Introduction and Guest Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 372

John Dehlin [00:00:20] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am your host, John Delinquent and today we are filming live from Denver, Colorado. I guess we always film live, but you're not listening live or watching live. But we're here in the home of someone who's become a dear friend of mine. His name is Eldon Kartchner.

John Dehlin [00:00:45] I met Eldon when I attended the Denver Mormon Stories Conference a few months back in 2012. But, but Elvin's been a longtime listener of Mormon Stories and while I was here in Denver, I got a sense for his story and I knew that we needed to interview him. This is the first video interview that we've ever conducted outside of the state of Utah. So I actually flew back here to Denver to interview Eldon and it's because I just, the story is so interesting and there's so many people involved that I felt like it warranted a video interview and higher quality audio just to give you a little bit of a sense or preview of what Eldon's story is about.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] Eldon grew up devout LDS in Arizona of pioneer stock. We're going to talk a little bit about that. A very strong and significant family in the part of Arizona where he grew up in. He experienced same sex attraction as a teenager and as a young adult.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] We'll be talking a little bit about that. That's not necessarily the centerpiece of the story, but it's an important theme that runs throughout the story. He attended BYU where he, where he worked as a young ambassador, so a singer and a dancer for byu.

John Dehlin [00:02:24] And while he's at byu, he also experienced what we call in the field of psychology, reparative therapy, which is the therapy you receive or people used to administer. They don't do it so much anymore to try and change your sexual orientation.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] So we'll talk about that. Then we're going to talk about his leaving byu, moving here to Denver where as a gay Mormon male, he met the woman of his dreams, Heather, and they fell in love and got married and had three beautiful children.

John Dehlin [00:03:02] And for those of you who are familiar with the Josh Weed blog post in 2012 where a gay Mormon male came out as, as being the father of three children and as having a 10 year marriage that for him and Lale has worked really well. We're going to be talking in depth about Eldon's experience in what's called a mixed orientation marriage and how he and Heather made that work. And I think you'll find that it worked very well for them.

John Dehlin [00:03:36] So Elvin's going to talk about that, but he's also going to talk about why he would never recommend it to anybody else. So that's going to be important part of this discussion. And then we're going to talk about his wife Heather, who contracted cancer and her battle with cancer again with three young children and eventually her passing away.

John Dehlin [00:04:04] And so we're going to talk about dealing with cancer, dealing with the loss of a loved one, dealing with grief. And we're also going to talk about what it was like for Eldon and his family to go through that whole process, how the church helped and maybe didn't always help, and maybe most importantly, how his immediate family, his brother and sister and the in laws here in Denver, and maybe even a little bit the Mormon Stories community all kind of have pitched in to be somewhat helpful and have been a part of that whole process. And we're going to end talking about how grief and death and priesthood and prayer all interact when a family struggling with the potential loss of a loved one and what the faith and religious implications are of losing a loved one when you try so hard to keep that from happening.

John Dehlin [00:05:08] And so at the end of the interview, you know, the final hour or so, we're actually going to bring on various members of Elton's family who are all going to talk about that grieving process, the process of trying to pray and have Heather get better and having her not get better and what that was like for the family because it actually impacted the faith and the testimonies of two or three, four other families. And so we're gonna have them on at the end and then we're gonna talk about where everybody is now and how they've all made it through. So it's.

John Dehlin [00:05:44] I tend to overuse the word epic, but for me, this is an epic story on Mormon Stories and I'm really excited to be here. So, Eldon Kartchner, thank you for joining us on Mormon Stories.

Eldon Kartchner [00:06:00] You're very welcome. There's this moment of really surreal. It's almost exciting to me when you say, hello and welcome to Mormon Stories, because I've been listening since 2005, right when it began. So. Oh, my gosh, it's John deland is actually saying this in front of me. It's kind of funny.

John Dehlin [00:06:17] Yeah.

Eldon Kartchner [00:06:18] Well, and I'm like, now I'm supposed to share something epic. That's a lot of responsibility.

John Dehlin [00:06:24] But we believe in you. Thanks. All right, so thanks for joining us. And let's begin by talking about your early years growing up in Arizona Wasn't maybe the typical Mormon experience in some ways, but in some ways it was very Mormon. And so tell us about the Kartchner home.

Growing Up Mormon in Arizona

Eldon Kartchner [00:06:52] Well, I think, you know, I think that I would almost couch it as like, as a real coin. There's two sides to the coin that were really happening at the same time because in one storyline that is very, very real. I have seven siblings, so it's very prolific Mormon family. And my dad comes from 12 and my mother comes from a nearby town. We're in a town that was settled by where the Mormon Battalion had their Battle of the Bulls. So you know, they were sent back to settle this little area and there are town stories about the miracles that happened so that the area could be settled in the middle of the desert. And so it's an incredibly LDS town. There's about 2,500 people, if I have that correct still. And there's three wards. So it's very, very Mormon. And we're a very, I'd say, well known family in the area.

John Dehlin [00:08:00] What's the town?

Eldon Kartchner [00:08:01] St. David.

John Dehlin [00:08:02] St. David, Arizona.

Eldon Kartchner [00:08:04] Yeah. Close to Tunstone, like an hour south of Tucson.

John Dehlin [00:08:07] Hour south of Tucson.

Eldon Kartchner [00:08:09] So I'm the second born and the first boy in our family and the church is kind. It's everything in the town and it's absolutely everything in our family. Growing up, it really just, it permeated. I didn't, I really don't think I conceived that other things existed. I knew that, but I don't really think that I ever truly got it. I could say kind of grew up in the bubble of this little farm town and, and, but not as farmers. Well, yeah, my dad loved farming and so he wanted to own a farm so that we would have chores and he could teach us how to work, but not for his career because his father had decided that all of the Carsoner boys would be doctors and told them to be doctors. And so he was a doctor. They went to medical school and he was a doctor. So his brothers.

John Dehlin [00:09:08] His brothers were doctors, yes.

Eldon Kartchner [00:09:10] There's a couple that aren't, but yeah, there's five of them that are all doctors. So he's an ER doc, drives an hour to Tucson for his shifts. But we live on the farm and had just, just enough cows to milk and an orchard just big enough to have to do it every year and water the fields and do all the irrigation and all this stuff so we could learn how to work and have all our chores. So yeah, that was really important to him and very. And it really, I think it helped play into, you know, I was born in the early 70s, but really I think we were a family that kind of reflects the Mormonism of 70s 80s that.

John Dehlin [00:09:52] So it is Warrior Mormon.

Eldon Kartchner [00:09:53] Yes, yes, very Saturday's Warrior one. I can sing every song for you. We're very, very.

John Dehlin [00:10:02] Did you identify with one of the characters in Saturday's work?

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:05] I was Jimmy. You were Jean, totally.

John Dehlin [00:10:08] But you weren't. You weren't a rebel, were you?

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:11] No. Except. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] Okay, we'll talk about that on the other side of the coin.

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:17] Well, yeah, but on the, on the good side. I did everything I was ever supposed to do, you know, not the insane. So I want that couched under the. In the Mormon ideal, almost not as though I believe that this constitutes a good human being, but thinking that I was doing everything I was supposed to do and feeling kind of proud, you know, I was the deacons quorum president and the teacher's quorum president and the elders quorum president. Not elders quorum.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] Priest.

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:50] Priest. Thank you, priest quorum president and got my eagle Scout and was in sports all year round at the high school, which of course it's small enough that if you go out for sports you're in. But I'm involved in the student government. Again, small school, so popularity.

Eldon Kartchner [00:11:06] But, but. And seminary president and seminary all four years. And my. Our family structure was such. The church was really like again, it kind of ran the world. So not only were we fairly churchy just in our everyday life, but Sunday we were the kind of. You stay in your church clothes all day on Sunday there is no TV allowed. You can watch church produce movies. You can watch or listen to church produced music from Desert Book. And so that because I'm such an entertainment lover, I've seen all the church movies and I would get as many as I could. And even before vhs I would check out the film strips from the library at church.

Eldon Kartchner [00:11:51] Yes. And so these old like Lamanites go, my son, things that Cypher in the snow, Johnny Lingo, the milk, everything. I watch them all over and over and over because I like to watch entertainment and love, love, love the music. The. I mean people abhor LDS pop music and I love it.

John Dehlin [00:12:17] Still do. You didn't use past tense.

Eldon Kartchner [00:12:20] I know, I know. So like Stephen K. Perry, Sky Michael, everything from, I mean, Janice Kapari, all the EFY stuff. Love it, love it. In high school we discovered EFY was just starting up and so we went for several years in a row and oh, that was heaven on earth. I loved it. I got really into writing in my journal, and I really needed to read the Book of Mormon and finish before high school's over and was really, really planning for a mission because that's what I needed to do.

Eldon Kartchner [00:12:54] But it's not just what I needed to do. I was a believer. I was an absolute, complete believer. It was really my whole life. Everything was based on what I was supposed to do for a career, what I should do about my family. Everything about the future was based in what the church said or what answers to prayers I could get. I was really, really into studying the spirit and understanding what the spirit felt like so that I could have revelations and know what to do with my life, because that seems like a really important thing to have to have constant revelation. That's what happens in the scripture.

Eldon Kartchner [00:13:33] So I love studying the Holy Ghost, but also I love feeling it and this sense of peace and love and goodness and happiness and joy and listening off the fruits of the Spirit that. I mean, I just. I craved them. And so I sought it out all the time, through music, through the movies, through reading my scriptures, through going to seminary, through. And, you know, it just permeated our entire life.

