] All right, just. Let's just play and let's discuss it.

John Dehlin [00:19:04] Okay. All right. So this is from Mayim Bialik's Breakdown YouTube channel. David Archuleta talking about his decision to go on a mission.

David Archuleta [00:19:14] My mission was an opportunity to just be like, okay, let's take a break. I was like, am I nuts for doing this? I don't know if I should even be doing this. What am I doing? What the heck is going on? Everyone is, like, saying, I'm ruining my career. My parents were actually really upset that I was going. I mean, as you can imagine, my dad was very involved with my career. He wanted me to keep continuing and thriving. He did not want me to go on my mission for two years away from my career that he felt he had helped me to reach. It was strange. It made me question, like, am I. Should I really be doing this, or am I just going nuts? And, I don't know, am I really as brainwashed and crazy as everyone is saying, telling me that I am? But I. I needed that time. It wasn't until I was on my mission that I had a moment to breathe and say, okay, what's going on? Like, how has my family dynamic been going? How have I been letting people around me take advantage of me?

John Dehlin [00:20:19] All right, Gerardo, what. What was interesting for you about that clip?

Gerardo Sumano [00:20:24] Well, he's just talking about his decision to go on a mission, and I think he can tell us about how strong his convictions are in the church, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and how much he believed in it because he's saying he didn't even have his parents support. And that reminded me a little bit about my mom, who, when she decided to go on a mission like her, my grandma didn't want her to. And that kind of made my mom's conviction to go even stronger, which is kind of like an interesting dynamic, you know? But definitely David's experience was something similar where, like, everyone was telling him, no, not go.

David Archuleta [00:21:05] You're.

Gerardo Sumano [00:21:05] You're gonna ruin your career. But even with that, he decided to go. And I think there was some, like, he talks there. There was. It was part like, faith conviction, but also he. He was trying to take a break and trying to, like, learn more about himself and, and just be away from everybody and away from his career to be able to figure things out that actually he'll. Later, he'll. He'll talk about it in just a minute.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] Yeah, I, I mentioned this to you a couple days ago as we were preparing. I couldn't help. I can't help but compare David Archuleta to my understanding of Michael Jackson's upbringing and that. Please, listeners, please help me explain what I'm. Let me explain what I mean by that before anybody takes offense. I'm not saying anything about predatory behavior with children or even about any of his sexual behaviors. It's this idea of getting. Getting fame at a young age, having all this media attention and then having very, very involved parents or parent involved in your success and having to project. When I think about David's public Persona, I think of this guy who's always super sweet and always super nice. And as a mental health professional, you know, that is always a tiny bit concerning to me because if someone's always super sweet and always super nice in their public Persona, I always worry that they might be packing down, suppressing their thoughts or their feelings or their dark side in other sorts of ways. But also just to another point that you were just touching on, like, yeah, it's really clear that when he went on his mission, he was escaping probably a somewhat toxic relationship with his dad. All this public pressure, not just pressure as a performer, but then pressure as a Mormon, his sexuality and whatever his faith or beliefs were as a Mormon. It's clear that he's saying, part of the reason I went on a mission, in addition to all the pressure, was just to escape all the religious pressure from, from believing Mormons. It was Just an escape to escape his dad and to escape all the. All the confusion and the pressure of being a public figure. Does that. Does that even make sense to you at all, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:39] Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

John Dehlin [00:23:41] Yeah. So I. I do worry a little bit about David, you know, and just all those pressures, because, you know, they can get to you, you know.

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:52] Yes, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:23:53] Yeah. Anything else you want to say about his mission?

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:57] No, but I think this. This is him. It was important for us to talk about in the context that he went on his mission, because it's on his mission when he starts figuring his sexual orientation and kind of trying to figure out what's going on there.

John Dehlin [00:24:15] This is something that you may have addressed a little bit in your interview. But for. For those who are listening, who have never been Mormon or who don't understand the Mormon LGBTQ experience. It's gotta be weird as a man, as a gay Mormon youth, going on a mission, knowing that you're gonna be living with another man that you possibly could even be attracted to and knowing that even, you know, because you do. You. You sleep in the same room. One of the things people don't know is you sleep in the same bedroom. You don't have, like, separate bedrooms. As a Mormon missionary, you sleep in the same bedroom. That means you're sometimes dressing and undressing in front of your missionary companions, you know, getting in and out of your garments. You know, even if you're not naked, you're probably seeing each other in your garments. I certainly did. Every single one of my missionary companions I would see every day in their underwear, you know, morning and night. Is there anything you want to say about that dynamic? Just to give people a sense for what David may or may not have experienced as a missionary? It may be no big deal, and it may be a big deal for some. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:25:22] To be honest, for me, I was not super worried about it, but my experience was a lot different because I was able to come to terms with my sexuality and just figure out, like, I don't know, for me, I didn't really have attractions towards people who were straight, like, as. Like, I had straight friends, guys who I was. I was not attracted to. So that was kind of. So I was not super worried about that. And I think David. He hadn't figured out his sexual orientation yet. I think he started coming to terms with that on his mission. But it's definitely. I mean, it happens, you know, like, it's a human nature. So it is definitely an interesting dynamic that the church puts the. Like, this 18 year old guys and especially if they're LG in the LGBT spectrum, it can be, I've heard experiences of people and friends who, who had a really hard time with that because, because imagine like you're, you're, you're and, and David is going to talk about this, but when you're raised in the, in the Mormon culture where like you know that being homosexual, being a homosexual is wrong, that homosexual attractions are not totally are like it's Satan trying to trick you or trying to tempt you to act on those attractions. So there it's kind of, even though the church says like the attractions are not the sin, it still has some relation with the devil, with Satan and with like something that's wrong and evil because acting on those attractions will get you in trouble. So being on a mission and when you have a mission companion that you're probably attracted to, it's a really hard, the experience just becomes really hard, you know, because you're always beating yourself up for having attractions or feelings or thoughts that are just, they're just like normal for human nature, you know.

John Dehlin [00:27:43] Yeah. Yeah. And there's probably a decent chance that, that David experienced attraction with at least some of the missionaries in the mission, if not possibly one of his companions. And so that, that must have been something, something that I wonder if that's something he experienced. Spencer writes, I remember hearing rumors as a teen that David was given special permission to not serve a mission because his talent would bring people to the church. I think Donny Osmond never served a mission for that reason. And I also think Steve Young, the American football player Steve Young never served a mission as well. So I mean I do think that's possible that David didn't have to, but that he decided to anyway. Comment. Elizabeth Grogan writes, I agree with the Michael Jackson childhood comparison. Michael had to perform from age 4. He never had a choice or a childhood. So you know, those are some, some interesting or valuable comments from our listeners. Okay. Oh, one more. John Sargent writes, I was terrified to go on a two year mission Mormon mission because I knew that I would be super attracted to other missionaries, including my own companions. So I didn't go go on a mission. Thank goodness. Thank you for sharing that, John Sargent. The last comment I'll make really quick is that we recently did an episode with McKay Johnson on Mormon Stories podcast where he talks about being sexually molested by a missionary companion. And Kara Burrell was the main interviewer on that episode. And it's a really powerful, I mean I was really touched by McKay's willingness to be vulnerable as a man. Sometimes there's this toxic masculinity where men don't talk about abuse on missions. McKay was willing to go there, so huge props to him and listeners. If you ever want to hear what that might be like, not to in any way to associate the LGBTQ experience with. With abuse and molestation. That's not a comparison I'm trying to make, but it is something that has happened before. I refer you guys to that episode. Yeah. All right, let's go on to the next clip where. Where David talks about his sexual attractions. Anything you want to say before we play this clip, Gerardo?

Discovering Sexual Attractions During His Mission

Gerardo Sumano [00:30:00] No.

John Dehlin [00:30:00] Okay, let's roll it.

David Archuleta [00:30:03] And okay. Also, like, these sexual, like, attract. Like these physical attractions. I have, let's say sexual attractions. Physical attractions coming from, like, a church culture environment. There's a lot of people who think like, oh, well, it's. If you just don't pay attention to that and don't give in to your feelings, you'll be fine. Like, you won't. You won't feel the attractions. You. At least that was, like. It wasn't like, doctrine, but it was, like, just culturally accepted. And so I thought, well, if God doesn't want me to have feelings for guys, then if I dedicate my life to him, I probably will come out okay, and, you know, he'll probably take care of those feelings that I'm not supposed to have if it's a commandment to not be gay.

Discussing Sexual Attractions and Church Doctrine

John Dehlin [00:30:57] Okay, Gerardo, tell us what your thoughts were on those comments.

Gerardo Sumano [00:31:04] Yeah. So I think what was most interesting to me is when he talks about something not being doctrine. And I know there's kind of like a difficulty with Mormonism trying to figure out what's doctrine and what's not. Some people will claim that, and it's even a hard thing for. For prophet seers and revelators to know what's doctrine and what's not. The definition has changed throughout time. But David saying to a non Mormon audience that. That the fact that the attractions would go away, as you are more faithful, as you are serving a mission, you will be able to manage those attractions. And that not being doctrine, AKA teaching, like an official teaching from the church, that it's a. It's a false idea in my view, because I think we are all taught in Mormonism that. As we are more in tune with the spirit and as we read the scriptures more, as we pray more, as we try to be more righteous, we're gonna be able to beat Temptations, we're gonna be able to have even less temptations because we are being so righteous and the spirit is with us. So that idea that David was having was not something that he came up with. It's something that most. I would say most of, if not

Speaker D [00:32:46] all

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:49] gay Latter Day Saints have had at some point, that if they are righteous enough, those attractions are gonna calm down. They're gonna even go away. And that idea was taught explicitly by leaders of the church, by prophets, seers, and revelators. It has not been emphasized in the last few decades. So I did want to make that clarification that David is either not informed about what the church has said in the past and also what the church hasn't retracted, because there's a lot of things that the church has said that they haven't retracted. You know, so. So these ideas are still around. They're still in the culture. Bishops and stake presidents may still be teaching that to whenever, like, a gay Latter Day Saint comes out to them. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:54] Yeah. And I'll just add, you know, we've done several episodes on Mormon Stories podcast about the church's history with conversion therapy and reparative therapy and, you know, all miracle of forgiveness. And, you know, I reference. Check out my interview with Benji Schwimmer. The first interview. My interview with Tyler Glenn. So many interviews. Yeah. The church, just for so long, has taught that even to have the attractions is evil, and that the more righteous you are, the more you can make this go away. And it's led to depression, anxiety, and suicidality. And ironically, my master's thesis was on something called scrupulosity, which is hyper religiosity, like obsessive compulsive disorder in a religious context. And one of the discoveries I made in my dissertation research is that so many LGBTQ Mormons end up with scrupulosity, or religious ocd, because at least in part, they're thinking, if I can just be super righteous, God will take this away from me. And I'm guessing that you experienced that, Gerardo. I know you did, because you talked about that. And I'm guessing that David had that hope as well.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:03] Yeah. And I think in your. Also your PhD dissertation, you found that the most. The method that LGBT people use for the most common method of conversion therapy that they use is being more righteous is like clinging to Jesus is going to the temple, reading the scriptures more, praying more. So the. The. The fact that most members of the church that are gay have used or used this method, I think gives us an idea or helps us understand that this is not something that people are just coming up with or making up in their minds. This is rooted in Mormon teachings, in Mormon doctrine and in Scripture.

John Dehlin [00:35:56] Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:36:01] What are your thoughts about him saying that it's not doctrine?

John Dehlin [00:36:05] What do you mean?

Gerardo Sumano [00:36:06] So to David, on the clip we just watched, David said that he was thinking that if he was being more righteous, those attractions were going to go away. But that's actually not doctrine.

John Dehlin [00:36:21] Well, you know, that's one of the things that's most nuanced and difficult to understand about Mormonism. There's this weird paradox that doctrine is the most important thing in the Mormon Church. And the Mormon church leaders work really hard to never be pinned down on what doctrine actually is. Because if you think about it, so much of what Joseph Smith taught in the mid, you know, 1800s and then to follow on Brigham Young, so much of what they taught as doctrine, things like polygamy, things that you can't, you know, become a God and make it to the celestial kingdom and become exalted unless you are in a plural marriage, all the dynastic ceilings, you know, just there's, you know, blood atonement, Adam, God theory. There have been so many things taught as doctrine by Mormon prophets, seers, and revelators. Think about the entire book Mormon Doctrine. We had a apostle named Bruce R. McConkie come out with an entire book called Mormon Doctrine. Joseph Fielding Smith came out with all these books called Doctrines of Salvation. The whole black priesthood ban was taught as doctrine that blacks were less valued in the preexistence. And so, you know, that's why they couldn't have the priesthood and be Mormons in full good standing. You know, for over 100 years, all that stuff was taught as doctrine. And then it changed. And so the brethren realized that, number one, people's beliefs are rooted in doctrine. But number two, so much in the past that's been taught as doctrine has changed. And so the brethren really want it both ways. They want members to believe that there's really solid doctrine. They want members to obey what the church leaders say. And look at the church leaders as prophesiers and revelators, and they don't want to be nailed down. And so what you've got is Spence W. Kimball, Boyd K. Packer, all these Mormon apostles who over the past several decades have taught that it's a sin to be gay, have taught that attraction is temptations from the devil and that have sponsored conversion therapy and that have taught that, you know, if you're just righteous enough, it'll go away. And that have approved and sold endless books and sponsored Evergreen. You know, the 501C3 that encouraged conversion therapy and sat on their board and gave them church facilities to meet. There are a thousand ways over multiple decades that the Mormon Church taught all these things as doctrine that if you're righteous enough, God will take it away and that it is a sin. And it's only after activists and authors and researchers and podcasters and public figures have called the church out on it, including the movie Believer with Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons and Tyler Glenn from Neon Trees, and the research that I've done with others. Like, it's only after activists and spokespeople have shamed the Mormon Church for these and called them out on all the LGBTQ suicides that have doubled to tripled between 2008 and today. It's only after all that shame and carnage that the Mormon Church has started changing its messaging. And it's almost like David not to criticize him, but it's almost as a young and up and coming Mormon who's just becoming aware of LGBTQ Mormonism. It's almost as if David has no understanding of these decades of carnage and doctrine and pain and suffering. And now he's just showing up in 2021 and saying, oh, yeah, this has never been doctored. It's just kind of a misunderstanding. Like that kind of does a real disservice. It's not intentional. He's naive. He doesn't know.

