1667: Coming Out as the Gay Son of a Mormon Bishop, Serving a Mission - Evan and Weston Smith Pt.2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2022

⏱️ 170 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trigger Warning: Suicidal Ideation

Evan Smith rose through the ranks of Mormon leadership ultimately becoming a Stake Presidency member. While serving as an LDS Bishop, Evan struggled with the Church’s positions on LGBTQ+ issues and later found out that his son Weston was gay. Even after coming out, Weston decided to serve an LDS Mission as an openly gay man, leading him to high levels of depression and heartbreaking experiences during and after coming back early from his mission.

Evan became an advocate for LGBTQ people in the Church. His position as a Stake Presidency Counselor led him to a few confrontations/discussions with General Authorities and a later meeting at Church Headquarters where they discussed Evan’s progressive beliefs on LGBTQ matters.

In Part 2 of 3, we start off where we left with Weston’s story growing up as a gay Mormon kid, discovering his sexuality, his suicidal ideation, and his decision to serve a mission as an “out” gay Mormon. Upon experiencing suicidality again on his mission Weston has a “spiritual experience” which leads to his resolve to leave the church and live a happy life. Meanwhile, Evan gets a call to become a 1st counselor in the Stake Presidency.

Episode Show Notes

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host John D'Lin
0:05.3	It is August 16, 2022 and we are in an epic amazing
0:11.6	multi-part Mormon Stories podcast series with father son duo
0:16.5	Evan Smith and Weston Smith. Hey guys, welcome back. Thanks John. Thanks for having us. Hello
0:22.8	And we're here with my dear friend and colleague Harado Simano as producer of this episode and running shotgun. Hey Harado
0:31.2	Hey John. Welcome back. Thanks. I was lunch. It was great. Yeah. Yeah Harado likes McDubbles for
0:38.4	Nobody was no onions
0:40.7	Western likes milks
0:43.6	Anyway, we had a quick lunch because I'm trying to be a more humane human to my
0:47.2	colleagues and guests and we're right back ready. We just spent a good three hours with Evan and
0:54.9	Weston Smith talking about what it was like for Evan to become a progressive
1:00.4	Mormon branch president and ultimately bishop within the Mormon Church. We talked about his upbringing the Mormon Church, him marrying Cheryl. Yeah. And then him becoming a big time global
1:12.4	corporate lawyer in Boston helping with entrepreneurs and startups and that sort of thing while fighting
1:20.1	some very serious physical conditions that included brain tumors
1:24.9	Should we jump in and let you finish? Yeah, I fortunately wasn't actually cancer. I wasn't a brain tumor
1:30.0	And I through years of going down to NIH
1:32.3	I'm now on a drug that is perfect for me. It gives me that
1:35.3	protein that I'm genetically missing to have a break on my immune system
1:38.4	So I'm really lucky to have the treatment that I have and I'm doing great. So your brain doesn't keep growing growths
1:43.4	That it shouldn't grow it doesn't have the immune cells attacking infections that are not there anymore. That's what was happening
1:48.9	I had stuff that it was attacking stuff that wasn't there and now that's regulated. I'm doing great. Beautiful. Yeah, we lucky
1:56.2	So where we left off in last episode in part one and if you haven't watched part one pause now go back
	...

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