Episode 676: Shannon Sears, Gay, Age 51, Recently Out

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2023

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Shannon Sears (age 51, out in 2022, father of three, lifelong church member with decades of church service, divorced, no longer active LDS) joins us to share his story. Shannon hopes that sharing his story will “help younger queer people see themselves as God sees them.” Shannon talks about how he felt not only broken, but “irreparably broken” and how he “never really thought of himself as gay—just terribly flawed”. Shannon shares 35 years of feeling this way (from being a young teen until the age of 50) and the immense and inescapable shame he felt for being gay (even though he was trying to be perfectly obedient). Shannon talks about how the shame kept him from feeling joy and peace in his life and falsely believed that God couldn’t love him. Shannon talks about feeling suicidal and close to acting on that plan—but praying to God and asking how God felt about him and receiving a powerful answer “I love you. I never intended to fix you. You are not broken. They may not want you, but you are Mine.” Shannon talks about the peace and acceptance this brought him—and how the shame disappeared—giving Shannon hope for his future. He talks about his continued desire to be a disciple of Christ, and how he feels he is better able to do that with his whole heart now. Shannon talks about coming out to his wife (he refers to her as the best woman he knows) and his children, and deciding to end his marriage. Shannon acknowledges the pain for his wife and children and trying to do the best he can, continuing his love for, and relationship with them and moving forward with his own life. He offers some thoughts on what helped him—and what didn't—from those around him during this difficult journey. This is a powerful episode to hear the story of Shannon—35 years in the closet navigating his sexual orientation—and all the things that were difficult in his journey—things that we no longer teach or say (hopefully) as when we “know better, we do better.”. If you are LGBTQ this podcast will help you write your own story. And for the rest it helps us better know how to love, understand and better support LGBTQ Latter-day Saints. Thank you, Shannon, for being on the podcast. You are a good man. Your story will help so many. Links: Shannon's coming out Facbook Post: www.facebook.com/shannondsears/posts/pfbid036VYH2cXvhtV2LNQMubQZ4EvGDiEM5nGpN7E7Zm7s3QAGhEtC1rE5Q9bkxK44Qsh2l Ministering to LGBTQ Latter-day Saints Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1433556613672143 Richard Ostler Book: Embracing LGBTQ Latter-day Saints: Deseret Book: deseretbook.com/p/listen-learn-and-love-embracing-lgbtq-latter-day-saints?variant_id=189035-paperback Amazon: amazon.com/dp/1462135773 Index of Podcasts: listenlearnandlove.org/podcasts

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:10.0	My guest on today's podcast, joining me via Zoom from his home in Utah is my friend Shannon Sears.
0:18.4	Welcome to the podcast, Shannon.
0:24.4	Thank you. I'm so glad to be here with you.
0:40.3	And Shannon spells his name, S-H-A-N-N-N-O-N and Sears, S-E-A-R-S. And we'll link probably to a Facebook post in the show notes that he, when he publicly came out as gay, that was a post from October 11, 2022. He will probably touch on some of the content of that post, obviously,
0:46.3	in this podcast, but it was a really brave post. Here's Shannon's outline. So you kind of know
0:52.5	what you're going to hear here. Shannon's in his 50s. So he's
0:56.1	been on this road for a long time. He's going to share his story, talk about a younger teenager,
1:03.3	talk about societal views on homosexuality in that era, learning about and seeking help from
1:10.4	the church, the counsel given and
1:12.5	obeyed, marriage and family, obedience, devotion, and hyper-orthodoxy, dating mission, marriage,
1:20.1	children, church service, shame and depression, suicidal feelings, personal prayer at the end of my rope, the decision and path to come out,
1:31.2	the decision to divorce, the decision to leave the church, not leave Christ, changes in church
1:37.9	policy and teachings, things I wish straight members understood, things I wish straight
1:44.1	members would stop saying or thinking.
1:47.2	Hidden prejudices.
1:49.0	The things that people have done that have helped me the most.
1:52.7	So this is brave of Shannon to do this.
1:57.0	This is a platform where we're letting LGBTQ members share a variety of stories in the
2:03.6	hopes that younger LGBTQ people can hear these stories and with Christ, write their own story
2:11.8	that's authentic and right for them. Yes, just like other podcasts, we do have guests that have left the church.
2:20.6	And Shannon's not asking everybody else to leave the church, but I thought that one of the
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