Eldon Kartchner [00:13:57] And after high school, I went off to a little junior college that was predominantly Mormon in Thatcher, Arizona, which is. Has lots and lots of Mormons, where President Kimball grew up. And at Eastern Arizona College, this. There was a huge institute that I was really involved with there and a great music program at the school that was run by an LDS gentleman. And so that was quite spiritually based. I mean, it couldn't be Mormon, but it was very spiritual and I loved it. And then I prepped for my mission and went on my mission to Montana, which was a little random. I hadn't heard of anybody going to Montana, but in the end, I loved it.

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:38] I was so excited to be a missionary when I went on my mission, that was hard just. Just because I was homesick a lot.

John Dehlin [00:14:50] Did you ever serve in Bozeman?

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:52] Yeah, Bozeman's awesome. I love Bozeman. And by the time I got to Bozeman, I actually loved my mission.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] So you didn't love it at first.

Eldon Kartchner [00:15:02] I was so homesick for being at this junior college with friends and fun and wonderfulness. And when I got on a mission, it was really hard for me because missionaries are 19, which is the euphemistic way of saying they're dirty and dumb, and they don't. They sleep in and don't obey the rules. And I was kind. I like, in retrospect, I kind of think I was a jerk as a missionary almost out of desperation because I so wanted to feel spirit and feel good and not be homesick. And the answer to that clearly was that you have to work. If you don't feel good on a mission, you're not working hard enough.

Eldon Kartchner [00:15:56] So I wanted to be up earlier than necessarily and go to bed one minute before 10:30 and follow everything. I mean, like, I read the missionary guide and listened to the missionary guide tapes, and anybody that from that ever had those knows that that's ridiculous. They're so crazy. But that's what we're supposed to do. So I did everything. So any missionaries, any companions that I had that weren't willing to just do it, do it, do it. I was just so mad at them because they were in my way and they were in my righteous way,

John Dehlin [00:16:34] and

Eldon Kartchner [00:16:34] I couldn't feel super good if they weren't just doing what they were supposed to do with me. So in that way, a mission was hard. But what wasn't hard was teaching people, because I loved teaching people. I loved testifying about the gospel. I loved studying my scriptures. I loved all of those moments about being a missionary.

Eldon Kartchner [00:16:53] And it was about halfway through my mission that I met a sister missionary who was just incredible. And we became really good friends. And one day, sometimes this conversation came up where she was like, oh, yeah, I love this.

Eldon Kartchner [00:17:10] I literally was like, wait, you like doing this? Like you like being on a mission? She was like, yeah, I love it. And that was really foreign to me. I thought it was this thing that I got joy out of because I was doing what I was supposed to do and.

Mission Experience and Spiritual Commitment

Eldon Kartchner [00:17:30] And I decided really to change my experience around and think, I think I'm gonna love this. I'm gonna love this. I'm gonna be happy. I'm gonna like it. We're gonna have a good time. Sister Power can do it. I can do it. And I did. So the second half of my mission, I was really like, I love this. I do, I love it.

Eldon Kartchner [00:17:53] There were plenty of times that I probably didn't, and I was just pulling out, you know, that the old Joseph Smith principle, testify, and then you'll believe it. So I would tell people, I love being on a mission all the time, but I really did get there. By the time I left, I was sad to go. I loved it.

John Dehlin [00:18:12] And what was your testimony based on? Was it some Grove like experience where you read that Book of Mormon and accepted Moroni's challenge and said that prayer and got the witness? Had you Ever even tried to get a concrete witness? Did you even care or did you just sort of assume that you had a witness from the start and never had a question?

Eldon Kartchner [00:18:35] I don't think that I even knew. There were people who didn't pray and find out it was true, but just went to church their whole life. I didn't know that existed. Of course. I prayed about it a whole lot when I was a teenager. Hello. I went to afy. This is.

Eldon Kartchner [00:18:55] I know what you're supposed to do. I prayed about Joseph Smith. I prayed about the Book of Mormon. I can remember kneeling by my bed and getting this real, like, kind of voice in my head. Because sometimes my answers would be voice in my head that you already know it's true.

Eldon Kartchner [00:19:14] Yes, Yes, I do. Yeah, I do. That was so peaceful for me. I was so happy. I knew the Book of Mormon was true, which meant that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But I prayed about him separately anyway, just to be sure. And of course he was.

Eldon Kartchner [00:19:25] That was all as a teenager. But I was really into reaffirming, like praying about it again, not from a. I don't know, but from a, you know, Heavenly Father, make my testimony stronger. I believed in this absolutely. And I had spiritual experience after spiritual experience over and over about the truthfulness. Wow. Yeah. I really. I was a very like spiritual experience based person.

John Dehlin [00:19:57] Right. That sounds. That sounds like a firm foundation.

Eldon Kartchner [00:20:02] Yeah, yeah. Now conceptually, I can remember thinking, you have to be strong or you can fall. I think. Not that I didn't have to be strong, but just that that would never happen. Never happen. But you do have to be strong. You have to really pray and read every day to stay strong or something strange could happen. And that being strange thing is Satan, who can really come after you because he was after me all the time.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] So you talk about your upbringing being kind of two sides of a coin. You've talked about the dreamy Mormon good side. Is there anything else you want to talk about before we jump to the darker side of the coin?

Eldon Kartchner [00:20:53] Well, I think just the end, I came home. I went to three semesters at the University of Arizona, which was a great place. I was again, very focused. Kind of my whole base of existence. There was the institute and the institute building and the people in the institute because it's all church. It's all about. My whole life was focused inside of church. And I met nice people in my classes who would be like, come do stuff with us. Like, no, I have Mormon friends. I'm not snotty. Just my interest Was all church based. That's where I wanted to be. It's where I was comfortable. Then after three semesters at the U of A, I transferred as a jr to BYU where my whole. And I've been studying how to be a seminary teacher. Like doing all the classes on getting into seminary teaching.

John Dehlin [00:21:44] Ces.

Eldon Kartchner [00:21:45] Yes. And I actually got hired to do it full time once I like my junior year at U of 8 to do it full time in Arizona the year after I graduated. So in one year. But that's when I decided to transfer to BYU because I had a revelation. That's what I'm supposed to do. And so I called that off and went to BYU where I was really excited to get involved with teaching at the MTC and with going to be with Young Ambassadors because I really love, loved doing performance. I had been in dance classes, you know, growing up. And so BYU is kind of this really fun Mecca to go do stuff.

Eldon Kartchner [00:22:21] And I loved byu. There is no question. I will say it till the day I die. I love, love byu. You can do any class you want there. Almost like anything you want to do, they have a class for it is what I felt like.

Eldon Kartchner [00:22:35] And I loved it. And it took a year of work and a lot of preparation to get finally accepted and get my audition into the Young Ambassadors and get in it. But that was, that was the top of the mountain for me to be part of that, because I didn't plan to do performance for my life, my career. So it really was, this is my shebang. This is what I get to do. And I loved it. And byu, it's spiritual, it's wonderful. And I heard a lot of complaints from people and I actually thought quite often maybe people really need to transfer here. You need an experience somewhere else in the world.

Eldon Kartchner [00:23:15] And then you transfer to BYU and it won't feel so crazy to you, which is really funny to me because as I reflect, I was not in the world. I spent every day in the institute, walked to class and came back in Arizona.

John Dehlin [00:23:29] In Arizona.

Eldon Kartchner [00:23:31] But it was good. So loved it. Loved it.

John Dehlin [00:23:33] And Young Ambassadors travel the world, right? Yes.

Eldon Kartchner [00:23:37] I went to South Africa my first year and Thailand my second. How else would I do that? It was amazing.

John Dehlin [00:23:47] And do you, do you travel all over the US Performing?

Eldon Kartchner [00:23:50] We did. We did a tour up to Oregon and we did a tour over to California at the beginning of the second semesters of each year, but.

John Dehlin [00:23:58] And then you perform for the Royalty in Utah, you know, General Authority, right?

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:03] Yes. When they have little things and the Royalty and like for general authorities and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think if we actually had any of those during my years. And I'm not recalling specifically, but, you know, you're at the homecoming performance, you do this.

John Dehlin [00:24:21] It really.

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:22] It's the elite performing group of the music dance theater program. At least it was when I was there. It's so awesome. I really felt like, how did I get in this? I mean, I was surrounded by performers who are now on Broadway because they're so, so good.

John Dehlin [00:24:43] Really?

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:45] Wow.

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:46] Yeah. Just. It was so incredible. So, so awesome.

John Dehlin [00:24:52] Okay, so loved it.

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:55] Other side of the coin.

John Dehlin [00:24:58] Yeah. So. So parallel to this is a not necessarily so happy existence for Elden. Right.

Eldon Kartchner [00:25:05] Because while all of that is absolutely true, at the same time, I'm gay. And as a young man, I knew it conceptually very early on. And even in the small farm town back in the 80s, I knew the word gay because it was a horrific word.

Eldon Kartchner [00:25:34] And I think that I was gentle enough as a personality and I went to dance class that there was just enough stereotypical about me in a farm town that even though I was milking cows and playing football, I got teased. Growing up through elementary school. By the time I got to high school, the teasing was pretty much over because we were all the same kids as we were in kindergarten, pretty much. And so I think like that ship had sailed in terms of teasing people about it. But so I knew what being gay was and I knew that I was very sexually attracted to men.

