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Welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast, I'm your host John Dillin.

It's December 14th, 2017. We're broadcasting to you live from Holiday Utah in my home.

And I could not be more excited for today's interview. I actually think this might be the interview of the year.

Maybe the half decade.

I'm so super excited about this interview.

Today we're interviewing Tom Christopherson and we're interviewing him about this new book that he's recently come out with by Desire Book called That We Maybe One, a gay Mormon Mormon's perspective on faith and family.

And this interview is super important for so many reasons.

Personally, my life has been touched by the LGBT Mormon experience in very personal direct ways through my family and through friends.

Many of you will know I did my PhD dissertation on the LGBT Mormon experience. I published nine or 10 academic journal articles on the topic and it's something that I care passionately about.

But of course, the LGBT Mormon experience is something that has been very, very prominent in the LDS church over the past 10 or 15 years.

And it really just like kind of politically kind of defined Mormonism up through the 1890s or you know, turn to the century, 1900s.

And then the blacks and the priesthood issues so much to find Mormonism in the 50s, let's just say 60s and 70s.

And the LGBT Mormon experience sort of really defines Mormonism in 2017 and let's just say it was the past 10 years.

But more importantly, and I have to admit, this book, you know, he generated some controversy.

I generally think it's been very well received, but it's also generating controversy, especially with a lot of my listeners.

And I went into this reading this book very cautious, probably a little bit skeptical. You're laughing because, you know, these are very sensitive topics that affect a lot of people.

And, you know, in my opinion, live-serts stick. But I'm going to tell you four reasons why I think this book is really important.

Number one, there are very few people who I've followed within sort of the Mormon circles that carries the reputation that Tom Christopher and Tom Christopher does in terms of his character.

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