- 8 hours ago
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00:00I should have gotten my nails done.
00:09Docu-series, people don't care as much as housewives.
00:13Lately, it seems like Mormons are having a mainstream moment.
00:21I think that a lot of people right now are associating Mormonism with mom talk and these Mormon wives.
00:27And so that's kind of changed the landscape.
00:30Really, the very first hugely marketable influencers were Mormon.
00:36Get ready for me using SheGlam products only.
00:39And then it was Pink Peonies, Rachel Parcell,
00:42Hera Lorem, Anna Neelaman, Ballerina Farm.
00:46Conservative values, traditional homemaking roles,
00:50just really a gendered family structure where they're home with the kids.
00:54It's intoxicating to watch because it seems so simple and pure.
01:00Just got done milking.
01:02Got two gallons.
01:04And they seem so happy.
01:06And it seems like, oh, this is how it was always meant to be,
01:10like watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver.
01:13That's not how it really is, you know?
01:16It's not really what's happening.
01:19It's a wolf in sheep's clothing because it's exactly what the church is going for.
01:25You know, you want to have all of this?
01:27Join the Mormon church.
01:28You can have it too.
01:29That wasn't my experience.
01:31There's a huge misconception about Mormonism,
01:36that it is all unicorns and rainbows and functioning families.
01:41But the truth is the church has done a really good job of shaming and sidelining its critics.
01:48What that's created is this marginalized community that want to be screaming from the watchtower,
01:54but anyone who has a contrary opinion is shut out and silenced.
01:59I mean, if people knew what was really going on in the church,
02:04I think it would shock people.
02:16At the tone, please record your message.
02:19Heather, my name is David Matheson.
02:22You don't know me.
02:24Anyway, I'm hoping I know that you're talking to people about their experiences with the church while I've got one.
02:29I hope we can meet and I really look forward to it.
02:32Thanks, bye.
02:36Headed over to this man David Matheson's house,
02:40the reason he was reaching out to me is to share his experiences and share stories.
02:46David Matheson was one of the pioneers of the gay conversion therapy movement.
02:53He sent me this voicemail last night,
02:55and there were a lot of things that I just felt immediately intrigued by.
03:00He ran a program that was very, very well known in the church called Evergreen,
03:05which everyone knew, like, Evergreen.
03:07What Evergreen meant, it meant Evergay.
03:09And you went there to, you know, try to change it.
03:14About five years ago, David came out as gay, divorced his wife and beouncing the church.
03:23The guy that was teaching conversion therapy for and on behalf of the church was actually gay all along.
03:29Nobody talks about negative things within the church.
03:32We don't discuss it.
03:34We don't, you know, dig deep.
03:36We don't investigate anything.
03:38So while I heard about all of these programs and even had friends that, you know, suffered from same-sex attraction,
03:45I hate even saying that, but that's the language that we used as members of the church.
03:49We didn't say, my husband is gay.
03:51We said, he's got this trial and tribulation from God.
03:55You struggle with swear words, sister?
03:57You struggle with coffee?
03:58Well, my husband struggles with sex with men.
04:01I can't imagine the ramifications.
04:06He has to face thousands of young men showing up on his door saying, you know, what the fuck?
04:13What life event made him realize that he had to leave?
04:18And I just really want to ask him how that shaped the way he views, you know, his whole life.
04:30I never thought it was going to look like this where people were looking to me to be like the public voice of Mormon critical thought.
04:38Is it flopping or is it erect?
04:40It's erect.
04:41Yours is crooked though.
04:42It works the same in the end.
04:44I don't really hide a lot from who I am on Real Housewives.
04:49Putting my life on TV and exposing all of it and kind of being forced to leave my faith and talk about it publicly shaped who I became.
05:00I don't want to ever take away from you like our faith and our Mormonism.
05:06It's come down to me where I'm just like, I owe it to these girls to like be so honest about where I'm at.
05:13And that's been both like incredibly transformative, you know, but also it's been really hard.
05:20Do you hear from Mormons around Salt Lake City who are mad about what you say about it?
05:26Yeah, I do. I hear from them a lot. A lot of them are my family members.