Eldon Kartchner [00:26:15] But I. I just was in so much denial about, this is not true, it's not me. It just, it won't be. It'll go away someday. But I did have a sense. I. I would secretly study it on the side. And I did have a sense that I was required to be a lot more righteous than maybe even other people because there's something wrong with me.

Recognizing Same-Sex Attraction Early On

John Dehlin [00:26:41] At what age did you first kind of identify as same sex attraction? Any idea? Any.

Eldon Kartchner [00:26:47] Remember? Yeah, it was early. Like I knew, I say by about eight or nine.

John Dehlin [00:26:54] Eight or nine? Yeah. That's early.

Eldon Kartchner [00:26:57] I knew.

John Dehlin [00:26:58] Wow.

Eldon Kartchner [00:26:59] But you know, to be honest, that's also in reflection. I think if you met eight or nine year old me, I wouldn't be able to give you those words. But in reflection, I have memories of things that I thought at the time and can go, yeah, if you can say I knew. I know as much as a child can know.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:23] And I knew that that was bad and I knew that it was something wrong with me. And that combined with this I was so into the church. The message that I picked up from the church was really about.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:40] I mean, I think it was based in works. Grace is all good. That's super nice. But you have. It's only after all that you can do. And you know, my experience was that especially 70s 80s Mormonism was really a focus on after all you can do. I think it still is now, but.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:59] And I owned that way early on. I need to be good. It's all about what I need to do because I have to get that and which equals that I'm not good enough already, period. I am not good enough. And so I would say that's the theme of what I picked up way, way, way too early and way too strongly. I knew I wasn't good enough.

John Dehlin [00:28:30] Even though you were super high achieving.

Eldon Kartchner [00:28:32] Yeah. That was to like kind of be good enough to barely be there. And so I just think that I sought out the spirit all the time and wanted to feel it all the time because it was like a really temporary buzz. I could feel that God loved me. But then it very quickly settled back into but I have to do something better.

Eldon Kartchner [00:29:00] He loves me, but that's because he knows what I can be that I'm not. And so. And I really need my spiritual fix again in order to keep me going. Because by the time getting 12, 13, I was already starting to be really depressed. I think that had a lot to do with being gay. Even though I didn't put that together at the time. I was just an emotional and a sensitive human being.

Eldon Kartchner [00:29:22] And also the fair truth is my parents are. While all human beings are emotional, they are not emotionally expressive about harsh things. They're happy to say I love you, they're happy to smile and they're happy to focus on that. Which I think is also extremely influenced by Mormonism because I come from pioneer stock everywhere. I just think it's like over this cumulative experience of Mormon thought that really came into what was in my home, which for us was happy, good, sad, bad.

Eldon Kartchner [00:30:04] And I was becoming really depressed because I wasn't good enough and having a hard time with me. And the more depressed I was, the angrier my parents got about it. My dad just is a person who doesn't say much at all, at all. So I really just didn't get much from him. But my mom is very expressive about what she thinks and what she feels. That's good. And my depression from. Again, it's hard to talk about somebody else. Like I don't want to own what her experience I can only say how I saw it. She was just angry at me all the time. All the time. Because your mom was angry? Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:43] She's furious for being sad.

Eldon Kartchner [00:30:44] Yeah. Yeah. And so I became known in the family as the black sheep. I was Jimmy. I was the problem child, but not

John Dehlin [00:30:54] for sexual promiscuity, not for substance abuse.

Eldon Kartchner [00:30:59] I never once drank. I never tried drugs. I never snuck out. I. I never had a sexual problem. I never.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] So it's just for being depressed.

Eldon Kartchner [00:31:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:10] Because the family needed.

Eldon Kartchner [00:31:12] We needed to be happy and we needed to show happy. And I knew how to show happy.

Depression and Hiding in Plain Sight

John Dehlin [00:31:19] You're a performer.

Eldon Kartchner [00:31:20] Yeah. And the more that I did that, the better I got at it and the more it kind of sort of split me where I'm. And that left me more depressed internally so that I'm going to school and making good grades. So smiling for people because I need to smile for them. Although I was. As a teenager, I was desperately trying to tell people I'm not well in subtler ways, but I was really.

Eldon Kartchner [00:31:44] Yeah. I was not well, so depressed and in so much trouble for being depressed. And the fact that I was the problem for my parents because they didn't know how to handle me. And granted this also, I wanted to go see my friends and not. I didn't want to be with my family all the time. I wanted to see my friends.

Eldon Kartchner [00:32:03] And I would argue because I like to listen to music all the time. And I didn't always listen to church music. Sometimes I listen to pop music. Really only top 40. But this was filled with sin and was gonna make me run out and have sex and do drugs. And so I got in a lot of trouble for. Because I. I liked terrible music. And truly.

Eldon Kartchner [00:32:24] Yes, yes. All this 80s state music wonder as the school DJ for all the music I have all these little 45s, but I. I just was a problem for them because I just wasn't toe the line. And sometimes I didn't agree with what they wanted or I didn't want to milk the cows. I just wanted to do something else. And disagreement was bad and not obedient. And all of this internalized as. See, I am bad. There's something wrong with me. I'm the black sheep. I'm the problem. Which in retrospect is literally capital C. Crazy. You couldn't get a more perfect performing child than I was.

John Dehlin [00:33:11] So was your depression manifested through sleeping too much? Was it manifested through. I mean, if I. As I think of the typical signs of depression, it's like sleeping Too much or too little eating, too much or too little, losing interest in things. But it sounds like you were highly functional, highly active, highly achieving. So how did the depression come out?

Eldon Kartchner [00:33:37] Well, in part. I love what you're saying because I think this develops a lot for gay people who are incredibly repressed, that they develop the ability to be extremely functional in their misery and that it's a lot more dangerous to develop this ability to say, hey, how you doing? I'm good, and go home and want to die.

John Dehlin [00:34:02] But unless it's affecting your life, it's not really a mental illness unless it's manifesting.

Eldon Kartchner [00:34:07] Well, on one hand for teenagers it can be a lot different that you end up agitated as a teenager, irritably, that you're really irritable. But also I. It wasn't that I was sleeping more. I would have on and off eating problems, but it showed a whole lot more. I became a cutter all through high school. That sometimes was. I couched. We didn't have that word then. I don't, I don't know if really anybody did, but.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] So show the show where you cut. Just, you don't have to just show.

Eldon Kartchner [00:34:37] Yeah. I was a cutter here on my wrist and then I would. Strangely, in Arizona, I would just wear long sleeves all the time.

John Dehlin [00:34:45] In the summer.

Eldon Kartchner [00:34:46] Yeah, yeah. To cover it up.

John Dehlin [00:34:49] So you take out a razor blade and just cut gashes in your arms. This would have been back in the,

Eldon Kartchner [00:34:56] this is the late 80s. Late 80s in high school. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:59] So cutting wasn't maybe as well known as it is now.

Eldon Kartchner [00:35:02] No, no. And I didn't get the idea from anybody talking about cutting in retrospect, that's the word that I put on it because at the time I would think I'm slitting my wrist, I'm trying to kill myself. Even though I knew that I wasn't. There were a couple times that I was really serious about it and a few times that I got truly suicidal. But when I did get fully truly suicidal, I went to the medicine cabinet and had some really close calls, which.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] So did your parents know you were cutting?

Eldon Kartchner [00:35:35] At one point I got caught. Only, only one time did they actually catch. And I mean, they were, they were. So again, this is from my 14 year old perspective what I was seeing. They were so, so mad at me about this. So mad. My mom's, this isn't nice, but it's just what happened. My mom's response when she found me doing this was, what is, what is your grandmother going to think?

Eldon Kartchner [00:36:09] And you know, because she Was she really kind of, I think struggles with what her mom thought of her. But you know, it wasn't are you okay or what's going on for you? Or it was really focused on oh my gosh, nobody can know about this. Which is what cared. They did call my uncle who was the bishop. So I mean it was kind of a trap in at the time my uncle was the bishop, Mistake president was a different uncle. So he came over and sat down and tried to talk with me. And I was like, I don't have anything to say to you.

Eldon Kartchner [00:36:42] I just, I didn't want to talk to any of them. And so they put me in counseling for a little while where they drove me up to Tucson to ld social services once a month. Whereas a teenager, I can actually remember just lying to the guy, the whole thing. Do you do this? Do you do that? Are you having this problem? Do you think about this? I'm like, nah, fine.

John Dehlin [00:37:06] So in your, in your 14 year old mind, are you thinking I'm gay and I'm Mormon and so I need to kill myself?

Eldon Kartchner [00:37:14] Not at all, no. I didn't put that together. All I knew is that I was worthless. That's the biggest piece for me. I just felt worthless and so I wanted to not exist. And I think Mormonism was an interesting trap, like pushing me and stopping me because I thought so many times I can't even kill myself because I know I'll keep existing, it won't work because I was so sure of the church's truthfulness, but I was so worthless that I really didn't deserve any of the blessings. So I just.

Eldon Kartchner [00:37:59] Yeah, I think that like even when it was clear that I was making big suicide attempts, the point of the experience was to keep it hidden. You know, just when I was found completely blacked out, having done an overdose, the like the next several days response, the only response I got was, you know, if this keeps happening, we will take you to the hospital and people will find out. That's what I was told.