Speaker D [00:40:26] But.

Gerardo Sumano [00:40:27] But let me say this too. He is in a hard position because I think he. I don't think he's dumb. I think he understands that leaders keep saying homophobic things till this day. But what he's trying to do is trying to be a spokesperson for whoever LGBT Mormon that's out there and watches his interview or watches what he's saying to have a more reasonable and a better and a more healthy understanding of what being LGBT and Mormon means. And by doing this, he is either gaslighting himself or he's gaslighting everyone else who has had a different experience or a different understanding by trying to help and trying to move the needle. And. And because, you know, as a public figure, if he goes out and says, oh, this is actually not doctrine, and then a new crop of LGBT youth comes and watches his interview, they're gonna have like, a more healthy understanding and a more. A more healthy view of what being gay means to them. You know, so it's a hard situation to be in. But for me and my personal opinion, the healthier and the most honest thing to do is recognize what you're saying, John, that wrong things have been taught in the past as doctrine and that the church is in a different place now. Or. And that this is the place or this understanding that I have come to and that leaders or whatever has helped me to arrive to. But, but trying to absolve the LDS Church and absolve the brethren from any responsibility of, of these ideas being in the mind of LGBT members, it, to me, it's not honest.

John Dehlin [00:42:31] But yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:33] A couple comments from listeners. CPU Alpha writes, I recently told my dad I'm out of the church after the way he treated my gay brother all these years. He still defends conversion therapy. And that's, I think part of the point you're making, Gerardo, is even if the Mormon Church in 2021 changes its tune on what it is to be gay and Mormon, they've still got all these bishops and stake presidents and dads and moms that for 50, 100 years got these negative, toxic messages that they're still using to guide their ward members, their congregation members, their kids. And until the church does what Dallin H. Oaks says, which is to apologize and to clarify the record, and Dallin H. Oaks is on record, Mormon Apostle Dallin H. Oaks is on record as saying, we don't apologize then. Even if the church says the right things now, there's still a lot of damage going on. A couple other quick comments. Caitlin writes, david has a more public voice than most people. He seems like such a gentle human and maybe he realizes that his voice could make a small change in the LDS community. Good for David for being brave. I want to agree with Caitlin here that we, we are glad when new LGBTQ voices come that are faithful, come online and try and advance the conversation. Aren't we, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:43:53] Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:43:54] Yeah. Also, Newton writes, I was a very dedicated, hardworking gay missionary. I successfully overcame my physical feelings to the elders, but same sex attraction remained the same. Maybe I wasn't righteous enough. That's a good segue into our next clip with David where he talks about his attractions not changing. Anything you want to say about this before we jump in?

Gerardo Sumano [00:44:15] No.

John Dehlin [00:44:16] Okay, here we go. This is more from David.

David Archuleta [00:44:23] And not be homosexual. And when I was out there for a year and a half and I wasn't online, there was nothing for me to look at. There was nothing provocative in front of my face. All I was doing was teaching people how to pray, singing hymns to them, teaching Them about God and Jesus Christ.

Speaker D [00:44:40] Super sexy. Singing your hymns, teaching your hymns with your little angel voice.

David Archuleta [00:44:46] Oh, my goodness. That's all I was doing. And it wasn't even trying. I didn't even want any kind of attraction for anybody to come up. And there it was, still there. Didn't even have to try. Wasn't even looking for it. Just you look at someone or you're like, around someone too long, and there it is.

Speaker D [00:45:05] Wherever you go, there you are. I mean, that's. You know, that is a thing that people say for a reason.

John Dehlin [00:45:12] All right, Gerardo, what was interesting for you about that clip?

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:16] I think it was just important to play this clip because he's talking about what everybody else's experience is like. Those attractions don't go away. Doesn't matter how righteous you are. It doesn't matter if you marry someone of your same. Of the opposite sex. Those attractions are still going to be there. And. And like, I think we're beating a dead horse here because we've already talked about it. About it. Like, research shows that people have talked about it, and everyone's experience being LGBT is the same. Those attractions don't go away.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:52] Just because you want them to.

John Dehlin [00:45:54] Yeah. In our study of 1612 LGBTQ Mormons, about a thousand of them tried to change their sexual orientation in some way, like you said. Most of them through hyper religiosity. Prayer, scripture study, fasting, temple work, serving a mission, marrying a woman. In the case of gay men, 0% were able to eliminate their same sex attraction. All right, the next clip you had isolated for us is the comment you made is, David didn't understand the church's stance. Do we just want to roll that? Yeah. All right, next clip.

Coming Out to Church Leaders

Speaker D [00:46:31] Is the first person that you spoke about this to. Is it true that it was an elder?

David Archuleta [00:46:35] It was my mission president.

Speaker D [00:46:37] Tell us about that conversation, David.

David Archuleta [00:46:40] It was a year and a half into my mission, and that's when I realized, oh, my gosh, even when I'm trying everything I can, this is going to be here whether I want it to or not. And that's when I was starting to feel, like, devastated. And I didn't know what I was going to do because my idea of what was okay with feelings was just heterosexual feelings. I didn't know exactly what the church's stance was on feeling attracted to the same sex or if you're bisexual or etc.

John Dehlin [00:47:18] I.

David Archuleta [00:47:19] My idea was just if. If homosexual acts are not okay, that must also mean feeling homosexual attractions.

John Dehlin [00:47:32] All right, Gerardo, what Are your thoughts there?

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:34] Yeah. So this interesting idea because he, I just wanted to talk about how these things are not necessarily taught. And the time David was growing up in the church, at the time I was growing up in the church, these things were not being taught in Sunday school. They were not being talked about. They were scattered. Like if you wanted to find what the church's position was on this subject, you had to either confess or go and come out to your bishop as sick president and hope that they understood what the church's position was at the time or find this like weird kind of hidden, not very promoted and hard to find pamphlets that the church would, would have kind of like the pamphlet God Love is Got Love with His Children and pamphlets like that that talked about the church's stance on homosexuality. So that's, that's what David, I think his experience was. He just didn't understand what the church position was at the time because as we know the church's position has changed. You know, at the time of Spencer W. Kimball, even just the attractions was considered a sin. And you could be excommunicated just by. For having the attractions and not being able to overcome them. You could not. Especially like Greg Prince tells us that in Spencer W. Kimball time going on a mission, having those attractions was, was pretty much impossible if you were honest and came out to your, to your bishop or strict president. So yeah, David is just talking about not knowing what the church's position was at the time.

John Dehlin [00:49:26] Yeah. And this is something where I really do hold the Mormon Church responsible because they've known about the issue of same sex sexuality certainly since the 40s and 50s and they've known that they had bad policies and teachings in the past because as the emergence of the moral Mormon and gay or the Mormons and gays website came out, you know, five or 10 years ago. Whenever it was though, that, that was a conscious decision on the church's part in a very select way, in a very limited way to have a way to say to the public, hey look, we've evolved, our views have changed. But what they've never done is like developed this curriculum where like in, in Sunday school or in priesthood or in elders quorum, you know, there's just this formal training which you know, they could, what they could do is sit down, all parents, all bishops, all stake presidents, all mission presidents, all youth and say, look, kids develop some, you know, some kids develop same sex attraction and it's not a sin to have the thoughts and feelings and you're not bad and you know, here's how you should look at it, and here's why God loves you, and here's your place in the church. But they don't do that because the Mormon Church is afraid to talk about sexuality. They believe that if you talk about sexuality, that's going to encourage people to become gay or to become sexually active. And so I really do think it's partly the church's fault for just not. Not coming clean and just training everyone about this. Like, the Unitarian Universalists have an amazing curriculum on healthy sexuality that they give to youth and young adults called Our Whole Lives, or owl. The Mormon Church, in one month could solve this problem by training the entire church on, you know, dispelling all the myths about homosexuality. But they don't. The only other thing I want to say, Gerardo, is that. Is that because the church has a vacuum of sex education, then as you're a Mormon youth, you're reading the scriptures, and you're reading things like, as a man thinketh, you know, in his heart, so is he. To have sexual thoughts is almost as worse as acting on them. You know, there are comparisons in the Mormon Church to, well, Jesus said that, right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:51:48] So. So it's not like it's not crazy to think that having these attractions was wrong as well. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Yeah. And then there's just this idea in Mormonism that sexual transgression is next to murder in evilness. And so a Mormon youth is just gonna. A gay Mormon youth or lesbian Mormon youth is gonna read those scriptures. Mormon scriptures. Bible scriptures. Hear talks, and they have nothing else but to think they're awful and evil. Even if nothing's ever taught, right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:19] Yes, 100%.

John Dehlin [00:52:20] And most of the times, it's not taught, and they never hear about it.

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:24] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] Okay. The next clip is about suppressing and forgetting the attraction. So this is a common thing that gay Mormon youth do is to just try and they turn it off. There's that joke, the Book of Mormon musical, the song. Turn it off like a light switch, just go, click. I imagine you relate to that, Gerardo.

Cognitive Dissonance and Staying in the Church

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:44] Yes. Actually, David's experience is kind of unique. It's something that I never heard before. So you'll be able to comment a little bit more on the. On the psychology part of it, because you'll hear. You'll. You. You'll understand. Why don't you play the role?

John Dehlin [00:53:01] All right, let's play the clip, and then we'll talk about it.

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:03] Yeah.

David Archuleta [00:53:05] Is also wrong.

Speaker D [00:53:06] What was your fear? Because, you know, especially, you know, if you. If you come from you know, a religious community, like, some people literally have a fear that they'll be punished. I mean, I'm not putting words in your mouth, but was the fear that you might be excommunicated? Was it that God would punish you? You know, like, what was the fear?

David Archuleta [00:53:24] I didn't think that I would be excommunicated. I just felt like no matter what I did, my path was going to continue in that direction. I was actually never open to myself about what I was going through with being attracted to men, because it was something I was trying still to push away. And it just got to one day where I just realized my brain had learned how to push it out of my conscious. So when I would try to, like, somewhat even confront it in my mind, my brain would forget it, and I'd be like, what was I thinking about? And the only way that I was able to really confront this fear of mine and the shame was I felt this, like, tenderness, like, this irritation in my emotions, very sensitive. And then I would just be like, I need to write down how I'm feeling. So I wrote down how I was feeling, and that's when it all spilled out. Like, all the shame. What was. I was going through my attractions, my fetishes, and, like, all kinds of. Anything that had to do with sexual, like, arousals or physical attractions, Sexual attractions. And it all just spilled out onto this into my notebook. The second that I wrote it down, my brain just washed it all away again. It was out of my mind again. And I was just like, what was I just thinking about? What. What I. What did I just write? It was like my brain got so good at, like, suppressing it.

John Dehlin [00:54:51] That is such a heavy clip, Gerardo. That's the first time that I've watched that. But I want to give you a chance to respond first.

Gerardo Sumano [00:54:59] Well, honestly, I. I'm out of words. I don't know, because I don't understand why. What is going on? I've never had an experience. Experience like that where, like, I just forget about my. My emotions, my feelings, my attractions. So I don't know why. Because he'll. He'll talk about. And I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of it. But just to give you a little bit of what's going to happen is, like, he goes to. He decides to make an appointment with his mission president to come out to him. And he goes, and his mission person says, why are you here? And he forgets about it. So. And he has to pull out his note. But he says, oh, but I know it's here on this notebook. So he opens it up and reads it and he's like, oh, this is what it was about.

John Dehlin [00:55:39] So should we play that clip? Let's play that clip.

Gerardo Sumano [00:55:43] Yeah, let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:55:43] Let's play that clip and then we'll talk about the whole thing and we'll talk about maybe a bit about the psychology of cognitive dissonance management.

Gerardo Sumano [00:55:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:52] Okay.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:55:55] So then what happened?

Video Clip 1 [00:55:58] So I felt like I just needed to process it. Like I needed help processing what I just finally, for the first time, put on paper. This is literally the first time it came out of me, even though not out of my mouth, out of my pen and paper. I set up a meeting with my mission president, President Warren, and I just said, I need to talk to you. I just need to get something out of, out of me.

Video Clip 1 [00:56:26] And you might want to have a stiff drink before you talk to me. Oh, wait, you can't.

Video Clip 1 [00:56:33] I mean, to be honest, it seemed like he had heard it plenty of other times. I just, I don't know. At the, in the moment I felt like I was the only person going through it at, you know, self centered thing. I don't know if I was.

Video Clip 1 [00:56:46] No, just human. Just human, yeah.

Video Clip 1 [00:56:49] You just feel like I'm the only person going through this and there's something wrong with me. I sat with him and he's like, so what do you want to talk about? And I was looking at him, I'm like, to be honest, I don't remember, but I brought my notebook because I know it's written in here. So if you don't mind, I'll read it to you. And he's like, okay. So I wrote, I read it to him and as I read it it was like, oh, yeah. And I just felt so embarrassed, but at the same time so relieved to finally be just saying this. That something that I just didn't understand about myself that I was carrying and just with my. My physical attractions to guys and other things, fetishes and whatnot, and to finally not have to hold it in anymore. And I just kind of looked at him and I kind of. I don't know what I was expecting. I think I was expecting that I'd just done something wrong and sinful by admitting this confessing. And I guess I was like, am I going to be like, taken out of my mission? I don't know. I guess I was just being hard on myself because I was stressed out. But I was like, maybe he's going to correct me. He's going to give me some kind of counseling. But he didn't do any of that. He was just. All he said was, well, Elder Archuleta, this could probably be the most important day of your life. And I just kind of was like, yeah, I think you're right. And he just let me know he loved me.