05:30So the only time I've really ever spoken publicly about like a lot of my problems with the faith outside of the television show was when I wrote the book, Bad Mormon.
05:39Has there been any response from the church?
05:41The church is suing me for use of the trademark. So there's been some where I'm currently in litigation.
05:46There's not a lot of mainstream Mormons that have written critical memoirs of their faith.
05:52The outreach from former Mormons and other people does not stop.
05:57There's just an endless sea of people who have been hurt by the church and no one's done anything about it.
06:04We were going to an institution that was homophobic, it was bigoted, it was misogynistic, and there was no way for me to explain that away to my children.
06:11What fascinates me is the church's ability to get away with it and for everyone that speaks out against it to just end up screaming into the void.
06:20But like the book became a vehicle for me to meet people all over the world with whom the message had resonated.
06:32I'm here to support my other bad Mormons.
06:35That was the first time I had an awareness of the platform and the position I was in.
06:43I get DMs, I get emails, I get stopped at the mall, I get stopped at the grocery store.
06:48I hear over and over and over how the Mormon church has affected and hurt so many people.
06:55My kids were taken.
06:57I went again to my bishop asking for help and he would just rake me over the coals every month.
07:05And she told me she would rather have a dead son than a gay son.
07:10We were told that we are something called laminates. They were cursed with a dark skin.
07:15And he taught those who practice in interracial marriages should be killed along with their kids.
07:21They took the baby away. They wouldn't let me see him.
07:24I tried to burn the memory of what he looked like in my mind so that I wouldn't forget what he looked like.
07:32I just had this onslaught of an ocean of pain and an ocean of trauma.
07:41I hear about everything from adoption services and the way LDS social services has hurt people.
07:47How eternal marriage and patriarchy has hurt people. How conversion therapy has hurt people.
07:55The roles of women, divorce, abuse, betrayal, misogyny, bigotry, racism.
08:04Every DM I wanted to like meet the person in person and like weep.
08:09Like biblical women weeping. Just like weeping for what was gone and what we had hoped for and what was lost and what was gained.
08:19The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is considered a mainstream religion.
08:28We believe in concepts like heavenly father and Jesus Christ and heaven and hell.
08:34But beyond that we believe that there are three separate levels of heaven.
08:39And you have to live a life of perfection in order to achieve the celestial kingdom and live together with your family forever.
08:46The Mormon doctrine lays out a path to perfection.
08:49You are asked to keep very, very specific rules in order to be purged of all sin and be perfect and with God.
08:58Man has to marry a woman and have children and live together forever.
09:02And making sure you meet all of the standards of the church.
09:05You know, your church attendance, your worthiness, your purity.
09:08Not just sexual purity, but purity not smoking, not drinking, not drinking coffee, not swearing, not looking at porn,
09:14not looking at R-rated movies.
09:18Devout Mormons masquerade and appear to be fun-loving, easy-going soccer moms and dads.
09:25We don't wear any of our devotion externally. We have it all internally.
09:29Secret sacred symbolized garments, secret sacred temple rituals, secret sacred handshakes among members,
09:37our own language, our own way of addressing each other, our own rules, our own laws.
09:44Everyone associated with Mormonism struggles with all these rules.
09:48Because if you break them, you risk being ostracized by your church, your community, and even your family.
09:56The church projects this image of inclusivity, acceptance, love, humanitarian service, and diligence.
10:07But if we were to take the PR spin off of all of it, the doctrine is, at its core, homophobic, misogynistic, and deeply, deeply bigoted.
10:21A year or two ago, I was still feeling entrenched in shame that I chose the lights and glamour over the dutiful role of devout Mormon mother.
10:36I never wanted to, like, leave or speak out or criticize the Mormon church.
10:42If the Mormon church wasn't fucked up, I would have stayed.
10:46But after the onslaught of people that have reached out to me, I just feel like I can't look away.
10:54The time is now to uncover all of these secrets and to give voice to all of these atrocities that are being committed,
11:01and to say, not now, never again.
11:20I grew up with same-sex attraction, but I didn't want it.
11:24I wanted something more than what I was.
11:27So I began on a journey to find the truth that could help me become a whole man.
11:32I went to seminars and weekend retreats.
11:35I read books.
