Episode 593: Brian Paul, tells the story of his brother Boyd, who was gay and took his own life.

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2022

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

My friend Brian Paul (married, father of 4, active LDS) joins us to share the story of his older brother Boyd dying by suicide at the age of 25 in 1989. It tells a powerful story of hope and the far-reaching promises of the atonement and the power to redeem. Brian, who is about 7 years younger than Boyd, talks about his love for his brother. Boyd changed a few years after returning home from his mission when he went down a difficult road trying to reconcile his sexual orientation. Feeling rejected by God for not helping him overcome same gender attraction, difficulty in achieving ideal relationships with other gay men, being fired by his employer, and not being fully accepted and understood by family, led to Boyd taking his own life by jumping off the William Howard Taft Bridge in Feb 1989. Brian talks about his journey to understand and love his brother including a powerful spiritual experience walking on the William Howard Taft Bridge in 2014 with his daughter, that reflects the infinite power of the atonement and our hope in Christ. Brian also talks about his mother’s Stake Conference talk about her gay son and her knowledge from her Heavenly Father with these words “I have him. He is not lost.” If you have lost someone to suicide, please listen to this podcast. Brian does a wonderful job of sharing their family story—a beautiful family love story. Thank you, Brian, for being on the podcast to help us better support each other, give powerful insights into the plan of salvation, and see us all as the same human family. Link mentioned in the podcast: YouTube tribute video for Boyd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkuQ4YAYqwg Facebook Post about Boyd: https://www.facebook.com/brian.paul.7106/posts/pfbid026WVw8vuZSLpg9kGXXtF6rupsPvJJ3Pj3s7psvsRWe1ivP6BUZXxpGM7GLXSjCF1Bl ** Please Check Out My LGBTQ Book At: ** Deseret Book: www.deseretbook.com/p/listen-learn-and-love-embracing-lgbtq-latter-day-saints Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/1462135773 ** Want to develop church-supported LGBTQ activities in your local area? Please join our FB group below ** https://www.facebook.com/groups/1433556613672143

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:09.5	A trigger warning for this podcast. We're going to be talking about a gentleman who died by suicide.
0:15.2	His younger brother is here to share that story. So we want you to know we're talking about suicide in this podcast. My guest on
0:25.0	today's podcast, I'll introduce him right now, and then we'll get to the story we're going to share
0:29.0	is my friend Brian Paul. Welcome to the podcast, Brian. Hey, thank you, Richard. Thanks for letting me be on.
0:35.1	Brian made, I post sometimes on Facebook about suicide and Brian made a comment and I then
0:41.7	went to his Facebook page and realized that he has a story about a brother that died by suicide.
0:48.6	And that's the story that Brian is going to share.
0:52.0	Just a little bit about Brian.
0:53.4	He's, I think, 52.
0:55.6	Pretty close.
0:56.4	Not quite.
0:56.9	Let's give it a few days.
0:58.1	It's December.
0:59.2	Let's call him 51.
1:00.8	He's a decade younger than me anyway.
1:04.0	He's in software sales as a wonderful career doing that.
1:07.9	He is a father for his wife, Wendy. Tell us a bit about what your
1:12.6	wife does and what you do. So my, so first off, I am a software development salesperson, and so we
1:18.3	do customized sales if we want to do a mobile app, internal software, whatever you want to do.
1:23.3	I do want to explain something about my previous job because it has a role in this.
1:28.6	I used to work for a company called Heritage Vestals. And what we did was we did music festivals
	...

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