Video Clip 1 [00:58:20] And did he tell you God loves you?

Video Clip 1 [00:58:23] Yeah, yeah, he did. And that was all he said. And he just was kind of like, you know, you're still, you're doing a great job and you are a great person and a great missionary and just keep doing what you're doing. And, and I was just kind of like, is that it? Like that's all you're going to tell me? I don't know. I thought I was going to be like punished for being gay or something or it's just something. And it wasn't like that. So I was like, okay,

John Dehlin [00:58:55] all right, well, there's so, there's so much there.

Gerardo Sumano [00:59:00] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:59:00] So let's break it down a little bit. So the first thing we should talk about is just cognitive dissonance management. And I'm, I'm, I've studied this, but I'm not fresh on it. But it's just this idea that, you know, we, we have kind of a worldview, a psychological worldview of who we are and how we exist in the world and what right and wrong is. And we all gain that template from, you know, infancy on. And so obviously David would have been raised Mormon, so he, he would have been raised to ignore his sexuality, to downplay it, certainly before a mission, to not even explore. Even if he were straight, he would have been discouraged from getting to know anything about his sexuality prior to his mission. And he would have been taught that being gay is wrong and bad as a Mormon, but he also would have known that he experienced attraction to men at some level, whether it's just, wow, I really like Freddie. He's such a cool guy. I want to be his best friend anywhere to explicitly having sexual attraction. So what he describes there is his experiencing cognitive dissonance, which is a conflict between the sexual attraction he knows he experiences and his knowledge of from the Mormon Church that being gay is evil and bad and wrong. And the way that he. So what you have to do is you have to either change your beliefs or try and suppress the feelings that you're having. And so what he talks about is literally the process of self gaslighting, of suppressing your own thoughts and feelings, your sexual template, your sexual harousal, your sexual identity and he just packed it down to the point where he, like you said, could even forget that, that he had those feelings in the first place. And that is some really intense self suppression, self gaslighting, self denial. And I can just.

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:06] Isn't it interesting that you were talking about this at the beginning, about how you, you always thought that David had, may have some issues with that?

John Dehlin [01:01:15] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:15] And he's talking about it.

John Dehlin [01:01:16] And I just want to say as a, as a psychology, you know, as a psychologist or as someone with a PhD in psychology, I should say that's super unhealthy. Anytime you're suppressing your natural, normal feelings and identity or your depression or your anxiety, it creates, just imagine internally a pressure cooker where you've put a bunch of water in a pressure cooker and you've turned the heat on high and the pressure just builds up and builds up and builds up inside. We all know what happens when too much pressure builds up. It explodes in either depression, anxiety, suicidality, suicidal ideation, or it can be just splitting, a splitting of your own core identity where you're this nice, faithful, righteous, good person in public and then you have these dark demons, kind of this dark side. And I think Michael Jackson is an example of what happens when you do that for too long. It's probably pretty clear that Michael Jackson was gay, but he can't ever act on that homosexuality, because in the 70s and 80s you just don't do that. And so you have to find ways to manage that. And it was clear, I mean, many people have said that maybe his behavior with young boys was a way that he could avoid being publicly seen with gay men, but still in some way act out his identity. Not in any way to equate being gay with children, but it's an example of the unhealthy types of behaviors that can develop when you're forced to suppress who you are. That can be alcohol addiction, drug addiction, and in Michael Jackson's case, he in fact got addicted to opiates that ended up taking his life. And so all I can say is it's super unhealthy what he's been forced to do. And I'm really, really happy for David Archuleta that he now feels comfortable starting to come out about all this. But I don't think his journey's over yet.

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:28] Yeah, 100%. And is this. Would. Can this be compared also a little bit to when orthodox members hear from their ex Mormon family members about Joseph Smith's wives and polyandry and they, you know, when like I'm an, I don't know if I found all this stuff, you know, and I lost my faith and I go to my family member and take, tell them all this stuff and then they're somehow able to block it, suppress it, forget about it, and just go on in its life and even cling to the church even stronger. Is this anything similar to that?

John Dehlin [01:04:11] Yeah, this is it. It doesn't matter what you're suppressing. If it's core to your identity, if it's your gender identity, if it's your, if it's your sexual identity, if it's your religious doubts, if it's problems in your marriage, if it's things that are unresolved, it doesn't matter what if it's important to you, if it causes you distress, if it's core to your identity, if you're suppressing it, if you're hiding it, if you're compartmentalizing, it is going to, it's going to harm your mental health and eventually harm your physical health and eventually other people could get harmed in the process. Newton writes compartmentalization will send him a bill sometime in the future and the price is heavy. That's a really succinct way to put it. Thank you Newton for sharing that. Mick Jett says Catholic priests, and I think we all know what that means, many people speculate that Catholic priests are often gay in a religion that doesn't support homosexuality. So they go into the priesthood sometimes as a way to escape their same sex sexuality. But we've all heard about Catholic priests, you know, exploring their sexuality not just with each other secretly, but also with altar boys. And there's the whole spotlight sexual scandal which is just an example again of what happens with toxic compartmentalization or of unhealthy dealing with cognitive dissonance. Yeah, yeah.

Reactions from Mission President and Community

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:43] Now a little bit about his, his mission president and the reaction of his mission president.

John Dehlin [01:05:48] So yeah, go, go ahead, go ahead, please start.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:51] Yeah, I think this reaction is becoming a lot more common. I've heard this reaction from mission presidents being like again, a lot more common. My, my, one of my best friends have had a, this like exactly same experience when he came out to his mission president and in some way I feel like it makes them cling to the church even more. Not, I'm not saying it's bad or good or bad, but having a, a positive experience with coming out to a leader makes, in my experience of what I've seen or the friends that I've had that have had this experience made them cling to the church even more because now they've realized that they can be loved, that they can be part of the church community and have these attractions and be accepted and be loved when in reality we know that I, I have this, you know, because even, I dare to say that even this experience is becoming more common among family members as well. So when in Utah, maybe other places in the US when like a, a family member comes out as gay, the family reacts a lot more positively than years or decades before. And my what, what I sometimes like to say is like, yeah, that reaction will be that way because for the family, for the orthodox family member, it doesn't become real until they start dating, until they start getting into a same sex relationship or same sex marriage. Then things change and then things started going south. But anyway, so that's all I wanted to say, that David's experience, although it's unique, it seems to be becoming a little bit more common as well.

John Dehlin [01:07:57] Yeah. And I love that. And I'll just add, you know, there's some good and some potential harm about this mission president. David telling this mission president's response. On the one hand, I just want to, like, give that mission president a huge hug because that's like a perfect, that's like a perfect reaction from a mission president. And I hope that every bishop, every stake president, every Mormon parent reacts to their LGBTQ kids in a similar way if and when they come out. So props to that mission president and I'm really happy for David. But there are some problems with David communicating that, potential problems with David communicating that experience. One is it gives people the impression that don't know better, that that's gonna be the normal response. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:51] And there's at least two problems with that. One is that that's not the normal response. So many leaders, bishops, stake presidents, parents are gonna say, this is bad, this is a sin. Maybe I'll send you home. Maybe I'll put you on a repentance process. Maybe I'll start a disciplinary council. Like, there's this, there's this notion of ecclesiastical or bishop or mission president roulette within Mormonism because the Mormon Church doesn't train everyone, because the Mormon Church intentionally doesn't get everyone on the same page. You can have the worst possible reactions where bishops and stake presidents and parents are punishing and sending the missionary home and putting them in conversion therapy, et cetera. So in this way, I worry that in some ways, David might give people a bit of a false impression about what the normal experience is. There's also the knowledge that David's mission president knew that David was a global celebrity, and I'm sure that the church talked to this mission president about who they were dealing with and what the stakes were. And so David, as a global pop star, is probably going to have some privilege connected to his mission president's response. Would you say that's. That's fair to assume?

Gerardo Sumano [01:10:09] I. I wonder that. Yes. Yes, for sure. I think it's a. It's a fair assumption.

John Dehlin [01:10:14] Yeah. Yeah. And so I just don't want the world thinking that that's the normal response, because in 2021, like you say, it's more common. And props to the mission president, but it's not the.

Gerardo Sumano [01:10:25] Yeah. It's not the average. It's not the. It's not the normal response. Yeah, no.

John Dehlin [01:10:31] Because the church still isn't training their leaders. And so it's whatever. It's whatever the leader believes and still thinks from whatever they experienced growing up. And we know the church has a long century long history of homophobia and mistreatment of LGBT people.

Gerardo Sumano [01:10:47] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:10:48] Really quickly, there is a really important point that was made. M aol says, you can be gay, but don't mess with children. And I just want to be really clear. That is one of the really damaging and false beliefs or perceptions about LGBTQ people, that there is any association between being LGBTQ and molesting children. And I just want to state, as someone who has studied this with the psychology PhD that straight people are far more likely to abuse children than LGBTQ people. As far as we know. I was only saying. The only thing I was saying is when there's unhealthy suppression of identity and compartmentalization, sometimes that can manifest itself in behavior that's damaging to other people. And in even that case, I sometimes view the perpetrators as victims of an oppressive ideology or of an oppressive organization. But in no way am I saying that LGBTQ people are more likely to abuse children. In fact, I'm saying that my understanding is that they're less likely, not more.

David Archuleta [01:11:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:57] Is that okay?

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:58] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:11:59] Okay. Next clip. Gerardo is about an amazing response from the host about David's experience being unique. Is there anything you want to say about this before we play it?

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:10] No.

Speaker E [01:12:11] Let's.

John Dehlin [01:12:11] Okay, let's play it.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:12:13] So I guess it was my own. My own perception of what I believed was what was punishing me rather than my church leaders. I. I don't think.

Video Clip 2 [01:12:23] I don't.

Video Clip 2 [01:12:24] I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I. I had this muted. I'll. I'll I'll start it again. Thank you, Herdo.

Video Clip 2 [01:12:32] So I guess it was my own. My own perception of what I believed was what was punishing me rather than my church leaders. I. I don't think. I don't know if that's the same for everyone else. It.

Video Clip 2 [01:12:46] I, I think we should say it's not. Meaning there's a diversity of response to homosexuality in every religious kind of faith and practice. And also I think it's important to point out that it sounds like you had a really loving and supportive interaction, and that is so, so sacred. And also the fear that you had is not unfounded. Meaning, I think it's so significant that you realize that sometimes what we fear makes it, like, bigger and worse than it even might be. But there are many people I know, some in particular, who have had negative interactions with rabbis, with elders, with priests. So both of those things can happen. And that is why what you've done is so brave and important, because you've made public this notion that no matter what you get from whoever you speak, speak to, you can be yourself. And it also doesn't mean that you can't be a person of faith. And it also doesn't mean that God doesn't love you or that you can't be literally. It's what you had an experience of is being told it's okay to be.

John Dehlin [01:14:04] Well, I guess I, I guess I could have just shut up and let my, Let my bialik say that for me because I, I hadn't seen she. Amazing clips. Yeah, she. She nailed it, right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:14:14] Yeah, 100%. And like she said, but, but she talked about different religions, but we as members, as being. Having been part or being part of the Mormon religion, we know these experiences are not the norm. So, yeah, it was, it was great that she called it out. And I think there's a comment by Holiness that is, it's great. Highlights how dangerous this. Promoting this as. As being the norm or this great experience being what everyone else's experiences.

John Dehlin [01:14:54] Do you want to read it?

Gerardo Sumano [01:14:55] Yeah. So she said, can you find. Oh, let me see. I can show it.

John Dehlin [01:15:01] Oh, yeah, there it is.

Gerardo Sumano [01:15:02] She says when I bring up anything negative that the church has done to the lgbt, LGBTQ community, my mom uses David as her way to not deal with it. He's happy and in the church, and thus the church isn't harmful.

John Dehlin [01:15:16] Yeah, that's a great comment.

Gerardo Sumano [01:15:18] So thank you, Holly. And I think that's something that I was talking about earlier. When we're not informed, when public figures are either not informed or not being 100% honest to what the church has done in the past, to the problematic history with LGBT responses from the church, it creates this idea that everything is great in Zion and that there's nothing that the church can improve. Because if he, David, a great, amazing public figure, can be a member of the church, be happy and gay, everyone else can.

John Dehlin [01:15:58] Yeah. And that's why, I mean, I. You know, when people criticize us for talking about Charlie Bird or Ben Shalatti or Dave Archuleta or whoever, it's. It's because when. Or this applies to Ty and Danielle Mansfield, this applied to Josh and Lally Weed, you know, in this episode that we just did recently about the, quote, gay Mormon Reformation and the way the church uses public figures as spokespeople for the LGBTQ Mormon experience. Even if David were able to make things work with. Within the church, it's just such an important point that Holly brings up that that doesn't mean others can. And. But oftentimes these spokespeople or celebrities are used as clubs or mallets so that parents or bishops can dismiss the concerns about other LGBTQ Mormons that maybe aren't having a good experience or that can't make it work. Right, Right. Yeah. That's really valuable. Thanks, Hollywood, for that comment. All right, your next comment was about people in Provo who didn't know what to think of people being gay.

LGBTQ Visibility, Labels, and Identity

Gerardo Sumano [01:17:05] Yeah. Let's play the tape.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [01:17:06] All right, let's play the clip. I'm actually wondering, does it sink in? Are you still juggling your own judgment? Do you believe him? That you're doing a good job? Like, how does that all square away for you?

Video Clip 3 [01:17:17] I was relieved, and it just. It gave me enough because I wasn't really focusing on how attracted I was to other people. It just helped me to get it off my chest so I didn't have to worry about it for the rest of my time out there, because really, my time was to serve other people and to serve God, and it just let me finish my work. So when I got back is when I started focusing on it again.