John Dehlin [00:38:29] That was the threat, right?

Eldon Kartchner [00:38:30] That people will find out, which was apparently the worst thing that could possibly happen. And you know, bless my parents souls, I just don't think they had any idea what to do.

John Dehlin [00:38:42] So was, do you think the family ethic was we want to deceive everyone else or was it just the gospel is true and we want to let the light so shine? I mean, what, you know, someone who wouldn't know your parents as people? I'm sure there's lots of people who know your Parents as beautiful, warm.

Eldon Kartchner [00:39:03] Oh, they're loving, generous.

John Dehlin [00:39:05] Generous.

Eldon Kartchner [00:39:05] And that's how people know them.

John Dehlin [00:39:08] Yet at the same time, the way you're describing them, it's like they don't even really care about you. They're worried about what everybody thinks, which probably wouldn't be a fair way to judge them, Right? No.

Eldon Kartchner [00:39:20] But that was my experience with them. And that's what it continued to isolate me because I knew that this is my experience and that I am not important to them. What matters to them is what everybody else sees. But that's not the way that they are thinking in their own head about themselves.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] Yeah. They're probably thinking Elton's one of the most important people in my life.

Eldon Kartchner [00:39:41] Yeah. And the way to save him is to point out that we need to stop doing this. You know? And so I'm feeling like I'm not even important enough to them that they even want me around. And they're proving it, and they're trying to do what matters to them. From a church perspective. You got to look good. You gotta act well thy part. And if we could just stuff this under and shut it up for long enough, then you'll be fine. And surely things will come around. And so could we just stop having this problem?

Homosexuality in High School and at BYU

John Dehlin [00:40:21] And did homosexuality ever come up in the high school years?

Eldon Kartchner [00:40:25] No.

John Dehlin [00:40:26] Between you and your parents?

Eldon Kartchner [00:40:27] Never.

John Dehlin [00:40:29] What about through you and the therapist that you talked to?

Eldon Kartchner [00:40:31] Never the bishop. The therapist never even asked. Never even insinuated. Never with the bishop. The first time that it came up between me and my parents, I was 27.

John Dehlin [00:40:41] 27, yeah. So during the high school years, did you ever begin to internally self identify as gay? Didn't identify as gay.

Eldon Kartchner [00:40:54] I knew inside my own head and heart what I was attracted to. I mean, I. I sort of dated, but not because. Not until 16. And I'm. Unless you're in a group. Sort of went out with this girl through. All through high school, but I never even kissed her until after our senior prom, which was one kiss. And it was a surprise to her. And that. But it was so easy to couch in. But I'm just being righteous, right?

John Dehlin [00:41:19] Yeah.

Eldon Kartchner [00:41:19] Just being a good Mormon boy. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And isn't that so good of me? I can feel better about myself because I'm doing righteousness.

John Dehlin [00:41:29] You're somehow able to be a lot more moral than all your male counterparts.

Eldon Kartchner [00:41:33] Exactly. It's a way to almost feel better than other people, which sort of equals out the fact that I also feel worthless I mean, again, these things are happening together in the same person, which I think is true of all human beings. But this dualism and this need to hide this, and must be this developing the ability to do that, I think was so. So encouraged by Mormonism. And it, you know, tried to destroy me. It was literally trying to destroy me all through my teenage years that I'm trying to die.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] What about temptation to want to experiment with men and boys? Was that ever prominent?

Eldon Kartchner [00:42:23] That was in my mind. I mean, I was still a teenager with lots and lots and lots of hormones, but. So I would imagine that, however, no real temptation. I'm in a Mormon farm town. There was nothing there, Right? Nothing. Nor was I going to do anything at all. I was not. It just. It couldn't have happened. I was to do what is right. And, like, if I did something wrong, my guilt was unbearable.

John Dehlin [00:42:58] Any other high school reflections or stories before we talk quickly about byu?

Eldon Kartchner [00:43:04] No, I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:43:06] Okay.

Eldon Kartchner [00:43:06] I mean, I'd say that this all went through. I started to feel better about myself when I was really connecting. Especially, like, we start going to EFY and meeting other people that are spiritual. And this is when I start to read the Book of Mormon. And I think in part, I was growing up. You develop like you develop as you grow through the teen years so quickly. And as I was growing up, there was a little bit balancing out in me, I think, and I was maturing just enough to say it's, you know, maybe it's possible that when I feel the spirit, it actually means that I'm not totally worthless.

Eldon Kartchner [00:43:44] And things started to balance out for me. But this was also very correlated with me deciding to keep a journal and write down all the revelations that I could possibly get that the Lord was giving me and read the Book of Mormon. So I really started to associate. I'm reading the Book of Mormon and I think I'm feeling better. And I go to efy, which helps me feel better. And I listen to my music, which helps me feel better. Better. Clearly, the church is the answer, right? It is like I just have to be.

John Dehlin [00:44:09] It's like a treadmill.

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:11] Churchy 24 7, right? Really, really, really churchy.

John Dehlin [00:44:15] Like a religious spiritual treadmill. Totally. That you couldn't get off.

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:19] Totally. Which, you know, I can say on my mission, which I love, but any time I didn't feel good, we got to get more spiritual. We got to get, you know, some Holy Ghost up in here.

John Dehlin [00:44:29] It's kind of. It's kind of medicating anxiety. Through righteousness.

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:33] It's exactly what it was.

John Dehlin [00:44:35] Is that right?

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:36] Some people eat, some people drink, which,

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:40] you know, contributes to my going. See, it's true.

John Dehlin [00:44:43] So it reinforces. It reinforces.

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:46] Have the mission. It's all good now. There was. I mean, the mission was hard for the times that it was hard, but I would focus on the spirit. After the mission, there was darkness because again, I would kind of slip into depression because after the mission, now what the crap am I gonna do? I have now fulfilled the point of my whole life, except for getting married. And that's when I really started to address. Right after my mission. Well, I'd say about a year after my mission, I really started to address. I don't know how to this work because I'm hanging out in the Institute all the time. So it is very clear that these girls that are surrounding me are all kinds of. You're a return missionary. Let's do this.

John Dehlin [00:45:33] They were wanting you?

Eldon Kartchner [00:45:34] Oh, yeah. I mean, they want to get on with their spiritual progression and purpose of life as well. And I couldn't do it because I knew. I dated a few girls, but I knew that I could not love them entirely. And I wasn't willing to do it to them, to do that to them.

John Dehlin [00:45:57] So this is before byu. This is even at University of Arizona.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:01] Yeah. This is really where I'm starting to get.

John Dehlin [00:46:03] You're dating these institute girls.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:05] And you're going out on dates.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:08] And what happens. You just.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:10] It's not happening. I'm not interested in them at all. I have no interest in going on another date with them whatsoever. And they do. And I know. And I know that I'm in this kind of small microcosm where they're talking to their other people and they're saying, I went on a day and I. And we want. I want to do this more. And I'm really interested in Eldon and that if I don't start reciprocating this with somebody on a little more consistent basis, then the. What's going on is going to start to fly.

John Dehlin [00:46:41] Right.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:42] So I'm trying to date people, like just enough to say, well, see. But then I just didn't work.

John Dehlin [00:46:49] Gave it a fair effort.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:50] It's so much work. It's so much work and energy to make this.

John Dehlin [00:46:54] Do you have enough information to know whether they were physically attracted to you, these girls?

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:59] Yeah, they were.

John Dehlin [00:47:00] They were.

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:01] Because why?

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:03] I don't know. Why? Are you physically attracted to anyone? Yeah, they were interested.

John Dehlin [00:47:07] Okay. But did you ever try and kiss or try and, you know, make out or hold hands or. Not a lot.

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:17] No. Like, I think I was still trying to ride the wave of, like, righteousness. Righteousness of. Well, you know, it's. I'm trying to be a really good priesthood holder and not taint anything about our potential beautiful relationship. And so we're not gonna get inappropriate.

John Dehlin [00:47:34] Okay.

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:35] So I was really just trying to be asexual. I was really trying to just turn everything off.

John Dehlin [00:47:41] Okay. And so you say it was exhausting to just perpetually be prematurely terminating these relationships. Not prematurely for you.

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:54] And again, before BYU, this was only a period of 18 months, even though development in the young years seems like a lot bigger and faster. But there was a point at the U of A where I started to become really depressed again because I don't know how to make this work, and it's not working. And at one point, I didn't feel the spirit for, like, a month. And I panicked. Went to my bishop, and I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. I was teaching 7am like, what's wrong? What's happening to me? And I feel so.

John Dehlin [00:48:25] Just panicked because you were, like, a spiritual addict completely. And you were.

Eldon Kartchner [00:48:33] It's my only source of good.

John Dehlin [00:48:35] Your drug had been taken away.

Eldon Kartchner [00:48:36] You were going through kind of withdrawal. Of course, I couched it in with. This was to strengthen me. And the Lord gave me it as a trial that I didn't feel the spirit for a while. But I eventually, in the third semester, I made friends with somebody who. I became attracted enough to this person, this boy, that I went, okay, this is real, and this is a problem. And there was no. Nothing back. In fact, the fact that we were really good friends, I started to sense that this person really was like, I don't want to hang out anymore. And I wasn't doing anything crazy. But I think that there were some. I wasn't dating enough girls, and I was hanging out with him all the time.

John Dehlin [00:49:29] He wasn't gay.

