Ben Reflects on Being Denied a Temple Recommend (with Ben & Charlie)

All Out in the Open

All Out in the Open, Questions from the Closet

Latter-day Saint, Christ, Society & Culture, Mormon, Gay, Religion & Spirituality, Faith, Lgbtq, Transgender, Church Of Jesus Christ, Christianity, Lgbt, Lds

5 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This month on OPEN Up, Ben shares a deeply personal story about navigating the reactions of his local Church leadership after he performed a same-sex wedding. Ben and Charlie discuss the scrutiny that LGBTQ+ Latter-Day Saints often face and how others Church members can help them feel seen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Charlie, I'm happy to be here with you today, as always.
0:11.7	I've had a bit of an emotional day today.
0:14.0	Yeah, you have.
0:15.6	I have.
0:16.6	And I'm wearing a suit because I just met with my bishop and stake president and I met with them
0:22.5	separately because about a month ago I was I was denied a temple recommend and yeah and it's been a whole
0:34.6	process and I'll just tell the story. Okay.
0:42.7	So, um, a little, about a month and a half ago, my friend and I went to the temple on a Friday night,
0:45.0	we went to the Payson Temple, which is a long drive for me. It's like a half an hour.
0:47.3	Um, and when I got to the temple, I pulled out my recommend and it had expired two weeks before.
0:51.7	I just hadn't, Had that ever happened before? It actually had happened once when I was living in Tucson
0:57.1	and I like drove all the way to the temple.
1:00.4	It was like two hours.
1:01.3	I was like, oh shoot.
1:02.8	So it was good that Payson wasn't actually that far.
1:05.6	Yeah, that was good.
1:07.3	And so I was like, oh, shoot.
1:08.5	So then I set up a meeting with my, with my bishop for the, well, I texted the executive secretary.
1:16.0	I was like, hey, I'd like to meet with the bishop to set up my temper to get my temper recommend renewed.
1:20.4	And so I went in to meet with him.
1:22.2	And I assumed that the reason you wanted to meet with me was like my board is so high functioning.
1:26.1	Like they're very on top of things.
	...

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