Video Clip 3 [01:17:39] Did you come back with, like, a feather boa and, like, rainbows coming out of everywhere?

Video Clip 3 [01:17:44] I'm not, like, a loud person in jail. I was kidding.

Video Clip 3 [01:17:48] I know. I.

Video Clip 3 [01:17:50] Because I have, like, now that I've, like, come out with my post, people are like, oh, so when are you gonna get you to, like, the dance, nightclubs and getting you in drag and stuff? I'm like, I may be out, like, open with My sexuality, but it doesn't mean I'm a very. Doesn't mean I'm an allowed personality. I do want to say, though, bringing that up, like, a lot of. I think a lot of conservative religious, like, people who come from conservative religious backgrounds and environments, that's what they assume being part of the LGBTQIA community is like. They think it's all. Everyone has strong personalities. Everyone wants to be very strong colors, strong personality, strong.

Video Clip 3 [01:18:33] Everybody's in the ymca, dance at a wedding. It's like Village People all the time.

Video Clip 3 [01:18:39] And so I feel like that's so important, especially, like, people in my community to know. And that's why things like my Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons and his wife Asia, when they did this Love Loud Fest in Provo, Utah, right where Brigham Young University is, like, where the highest concentration of Latter Day Saints is, it made people who didn't know how to interact with the LGBT community, it helped them be able to look at it in their own neighborhood and be like, what is this? Like, it's not like they even had an opinion. They just didn't know what to.

John Dehlin [01:19:17] All right, hero, what was interesting about that for you?

Gerardo Sumano [01:19:20] We cut it. We cut it short. But he says it's not that they didn't have. He says it's not that they didn't have an opinion. Referring to people in Provo. It's not that they didn't have an opinion. Is that that they didn't know what to think about it?

John Dehlin [01:19:34] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:19:37] Is that why Dan Reynolds did his Love Loud Fest? Because people didn't know what to think about it?

John Dehlin [01:19:44] No. No, That's.

Speaker E [01:19:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:46] Okay. Yeah, you're making a really good point. No, I was literally with Dan the day he decided to do Love Loud, and I was. You know, I was a consultant to Dan Reynolds, and I was in the movie and. No, he was doing. He did Love Loud because LGBTQ Mormons were killing themselves because they thought they were evil and broken and beyond God's love. Love. And because the church had been fighting gay marriage with Proposition 8. The church had been supporting conversion therapy for decades and encouraging, you know, gay Mormon men and lesbian Mormon women to get in mixed orientation marriages that were ending in divorce and in depression in mass numbers. That's why he did love. Laugh. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:20:33] So that was the interesting thing is because it seems like throughout this interview, David tries to. I mean, again, it's not an attack on David. He has his convictions, and he really loves the church. He loves God. But throughout this interview, he tries to absolve the Church absolve God and the brethren from any responsibility of what people think about being. What being LGBT means. So, yeah, Dan Reynolds didn't do his concert or, or this, this festival because people didn't know what to think. It's because of the church's position as church's teachings that, that were harmful, that made people think bad things about the LGBT community that Dan Reynolds decided to come and do this event to change people's mindset regarding the subject.

John Dehlin [01:21:31] Yeah. Yeah. And he's made a huge difference. So shout out to Dan and Tyler and the good people at Encircle and all the people that have made. That have helped move the needle within Mormonism, you know.

Gerardo Sumano [01:21:44] Yeah. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:21:45] All right, so the next clip is about LGBTQIA labels.

Gerardo Sumano [01:21:53] Yeah,

John Dehlin [01:21:55] let's roll it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:21:56] Yep.

David Archuleta [01:21:58] Yeah, I would like to, just because I think it helps people think instead of just. I mean, it is so many letters which can get confusing. But I think especially coming from a conservative background, people hear LGBT and they get stuck on the T. And because I talked about my feelings of asexuality in my post, that's. That was the first time I even used lgbtqia. That was literally the first time I ever use it because the A's at the very end.

John Dehlin [01:22:34] Wow, that's super interesting. Yeah, that, like. Well, go ahead.

David Archuleta [01:22:39] You.

John Dehlin [01:22:39] You give your response first.

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:40] You go ahead. I think you have more to say than I do.

John Dehlin [01:22:43] No, I want to hear why you. Why you picked that. Why did you pick that a clip?

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:48] It's just interesting that his understanding about the labels and why he chose to use those labels or use. Use that acronym on his post. I just, I just thought it was interesting.

John Dehlin [01:23:02] Well, yeah, it's super weird, and it's not weird at all. So for the long, long, long, longest time, the Mormon Church would not even acknowledge that a gay or lesbian or bisexual identity even existed. It wasn't until a few years ago that any Mormon church leader ever even used the term gay or lesbian. At best, they would say the so called, you know, homosexual agenda, you know, they would use terms like that, but they would never just call someone gay or call someone lesbian or call someone bisexual. They wouldn't even use the words. And that was decades and decades long. Then they came out with the Mormon and gay website, which was again, in response to being bludgeoned by, you know, educators and activists. And so that was viewed as like this huge breakthrough that just five or whatever years ago that they actually even used the term gay. That was a breakthrough. But then even after that, you know, Elder Bednar, one of the apostles, was literally quoted as saying, there's no such thing as a gay or, you know,

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:05] homosexual member of the church.

John Dehlin [01:24:06] Homosexual member of the church. So, I mean, even he didn't get the memo. And for decades, the church then would just call it same sex attraction, which of course is pathologizing the condition. It's basically saying, you're not gay, you're not lesbian, you're not bisexual. You experience the illness of same sex attraction.

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:26] So, of course, Elder Packer. Elder Packer is on the record on this, like, leaked video saying that they decided to use same sex attraction because it sounded more repulsive instead of using same gender attraction. So even the use of their term, the term that they decided to use, they selected it purposely.

John Dehlin [01:24:48] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:49] To convey a message.

John Dehlin [01:24:50] And that, by the way, that's not. That's not a Mormon thing. One of the things that's really disturbing is that for all my life, the Mormon Church, like, trashed the Catholic Church, trashed the evangelicals for all being like, churches of Satan, you know, evil churches. It took hatred or, you know, animosity towards gay people to unite the Catholics and the Baptists and the Mormons, and they all use this term, same sex attraction, as a way to kind of deal with LGBTQ church members. So on the one hand, it's bizarre that David is saying, I've experienced attraction to men since childhood and I've had to suppress it. He's admitting that. And then he's saying, on the other hand, the only way I was able to use the LGBTQIA acronym is if I identified as asexual, because that's the safest. The safest acronym on that. You know, the safest letter on the entire LGBTQIA spectrum is asexual. Because you're saying, don't excommunicate me, Mormon Church. Don't criticize me. It's not that I'm gay, even though I've already admitted I experienced same sex attraction. I'm asexual. And so I don't know. That's kind of mind blowing that he used the asexual identity. I worry that he used the asexuality identity as the only letter in the acronym that would be publicly safe for him to identify with. Does that make sense at all?

Gerardo Sumano [01:26:31] I think it does make sense. I would be. Well, I would try to be careful as to like his own. I mean, we can't really say. And he'll talk about it later on the interview about why he does decided to use asexuality. But yes, like, I saw so many orthodox comments on, on Facebook when he came out saying, oh, he's not gay, he's asexual. You know, like as, like as if being asexual is more righteous than being gay, surely.

John Dehlin [01:26:58] Yeah. In the Mormon hierarchy, it's better to be asexual than to be gay or lesbian. For sure.

Gerardo Sumano [01:27:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:03] And I'm just, you know, we'll talk about this with the next clip. I'm just going to make the point because I have a, I have a child who identifies as asexual. And this is a newer thing for me to be learning about. But the definition of asexuality is that you do not experience sexual attraction, period. Right. Or, or you have a very muted or light experience of sexual attraction to other people. So on the one hand, hasn't David already said that he experiences attraction to men? And so that's why I bring this up. Not to deny his expression of identity, nor to deny that asexuality exists. Just to say that there seems to be some confusion here that he may be experiencing. But let's go ahead and play the clip that you wanted to share about asexuality and intersex. Is that all right? Okay.

Asexuality and the Spectrum of Attraction

▶ Video Clip 4

Video Clip 4 [01:28:02] Then I was like, well, it wasn't until I looked up what asexuality was that I was like, oh, my gosh.

Video Clip 4 [01:28:08] So that's. So some people use the A for ally, but in this case the A can be asexual and the I is usually intersex. Correct.

Video Clip 4 [01:28:17] Intersex. There are people who are intersex, who are. What is it? Where they are given a gender at birth. And maybe the doctors don't even know how to reassign their.

Video Clip 4 [01:28:32] It is a small percentage, but there's ambiguous genitalia there. There are XXY males, there are anyway females, a lot of, a lot of things. And the eye does also help encapsulate and help those people be included as well.

Video Clip 4 [01:28:48] Like there are interviews with these, with folks who, who go through the intersex process, who are intersex, who the doctor and the family assign them a gender and a sex, but then their body goes through the other one, the other gender, the other sex. And then they're like, what's going on?

Video Clip 4 [01:29:08] So a lot of times when there's ambiguous genitalia, I mean, I hope that term, that's a very clinical term. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to put a judgment on it. But yes, sometimes doctors and parents do their best and often it is based on a Lot of, you know, ambiguous and very fluid judgments. And doctors are humans and sometimes someone will be encouraged to develop along what they think is the best choice. But when they hit puberty, the internal workings of the body, the genetics, all of the proteins that get activated and all those things indicate that this person maybe was assigned the wrong gender, as it were. So I just want to, you know, wanted to clarify that.

Video Clip 4 [01:29:57] Thank you. You're, you're so good at doing that. Like, can we stop the case just a part?

John Dehlin [01:30:02] Okay. Okay.

Speaker E [01:30:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:04] There's so much to unpack there.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:06] Yeah. So I, I, I thought it was super interesting how much focus he put on intersex. Like, usually this is something that people don't talk about or not not really informed with, about, but intersex people, it, and I hope this doesn't come out as offensive, but the fact that their existence is the smoking gun to Mormon, Mormon doctrine.

John Dehlin [01:30:34] To the proclamation on the family. To the proclamation. Yeah, yeah, because, because, because it says gender is eternal.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:41] Right, right, right. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what David was trying to do here. Hopefully I'm not misrepresenting his feelings and thoughts, but to me, he's trying to emphasize this because it's something that Mormon doctrine does not address and does not really have a good response to. And I think he's trying to make the audience think about, think about what this means for, for their beliefs and, and the Mormon belief system that, the fact that these people exist. So, yeah, that's why I thought it was really interesting.

John Dehlin [01:31:27] Yeah, super interesting. And, and what I want to do is circle back to this discussion of asexuality.

Gerardo Sumano [01:31:33] Yeah, he'll talk about it after we

John Dehlin [01:31:36] in, in the next clip.

Gerardo Sumano [01:31:38] In the same clip, right after you paused it.

John Dehlin [01:31:41] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [01:31:42] I made you pause it because I wanted to comment about intersex.

John Dehlin [01:31:45] So should I, There is a clip on asexuality. Should I play that one?

Gerardo Sumano [01:31:48] Maybe. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:49] Okay, I'll play that now

David Archuleta [01:31:54] because there's even a spectrum in that. But I didn't want to go into that because I was like, this is already a lot. Because there's gray sexual, there's demisexual. And why. The reason why I wanted to introduce asexuality is because I felt like it helped personalize my experience. I just figured there's, I know there are other people out there who are similar to me who, whether they're heterosexual or gay or bisexual, they still don't experience that sexual desire as much. And that affects their relationships. It affects what they're looking for and how they want to connect with people and bond with them. And so that's why I wanted to bring that up, because I always struggled with that. I was like, I don't know why. I must not be as attracted to them. This must be something wrong. So that's why I wanted to talk about it. And it was really nice to give other people who identify with being asexual and just simple a lot of DM saying, oh my gosh, thank you for talking about that. Because we always get overlooked. And it's hard to explain that to people and explain that to people you're trying to date and stuff, because they just think you're a freak in a lot of ways. Because they just think, well, everybody's into sex, you know, and. And not everyone. I mean, it's at varying degrees. You know, some people aren't. Some people really aren't at all. And they don't need that in their life to be happy and to feel like they can be in a happy relationship. That's not entirely how I experience it. I feel like I would enjoy it, but I need to time to feel comfortable and be like, oh, there are a lot of.

John Dehlin [01:33:35] Okay, there's. So there's so much to unpack there. And to be honest, I am not necessarily the guy to unpack it. In fact, I'm certainly not the guy to unpack it. But I'm going to do say just a few things because this is something I'm really passionate about because I have a child who identifies as asexual. So just for those who want to learn about asexuality, my amazing daughter Clara Delynn, wrote a book about asexuality called A Little Book of Ace Learning More about Asexuality. And I want to refer you to that book if you want to learn more. I went ahead and pasted a link to it in the show notes. And I also want to refer you to a video that my daughter Clara recently released on YouTube called Let's Learn about Asexuality and Aromanticism. And I know that this is just kind of a small part of what David's talking about, but it's really important. First of all, I just want to say that my understanding of the term asexuality is that you do not experience sexual attraction for others. It's not desire. In fact, I've made that mistake in the past of expressing it in terms of desire, which I heard David mentioning that explaining his identity in terms of desire, but it's about attraction asexuality is about attraction. And it's important because. Because I think David has admitted that he experiences sexual attraction to men. And so that's why I'm a little bit curious about whether he's still. I'm trying to unpack everything.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:24] So, John, so I just want to clarify. So can you be gay and asexual?