11:36I got married.
11:37Eventually, I became a counselor myself.
11:40Now, I find myself here.
11:42I'm 50 years old.
11:44I'm happily married with a thriving family.
11:48I have helped thousands of men in their journeys to overcome same-sex attraction.
11:53And now, I'm here to help you.
11:56David Matheson has been a pioneer in the field of overcoming SSA for over 15 years.
12:02Wow.
12:05I think, first of all, I'm overwhelmed by the arrogance of the whole thing.
12:12That feels really terrible.
12:14Oh, my God.
12:26I believed this for a long time.
12:34Oh, my gosh.
12:35Hi.
12:37Heather.
12:39Oh, my God.
12:40I'm so glad to be here.
12:41Thank you for having me.
12:42Thank you so much.
12:43Wow.
12:44This is awesome.
12:45Do you want some coffee?
12:47If you're going to have some, yeah.
12:48I would love some.
12:49Yeah, I made some because I thought you might want some, and I definitely need some.
12:53Okay.
12:54Let me know if that's enough.
12:55Okay.
12:56So, when did you start drinking coffee?
12:57This is, I mean, the day you left?
12:59Actually, when the whole thing went down, when I got outed and all of that.
13:03Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
13:04Start, so when you got outed, you were out, like, it wasn't voluntary?
13:07It was not voluntary.
13:08It was not voluntary.
13:09What?
13:10I divorced my wife already.
13:11And you divorced her because you said I...
13:13It was time for me to be with a man.
13:15I just couldn't do it with a woman anymore.
13:17Uh, so I started dating guys.
13:20And then, uh, someone, I guess, texted a gay, an ex-gay watchdog, a guy who watches guys
13:26like me, to see, you know, when we follow up and then he's gonna out us.
13:29It was nuts.
13:30Like, like, instantly.
13:32Like, overnight.
13:35A bombshell on the conversion therapy world.
13:38A popular Utah therapist who for years tried to convert gay men is now looking for a gay
13:43partner.
13:44In Utah, we meet David Matheson, the intellectual godfather of gay cure therapy.
13:49People are not born gay.
13:50Period.
13:51End of discussion.
13:52No one is born gay.
13:53There was no way I was going to accept gay.
13:55It just wasn't gonna happen.
13:57So, um, the guy gives me 10 minutes, and I come up with this super lousy statement.
14:02Oh my gosh.
14:03And I give it to him, and then he puts that out, and then I'm getting calls from newspapers
14:07and from TV shows.
14:09Well, are you glad you left?
14:11I'm really glad I got out.
14:14I can't even tell you how glad I am that I got out.
14:16So what made you leave?
14:18Like...
14:19Pain.
14:20Pain.
14:23I'm gonna try not to cry a whole lot.
14:26I spent my life being someone I wasn't.
14:32Do you know how hard it is at 62 to look back and go,
14:36for so many years, I believed and taught something that I now know is completely wrong.
14:51It's really painful when we say, like, recognizing that you've been living your life as someone you are and actually are, and that you're really good at it.
14:57That's what I wanted to talk to you about when I heard your voicemail.
15:00What really resonated with me was that we'd kind of grown up with the same cult of personality.
15:06We did. We did.
15:07You know? We grew up, like, trying our hardest to be the best Mormon we could be, despite the obvious deterrence.
15:15Problem. Yeah.
15:17The Matheson family goes back several generations in Mormonism.
15:22I grew up in this area in a very Mormon-centric universe, and I ingested it completely.
15:31I was very into studying the scriptures, diving into the doctrine.
15:36You were raised in a church that taught you there wasn't such a thing eternally as gay.
15:42The feeling one gets when one reads this stuff is, gay is bad because it's just disgusting.
15:49This is an unnatural thing. Do you think God to be that way?
15:54I admitted to myself that I was gay when I was, like, 23. The thought was I could be gay if I want to, but I don't want to.
16:0523, after you'd served a mission?
16:07After I'd served a mission. I get married. They tell me, you probably don't need to tell her about the same-sex attraction because it's probably just going to go away.
16:14You told yourself that, or someone?
16:16They told me. My bishop. He says, don't worry about it. It'll go away when you start having normal sex.
