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Mormon Stories Podcast

508: Meg and Jake Abhau Pt. 1 — Dealing with Having a Gay Teen as Orthodox Mormons

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.65.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2014

⏱️ 87 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Daniel Parkinson MD, host of our sister podcast, Gay Mormon Stories, interviews Meg, Jake Abhau. Meg and Jake were conservative Mormons when their 13 year old son came out to them 18 months ago.

In Part 1, the Abhaus discuss their family, their relationship with their son and coming to terms with their son’s orientation. They also talk about making sure they were protecting him and preparing him for a healthy future.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners.

0:07.0

To help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org

0:15.0

and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under Support.

0:19.0

All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you.

0:29.0

Thanks for your support.

0:32.0

Please welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Dalin.

1:00.0

Today we are going to be interviewing an amazing couple with an amazing child.

1:05.0

The couple is Meghan Jake Abhau. They live in Phoenix and they have a son and the son's name John, is that right Daniel?

1:14.0

Yeah, that's right.

1:15.0

And what's amazing about Meghan Jake is that they were raised LDS strong in the church, very committed.

1:23.0

And they discovered that their son, John, was gay.

1:28.0

Daniel, I want to say around age 13 or so, is that right?

1:31.0

Yeah.

1:32.0

And what I love about Jake and Meg's story is that they have just been fiercely supportive of their son and just so strongly committed to their son's well-being and making sure that their son grows up in a healthy, affirming environment.

1:50.0

I've been a lot of parents in the past couple of years through my different advocacy and there have been some fantastic example of the Mormon's parents who have really done the right thing for their LGBT kids and really saved their lives and got them started in a really good direction in life.

2:07.0

And it is hard though and there's a lot of parents who need more resources.

2:13.0

I've also worked a lot with some other parents who aren't believing or aren't active anymore and that journey, you know, that families go through is very interesting and I have to say for a lot of them that takes them out of the church.

2:24.0

But I have to say I've met both, you know, in the church and out of church, I've met some amazing parents and what they do have in common is that they really get it, that their child, they really got to watch out for the health and kind of have to let go of a lot of the ideas they might have had prior to learning their daughter and son as LGBT.

2:42.0

And also Daniel, I think it's worth mentioning that, you know, we even though the United States and even in areas of the church has become more affirming, we still have a problem of LDS youth, LGBT youth, non-LDS youth who sometimes take their own lives.

2:59.0

I just want to also say that one of the intents of this video is to help friends and family become the types of allies that would keep our young LGBT brothers and sisters from, from harming themselves are taking their own lives.

3:12.0

And I think that's an important purpose of this video.

3:15.0

And I'm glad you brought that up because that is really all of our primary motivation for being involved in any of this is that we've got to stop the suicides and that's got to come by getting to the parents.

...

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