John Dehlin [01:35:30] Yeah. Okay, so. So this is another. And I'm not the right person to explain this. And there's several people. Yeah, there's several people that are. Comment in the comments. One of the things you also that makes this more complicated is that, is that there are different types of attraction. And so it's not just sexual attraction that is kind of important and needs to be considered. There is aesthetic attraction, whether you see someone as beautiful or not. There's emotional attraction, whether you're attracted to them on an emotional level. There is, you know, there's friend. There's friend like attraction. There's intellectual attraction, whether you're attracted to them on an intellectual basis. And so the fact that there are so many different dimensions of attraction makes this conversation more complicated. So in theory you could be. And there's romantic attraction. So you could be romantically attracted to somebody but not sexually attracted. So I think what David is wondering is, do I experience romantic attraction but not so much sexual attraction? And in that sense you could be, you know, sort of homo romantic attracted, but. But still asexual. Does that make sense, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:36:54] Yes, but you can't. Yeah, so. But you can't be a homosexual, have sexual feelings to. Towards you. Can't you still say. And still be asexual, just and say like I just have a low libido as a homosexual, so that makes me asexual? No, having low libido does not make you asexual. That's what I'm trying.

John Dehlin [01:37:14] So that is another common misunderstanding. It's also possible to like sex and be asexual. This is another thing that people don't understand. You can like the act of sex, choose to be sexually active with other people, but just not experience sexual attraction to the people that you're having sex with. So this is a really complex and intricate discussion. And that's why I really recommend this book, A Little Bit of Ace or this video by my daughter Clara. I'm not trying to like make her money or do any self promotion. It's just so happens that. That my daughter is becoming an expert on this topic. And so I, I believe passionately about it. But what I. And it's also not my Purpose to deny David's expression of his identity or to say he's wrong or to challenge it. But I don't want people to misunderstand. If David is saying, I experience sexual attraction to men, but I'm. But I'm asexual, if that's what he's saying, then I don't think those two things can fit together. If he's saying I don't experience sexual attraction to men, but I do experience aesthetic or intellectual or romantic attraction with men, well, then that starts to make a little bit more sense. And the truth is, David deserves to have the chance to figure all this out without a microscope. So my intent isn't to, quote, question his expression of his own sexuality, but it is to say, let's not have misunderstandings about what asexuality is and isn't. And what we should do is cover this on Mormon stories in a more in depth way. And I intend to do that. The only other thing I'll say is that he mentions a couple terms that I think are important to introduce. The term gray sexual is a term that, as I Google it, it means people who experience limited sexual attraction. So it may be that David is starting to explore gray sexuality, which is maybe just a little bit of sexual attraction.

Gerardo Sumano [01:39:30] Well, he talks about how there's like, there's a spectrum in asexuality. Yeah, but he didn't really want to get into that on his.

John Dehlin [01:39:37] Yeah, well, gray sexuality is someone that may experience just a little bit of sexual attraction or more complex expressions of sexuality. And then demisexual, as I understand it, is people who only feel sexually attracted to someone when they have an emotional bond with the person, which means that sometimes they have to go months or even years developing an emotional relationship before they ever experience that sexual attraction. So again, you know, kudos to David for introducing this topic of asexuality. Blessings to him as he explores it and figures this out. And if you want to understand, you know, asexuality and all its different shades, again, I'm just going to highly recommend A little Book of Ace, Learning More about Asexuality by Clara Dehlin and her video. Let's learn more about asexuality, aromanticism. Anything else you want to say about all that, Gerardo?

Speaker D [01:40:36] No.

John Dehlin [01:40:36] Okay, thanks for bringing that up because that's really, really important. Let's see. All right, a couple comments from people. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are feeling strongly about our treatment of this. I hope I'm doing it more justice than I have in the past. Jen writes many different levels of attraction. Very interesting, John. Bravo for Clara, for bringing the awareness. My son identifies as asexual. He has no desire of romantic relationship. And even that might be confusing because again, asexuality means no sexual attraction for. For others. Let's see. Stina Flink writes, there are nuances to asexuality, demisexuality. Sometimes people use the word gray sexuality to talk about nuances. So, yes, some people. People will. Yeah. There's a lot of ways we could talk about this. I don't think we. We have the time to really get into it. So let's go on to the question of is David dating now? Now, Gerardo, before we get into this, we got some backlash when we talked about Ben Shalotti and Charlie Bird and their romantic life. And many people were just like, foul, out of bounds. That's rude. To speculate on people's personal lives. That's insulting. That's demeaning. It's nobody's business. So, Gerardo, I know you. I know you have sensitivities around this, so tell us why you even wanted to bring this on the table.

Gerardo Sumano [01:42:08] Well, I wanted to bring this one up because the, the host of the podcast asked him very straightforward about it. He asked point blank, what was his. What, what was he, what was he planning to do about his sexuality, if he was planning to date, marry or what? So that's why I put the clip there. But just responding to a little bit of like what you were saying to me, the Benchiladi and Chart, well, Charlie, they're like a completely different kind of public figure. I think Charlie's public figure is all around how to be gay, how he's gay and Mormon and he's making it work. So to me, not being honest and forefront about his romantic experiences or having, or if he's dating or not, when, I mean, it's. Again, it's hard because I. We know from sources really close to him that he is and he has permission from his leaders to do so. But he doesn't talk about it because he knows that he's gonna lose either respect from other Bormans or he could get in trouble with BYU or blah, blah, blah. So that's why I think it was important for me to bring it up at that one point. But here I'm bringing it up because she asked him point blank.

John Dehlin [01:43:45] Yeah, and I'll just share a few of the comments that kind of also close out, you know, the, the asexuality point. You know, if People care about David, and I think we all care about David. You know, there's a concern that he would be using the asexuality label potentially, you know, as a. As a fear that, you know, of what might happen if he does identify as gay, whether it's losing fans or being punished by the church in some way, or losing support or getting backlash. So, you know, Paulo makes the point that he's worried about David being repressed in his sexuality. And Newton also writes, I think Archuleta defines himself as asexual, as a defense mechanism. Now, again, we shouldn't speculate, Newton. We shouldn't judge David. What I would like to say is, you know, those who care about David might be concerned that his expression of asexuality is a defense mechanism and a result of repression. Newton goes on to write, it is a safe sexual place to put himself, according, considering his background. And then someone goes on to write that David is in a. Mick Jett writes, I think David is an apologist. And that's. I think the biggest point is that once. Once you. Once you're a public figure like Charlie Bird, like, you know, David Archuleta, what the church realizes is it's going to be a huge PR catastrophe if these people, you know, say, I'm a gay Mormon. You know, Tyler Glenn did this. He came out in Rolling Stone. I'm gay and Mormon. And that worked for him for a year or whatever until the 11-15-15 policy. And then it all fell apart. And what. What is. What people are worried about is that David, as a member of privilege, as a celebrity, that he's going to get special privileges in terms of what he's allowed to do, including dating, and that that's going to give the world, and Mormons, gay Mormons, the sense that it's safe to date, when in reality, so many LGBTQ Mormons have been put through disciplinary councils, the sacrament, taken away, temple recommends taken away, and even been excommunicated, and so again, kicked out of byu. Kicked out of byu. Exactly. And so, you know, it's really risky if David or Ben or Charlie are telling LGBTQ Mormons, hey, it's safe to date just because they have special privileges, and then other people get harmed for it. That's why.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:24] Well, and I think that's why Charlie doesn't do it. That's why one of the reasons Charlie may not be talking about the subject as it pertains to him, his personal life. He'll talk about the nuances and, like, how different experiences happen to people and blah Blah, blah. But anyway, yeah.

Dating, Marriage, and the Law of Chastity

John Dehlin [01:46:42] All right, so let's play the clip and then hear what, what he has to say about dating.

▶ Video Clip 5

Video Clip 5 [01:46:48] Question.

Video Clip 5 [01:46:49] I mean, I know my answer. What do you think God wants for you in terms of your relationships, your sexuality? Do you know?

Video Clip 5 [01:47:01] And when you say you know the answer, you're talking, you know the answer for him or for God?

Video Clip 5 [01:47:04] I know the answer for everyone.

Video Clip 5 [01:47:06] No, no, no.

Video Clip 5 [01:47:06] I'm saying if you were to ask me, I know what I would say, but there's not a right or wrong answer. I'm curious, like, do you have that notion? Do you think about it a lot? Is God kind of separate from that for you? Because, you know, in my tradition, sex, there's a lot of, there are, there's a lot of writing and analysis over thousands of years about sex and about our relationship where people who really like sex. You're supposed to have sex on a Friday night with your spouse. Very, very specific about sex. But do you think of what, quote, God wants for you? Does that come up for you?

Video Clip 5 [01:47:40] Yeah, it does. Just for me personally, you know, I, and I think in my church, they, they're already, they're always very specific about the expectations of, of saving to have sex until you're married as well. And I guess, I mean, I just never had a problem with that because I didn't have a high sex drive anyway. And so for me it was like, well, it wasn't hard to, for me to keep to that and, and to be honest, still stick to that. You know, I, I'm still saving myself for when I'm with, with whoever I end up marrying. I don't know who that will be, But. And that's not to say that everyone in my religion makes the same choice, even though they still have that same standard and rule kind of to follow by. And it's. Even if it's a rule you break, it doesn't mean that you, you know, I've people in my family who've, who didn't wait till marriage, but they still ended up getting married in the temple, which is where we have like eternal marriage. It's like a big thing. And it's. You're following God's commandments, which, so you can still get married in the temple and follow God's commandments even after you've had sex before marriage. If you're try, if you try to get back on track, you know, if you've made that mistake, say that when, when you were trying to.

Video Clip 5 [01:49:05] It's just.

Video Clip 5 [01:49:06] For me, it's just been Something just because I don't have that desire as much. It's just been easy for me, and I. So I just. I still. And it's still important for me because I'm like, okay, as I'm, like, exploring the rest of this, how can I still, like, hang on to, like, my values and my beliefs in. In my church and that. That's, like, at least one constant thing. As I'm trying to figure out my sexuality and open up a little more to that, into being bisexual or being more attracted to guys, I'm like, at least I can hang on to that and keep that standard for myself, just to keep me tied down to something, you know, so I'm like, you know, okay, I can explore a little bit more my feelings and stuff, but I'm. I'm still just going to stay constant and that I'm going to keep. Save myself for marriage. So what's interesting is I thought that was still a really bad idea if I wanted to follow my church. But as I've talked to some of my church leaders, the law is a lot of chastity. And what one of my church leaders was saying, who's actually quite. He's up there in. In the church leadership of. With Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints.

Video Clip 5 [01:50:16] He.

Video Clip 5 [01:50:17] He just said, well, the law of chastity is the same for a homosexual as it is for heterosexual. So he said, you know, David, it's. I could tell, like, he's like, this is kind of new as well. But he's like. For. He's like. He's like, I don't. I haven't had. I haven't experienced those feelings personally. So I don't know what advice to give to you, but what I can tell you is, like, yeah, we believe that in our church, we have a family proclamation that, like, declares, like, the standard that God has given is marriage between a man and a woman. And he's like. And then we had the law of chastity. He's like, but I don't know what the fine lines and the details are when it doesn't fit that perfect picture.

Video Clip 5 [01:50:56] Putting perfect in quotes. Because that's, you know, even that is a. That's a normative term in saying that. This is what's. You know.

John Dehlin [01:51:05] Wow, that is so. There's so much in that clip, you know.

David Archuleta [01:51:08] I know.

John Dehlin [01:51:09] What do you want to say first? Gerardo, man?

Gerardo Sumano [01:51:11] I don't know.

Speaker D [01:51:12] Like,

Gerardo Sumano [01:51:14] he's definitely taught. Like, if you hear. Everyone can go hear the clip again and hear the whole interview. But he's talking about dating. He first says that he has decided in his mind that he is not gonna have sexual relationships outside of marriage, either with a man or a woman. Because he says, I don't know what person is gonna end up being. And he talks about his attractions being more towards man, even though he identifies kind of like bisexual. And so he says he'll. Even if he ends up with a man, also, he won't have sex before marriage. Right. But he starts talking about exploring and finding out who he's gonna get married, which is like, that means dating, right? And he says, like at one point I was thinking that that was maybe not a good idea, that that wouldn't fit with my religious convictions. But then I was able to talk to this leader who's pretty high up in the church and he told me that because this is kind of new and what he's talking about, this idea of the law of chastity being the same for man, for home, for homosexual, as heterosexual. This is a new idea. And he's right. This, this is pretty recent as to this phrase has been used as of 2019 by Elder Oaks. And then later, two years, a year later in 2020, the Handbook of instructions was changed to reflect that he was saying, like, I don't know what the fine print is into, like, how does that work for dating? You know, because obviously a heterosexual person is not punished for dating someone of their opposite sex. And if. And if the law of chastity applies the same for homosexual, then homosexuals should not be punished for dating someone of their same sex. And that's what he was talking about. So that, that David talks about feeling or. Yeah, feeling the freedom of dating someone of his same sex or exploring that side of his sexuality, which. It's great. That's amazing. Good for David. Amazing that he has context with high up leadership. But what does that mean for everybody else? You know, but what does that mean for people who are at byu? What does that mean for people who are in Latin America or other countries who do not get this kind of information or privilege of getting a high up. A high up on the ladder leader to tell you or kind of give you permission for dating?

John Dehlin [01:53:53] Yeah, absolutely. I want to share a comment from a listener. Catherine writes, I think it's not okay to say that David's using his asexuality label or ace label as a cover. I think we need to trust that David knows himself better than we do and we shouldn't decide that for him. Catherine, I 1000% agree. It is not our job. You know, one of the big problems in any LGBTQ identity, trans identity, non binder identity, non binary gender identity, is that people aren't believed. And so it's really important that when somebody expresses their gender identity that they're believed. So I hope, you know, Katherine, that we agree. Our intent was not to question his expression of sexual identity. In this case, it was only to highlight that David did possibly use some confusing terms because he has, as I understand it, acknowledged sexual attraction, which then makes the, the identity of asexuality a question or problematic. So it's not that we're questioning him, we're just wanting to make sure there isn't a public misunderstanding about what asexuality can mean. But then I think there are people that just love David and aren't trying to question him, and they don't, they don't care what he ends up, how he ends up identifying. They just want to make sure that all the social pressure, all the Mormon pressure, all the pressure from believers allows him to unpack all these layers of suppression so that he can figure out exactly what his identity is. So it's not, in this case, I think the people that are concerned for David, they're not trying to deny whatever identity he arrives at or discourage it. They want to make sure he's given the time and the space to fully figure out whatever and whoever he wants to be. And that made it interesting because as he's talking about still being a virgin, like he's, I don't know how old he is. Do you know how old David archulette is, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:56:04] 20. He's 8.