16:23People come into the church with same-sex attraction issues, and they tell you, stop sinning.
16:29Don't do it. You should marry a woman, and she'll cure you.
16:34A year later, I'm like, it didn't go away.
16:37A year into our marriage, I told her that I was attracted to guys.
16:41She cried and said, I love you. We'll make it work. Let's just keep going.
16:46And so we did. We were taught that God loves all of his children.
16:55A loving God would not set people up to fail by making them homosexual.
17:00I must believe that this homosexual thing is just a face, and that God has a way to change that.
17:09And so I want to become a therapist.
17:12So I started developing my own stuff, and the idea there was that homosexuality can be changed if you heal the wounds that caused it.
17:20So shame, trauma, PTSD, all that kind of stuff.
17:24If we heal those wounds, the homosexuality will go away.
17:27Which, I mean, it's that belief that leads people to conversion therapy, I would think.
17:31It is.
17:32You know?
17:33It is.
17:34So the first thing I was involved with was Evergreen.
17:39So Evergreen started, it was a group of men who were LDS and were gay and didn't want to be gay because they wanted to live the standards of the church.
17:48So they got together and they started supporting each other.
17:51I got involved just as a participant, and then I was on their board, and then I was their executive director.
17:57So I became Mr. Evergreen.
17:59I think a lot of society has just swallowed that if you have homosexual feelings, you're gay.
18:04And if you're gay, you were born that way.
18:07So Evergreen was this fully LDS group, and it was pretty intensely Mormonism, the atonement of Christ, you can't be gay, conversion therapy.
18:16I have clients that drive nine hours to see me because there's just no one out there doing it because it's politically incorrect.
18:22So not only was I a conversion therapist, but whether we liked it or not, we became the poster couple for mixed orientation marriage.
18:28Where one person's homosexual and one person's heterosexual, and they're trying to make it work.
18:33Eventually when I found a few different types of therapy over the years, my relationship with my wife did improve.
18:38I don't think I was more attracted to her, but I was less freaked out.
18:42And I was less depressed also.
18:44What we're saying is we are making it work.
18:46And we were saying that because it was, except it really wasn't, but we thought it was.
18:52So Evergreen wasn't organized by the church, but they were very involved in that.
18:56Well, yeah, I thought they were run by the church.
18:58The church never really supported it openly.
19:00What do you mean?
19:01They were supporting me financially in that bishops still paid for some of their members to come see me.
19:08The church provided mental health services for our members.
19:12And very often those mental health services were paid for by the church.
19:16A bishop is calling this guy.
19:19We're going to have to excommunicate him because he keeps acting out with other guys.
19:23The bishop would give you the money to attend a conversion therapy.
19:27Yes, because we can't have people in our ward being gay.
19:29And I don't know as a bishop, I don't know what to do.
19:31So we're going to send him to Matheson.
19:33He's going to clean up the mess created by the theology, but we're not admitting that that's what's going on.
19:37If that makes sense.
19:38So like plausible deniability.
19:39Yeah.
19:40So if I was like a 19 year old kid, Mormon kid, I'm 99% positive I'm gay.
19:49At the height of your conversion therapy, what would you have said to me?
19:53As you're describing it now, there's this part of me that is just like on the floor.
19:58Because I don't even want to think about it.
20:09Over time, I realized there were a lot of things that could be taught or experienced on a group level.
20:16So I helped develop workshops and presentations.
20:19And then one of the big things that I helped develop is called Journey into Manhood.
20:23We return now to something called Journey into Manhood, a retreat that claims it can help men alter their feelings of sexual attraction for other men.
20:31Because it was a huge retreat with a lot of processes.
20:34Look at the outside of this man.
20:36Look at his physical appearance.
20:39We're going to dig into your relationship with your mom and your dad.
20:42And we're going to try to find out where the problems are.
20:45And we're going to try to fix that whole thing.
20:47And you're going to be straight.
20:48So you think if I come here and I do everything you're telling me to do, I will be able to get married and have children and live the life that I've been told I'm supposed to live?
20:57I would have said, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
21:01We thought we really needed to help them feel more masculine, which means they needed to be closer to their father.
