This weekend, Mormons will gather in Salt Lake City for their biannnual General Conference, where church leaders will address members in two full days of speechifying. One group, The Foundation for Reconciliation, is planning to hold a memorial service this weekend to remember all of the LGBTQ people who have committed suicide in Utah. They will honor those who have passed away, as well as share stories of gay Mormons who have been able to reconcile their faith and their sexual orientation. They are also collecting petition signatures on their website that the will deliver to LDS Church headquarters, demanding that the church embrace its queer parishioners.

Utah has the tenth highest suicide rate in the country. The suicide rate for young men ages 15-21 is four times the national average. Since LGBTQ teens are three times as likely to commit suicide as heterosexual teens, I am willing to put dollars to donuts that those young men killing themselves in Utah are queer. Having grown up in the Mormon culture, I know what it’s like to try to reconcile my faith and my sexuality. It’s not an easy task – I tried committing suicide twice as a teenager.

This weekend’s memorial comes at an important time. Last year, of course, the Mormon Church was very involved in the fight to ban same-sex marriage in both California and Arizona. Earlier this year, a gay couple was arrested for kissing at Temple Square. And last month, an LDS leader named Elder Bruce Hafen delivered a speech at the Evergreen International conference, where he denied a biological cause for homosexuality. (Evergreen International is an organization that advocates repairative therapy for gays and lesbians.) [Read more...]