John Dehlin [01:56:05] Yeah, so like he's almost a 30, 30 year old virgin at this point. And maybe he is asexual, maybe he doesn't experience sexual attraction, but he also talks about getting married someday. And by the way, asexual people do get married. Aromantic people still choose to get married. But it's going to be interesting as he kind of tries to figure all that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thanks, thanks so much to Katherine. We are not trying, we are not trying to, to deny that identity. Did you click this link or did I on accident?

Gerardo Sumano [01:56:39] I did.

John Dehlin [01:56:39] Oh, do you want to talk about this comment?

Gerardo Sumano [01:56:41] Because this is talking again about what? The clip we just played about David and, and his conversation with the, with the high up leader of the church. And so it's again this idea that, that, that, that has been around since 2019, as quoted by pretty sure Elder Oak saying that the law of chastity applies the same for heterosexual as homosexuals. But this viewer is pointing out that the whole purpose of dating in the Mormon paradigm is to lead to marriage and sexual relationship. Homosexuals don't have that option. Yes. So. So, so the idea that Elder Oak put out and that has been out there is that heterosexual and homosexual are gonna. Is gonna be treated the same, except for marriage, because marriage is only between a man and a woman. So it's up. It's kind of like a leadership roulette as to how your bishop, your stake president, understand this assertion, this new understanding that even the leader said that he was new and. And if they will allow you to date or not.

John Dehlin [01:58:05] Yeah, I'm dying to know which general authority he's talking to. Is it Christofferson because he has a gay brother Tom? You know, is it D. Todd Kristofferson because he has a. A gay brother, Tom Kristofferson, who's a dear friend of mine, who I love? Is it Jeffrey R. Holland? Because hopefully it's not Jeffrey R. Holland, Elder Oaks or Elder Oaks or Nelson. Yeah. But I'm dying to know that. I'm also. I think it's pretty candid that he is admitting that these guys don't know what they're doing, that they're just like, I've never been gay, and we've got the law of chastity, and we know you gotta live that, but we also know that you're who you are. Like, I mean, it is. He is highlighting, without directly talking about it, the fact that on the one hand, these people are supposed to be prophet seers and revelators. They're supposed to know God's mind and will. Why don't they just freaking pray to God and say, God, what is the gay or lesbian law of chastity? What should or shouldn't happen? But I think it's kind of cool and candid that he's just saying these guys are kind of clueless on this and they're just figuring it out as they go along. Which to me begs the question of what does it mean to be a prophet, Sierra Revelator. And what's the value of it if you can't even get revelation on an issue that's causing thousands to take their own lives? Like, it's really in so much heartache and pain and frankly, black eyes to the Mormon Church, you would think that God would make it a priority to give some really clear revelation about this, but apparently we're 50 years into this LGBT crisis in Mormonism, and still the Prophets, seers and revelators are going, oh, I don't know. I don't know, you know?

How Mormon Sexual Ethics Have Evolved

Gerardo Sumano [01:59:41] Yep, yep. Yeah. But I think we need to do an episode, John, on how I. I was listening to the. Some recent episodes that you've done. We're talking about pornography and that kind of stuff. I think it will be important to talk, to make do an episode soon about how the law of chastity has been redefined in the. In Mormonism, officially, the Handbook of Instructions has changed the wording and the way it has formatted the Law of chastity up to the point that today there can be again, like, nuanced bishops or stake presidents who allow their LGBT members from their word to date people of their same sex. And I know the church has softened the stances, at least officially, in the handbook and instructions for bishops and sick priests on pornography and masturbation. And those are things that we. We should cover on Mormon stories because although it's not being practiced generally and it's not the norm yet, I think from the top, they're trying to give more liberty for bishops and stake presidents to take their own decisions as to how to handle these situations. But I'll just give you another example about porn. It seems like officially on the Handbook of Instructions, the church may be recommending not taking any type of action for members who watch pornography unless it is compulsive. So that's just something that's. That's something interesting that has changed in the last decades or so.

John Dehlin [02:01:36] So, yeah, fascinating. There's a. There's a comment that I think is interesting as well, and I, you know, I don't believe this comment, but it's a. But it's an introduction to something that I think is important. So Queen Crusader writes, david will be allowed to date as long as he is not public with his relationships. As soon as he keeps his dating in the closet, he will be allowed to do what he pleases. I don't know whether this is true or not, what Queen Crusader says. What I do know is that for many, many people who worked inside the church at the time Tyler Glenn was working on his Excommunication album and was eventually working with. With Dan Reynolds for the Believer documentary. I've been told by several sources that even though many, many LGBTQ Mormons before, during and after Tyler Glenn were being. Were receiving church discipline, getting excommunicated for doing far less than what Tyler Glenn did, which eventually meant spitting on the face of Joseph Smith in his documentary, stripping down to his garments. I Mean his music videos stripping down to his garments and his music videos coming on Mormon stories and saying all the reasons why he didn't believe in the church anymore, any of those things, along with, you know, likely dating and even being sexually active, you know, in spite of all those things, any one of those things being an excommunicable offense within Mormonism, the word rent went around in church headquarters quarters that, that Tyler Glenn was to be left alone. In other words, they decided, the church leaders decided that, that even though lots of rank and file LGBTQ Mormons were going to get excommunicated and receive church discipline, they made a PR decision, they made a personal decision that the, the catastrophe that the downside of doing anything disciplinary wise, that Tyler Glenn was going to hurt the church more than fairly enforce, you know, it was going to do more damage to punish Tyler than to just leave him alone. And so Tyler got special treatment in that way and he never experienced any church discipline. And that was a conscious decision from the top of the church. And what that shows is that double standards do exist and that celebrities get special treatment. And that's what David Archuleta is receiving and will receive, because the church will always be afraid of the consequences of a public scandal that would reach global proportions. And so that's why it's problematic for David to be a spokesperson for the LGBTQ Mormon experience simply because he is and will continue. He is receiving and he will continue to receive special privileges and special treatment as a celebrity. Yeah, true.

Gerardo Sumano [02:04:41] Yeah, 100%. And I know the same applies for Charlie Bird. And we need to remember also that maybe what's rooted into all these decisions that the church makes regarding public figures is the idea that disciplinary councils and disciplinary actions by the church, one of the most important reasons why they exist is, and it's explicitly on the Handbook of Instruction, is to protect the good name of the church. So if not holding a disciplinary council will protect the good name of the church better than holding it, they're gonna decide to just keep quiet and not. And not touch these public figures anyway.

John Dehlin [02:05:28] And I think members would want to think that the brethren would enforce its disciplinary rules equally amongst Jesus would do. Probably you would think Jesus would not worry about PR and public polls and people's perception. So I think it's disturbing for some that, you know, the church discipline would be selective based on political and media and PR considerations and someone's celebrity status. Yeah. So that's problematic. Okay. The next, the next clip that you wanted to talk about was the host explains why Mormons have tons of babies, and family is sacred. Should we roll that?

Gerardo Sumano [02:06:09] All right. That's interesting. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:11] All right.

▶ Video Clip 6

Video Clip 6 [02:06:12] You know, perfect. And. And also, I think it's important to realize that the monotheistic religions in particular, have a very strong interest in preserving, making babies, because these are very old communities where people were constantly under attack, and there was a lot of division in terms of which property went where and who went where. And if you had the bigger army, you often were able to. To. To garner more land. The. The fact that men could have more than one wife biblically is actually the basis for Joseph Smith in the early days having polygamy as part of the Mormon Church, which is completely separate from the Mormon Church. It has been denounced by the church, but that notion is. It's thousands of years old. And it's the way a lot of communities, not just Jewish and Christian communities, a lot of communities, had this kind of structure. And how do we encourage people to stay with the tribe and to make soldiers? I mean, it's very, you know, to make soldiers and to make workers. So there was a tremendous emphasis. And. And I know this, you know, in particular from Judaism, like, there was a lot of pomp and circumstance around that. It's very special. It's very sacred. It's very important. It's a man and a woman, you know, of course, because that's how you make bab. You know, to. To do all the work.

Video Clip 6 [02:07:41] I'm hearing that we don't have enough soldiers, you and I. I mean, no, we.

Video Clip 6 [02:07:44] We. We need to start building our army. There's a children's book.

John Dehlin [02:07:51] All right, Gerardo, what. Tell us what you thought was interesting about that.

Gerardo Sumano [02:07:59] Sorry. There we go. This is very interesting because the host, without knowing the. About the history of Mormonism, she's able to point out why family in Mormonism is so sacred and why the church has such a hard time with homosexuality. And it's because the family and having babies and marriage between a man and a woman is rooted in the fact of trying. Trying to protect people. A community that has been persecuted and trying to grow it. You know, like Mormon history tells us that about, like, how the pioneers crossed the plains and came to Utah, try to populate a whole and create a whole state that. That required this notion and this idea of having having lots of babies and. And protect the community from extinction.

Speaker D [02:08:56] So.

Gerardo Sumano [02:08:59] And I would recommend anyone that's interested in this subject, Taylor Petrie. He's an amazing scholar, and he's involved with dialogue. I'm not one Hundred percent sure of his title. But he wrote a book called Tabernacles of Clay where he talks about this, how this idea of marriages between man and a woman and misogynism and heteronormative relationships and patriarchy, how these ideas have evolved throughout Mormonism, how they were created and why they were important to their religion and why there may still be important and how we can understand them in the context of how the church has, has a hard time with, with homosexuality.

David Archuleta [02:09:55] And.

Gerardo Sumano [02:09:57] And so yeah, I just thought it was really interesting that the host point pointed all that out.

John Dehlin [02:10:04] I love it. And I'll put a link to the Tabernacles of Clay book in the show notes. And I really do think that the whole proclamation of the family, I think that the church's historical stance on gay and lesbian members and even its stance on gender transition, gender identity, it's rooted in this need for numbers that you want to grow. You know, a church grows primarily by having lots of babies. Even in the modern church, the missionary effort is proving to be so futile. The activity rates of converts globally right now in the Mormon Church is so pathetic. You're getting like 10% retention of converts throughout the world. The only reason the church isn't literally shrinking right now, the only reason the Mormon Church isn't shrinking is because of its birth rate. And we already know that millennials and Gen Z and Gen Xers are having less babies than, than boomers. And so the church is terrified that a decrease in children is going to mean less members, less missionaries, less workers, less volunteers, less money, less tithing. And so supporting, I'm sure subconsciously, if not consciously, the Mormon Church says if we allow same sex attraction, same sex marriage, gender transitions, it's going to just affect our numbers. And I think the church is already hemorrhaging, so. And plus the Book of Mormon, silent on same sex sexuality, the Doctrine and Covenants is completely silent. Jesus was completely silent. And Joseph Smith.

Gerardo Sumano [02:11:48] Let me mention something that Elder Bedner was just quoted in the Church News for being in, I think it was somewhere in Utah and at a conference. And he said the Book of Mormon is not a book of history. It's a book of the future. It's a book about the future. I just wonder like if it's a book about. And he explains how it's a book for our times. If it's for our times, why doesn't it mention about one of the most important issues that have, has affected or keeps affecting the church today, which is the fact that LGBT people, people Are. Are real and they exist, and they are keep being born and raised as Mormons. So.

John Dehlin [02:12:30] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And somebody makes the point. One of our listeners makes the point. Liz says it's not like gay people don't want children. It seems to me it would make more sense to let gay people get married and encourage them to have a lot of kids. I agree, Liz, if. If those decisions were made rationally. But. But we don't always, you know, we don't always make rational decisions as human beings. Okay, you highlighted a clip about David receiving revelation. Should we jump to that?

Gerardo Sumano [02:12:59] I think let's just skip that one. I don't think it's okay. Well, I can go.

John Dehlin [02:13:03] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [02:13:03] We're already going long, and we're still.

John Dehlin [02:13:05] We're not going long. This is short for more. I'm just kidding. This is short for Mormonster. Okay. The final clip is. Is one about permission to make mistakes. Did. Was that. Oh, was that the overall clip or was that a specific clip?

Elder Holland's Response and Public Fallout

Gerardo Sumano [02:13:18] That's the all. So that's. That's how the host decided to tit. To. To title the. The. The episode.

John Dehlin [02:13:25] So should we play that clip?

Gerardo Sumano [02:13:26] Yeah.

▶ Video Clip 7

Video Clip 7 [02:13:27] Okay, let's play that clip. Last question. If someone out there who's listening is feeling, as you said earlier, should I

Video Clip 7 [02:13:35] really be doing this?

Video Clip 7 [02:13:35] Am I nuts?

Video Clip 7 [02:13:36] If they're going against the grain, if they're sort of stepping out of their comfort zone, if they're questioning something that they're not sure that they can talk about, what would you tell them?

Video Clip 7 [02:13:43] I would say, like, it's. You won't know unless you try. And what I learned from my relationship with God when I was like, should I really be going in and exploring my sexuality? He said, I give you permission to make mistakes. So I just want to pass that along to you. Whether you know or whether you don't know, you won't know unless you try. And you are okay to make mistakes because that's how you learn. That's how you grow some of the best. Some of the people will go listen, like, pay to listen to their TED Talks and stuff. It's because of the things they've overcome, not because they've made every single right choice that ever in life and never messed up. It's because when they fell and fell hard, they managed to get back up. So give yourself that opportunity to rise again.

John Dehlin [02:14:33] All right, Gerardo, what'd you. What'd you think of that?