21:06They needed more distance from their mother.
21:08The entire client base, they were all there because their religion told them it was not okay to be gay.
21:14I would always consider myself a heterosexual man, just with a lot of issues.
21:20So in this retreat, you are going to give the person, an adult person, but this is what's done sometimes with children.
21:27You're going to give them a rebirth.
21:29You put them under a blanket on the floor, and then people weigh down the blanket.
21:33We're holding the blanket.
21:34We're sitting on the blanket.
21:35Sitting on it or holding it, right?
21:37And then the guy is supposed to fight his way out.
21:39The belief was that men who are gay don't have a sense of their own power.
21:44And when they feel more masculine, they realize that the woman is different from them.
21:49And then they were attracted to her.
21:51Another one was they wrote this letter from their golden father.
21:56In other words, the father they wished they had.
21:58Was there any sort of belief that, like, gayness came out of, like, a father wound?
22:03Totally.
22:04It makes me sad. I don't know why.
22:06You want to bring up the trauma so that you can process and heal it.
22:11Healing that was really helpful.
22:14It changed them from depressed and suicidal to less depressed and suicidal.
22:19I feel joy.
22:20I'm in a better place now to become a father and to become that role model that my children will need.
22:26All of it was reinforcing, oh, my gosh, they are changing.
22:30I am changing.
22:31I am not gay after all.
22:36I feel like you're barely skimming the surface of what went on at these retreats.
22:44I've heard there's retreats with touch.
22:46I've heard there's retreats with nudity.
22:48And I'm just curious, like, did you do that?
22:50And what was the therapy behind it?
22:52Okay, so let me answer the retreats with nudity part.
22:55There was a retreat that I was involved with where there was a lot of nudity, right?
23:00Skinny dipping processes where you were kind of breaking out of clothing and the constraints of having to hide your body.
23:07So there were all of these therapeutic intentions behind them.
23:11The rumors was, yeah, evergreen means evergay, and it's where you go to pretend that you're struggling but to hook up.
23:19So...
23:20I mean, that's what was spoken of hush-hush.
23:22Yeah.
23:23So I did not experience that.
23:25Really?
23:26Yeah.
23:27So how did that rumor get started?
23:28So hang on, let me explain.
23:29Okay.
23:30I genuinely didn't see that going on evergreen.
23:32Did that stuff happen?
23:33I'm sure that stuff happened.
23:34I did hear...
23:35I welcome that stuff.
23:36It seems to me like an underground railroad for the gay community.
23:39Like, I've heard that you could do back rubs, but shirts had to be on.
23:43And if you went to a special kind of retreat, shirts could be off, and you'd do back rub chains.
23:47I heard about cuddle parties.
23:49I heard you could hug, but not for longer than a minute.
23:51Uh, no.
23:52Because, or not until someone had a reaction.
23:54No, more like 10, 15 minutes.
23:55You could hug for 10 minutes.
23:57Mm-hmm.
23:58The cuddling, the touch, the holding, some of it was written into the program.
24:02Like, men are going to get in small groups, and one man will hold the other, and then
24:06they'll switch, and then they'll switch again.
24:08Okay.
24:09So it was about, they need male touch.
24:10Let's give them male touch.
24:11They need male touch.
24:12Right.
24:13Within God's rules.
24:14Within God's rules.
24:15The idea was holding is okay, but not holding in a partnership.
24:20And not holding if it's going to get sexual.
24:23It's kind of like letting the cat smell the salmon, and then putting away in the cupboard.
24:30So it's like, on the one hand, a recognition of truth, while at the same time, we're in denial
24:36of that same truth.
24:38I mean, just that we would equate being gay to trauma and wounds and parental failings.
24:46You know?
24:47Yeah.
24:48You can't heal the gay out of a person.
24:52I have watched for 30 years how hope turns into bitterness and disappointment.
25:00How people try things that then don't work, but it takes them a long time to figure out
25:04it doesn't work.
25:09That is so hard to own up to.
25:13Because?
25:14It's so wrong.
25:16At the time, I genuinely believed I truly did.
25:19But it's just so wrong.
25:24When you're raised Mormon, there's not a future outside of Mormonism.
25:30It is everything.