Eldon Kartchner [00:49:30] Not at all. And I was, you know, also singer and dancer in the institute chorale that, like, put all this together, and people are like. And the. Made him go. He pulled away and was like. Didn't really want to be friends anymore. Which made me super depressed.

John Dehlin [00:49:48] Was this the impetus to you losing the spirit?

Eldon Kartchner [00:49:50] No. Well, I wondered. Yes. I absolutely was like, maybe. Maybe this is why I don't feel the spirit. I'm. That's. That's it. I'm getting. And maybe I won't feel the spirit anymore because. Because I Have like moved from complete denial into a place of even sort of accepting it and actually being attracted to someone else, even though I really didn't want to be, but because that was happening in my body, this attraction, clearly I'm being taught my lesson about that. So I went to byu, not only because it was a good idea and there's many opportunities, but also in great, great part to flee, to get away

John Dehlin [00:50:35] from this boy specifically or just the whole situation.

Eldon Kartchner [00:50:39] I need to start over. I am depressed because I've realized that I actually am really attracted to Boisa and that's not okay. And sometimes I don't feel the spirit and people wonder about me here. And I mean, I'm so focused on what people think about me. They're probably not thinking about me at all, but I'm so focused on it. And how could I not be? That was my whole upbringing. We have to appear well that I. I just, I ran. I ran to BYU and all of

John Dehlin [00:51:09] its wonderful opportunities and you got any Young Ambassadors and we're having a good time with all those very heterosexual other males in young and best.

Eldon Kartchner [00:51:24] I again loved, loved, loved. Took me a year at BYU to. I made some really good friends. I prepared for my audition. I really worked hard. I intended to teach at the mtc, but didn't. First time I went in, I didn't get hired. So I went there and things didn't work out immediately and I was kind of like, oh, you know this crushed. So I taught, Taught seminary for a little while in Orem, their special education seminary for this whole first year. But this was all prep to get in Young Ambassadors and get teaching at the mtc so my whole dream could come true and I would be back on Righteous Top. So.

John Dehlin [00:52:10] On what?

Eldon Kartchner [00:52:11] On the righteous top of the mountain.

John Dehlin [00:52:12] The Righteous Top.

Eldon Kartchner [00:52:14] So I did. Eventually I did. I got hired and I loved it. Oh, I love teaching at the mtc. It was. And I loved it.

John Dehlin [00:52:23] English Speaking Machines. Yes. Okay.

Eldon Kartchner [00:52:25] Yes. So all I was doing was teaching them how to teach discussions and how to share spiritual experiences and how to identify the spirit with other people. Heaven for me, I mean, this is a place where you get to go and snort your crack

John Dehlin [00:52:42] Spiritual.

Eldon Kartchner [00:52:42] Yeah, obviously that's what I'm referring to. Like you, you even have to do

John Dehlin [00:52:47] it on your own.

Eldon Kartchner [00:52:49] Like this is what you're supposed to do. And getting in the Young Ambassadors, which is amazing and so fun. And I just, I wanted to play and I was having so much fun with this whole experience. And the whole first year was really really, really amazing. And I loved it. I just. Everything. Loved everything. And I was so busy and running and doing all the stuff that I loved. And the campus was big enough because I'm not hanging out in this tiny little institute, that the fact that I wasn't dating anybody, I don't think that was registering for anybody around me because we're busy and we're running and we're having so much fun.

Eldon Kartchner [00:53:20] And I'm. And I had some friends that I was in my own personal life. I was, you know, like, sort of dating. And then, okay, this just isn't gonna work. I'm just not in love with you. I'm really sorry. But, you know, you're a swell girl, and I'm trying really, really hard not to do that to girls because it's hurtful. But for the most part, I felt like all eyes are not on me anymore about why aren't you dating? And that focus.

John Dehlin [00:53:46] So I'm trying. This is just a random question, but I'm trying to figure out how to. A straight woman becomes attracted to a gay man and specifically what keeps them from just having this gaydar sense of this guy's gay. Like, I'm not going to want to be attracted to him or like him because he, you know, it may be that you were artistic and they kind of observed you and maybe their gaydar went off. And yet there's these women who are still attracted to you. Do you have a sense for how that works?

Eldon Kartchner [00:54:19] Well, this is the mid-90s, so I don't think that many Mormon. I, I imagine it's different now, but I don't think that many especially LDS girls at all had any gaydar. I mean, they just. There wasn't a sense that that was real or really out there. And again, this is still.

John Dehlin [00:54:39] Wasn't really penetrating the consciousness of Mormon.

Eldon Kartchner [00:54:41] No, no, not at all. And the idea that if someone was incredibly effeminate with whether they were gay or not, I think that that was not necessarily attractive to a girl. But for someone trying very purposefully not to be gay, and yet for all the stuff to come out, that is still natural there anyway, hey, I can notice that you're beautiful and you look really good and your colors go together and let's talk about our feelings and let's, you know, let's watch Anne of Green Gables together.

Eldon Kartchner [00:55:13] All the stuff that. But I. But I'm totally straight. I'm putting that on. How is that not attractive to especially a very sweet LDS girl who's like, hey, I. We Gotta be eternally together and raise children together. And you look like you'll be a super sensitive, really good dad who cares about my feelings and actually remembers what I said when I said something. How are you not attracted? Obviously I'm not a girl. I can't speak to it from that angle, but that's just, that's my speculation.

John Dehlin [00:55:43] And did you ever play with the way you spoke or acted to try and, you know, make it more masculine? Is that something?

Eldon Kartchner [00:55:51] I think a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:55:53] But what we're hearing and seeing now is comparable to how you would have acted. Yeah. Okay, so it wasn't like you.

Eldon Kartchner [00:55:59] No, I don't try to get too bright. Even though when I, I think all through my life, when I look back or I would listen to myself or see myself on tape anywhere, I'd be like way too gay, you know? Cause that's bad when you would see yourself on tape. Okay, am I gay? Really? I'm talking about way too effeminate, which are not the same thing. But we've so associated them in our

John Dehlin [00:56:23] culture that are they at least somewhat associated?

Eldon Kartchner [00:56:25] Well, yeah, yeah, I don't think like

John Dehlin [00:56:27] at least at 0.5 correlation.

Eldon Kartchner [00:56:29] Yeah, the stereotype doesn't exist for nothing. But you know, I, I would not want to sound gay at all or look gay. So I was trying not to be. Even though. So the second year of BYU I was, you know, coming along, doing well, which is my last. Well my second year in Young Ambassadors for my last year at byu I met a wonderful friend who is still a really good friend who in the really, really crude term, I don't have a better term for it. So I'm sorry, that's kind of crude. But women who are gay men's friend are called their hag. And like people don't know that term. There's got to be.

John Dehlin [00:57:13] I've heard beard.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:15] Is beard different than hag?

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:16] Well, I think a little bit beard is a front.

John Dehlin [00:57:21] Someone who looks like a girlfriend. Uh huh.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:23] But isn't usually if you refer to a hag, it's somebody who totally knows she's just like your best girlfriend and she likes being with the guys.

John Dehlin [00:57:34] Got it.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:35] So. And again, that's yucky word. So we won't use it anymore, but

John Dehlin [00:57:40] never heard of before.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:41] There you go.

John Dehlin [00:57:42] Good to know.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:44] She was a really good friend of mine, but she knew all the gay boys at BYU and all the gay boys at Rick's. It was Rick's at the time, not BYUI who had come to byu. A great Deal of them. Because again, there's something about this stereotype. I think Carolyn Pearson speaks about it beautifully. But there's artistic something about being same sex attracted. So the music dance theater department is filled. Filled with homosexual men. Or. Or men who are maybe not all the way homosexual, but even just slightly, it's just still.

John Dehlin [00:58:23] Same with the Mormon tyrannical choir.

Eldon Kartchner [00:58:24] That's right. Artistic stuff. You're gonna have a greater preponderance. Did I say that word right? But she knew them all. All of them. And so I think she kind of delighted in outing them to me because she knew the most moment she met me. I mean, her gaydar was sharp, and so she knew right away. And she, like, called me out on it. And I was like, okay, you know, maybe it's all right that she thinks that. But I was really like, no, no, it's not true. Not me. Everybody else, you know, but not me. And she was like, okay, all right. I mean, she didn't believe it for a second, but she started.

Eldon Kartchner [00:59:16] I think it was sort of her way of trying to move me along. My process is that she started outing everybody else, not in front of them. But do you know that this person is gay? And this person's gay, and this person's gay, and this person's gay. And she's naming off to me all these people that I know in the music dance theater department and all of these guys that are with me in the Young Ambassadors. And it wasn't all of them. It's not 100%, but she's naming off a large, large amount of them. And I'm freaking out. I really kind of dove a little into being depressed at the time because as dumb as it sounds in retrospect, I kind of just really thought it was me. I did.

John Dehlin [01:00:02] You're the only gay guy.

Eldon Kartchner [01:00:03] Conceptually. Of course there's other ones, but really, it's. Yeah, it really is only me. And not just that. They are not just all these other guys that are gay who has so many of them around me, but also here is the great portion of them who are gay who are getting together and sleeping together.

John Dehlin [01:00:24] What?

Eldon Kartchner [01:00:25] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:26] No, no, no. I'm sorry. This is byu.

Eldon Kartchner [01:00:28] I know.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] What?

