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Show 137 and their property, gossiping neighbors and relatives, and the strain of fending off marriage proposals, John and Robert ended their relationship and opted for heterosexual marriage as the price of survival. They married women who were sisters in order to preserve a bond, but the relationship attenuated over the years from the pressures of married family life and passing. 102 By contrast, Rick Pace married in the midst of the LDS Church's 1960s anti gay crusade. Unlike John Iverson, Rick entered marriage with no prior experience living as a gay man in a committed fashion. While Rick remained deeply conflicted over his sexuality, marriage promised social acceptance and good standing in the LDS community. However, after years of resisting his feelings and relieving them through furtive contacts, Rick found something genuine in his relationship with Jerry that emboldened him to confront his wife. When he told her about Jerry, the honesty which had served him well at BYU became his undoing, at least with regard to the church. Whereas Kimball had exonerated him as an unmarried, prospective convert raised under different standards, the church showed less forbearance toward a married member previously disciplined for the same offense. as At a time when the LDS Church ranked both homosexuality and adultery "unpardonable" sins topping the list of sexual transgressions, Rick was guilty of both and thus brought down the full weight of the church's disciplinary apparatus. When Rick confessed to his bishop at his wife's insistence, he did so in a spirit of cooperation: As an employee at the church's headquarters and father of four, his livelihood and status as provider were at stake. Sensing the vulnerability of his situation, church officials 102Iverson interview. |