25:34A Utah man who was an icon of conversion therapy now says the practice should be outlawed.
25:40My coming out was meant to be about me and about coming into congruity with myself.
25:47About congruity with my wife, because there was no marriage anymore.
25:54What we were going through, this painful thing that we were living.
26:00If I look back, I can see the way the pain compounded year by year by year on both of us.
26:09I tried everything.
26:11And at the end of the day, I couldn't survive.
26:14Like, if there's one message I want to make sure gets said over and over and over,
26:18you cannot heal the gay out of a person.
26:21You cannot convert a person from gay to straight.
26:24You cannot pray the gay away.
26:26You just can't.
26:33As hard as it is for you to talk about these practices that you now have distance and can see the damage and the pain of all of it,
26:41I mean, I don't think that where we are now erases what we did then, but I think it helps us to talk about it.
26:47Yeah.
26:48To say that you spent the majority of your life not living authentically, that's a painful thing to say, but does that make your life a sham?
26:57To me, it's like, if you had stayed married, stayed doing what you were doing, and then just died with the world never knowing, that would make your life a sham.
27:07Like, it doesn't matter if you determine who you are at 18 or at 80.
27:12Like, the day you do, your life stops being a sham, you know?
27:15That's extremely compassionate of you to say that.
27:18Well, I feel that way.
27:20Who were you most concerned about the fallout of your decision?
27:24Her.
27:25Your wife?
27:26Her.
27:27You should be.
27:28Yeah.
27:29I was ripping her world to absolute pieces.
27:32Someone like her that, like, married you and had children with you under the premise that it would lead to the same promises that you hoped for.
27:39I don't expect your wife to feel or think this immediately, but you released her.
27:43It gave her the chance to stop being a martyr and stop living out of duty and obligation to her children and to her church and to her husband, but for herself.
27:51Yeah, and to hopefully be with a man who can love her in the way she needed to be loved.
27:58All these years later, here I am now.
28:01I'm in a partnership with a man that we intend to marry soon.
28:05And, of course, with my wife, we have three children.
28:09There's some things I really don't regret about my younger life, and one of the things I don't regret is having three amazing kids, because they are beautiful, amazing people.
28:19Looking at my life moving forward, it's congruent with who I know myself to be.
28:25Mormonism is a cruel culture.
28:28What's weird about Mormonism is that it's the kindest cruel culture there ever was, because it does feel like a plushy toy on the outside.
28:37But there's a knife in it.
28:39The younger people, they're in the church going, I can do this.
28:43The knife's okay. The knife doesn't hurt that much.
28:46It doesn't feel like abuse.
28:48But a lot of abuse doesn't feel like abuse.
28:52So when I decided to be courageous enough to call you, it was because I'm this little voice now.
28:59I mean, I used to be a big fish in a tiny pond, and now I'm a tiny fish in a tiny pond.
29:04And you have a platform.
29:06And I'm watching these kids now, they're saying, I'm going to stay.
29:09I'm in it for the long haul, because scripture power and the light of Christ.
29:14And I'm terrified because I know what's ahead of them.
29:17The truth is, we both know that these doctrines and these retreats and these therapeutic practices are still going on today.
29:28And they're endorsed by the church today.
29:31And I'm kind of over being polite and pussyfooting around, you know, the church.
29:36I think they're so rich, so powerful, and so immovable that nobody can affect change.
29:43But no matter how inclusive the church says they are, it's not an inclusive church.
29:47It's not an inclusive doctrine.
29:49And like you said, it's going to take people that were in it deeply saying,
29:53this is still going on, and this is totally harmful, and this has to stop.
29:58And if it's not you that says, and it's not me that says it, who's going to say it?
30:01Who's going to say it?
30:03Yeah.
30:13Such a layered experience meeting David.
30:18You know, I felt immense compassion and also revulsion at all of it.
30:23And that is kind of, in a nutshell, what it feels like to have been Mormon for all of your life and then to leave it.
30:30We still act as a friend to the church and as apologists for the church.
30:36And they do a lot of good or a lot of what they did was great.
30:39A lot of it was problematic.
30:40Like, no, it wasn't problematic.
30:42It was fucking destructive, painful, and wrong, and false.