Eldon Kartchner [01:00:30] See, it was blowing my mind. It was really like, this cannot be the case. It is one thing for you to tell me that there are more out there, but now you are telling me they are breaking the honor code. And that is not okay. We have rules here. They are rules from God. And I just couldn't even. I didn't know what to do with myself.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] Even young ambassadors, maybe a couple,

Eldon Kartchner [01:00:53] yes, and maybe more than I knew. But it just blew my mind. I didn't know what to do with it for a long time. But I think it was all a big part of pushing me to be out with myself. So then my work really became personally, how am I. What am I going to do about it now that it exists all out there and all these people are doing these terrible, horrible, awful things that you're not supposed to do by hooking up with each other, which I am never going to do. And so clearly, in order to stay righteous, I need to get further from it. So then I had a real difficult time finishing up BYU because it occurred to me that everything stereotypically gay in our culture that I needed to not be and I needed to have nothing to do with is all that I have to offer the world.

John Dehlin [01:01:56] Oh, so if you wanted to be not gay, you would have to give up singing and dancing and artistic, being

Eldon Kartchner [01:02:02] kind and being artistic and being like, yes, you can be, you know, learn how to be kind. And elders quorum kind of nice. But I was gentle and I was emotional and I was artistic and all this stuff, touchy feely, has to go. And if it doesn't go a minimum, it's what's wrong with me. All the stuff that's best about me is what's wrong with me. And so I kind of. I started falling hard into. Oh, maybe I thought I wasn't worthless, but I probably am. There's just something internally flawed about me then in between, I was still doing, you know, all the stuff that I love and smiling about it and this is all really good and still trying a few times to date some girls and it's not working out, but really I'm just so busy that I can't. And so then I graduated byu.

John Dehlin [01:03:02] Wait, but you went. But you did some reparative therapy while you were at BYU after. Okay, okay, just keep going.

Eldon Kartchner [01:03:08] So I graduated from BYU not really having a clue what I was going to do do because.

John Dehlin [01:03:12] And never having had a real serious girlfriend.

Eldon Kartchner [01:03:16] No. I mean, I dated some girls for several months or I'd had really best friends where we talked about, you know, gosh, I just don't know why it's not happening with you, but it really should. But we're so close. I wish we were, you know, girls being emotional sometimes. Just keep that up. We don't discourage that about women. But I. I had tried dating, but hadn't just really.

Eldon Kartchner [01:03:46] I Want to say that truthfully, I had given it a fair chance because for several months at a time I had dated several girls and really tried. I had. When I graduated byu, I graduated in psychology with the intent that I was going to move on and be a counselor. But I kind of had a little life crisis almost every year of college towards the spring semester about what are you gonna do? Because I don't like this.

Eldon Kartchner [01:04:13] Psychology is what I was meant to go into because I'm touchy feely and can listen to people and it's the only thing I could come up with. But I was never gonna go into performing, ever. I was told very early, we'll take you to dance class, but you will not do this for a profession. You cannot support a family with it. And you will have a family that's

John Dehlin [01:04:30] gonna be a doctor.

Eldon Kartchner [01:04:31] Out loud, talk.

John Dehlin [01:04:33] Yeah.

Eldon Kartchner [01:04:34] And I don't. And it wasn't. My dad was like, my dad made me be a doctor. I'm not gonna make you anything. Have to do that. But. But my. It was my mom's clear idea that I was gonna be a counselor. That kind of fit for me. So I was gonna do that. But when I graduated with the bachelor's, you know what you can do with a bachelor's in psychology? Nothing, Nothing, nothing. You can go work it, go to graduate school. You can go to graduate school.

Eldon Kartchner [01:04:59] You can make $10 an hour at a treatment center. So when I graduated, I really didn't know what I was gonna do. In retrospect, I would like. I would have loved to have studied interior design. I would have loved it, I would have thrived with it. But that was never possible. That was way too gay. So I just.

Eldon Kartchner [01:05:18] There's no way I could have done performing and got really serious about it, but I never really did get serious about it because there's no way it wasn't gonna happen. Graduated, stayed in Provo for a year, which was harsh because I didn't know where to go. I didn't know what to do. So I'm like, well, I'm here and my friends are all here, but my friends are all still in classes and they were still in the Ambassadors and they were still doing what they were doing. And I was a server at Los Hermanos where I learned that unfortunately, people in Provo are the worst servers and world.

Eldon Kartchner [01:05:52] But I was doing that and I got a part time job at Wasatch Treatment Center. But between all the stuff that I was doing, I was just miserable. I moved out of my BYU apartment because I thought, well, I gotta do something new. But then I couldn't. I didn't find another apartment. I ended up for several months in a camper trailer in my aunt's front yard. I mean, it's just like it was kind of going downhill for what am I doing with my life?

Eldon Kartchner [01:06:23] And I got so, so, oh so depressed. Just darkness. And finally walked out onto the porch of my aunt's house with the phone and called at belly of social services several months after my graduation and said, I need to come in for counseling.

Eldon Kartchner [01:06:44] And I don't know why, but the woman on the phone said, are you homosexual? And that was really my first time out loud saying, yeah, I am. That's why I'm coming. So then I started my reparative therapy for the rest for not quite a year, like 10 months.

John Dehlin [01:07:06] And what was that like? Well, what was the theory?

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:11] This was in 1999 into 2000. So it was not. There was no shocking of the genitals or like some of the truly crazy stuff that happened before that. That was over. But. Well, I don't know if it was over. It never happened to me. Right.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:27] Mine was a, mine was talk therapy based on you learned how to be gay and that is why you think you're gay, because you learn it. And so we're going to unlearn. What's the. Yeah, you must understand what you have learned.

Seeking Therapy and Church Guidance

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:43] I, I did not like the therapist at all, but I thought I was. He was an authority figure and he was a church based authority figure. So I obeyed whatever he told me I did. And in fact, like one time I was talking about, I'm so depressed. And he was like, we're really not going to talk about that. But if you continue telling me you're depressed, I will put you on medication. So I think you need to either start running about 45 minutes a day to get rid of this in your body or we will put you on medication. And it was literally like that.

Eldon Kartchner [01:08:19] It was this threat. And I thought, oh, okay. So I started running because that's what I was supposed to do. I mean, gay for being in shape, but it, it's just weird. And he constantly was telling me about the things that I needed to, I needed to, you know, stop talking to my mother because she was overbearing. And that was part of why I was gay. And I needed to start talking to my father because I had to have a more father son relationship. And he would talk about how your dad's gonna fly up here and you're gonna Go to the elk reserve in Salt Lake City.

Eldon Kartchner [01:08:49] Like for whole hour sessions, he would sit and tell me what is going to happen because your dad is going to do this and you guys are going to do this and it's going to be this really male bonding. And I was like, that's not gonna happen.

Eldon Kartchner [01:09:03] I can promise you it's not gonna happen. I mean, never mind that I'm not gonna become not gay. These things that you want me to do, like this relationship with my dad is not gonna happen because what, he does not get on a plane and fly up and I'm not going to go to the elk reserve with him and suddenly be not gay.

John Dehlin [01:09:29] Does he hunt? No. Do you? No.

Eldon Kartchner [01:09:35] I just. I don't know. But he was. He was an elderly gentleman and didn't listen very much and didn't really validate much of anything of what I was saying. And so it just more and more felt like, this is so pointless, so worthless. This is not happening.

Eldon Kartchner [01:09:57] The one thing that he did say to me that stuck him, that mattered, is that he said, well, you are going to need to date someone, which you are going to get married, whatever, and you are going to tell her.

Eldon Kartchner [01:10:13] I was like, no, no, that is not part of the scenario. I will not be telling anybody that I'm dating. But he planted that seed. So that is the one massive credit I give to him. Otherwise pointless. I mean, it was not helpful. It made me try and try and try to be something that I'm not and feel over and over and over like more of a failure and get more and more depressed because I couldn't accomplish what I was expected to do in the therapy I was going to.

John Dehlin [01:10:49] Did you find yourself making promises to God?

Eldon Kartchner [01:10:55] My whole life I have made promise after promise, like tried to make these deals about my massive righteousness. I. Throughout my life and even at this time, I've made lists of the more righteous things I was going to do. Okay, so I'm going to out my scripture reading per day to. To this amount of minutes and I'm going to stay on my knees this amount of minutes and I'm going like, really trying to even get specific about my ideals because God was going to fix this for me and I was going to unlearn all my stuff and it's going to all be better.

John Dehlin [01:11:26] Don't put it into your head that God would fix this if you were righteous enough. Any idea does that just naturally come as you associate it with sin and you know that God can take temptation away so it Just kind of naturally occurs to you.

Eldon Kartchner [01:11:40] I can't remember a time somebody saying. I think that it's really the message. It's the overall message, which is what you. If you are righteous enough after all that you can do, you will be saved.

John Dehlin [01:11:54] Right. So for you, it's being safe from being gay. Yeah.

Eldon Kartchner [01:11:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:00] After all you can do.

Eldon Kartchner [01:12:02] After all you. All you can do, which is never ever met. Because there is never a time that

John Dehlin [01:12:09] you can do it all.

Eldon Kartchner [01:12:10] Just take one more step. Can you say, I can't do any more?

John Dehlin [01:12:16] Right.