Gerardo Sumano [02:14:36] I think this is a pretty good concept, in my opinion. Just that we're not always going to be right about our decisions. And that if we're trying to, as a super orthodox believing LGBT person watches this and receives this counsel from David, maybe this idea of, like, giving themselves permission to make mistakes and exploring who they are, their sexuality, their attractions could bring positive outcomes. Although I would say in some ways could be a little bit problematic phrasing or just putting the. The. The idea of dating people of your same sex as a sin or as a mistake could maybe be problematic. But overall, I think it's a good approach, honestly, for orthodox members as a place to where to start to explore their identity.

John Dehlin [02:15:49] Love it. Yeah, I love this idea of permission to make mistakes. And my only reaction is I wish the Mormon Church would be more proactive about allowing people to do that, but as long as they have the threat of church discipline and excommunication and marginalization, etc, which is still very real, you know, the church is still excommunicating couples who get same sex married. They're still excommunicating. They're still kicking students out of BYU if they're found making mistakes. You know, they're still marginalizing and punishing LGBTQ members who do work to figure out their identity. So, you know, that's. That's the rub, right?

Gerardo Sumano [02:16:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:34] Well, this is a really fascinating interview, and I just want to. You know, she probably won't ever hear this, but I just want to give a shout out to Mayim Bialik for doing this interview and for getting David to come on, because I think it opens up an important discussion. I also want to just give David Archuleta a shout out for being willing to be vulnerable and talk open openly about what he's experiencing, because it's just never. It's never fun to be in the public eye. I'm sure he's getting attacked by all sides. I hope people don't feel like in this episode so far we've attacked him, you know, but here we are really quickly. Gerardo, I know you feel like we're running out of time, and we are over two hours you had. You had felt some pretty strong things about. You know, we all know that Elder of Mormon Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, as we mentioned at the beginning, gave a speech recently at BYU where he used war metaphors. He talked about picking up your arms and picking up your muskets. In this, in the context of the LGBTQ Mormon discourse, basically calling on BYU faculty and professors to defend the church, which made many wonder whether that meant attack LGBTQ people or defend the church at the expense of LGBTQ people, because that was the context of the talk. And then he went on to publicly insult Matt Easton, BYU valedictorian, who only mentioned that he was gay in his valedictorian speech. And then Elder Holland accused Matt Easton of hijacking the entire graduation ceremony. So we know that that happened. What you call my attention to was a little Instagram post that David Archuleta made that made you feel some feelings. So tell us what you. Is there anything you want to say about that? And do you want to take the time to play and react to that video or maybe do that later?

Gerardo Sumano [02:18:25] No, I think. Let's just do it. It's just a few minutes long, so I think it's. It's. It's great in this context. Like, I feel like a couple people comment. Commented about David Archuleta being an apologist. I think in this and in this Instagram post that he made, he is giving an apologetic reaction and apologetic response to what l. Elder Holland said and trying to pretty much say, like, oh, we gotta cut some slack. We gotta cut Elder Holland some slack. And I don't know how. How. I don't know how effective that is. As if. If our purpose is to move the Mormon Church into a more. Into a more healthy space.

John Dehlin [02:19:26] All right, so we'll. We'll start playing it. Gerardo, I'll ask you to just call out, pause whenever you want me to pause, because we. We didn't break this up into chunks. Is that okay?

Gerardo Sumano [02:19:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:36] Okay, here we go.

▶ Video Clip 8

Video Clip 8 [02:19:38] And respect someone. You know, Elder Holland, he's someone who's been very loved, respected, given amazing talks throughout the years that have helped a lot of people with the relationship with God, including myself, you know, and that's boss.

Video Clip 8 [02:19:52] So I just.

Video Clip 8 [02:19:52] I have love for.

John Dehlin [02:19:53] Okay,

Gerardo Sumano [02:19:56] yeah. This is a comment that was made by so many people how amazing Elder Holland stocks are, how spiritually uplifting he is. But if you go and look at what he has said about LGBT people in the past, it's not that great. He said some really homophobic stuff in general conference before he has a talk where he says, like, it's fine if you have same sex attraction, but don't plant. Jesus said, come as you are, but don't plan to stay as you are and stuff like that. Kind of like alluding to conversion therapy or alluding to, like, being able to change your. Your. Your sexuality. So, yeah, Elder Holland can be all this amazing stuff, but he has his very problematic views about homosexuality. You've met Elder Holland, John, and I think you've said on the. In the past that Elder Holland. It can be like, 1. What can give you this sense of, like, what he thinks about some stuff privately, but then publicly say completely the opposite, Right? Or.

John Dehlin [02:21:06] Absolutely, yeah. Elder Holland has shown me to be a smart man, a man who can make you feel really good when you're with him, but someone who you experience him as duplicitous because he'll. He'll make you feel like he really gets and understands you in private. And then he'll say really terrible, awful, offensive, hurtful things in public that show that. That make you wonder how much he understood you at all, that make you feel like he's just really good at telling whoever he's. He's really good at making whoever he's with feel good about who they are, but not in a way that has kind of intellectual integrity. That's been my experience, and not just your experience.

Gerardo Sumano [02:21:52] That has been Bill Real's experience, I'm pretty sure, as well. And. And some other people who have had personal interactions with Elder Holland. So I think it's important to call that out because David is giving unapologetic context as to Elder Holland's personality and who he is as a. As a church leader.

John Dehlin [02:22:09] Also, it's just important to call out the power differential. I mean, David is a believing member. He doesn't want to get excommunicated. He. He depends on the church for support, for family, for community, for friendships, for his reputation, probably for some of his fan base, you know, for opportunities. I'm sure they pay him when he sings with the choir, if he does that, or when he performs at byu. Like, I can tell you from, you know, being friends with certain Mormon pop artists, that when you go against the church, it's not good for your pop career. I can just tell you that for sure. So there are all sorts of ways that when David, you know, says kind things about Elder Holland, you have to acknowledge the power differential, that if he doesn't say nice things about church leaders, let alone if he publicly were to criticize them, there could be very severe ramifications. And that makes it so you have to ask, is he even free to say what he really thinks about Elder Holland?

Gerardo Sumano [02:23:07] You know, look at what happened to Ben Park.

John Dehlin [02:23:10] Yeah, Benjamin Park. But not just him. Tyler Glenn and Mindy Gledhill. And, you know, so many people get hurt and punished for speaking publicly against the church. You know, so he's not even free to, even if he wanted to. All right, let's keep going with this clip for him.

▶ Video Clip 9

Video Clip 9 [02:23:29] And I have love for everyone who felt they were unseen and who felt hurt by some of the comments and how it's been interpreted. And the conversations it started, which I actually think are really good. The conversations that are starting because of this, I feel like this miscommunication that is going on, I feel so important. And had this not happened and had it not started this conversation, I feel like we wouldn't be able to make the progress that needs to continue being made as far as understanding where each other is coming from and why that valedictorian speech was important. You know, was it a place to come out? Well, I feel like there maybe there wasn't really an opportunity to be heard before that point. And just like when. Whenever the first woman may have been chosen as valedictorian, she may not. You could. Maybe she didn't have to announce she was a woman, even though I don't think it would have hurt. But you could see that she was probably at that time. And with. When your sexuality is different or your attractions, I like to say as well, who you're just naturally attracted to. It's not something you can see. It's something that we've kind of had to hide to continue, or we hid because we felt like that's what that was the right thing to do. Or like, not just hide, but just try and wish away.

Video Clip 9 [02:24:51] You know, that's my personal experience.

Video Clip 9 [02:24:56] So for someone to say that openly at a church college and say, you know what help people know, like, you can have a place where you can belong and you can become a valedictorian. Even here at byu, I feel like it's. Is hopeful, be like, you know what? I'm not all bad then I'm not all wrong. I can still be the way I am, experience what I experience, and still go be a valedictorian at byu. I think that is important now. That's where you. I don't think you have to agree just because you love and respect someone. You don't have to agree with everything that comes out of their mouth. Even if they're a church leader and an apostle in the church, they can say many, many wonderful things, but they're still a human being. And so I feel like. Like my mom or my sisters who I. I go to a lot for advice or just to get through perspective and opinion. I love them and I respect them. I value their opinion. But a lot of times I don't always agree with what they tell me. And a lot of times we can. I can get upset by some of the things they tell me. That doesn't mean that I completely say never. I'm never talking to you again. Get away from me. We have to have those hard conversations with each other to understand better where we're coming from. And Jesus Christ called his apostles too, and they had to figure things out.

Gerardo Sumano [02:26:17] Okay, yeah, let's stop here. So he's just, he pretty much started explaining why Matt Easton may. May be justified coming out as a valid. I think we've covered this in Mormon stories. To me it's as simple as, like he was chosen to be a valedictorian. He can say whatever he wants as soon as he's approved. He was approved. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:26:42] The dean approved his talk. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:26:44] Right, right. So that, that, that's the end of the conversation for me. So having Elder Holland come and not just call him out for coming out, but lie and say that he hijacked or commandeered took over the. Without authorization of the graduate of graduation, that's like, that's a lie. And, and that's accusing someone of. That's of something that was not true. That didn't happen that way. Anyway, so David is just trying to explain. Explain why Matt Easton may be justified of doing it anyway. And he thinks he is, but anyway. And then he just starts talking about why we should cut some Elder Holland some slack, why we should be more compassionate towards what Elder, Elder Holland may have said. Just explaining how his mom sometimes give him. Gives. Give him advice that he doesn't necessarily agree with or follows and how. And he will start talking about how Jesus called imperfect apostles. What are your thoughts about that, John?

John Dehlin [02:27:56] I mean, I do think it's true that. I mean, all humans are perfect. And I think even if you were talk to Elder Holland privately, he would tell you he's not perfect. And I think even the church is okay with it being said in unofficial ways that the church leaders aren't perfect. And maybe it's even been mentioned once or twice in general conference here or there. So I agree with him that they're imperfect and I like that he's saying that publicly. I just think that the culture within Mormonism doesn't allow. I mean, the temple, the Mormon temple ceremony explicitly prohibits criticism of church leaders. And Elder Oaks, the second in command in the Mormon Church, is on record as saying it's wrong to criticize Mormon church leaders, even if the criticism is accurate. So while David is saying that, and I'm glad he's saying it, and it takes a bit of courage to say that there's still a deep, deep problem within Mormonism of it being against church policy to criticize the church leaders. And so it's one thing, as I learned myself, having been excommunicated, it's one thing to be able to say, yeah, the church leaders aren't perfect. But as soon as you go and say, well, these are the mistakes they've made, you get excommunicated. And that's just a fact. And that's the one thing you literally can't do ever is criticize the church leaders. And so, you know, there's a problem. I worry that he may give a little bit of a misperception there. A tiny bit, you know.

Gerardo Sumano [02:29:34] Yeah. And the fact that Elder Holland will not and does not apologize.

Speaker D [02:29:38] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [02:29:38] Like he, if it's a mistake, why doesn't he come out and gives, gives an apology as, as he has done in the past for telling, like, stories that were proven false and stuff like that? And why are people like Benjamin park being persecuted for calling out very valid reasons why his Elder Holland's talk was problematic? And then is that really saying that church leaders are imperfect if, like, they're persecuting people who talk openly about why things they've said are problematic?

John Dehlin [02:30:16] You know, so, yeah, yeah, it's a real problem. All right, let's keep going.

▶ Video Clip 10

Video Clip 10 [02:30:21] Yeah, too when they were, they had differing opinions with different, you know, when they were going out and preaching to the different saints in the New Testament or when they were figuring out whether Christ really, really was resurrected from the dead or not. You know, it took Tom Thomas a while to figure out if to believe.

Video Clip 10 [02:30:44] He said, I have to see it

Video Clip 10 [02:30:45] before I can believe. But he was still an apostle. They're human beings who experience things who have to learn and grow. Even Jesus Christ himself grew from grace to grace. You know, he wasn't born an adult man who could speak and stuff. He was born a baby in a manger who had to be taken care of as he grew. And no matter how old we are, we're still, we're always going to need to grow and learn and understand. So I just want to give compassion to everybody and I, so that we can have the conversations that we need to have right now, which I think are wonderful conversations. And sometimes it's an uncomfortable process to get there. But I'm thankful that we are really quickly.

John Dehlin [02:31:25] I, I, I want, I want you to be leading this conversation, but I just want to say that it's one thing to acknowledge that Mormon prophets and apostles are imperfect. It's another thing to acknowledge the severity, the hypocrisy. And the severity. The severity is that, you know, we have an epidemic of LGBTQ youth, LGBTQ youth and young adult death by suicide in Utah and throughout Mormonism, not to mention the anxiety and the depression and the celibacy and the mixed orientation marriages that fail at rates of 70%. And so it's not just that, like, oh, he trips sometimes, or sometimes they burp or sometimes they say a bad word. There's an issue of a real public health crisis within Utah and within Mormonism that the church has known about for decades, and they've been ignoring, and it's causing divorce, depression, anxiety, suicide. It's a serious issue. So it's. I worry that he's understating the problem a little bit by sort of relying on the straw man of, hey, everybody's imperfect, you know, sometimes, you know, Peter. Peter had some questions about Jesus, and Thomas doubted. So let's give everyone. Let's give everyone. Let's give Brother Joseph a break. I think that doesn't acknowledge the severity of the problem and of the crisis. And then the only other thing I wanted to say is that there's this hypocrisy, because, yes, give the brethren a break, but give us a break. Give Sam Young a break. Give Bill Real a break. Give all the LGBTQ couples that have been excommunicated a break. Give Dusty B. A break. You know, give. Give. You know, the church is still punishing and excommunicating not just LGBTQ Mormons, but anyone who comes out and speaks out, in a way, publicly disagreeing with the church and criticizing the church leaders for all the carnage, they're getting punished and excommunicated. So there's a bit of a double standard there where the brethren get compassion and a break, but then the church turnarounds and is literally sending to hell anyone who. Who dares criticize the church leaders for very, very credible reasons, let alone all the LGBTQ people that are literally being excommunicated for legally marrying their love. You know what I mean? There's just a hypocrisy there.