30:45Listening to him tell me these stories of conversion therapy and justified in any way.
30:51Like, there was a part of me that left my body and was like, what the fuck?
30:56Like, this is horrible, ridiculous, systemic abuse.
31:01You were re-traumatizing these men.
31:04When he said that they would tell these sweet gay kids that their gayness was a result of a father wound or a mother wound.
31:14Can you imagine being a mom and, like, you see your child suffering and not only do you have no support,
31:20you're not even supposed to speak on it or speak about it, but you're supposed to reject your child.
31:25And then the reason you're supposed to reject your child is because you fucked them up in the first place.
31:30It was like, it was just dripping with shame and responsibility and causality that is a full-on lie.
31:39And as we pass this church and say, you know, visitors welcome as long as you look, act, and speak like we do.
31:48A person that grew up in the church is not allowed that privilege to just become who they were born to be.
31:56And I never, ever had permission to do that. Ever.
32:01We always say, when you know better, you do better.
32:03Well, we know what's going on right now.
32:06That's why it's so important now for people to speak out because the church continues on,
32:13unfettered by the constraints of the trauma and pain they're causing.
32:19And every day, it's like the house is on fire.
32:22And if we don't pull these bodies out, there's going to be devastation.
32:27The Mormon Church may not be one of the world's largest religions, but its estimated assets certainly make it one of the wealthiest.
32:42The Mormon Church is worth over $140 billion.
32:46And all that wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of just a few men.
32:51The prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his 12 apostles.
32:55It's just like this multi-level network run by men down to just like 150 members in a geographical area.
33:05And that's called your local ward.
33:07The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns over 1.7 million acres, making it the fifth largest landowner privately in the nation.
33:15The Church also operates a real estate arm with temples and churches and seminary buildings and pastures and farms and fields.
33:24We source all of our own food.
33:25We also have a welfare department, a humanitarian service department, and we employ, you know, hundreds of thousands of people.
33:32You are supposed to give 10% of your income.
33:35That is reconciled once a month.
33:37And at the end of the year, you're forced to sit in front of your local leader who knows how much you've been paying.
33:41And they ask you directly, are you a full tithe payer? And you have to say yes or no.
33:46If a destitute family is faced with the decision of paying their tithing or eating, they should pay their tithing.
33:54The Church, it's not just a beautiful house of worship and a different specific religion.
34:00It is an indoctrination that requires like secrecy, power, control, big hammers of shame and guilt and fear.
34:10And like, that's just a scenario impossible to escape.
34:15Do you remember when that belief system and that world started to feel like, oh, wait a minute?
34:23It wasn't like I hit some point in my life where Mormonism started to be a burden.
34:29From the moment I was aware of it, it supplanted my identity.
34:34You know, I'm the cradle Mormon.
34:37I was born into the faith and I loved being Mormon growing up.
34:41My parents were both from Mormon families.
34:44All of our family rituals and family traditions and family togetherness was centered around church activities and our church beliefs.
34:52I had these siblings who were my built-in best friends and we were all in on it together.
34:59And I didn't feel like it was fake.
35:02Like, yeah, our family is awesome.
35:05But I also distinctly felt like our family was awesome because we were Mormon.
35:11Mormonism is a religion based on the principle that the greatest happiness on earth can be found within the family.
35:20And the family is the vehicle by which to grow closer to God and obtain eternal life.
35:25That belief informed the type of family I wanted to create for myself.
35:31The second I met someone that was willing, I knew that I had the capacity to make any marriage work.
35:40Because I loved God.
35:41I loved being Mormon.
35:42I was good at being Mormon.
35:44But I was very, very wrong.
35:48And about three days into my marriage, I realized that we were fiercely, deeply, incompatible.
35:55I thought he was marrying me for all the reasons he wasn't.
35:58And I was marrying him for all the reasons he did not want to be a husband.
36:02Divorce wasn't in my vocabulary.
36:04I didn't know anyone that was divorced, but he did.
36:08My marriage was ending and my Mormon dream was shattered too.
36:13And my entire life imploded.
36:17My marriage is only known for the best.
36:21No, we were caroling the baby of New Biden andantly worrying.