Eldon Kartchner [01:12:17] No. Because if you can say, I can't do any more, you can still use your voice, which could be used to testify. If you're not dead or in a coma, you could do more. So it can't be met. I can never, never be enough. I think it also, maybe it's not necessarily sad, but it's almost like the only hope. If I'm not going to be gay, what other option is there except for God to change it? I mean, so maybe nobody said it, but it's sort of the. It's like the only default. It's some kind of magic, right? Some kind of magic about that.

John Dehlin [01:12:56] So would you work towards some date or month or year where you'd be like, okay, I'm gonna work really super hard until next October, and then I'm gonna see if it's been taken away?

Eldon Kartchner [01:13:09] Yeah, I would. I can remember specifically doing that through my life with periods of fasting.

John Dehlin [01:13:13] Fasting?

Eldon Kartchner [01:13:14] Yeah, Days and days in a row.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] Fasting days in a row.

Eldon Kartchner [01:13:18] Well, I would never fast for more than two days in a row. So sometimes fasting. Yeah, but sometimes I would make up, like, I'm gonna fast for a week, which means I'm gonna fast every day till dinner, and then I will eat dinner, but as soon as dinner's over, I will fast till the next day at dinner. So kind of trying to do like a fast Sunday, but five days in a row kind of thing. And at the end there will be transformation.

John Dehlin [01:13:46] It didn't happen.

Eldon Kartchner [01:13:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:47] What was that like? Each time you would. You would amp it up, double down, triple down, and then you get to the end.

Eldon Kartchner [01:13:57] It's probably. I think it was incredibly devastating for me, but I wasn't going to let it necessarily be devastating. I would downplay the devastation, like, just personally, as in, okay, that didn't work. Well, that's probably because I did five days instead.

Eldon Kartchner [01:14:20] Okay, I'll try better next time. Because the answer is always my fault. Always. That's the Mormonism answer. From my perspective, that is what Mormonism taught me. There is nothing wrong that is not my fault. All of it is because you can always do better and you could have tried harder. And God blesses and reveals what, like good things to people who do enough.

Eldon Kartchner [01:14:48] So I just clearly was not enough. So at the end of this reparative therapy, that was not working. And this year at Provo, that was depressing and depressing and depressing me more. I did the one thing that I knew could work to sort of change things around. Because as much as I don't want to exist, I didn't want to kill myself necessarily. But that was also because if I kill myself, I'm. I have to go to spirit prison and then I'm going to be in the lost kingdom, which is not where I'm supposed to be, and I'll be a total failure. Like I always thought I was.

Eldon Kartchner [01:15:17] Like, it's such a Mormon mindset about why I cannot even kill myself that I've got to figure out something to do. So I ran. I need to do something with my life. This is not it. I'm completely miserable. Let's go somewhere where it doesn't even matter. Because the world was open to me. I had no ties anywhere. My sister lived in Colorado, and every time I visited her, I liked it. It was a nice place. I'll go to Colorado.

John Dehlin [01:15:41] This is Carrie.

Eldon Kartchner [01:15:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:42] So you came to Colorado?

Eldon Kartchner [01:15:43] I just. Because I've got to do something. So I came to Colorado. You ready, Kane? And promptly, like, got my energy back because we're in a fresh, new place and nobody didn't notice what's going on. And I'm going to make this life work. And, yeah, we can do this. And I got super involved with the ward as much as I could right away. And I got my own apartment and this is really good. And got a job that, you know, wasn't great paying, but it was high paying enough for me as a single man and just in a youth treatment center because that's what you could do with a psychology degree.

Eldon Kartchner [01:16:20] And thought about, you know, okay, pretty soon, one of these years, very soon, we're gonna go back to grad school and we're just starting over. So it was pretty good. And again, this hopefulness with this complete despair, this is all. I have it all through the whole story so far. It's very, very.

Emotional Turmoil and Spiritual Conflict

Eldon Kartchner [01:16:44] It's a great duality. I feel so miserable. I feel so alone. I feel the spirit. I'm so grateful that God loves me. I wish it was enough for the love that he has for me. I mean, it's just. It's all held at the same time. I'm saying it as though it's back and forth. It wasn't. It really was all together at the same time. With me trying to make it back and forth. Me trying to make everything bad go away with everything good. So then I moved here, and then I met Heather.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 373

Eldon Kartchner [00:00:20] When I moved here, I got the ward Bishop was actually the father of a couple members of the current Young Ambassadors, not now, but like back then. And he really liked performance and good things like that. So he really encouraged the ward to do musical performances and things like that. So we put together this whole performance in the summer that I moved here of my servant Joseph by Kenneth Cope. And I auditioned and got cast as Joseph. This is really cool.

John Dehlin [00:00:53] Joseph Smith.

Eldon Kartchner [00:00:54] Yes. Yes. And the opening number that Joseph Smith sings in that whole performance is Learning for Myself, which Kenneth Cope wrote for the theme for my first EFY that I ever went to. This is. So do you remember it? Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:10] Can you sing a little bit of it? Is that a bear shoot?

Eldon Kartchner [00:01:13] A little bit.

John Dehlin [00:01:14] You don't have to.

Eldon Kartchner [00:01:16] I actually recorded it, which is kind of fun. I want to, but I feel like I'm like driveways right now. I'm alarm embarrassed. But learning for myself was. It was a big deal. It's a beautiful number to me. So a couple months right after I was here, we did this whole stakewide performance of the life of Joseph Smith in music.

Eldon Kartchner [00:01:42] And, You know, it kind of felt like being back on my game a little bit. And that's probably because I wasn't there long enough for people to start wondering yet about my life. And I was involving myself in things that I really like to do and I had a job and this was all good. And of course, because she was active and really part of the whole social scene and the church, Heather came to this performance.

Eldon Kartchner [00:02:12] And so afterwards I met lots and lots of people. I mean, everybody in the stake is like, oh, good job, whatever. And I met Heather, which I don't remember because I met like 200 people. So she loves to say, I met him and I fell in love with him first, but he doesn't remember me, to just get under my skin. But she would say flat out, he sang the first song and I was in love. It stuck.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] So what happened after that performance? How did things grow from there?

Eldon Kartchner [00:02:51] It was really just a month later that I met her. I have a really good memory of seeing her. I think I'd seen her in church already, but seeing her one time standing by the baptismal font in the hall in the church during a family home evening time that the whole ward was at and thinking, she's really cute.

Eldon Kartchner [00:03:15] And to be honest, I wanted something to work out. So I was still in the arena of how can I make this work? How can I make this happen? Because clearly I need to marry. She was really cute.

Eldon Kartchner [00:03:32] So in October I decided to call and ask her out. Cause I had a friend, we were on a date and said, get a double. And I'd actually had a few people say, you should go with Heather. So anyway, I called and she couldn't go because she was in charge of a huge dinner function at her work.

Eldon Kartchner [00:03:53] But said, ask me again, which was encouraging to me. And then a couple weeks later she called and said, I'm free. Do you want to do that date? And so I said, you bet. I happen to be free. It was a Saturday. So I planned up a date and took her out. So we also disagree about who asked who on the first date.

Eldon Kartchner [00:04:14] Because I asked first and I planned the date. We went on the. She asked. But we, you know, we figured out early on in dating that we cannot compete about anything. We had a competition about finishing and reading Harry Potter and we sometimes would play games and we figured out we cannot be on different teams because we were both way too competitive. And it was just.

Eldon Kartchner [00:04:38] Did not end well if we. So we really were getting on the same team about everything from the beginning. And I was attracted to her sexually. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, initially I was really attracted to her because she was beautiful, like aesthetically beautiful, but also she was very smart and very collected. She was already a full time physical therapist at Children's Hospital.

Eldon Kartchner [00:05:12] Quite happy living her life. She was not. She never had this like, oh, I've got to find a husband and my life is not complete and I'm just not doing what I want to do with my life. She was really happy with what she was doing, that it was all right. And whenever something came along, then who was going to come along? And that was really attractive to me because I don't like desperation. And as if it wasn't hard enough that I really didn't have an attraction to other girls.

Eldon Kartchner [00:05:41] Sort of this, it's an ugly stereotype of like this kind of desperate to get married. 20 year old running around the institute going, who will date me? Who will date me? I really need to get married and I just want you to take care of me and all that kind of stuff. So for a young woman. Yeah, yeah. So I, I really don't care for that. It was really collected, knew what she was doing with her life. And I liked it because to me that looked like somebody I could be a partner with and not have to take care of and sort of, you know, be in this kind of a role that I didn't want.

Eldon Kartchner [00:06:23] And a couple weeks into dating, she Took me down to meet her family, and on the way back, we stopped a gas station and I kissed her for the first time. And I really liked it.

John Dehlin [00:06:35] You really liked it?

Eldon Kartchner [00:06:36] Yeah. Yeah. And I can remember even a couple specific times early on as we were dating that I realized I'm attracted to you. Not just that you're pretty, but there's, you know, there's essential feelings that you need to have. You have to be aroused when you're with the person that you're going to be with for the rest of your life. You should be, I think. And to be able to experience that with her made me go, hey, okay, maybe this could work.

Eldon Kartchner [00:07:12] And that made me very, very excited about the possibilities because I really liked her. And she was brilliant and smart, and as a person, I was definitely falling for her really quick. And it was probably. I mean, it was only two or three months in that I told her, I think I'm in love with you.

Meeting and Marrying His Wife

Eldon Kartchner [00:07:33] Which made her very, very happy. Because every. It really seems like every step that I took towards her, she was already there waiting. So glad you got here. Now about. In terms of our relationship and closeness together. And she was really, really. She worked for me personally because anytime that I had a bit of a freak out about anything, she. She was all right. Her common phrase was, well, I'll be here when you're done with that.