Gerardo Sumano [02:33:50] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:33:51] Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I just had to say that if

Speaker E [02:33:54] this hadn't happened with this other Holland talk, I don't think we would be able to have this more on the table kind of discussion that we are now.

Gerardo Sumano [02:34:04] So stop there. Stop there again. Okay, so. So was Elder Holland's. Like, we needed to have Elder Holland's talk to be able to have conversations about how problematic the church is. I Don't know, like, because that's kind of what he said, right? He said, like, if this talk hadn't happened, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So it was kind of like, oh, so good that he happened because now we're having.

John Dehlin [02:34:34] I mean, it's true. Like, if you watch the movie Milk, it's an amazing movie. It's about the, the lgbtq, you know, Martin Luther King equivalent. Harvey Milk, may he rest in peace. He makes the, he makes this point in the movie, and he died, I think, in the 70s or 80s, but he made this point that every time there's massive public opposition that's unjust against LGBTQ people, that it leads to backlash and that any defeat results in eventual success. And we saw that with Prop 8, that the horrific policies of the Mormon church with Prop 8, where they're fighting the legalization of same sex marriage in a sovereign state in the United States states that. That had backlash that led to the legalization of marriage all throughout the United States, or the horrendous November 2015 policy led to backlash that ended up overturning that policy. Like, it's true that when the Mormon Church makes horrific, you know, deadly decisions, that it leads to conversation and backlash. But, but again, that, that, that begs the question, why do we have prophet seers and revelators, Right? If these guys are talking to God and Jesus, you wouldn't think that the way positive change would be made would be that they would make deadly decisions that would cause all this carnage for generations, and then they'd be like, oh, we caused the suffering and death of thousands of people, not to mention divorces and carnage. Let's learn a thing or two. You think that what it would mean to be a prophet, seer and revelator is you would go, oh, let's talk to God and Jesus. Let's figure out how to prevent. I mean, isn't that what prophecy and seership and revelation is for? Let's figure out how to prevent bad things from happening. Let's get the revelation proactively ahead of time, and then let's proactively make the policy to prevent the carnage. But that's kind of not what's happening.

Speaker E [02:36:33] No.

John Dehlin [02:36:34] And it begs the question, why do we have prophets? What do prophet seers and revelators do? If, because what's really happening is the Mormon prophets, sees and revelators are causing carnage, then it's activists and spokespeople that criticize the church, they get excommunicated and punished for speaking the truth. And then the church later reactively will quietly make the change without ever apologizing and without ever acknowledging the, the literal heroes that, that helped instigate for the change that were punished as a thank you for helping the church make positive change.

Gerardo Sumano [02:37:12] Yeah. And it, yeah, well, it begs the questions how, how much, how, how real their prophetic power is if all they're doing is making mistakes. Like, right. Like 2015 policy a mistake. Their conversion therapy ideas, a mistake. Their teachings about being homosexual, a mistake. Special Kimball ideas a mistake. Elder Packer saying in general conference all this stuff about homosexuality, a mistake. So is it all about mistakes and, and then like, or are they real true prophet seers and revelators?

John Dehlin [02:37:49] Yeah, I mean, that's the question. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna like make fun of David. I mean, when you watch this talk by David, don't you get a sense for how sweet and almost innocent and childlike he is? I mean, that's why I drew that comparison to Michael Jackson, because he just comes across as this sweet, innocent, good hearted guy. Don't you think?

Gerardo Sumano [02:38:12] Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [02:38:14] And you just get the sense that he's kind of new to this and he hasn't thought a lot about the church. He doesn't know a lot of its history. He doesn't, he still has, has kind of an innocent, naive view about the leadership. And it makes me want to give him a big, big hug and say, what a sweet guy. But I think he's also, I worry he's being used as a spokesperson for the church. I also just want to add one really quick thing. That's just a comment that someone mentioned. They mentioned that he, you know, he recently performed at a, at in Oakland at a temple opening. Just like last night or yesterday he performed at a temple opening in, in Oakland. And then we also know that recently he, he performed at byu. And I, I don't mean to question his motivations, but I am going to say this, that if it turns out that David Archuleta is being paid by the Mormon Church to perform at BYU to be a spokesperson for the church, to use his influence to make the church look good on LGBTQ issues, and if in fact he's being paid to perform at things like the Oakland Temple, temple opening or whatever, that does call into question somewhat a conflict of interest because it basically says, yeah, you're talking nice about Holland. Yeah, you're saying nice things about the church. And if you're doing all those things pro bono, if you're doing all those things for free, then that's fine. But if the church is paying you, David Archuleta, then it's deeply problematic that you're being an LGBTQ spokesperson for the church if you're on the payroll. And I don't know what's true, but I think conflicts of interest are real, and. And they are fair game when lives are literally at stake.

Gerardo Sumano [02:40:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:40:17] Did I go too far on that, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [02:40:19] No, I think I. I think it's. It's fair to ask the question. For sure.

John Dehlin [02:40:24] Yeah. All right, let's close out this. This video.

Final Reflections and Closing Thoughts

Speaker E [02:40:27] I just always say I don't have all the answers, but I'm more than happy to start conversations. Conversations to help people walk along together so that we can find answers together and help people understand each other and have more love for each other and also more love for our. Our God and Heavenly Father, who loves each of us so personally, so deeply as. As we are, and always wanting to show us the. The way forward, forward. Closer to him and to be a light and an instrument in his hands. So that's all. And. Yeah. Have a wonderful day. That's all.

John Dehlin [02:41:13] All right.

Gerardo Sumano [02:41:14] He's so sweet.

John Dehlin [02:41:16] He is a sweetheart, right?

Gerardo Sumano [02:41:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:41:19] Yeah. I don't mean to trash him, by the way. There's a lot of people commenting on that question about conflict and of interest. Somebody writes, you know, he's not getting paid, John. Somebody else writes, you know, let that. Oh, okay. So here it is. Jazz. Jazz. LVR says he isn't getting paid. Let that one go, John. Like, I don't. Has he gone on record? Like, do we know that? Like, the church isn't transparent in its finances, and that's part of the problem.

Gerardo Sumano [02:41:51] So, yeah, I think it's. I think it's fair to assume that. That he is being paid for the concerts. Right. Like that. That's his livelihood.

John Dehlin [02:41:59] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:00] And that's not bad.

John Dehlin [02:42:01] No.

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:02] But the fact that he is. His job is tied to how he talks about the church and his experience with the church. That could be problematic.

John Dehlin [02:42:11] Yeah. And somebody else wrote, why are you. You know, that same person wrote, why are you assuming, you know, he's getting paid? I think I made it pretty clear. I don't know. And that I'm. I'm just asking the question. I don't know if he's getting paid. I think maybe he owes it to tell us if he's getting paid or the church owes us to tell us if he's getting paid, but I am not assuming that he's getting paid. I Have no idea if he's getting paid because the Mormon Church is not transparent with the. His finances.

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:42:44] Yeah. All right, Gerardo. Well, this has been amazing. I. I think we've worked hard to be respectful. I hope David knows that we care about him, we love him, we respect him, and I hope he doesn't feel like we unfairly attacked him. I welcome him to. Reach out to me at MormonStories gmail.com or DM me on Instagram. We would love to interview you, David. I would love to get your response. That channel is open. I hope we've been respectful. Gerardo, anything you want to say in closing?

Gerardo Sumano [02:43:12] No, I think this was great. Thanks for. For doing this episode, John. This is. This has been amazing, and I hope people liked it. I hope he. If some LGBT member of the church finds this video out there, they'll be more informed about the church's history and putting David's experience more in context as to what the reality is in for the majority of people.

John Dehlin [02:43:45] I love it.

Gerardo Sumano [02:43:46] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:43:46] Thank you, Gerardo. Thanks for doing this. Oh, really important. Before you guys, drop off, someone who I really know and care about made me aware last night of a really important petition that's going around. Basically, imagine being an LGBTQ student in Utah, hearing Jeffrey R. Holland's call to pick up your muskets and fight basically against the LGBTQ agenda in defense of the church. Imagine being a student at a public university who's LGBTQ in Utah and knowing that one of the buildings at your public college is named after Jeffrey R. Holland, the same apostle that basically called people to arms. And so Dixie State University, which I think is getting a new name. But right now, Dixie State University students there have started a petition basically calling on the removal of Jeffrey R. Holland's name from one of the buildings there. I think it's the Centennial Commons, and I think that's. You know, I've had people reach out to me and say, this is an initiative that means a lot to students at Dixie State University. I think that makes a lot of sense to me. We don't want people using militant homophobic rhetoric. We don't want their names on the buildings as we walk by them every day as students, especially at a public university where religion is supposed to be separated from state, where church and state are supposed to be separated. So I am going to share. Share the link to this petition in both the show notes and also in the chat on YouTube and on Facebook. And I want to encourage everyone to sign that and everybody to please share that far and wide, if you feel sympathy or solidarity with the Dixie State University LGBTQ students who are disturbed by Elder Holland's hateful and homophobic rhetoric that, you know, that that has hurt a lot of people and that Elder Holland has, has ferociously said he will not apologize for. I think that, I think that bears mentioning. I also just want to give a shout out to my dear friend Kyle Ashworth, who has an amazing resource, not only the podcast Latter Gay Stories, but also this amazing PDF which chronicles the history of the Mormon Church and and LGBTQ people. I hope David Archuleta will read this if he hasn't, and I hope that anyone who cares about LGBTQ Mormons will consult this amazing PDF. It's kind of like the CES letter for LGBTQ Mormon issues. And also check out Kyle's amazing podcast YouTube channel and podcast that, you know, inter. It's. It's a basically a gay ex Mormon, you know, interviewing other gay Mormons and ex Mormons. And he does an amazing job. This PDF is amazing and I have to just give Kyle a shout out or I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Speaker E [02:47:00] Yeah. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:47:01] Kyle's work is amazing and important.

John Dehlin [02:47:04] And Gerardo, you're freaking amazing and you're a legend. So thank you. Not just for, for what you do for, you know, for Mormon Stories and its cinematography, but also just what you do for the LGBTQ Mormon and post Mormon community. You've done so much and for Mormons all over and post Mormons all over, you are a legend as well, and I'm grateful for you.

Gerardo Sumano [02:47:28] Thanks, John. Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:47:30] All right, take care, Gerardo. And you're joining us Tuesday night. Do you want to talk about what's, what's on going coming up Tuesday night?

Gerardo Sumano [02:47:37] Yeah. So everyone buckle up. Like we're having Simon Saladran, geneticist from Australia, who has responded to the DNA and Book of Mormon gospel topic essay in the past and has written a book about it, has talked about, has debunked the apologetic arguments that the church uses about DNA issues and the Book of Mormon. Well, we're bringing him on and he's going to be talking about the rot Meldrum and his, his organization and the heartland theory that says that the Book of Mormon events took place in, in, in the United States and his and he Meldrum puts a lot of events and makes a lot of money out of his organization. And he has been called out before by even Mormon apologist Ugo Perego, who is a geneticist as well. And so we're gonna have Simon coming in and talking about all this stuff and about why. Why the Heartland theory is pretty much a scam.

John Dehlin [02:49:00] Not that we're biased or anything. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [02:49:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:05] All right. All right. Look forward to that. Gerardo, you're the best. Thank you so much for all you do. We'll see you again soon. Gerardo, thanks so much.

Gerardo Sumano [02:49:12] Sounds good.

John Dehlin [02:49:12] All right. You take care. And listeners, thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. I want to thank everyone who participated in the chat, everyone who donated through the Super Chat feature. You can donate to Mormon Stories in the Open Stories foundation through clicking on the little dollar sign next to the chat box. Those donations go directly to the Open Stories Foundation. They pay for Gerardo, me, Kara Burrell, Brooklyn. All, all the expenses, cinematography, web hosting, web design, marketing, all the things your donations make this possible. So thanks to everyone who donated through the Super Chat. Thanks to everyone who donates directly to the Open Stories foundation and Mormon Stories. You can click on Mormon Stories. You can go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button at the top of the page. Become a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can afford. These donations are tax deductible. We're transparent in our finances. And all the money, 100% of the money goes to the mission of Mormon Stories, which is to educate Mormons and non Mormons about Mormonism, to support Mormons in their transition, to support progressive and post Mormons who have or need to leave the church and to create community of support for people who are struggling. Wanna remind everyone about the Thrive event November 14th. We're gonna have 1000, 2000 post Mormons and progressive Mormons at the Salt palace talking about really important things. Latter day lesbians will be there. RFM will be there. Bill Reel will be there. Sarah Edmondson of former NXIVM cult survivor of a little bit culty podcast from HBO's the Vow. She'll be there. Lance Allred, from, you know, former NBA player, the first legally deaf NBA player, played with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers will be there. So many other cool speakers are going to be there. Luna, Lindsay Corbden, author of the book on undue influence and recovering agency. Natasha Helfer, myself, Margi, lots of us will be there. Please come and support us. Go to thrivebeyondreligion.com to register now. It's super cheap and we really, we've, you know, we've put down over $10,000 to reserve the Salt palace and we really need people to attend so please register now for that event. We will put in the show notes the the registration link because it's just going to be it's going to be a great event. Thrive Day November 14th please please come. Anyway, thanks to everyone who supports us. Please stay in touch. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com if you have questions or feedback. We love your feedback. We need it, we rely on it and then please spread the word. Subscribe on YouTube subscribe on Facebook Share these links everywhere. Follow us on more on TikTok Mormon Stories podcast TikTok follow us on Instagram all the follows and comments and forwards and likes help us in the algorithms so please support us, keep supporting us. Spread the word and word of mouth is probably the best thing you could do for Mormon Stories Podcast. So thanks so much everybody. We love you guys and we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care.

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