36:27お祈りは熱くなりはいつだよね!
36:30Hey!
36:31What's going on?
36:32Oh, nothing.
36:33I was just thinking about you.
36:35Oh, as always.
36:37One of my very best friends is Shane.
36:40And I met him right after my husband moved out.
36:43And I was newly separated for the first time.
36:45and he was newly coming out as a gay man and he became like the most pivotal person in my
36:52journey out of the church. Shane is a gay man and me as a single woman, you know, we were both
36:58ostracized from the community, but, you know, we were publicly very positive about the church
37:05for fear of offending our neighbors, our friends, our families, or our own histories.
37:11I had a really interesting day. I met with David Matheson and it was just so sad. Some of the
37:21things he was talking about were, I mean, Shane, they were shocking. Oh, I bet. While he was talking
37:29about all this conversion therapy, it made me want to like call you and just talk about it. Yeah.
37:34You know, because while I didn't experience conversion therapy, I know a lot of people
37:41that did, including Ben.
37:44Shane has been married to a wonderful man named Ben for the last eight years. And when Shane
37:51first started dating Ben, I didn't know Ben. I knew of him and I knew that Shane was kind
37:57of falling in love with him. But also I heard that Ben had a story that was really critical
38:02of the church. So I did a little Google search on Ben and what came up were kind of some of
38:14his experiences that he had shared about his abuse as a child.
38:18When I first started dating Ben, you kind of pulled away slightly. And it seemed to be because he was
38:29more vocal about talking about his experience. Why was that hard for you?
38:34Well, you're right that, I mean, that totally did happen. I pulled away and I have never really
38:49talked to you about, I don't think I ever told you that I knew that about Ben, but I don't think
38:54I've ever told Ben. And it's something that has kind of haunted me. I was scared of it and I didn't
39:03want it to be true. I did not want to believe it. At the time, I was still straddling the fence,
39:09but I had no intention of facing the truth about the church. And it was not just being outspoken and
39:16critical. It was about facing the truth about your faith.
39:22I just wish, you know, as my friend, we could have gone through this together.
39:29I know, I know. So much earlier. I know. I'm, you know, so many people reach out to me and like,
39:38I'm hearing stories from everyone all around the world and I'm not sitting down and hearing the
39:44most important stories of the people I know and love the most. Would he be open to sharing it with
39:51me? You know what? I don't know. You know, coming from an abuse victim, he thinks no one wants to
40:00hear it. He thinks no one will believe him. You know, that's already ingrained in him.
40:05I mean, I would love the opportunity to be able to like explain to him and make it up to him and say,
40:12listen, I do believe you and I believed you, which is why I didn't want to hear it.
40:16And if Ben would be willing, I would give anything to sit down with him.
40:23I mean, I would have to ask him and see how he feels about it.
40:29I appreciate it.
40:32Okay. All right. Well, thanks for talking. I know. I love you so much, babe.
40:37I love you too, babe. Okay. Have a good night.
40:39You too. Talk soon. Okay. Bye.
40:41Bye.
40:46I think what scared me so much about Ben's story was that I didn't know a single Mormon
41:03that would ever do such a thing. It was like one of those situations where you see it and
41:10you just shut your laptop because what he was talking about was so dark and so terrifying to
41:18me. And that was just a reality that was overwhelming for me to face. So I pulled away
41:23of all the people I've had conversations with and felt like I would do anything to share their story
41:32and to make them feel seen and heard. And yet I hadn't even done that to the people closest to me in
41:38my own life. It feels way overdue. And so as much as Ben is willing to share with me, like I'm going to
41:45make up for the years where I turned a blind eye and a blind ear because of my own fears.
41:55I haven't talked about this publicly. No one was doing anything. Like why didn't they take that
42:03information and give it to the police? They cover up sex abusers. No one listened and you're listening.
42:11I am. I'm listening. This guy was inseminating virgins with his sperm. He admitted to it. I got
42:17dismissed. I heard about stories, but never in numbers like this. There's just a few things that
42:22I've been required to do that. I'm promising that I'll help carry the burden and I'll be an ally and
42:29an advocate. I just feel overwhelmed and horrified and it didn't even happen to me.
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