Eldon Kartchner [00:08:09] And that made a big difference to me. Or like, I remember one time specifically discussing with her, so what? I'm 27 at the time that we started dating. I'm 27 now. And sometimes I like to be alone and just have some quiet time and go do my own thing. And so what happens when we're married and I just want to be alone and I kind of don't want to see you because clearly this is going to be a big problem and you're not going to like that and whatever. And, you know, her answer was, go be alone, dummy. I mean, it was just not disparaging, but she was just so, these things are not a problem.

Eldon Kartchner [00:08:49] It's okay. And she was just very grown up that way. She was 25 at the time. And I think it feels relevant to say that the, like, the duality that my life had been of trying to hide this and trying to be this my whole life, but all at the same time with her, something that was so significant is that it started coming together to be the same life.

Eldon Kartchner [00:09:27] And that because I remember when I asked her to marry me was when I realized she. We were just sitting in a Car. And it occurred to me with a whole lot of clarity, she knows everything about me.

Eldon Kartchner [00:09:47] Nobody in my whole life has ever known this much of me, and no one has ever loved me more than her. So I have to be with this person. So I asked her to marry me, and she said yes right away and called me the next morning.

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:10] Did we get engaged? Yeah. Yeah, we did. But also, the reason that that could even happen was I was just four or five months into dating that I kind of had the click in of, all right, I really like her, and this is really wonderful, but I. I cannot deceive her, and I can't lie to her. Well, same thing. I can't lie to her. I can't.

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:38] I can't do this. And for me, when I had that realization, I think I've known it all on. But when it really came to the surface for me was really hard because I thought, this has been so nice and it's been so wonderful, and I really love this girl. And in order to really love her and be honest, I have to call it off.

Eldon Kartchner [00:10:58] Not that I was going to call it off. I had to tell her, which would mean that it was over. So, of course, I fasted. It was on a Sunday, and I fasted through the day. And I remember coming home and I asked if she would come over.

Eldon Kartchner [00:11:12] And sitting on my couch before she came over, I can recall falling on my knees off the couch and praying and praying and praying. And I think what gave me the bravery to go ahead and do it is that I had again that real spiritual fix, because when I prayed for help, because I'm going to tell Heather that now this opportunity is going to be over. I'm so sure the answer that I felt was, I will love you anyway.

Eldon Kartchner [00:11:50] So, you know, there's a lot of moments like that that made me feel so. Like God and Heavenly Father and Jesus were so important, because even though I wasn't enough, they left me anyway. And so this was this big deal for me. And I had her over and sat her on the couch, and, gosh, it was a couple months earlier that we'd had one of my friends come over and visit me for a little while, actually, because he was on tour with a Broadway show that was in town, and he and I were the young ambassadors together. Anyway, by that time, he had fully come out and was living his life.

Eldon Kartchner [00:12:29] And so Heather had met him, and that wasn't a secret anywhere. So my way of telling her was to say, I need to tell you that I'm White Paul, Because I. I don't even think I could, like, say the word I'm gay. It had to be, you know what I'm talking about.

Eldon Kartchner [00:12:51] But then I think I did say, I am. I'm same sex attracted. To which Heather's response was, I know. And I kept waiting for her to have this dramatic reaction she was supposed to have or to not like that. And she just wouldn't.

Eldon Kartchner [00:13:15] She just wouldn't. She'd already thought it out and this was okay. And she had. She was pretty clear about saying, I realize that that's not really supposed to work, but I love you. And I've prayed about it and it's gonna be okay.

Eldon Kartchner [00:13:32] Which I think in a whole lot of situations is dangerous. But we didn't move on. We were doing the best that we could. And so we went forward and I was so, so happy. We had the perfect wedding and this amazing honeymoon to Italy, which was all about her because she was smart enough that she had owned this condo before in undergrad and then sold it when we were getting married and paid off some student debt and took us on a honeymoon. And I was like, I have a $10 an hour job. But she was amazing that way. We had this incredible start.

John Dehlin [00:14:15] Quick question. Had you ever had a relationship with a guy? Never. Never? Never. Never made out with a guy or

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:26] not even once? Never ever. And I.

John Dehlin [00:14:33] No. Sex with a guy?

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:34] No.

John Dehlin [00:14:35] So you're.

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:35] Or the girl?

John Dehlin [00:14:37] Or the girl?

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:37] I was a good boy.

John Dehlin [00:14:39] So you're. But not asexual?

Eldon Kartchner [00:14:42] No, I was trying to be for a lot of times, but, no, I was not asexual.

John Dehlin [00:14:46] So isn't it interesting that you're, like, wracked with torment for 27 years of your life for having actually never done anything? And that's so sad.

Eldon Kartchner [00:15:01] Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:15:03] And that's the majority of the people that I have interviewed who experienced same sex attraction as a Mormon. They never had any relationship. So the whole promiscuous or experimenting, just none of that has applied so far to anyone I've interviewed, I don't think.

Eldon Kartchner [00:15:23] Right. And I like you bringing that up because I think it's important to this story to note. I thought it's not a very evolved thought. In fact, it's maybe a little embarrassing. But I was doing the best I could at the time. I thought maybe that's why this works, because I have other friends who did mess around and they can't make it work.

Eldon Kartchner [00:15:51] So maybe part of the reason why I get to have Heather is because I Chose the right. I didn't do something because really God was rewarding you. Yeah. Despite the fact that we believe in an atonement, I think we kind of don't. And for a great deal of my spiritual life, sometimes that on and off has been a real platform for we do not believe in Jesus enough. But I, I think in Mormonism, I'll own this as my interpretation that we really have unforgivable sins and maybe even different from unforgivable. We have sins that will change you in such a way you cannot change back.

John Dehlin [00:16:34] The whole chewed bubble gum, the whole nails on the board. You can pull the nail out with the whole room.

Eldon Kartchner [00:16:39] Right. Like, you can have blessings sort of eventually. But there are things you will do that once you've done them, you can't, you can't go back, no matter how much you repent.

John Dehlin [00:16:51] Yeah. Even like you look at it, you look at pornography, you'll never be able to get that image out of your life.

Eldon Kartchner [00:16:56] Right, right. It happens. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that. And so I kind of thought, well, I. I chose never to do anything. And so that's part of. Surely that's part of why it works. Because I was trying still to figure all the time, figure out all the time, why is this working? I want to know. I'm a curious person. I want to understand things. I mean, that way. The field of counseling psychology really just worked for me because I want to understand things all the time. And so I continued from the moment I was dating her, I already was, and way all the time after we were married, trying to figure out, why does this work? Why does it work for me? It doesn't work for other people.

John Dehlin [00:17:39] And your answer was, God blessed you for your righteousness?

Eldon Kartchner [00:17:43] In part, yeah. That's what made the best sense to me initially.

Reflecting on Mixed-Orientation Marriages

John Dehlin [00:17:47] Okay, so the people that I. The people who feel really passionately about Josh Weed and Lally for our listeners. Josh is a therapist from Washington State. This is 2012, and recently he came out with a blog post saying that after 10 years of marriage to his wife, he's come out as gay with three children. And he says he loves his marriage, he loves his wife, and they say that they have the best sex life of anyone they know, including straight people. And for him, it totally works. Now, he's very careful. What?

Eldon Kartchner [00:18:29] It's quite a claim.

John Dehlin [00:18:30] Well, he also is careful not to say that this is something everyone should do, not to hold himself up as a role model. And I've even heard him in a personal conversation I had with Him. And in some other talks he's given, in another YouTube video or two, he's put out where he said, parents should not use Josh and lollies weed story as a battering ram. And if somebody decides that they need to have same sex relationships, that he doesn't stand in judgment of them. And so just giving the listeners some context now, as I've talked to people who feel really passionately about this, their answer is, he's bisexual.

Eldon Kartchner [00:19:17] Why wouldn't it be, Ryan? Why wouldn't it be? When I saw he did an interview, and the interviewer asked him on Nightline, so you're bisexual? And he said no. And my issue with that is that I feel like he has decided to. Obviously, I cannot speak about him like, as though I know him, but my interpretation is he has decided to define what these words mean in his own way. And I think that it's a little problematic to publicly say, no, I'm not bisexual, because the public as a whole has a very accepted general kind of idea what the word bisexual means. And bisexual includes, I like to have sex with men, I like to have sex with women.

Eldon Kartchner [00:19:58] And he's saying that, but I'm not bisexual. So I can only guess that he's chosen to define these words in his own way. But then we didn't get that definition. And so I think that ended up publicly. Very confusing. Doesn't make sense.

John Dehlin [00:20:15] It's probably not time to dig into him yet. And I'm the one who brought him up. But you could say, you know, what he says is that I'm only attracted to men, but I'm attracted to my wife, but she's the only woman I ever have been or ever will be attracted to again. So it's more that they met as childhood sweethearts, that they grew up together, that they were besties, and eventually decided that this would work for them. And, and so. Okay, so we don't need to dig into that, but for you. So do you. Does that mean that by. By definition. Oh, no, we can talk about that. Let's just hold that for a second. But. But by that logic, you also are bisexual. Right?

Eldon Kartchner [00:21:03] That. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:21:06] So you're comfortable with that label for yourself?

Eldon Kartchner [00:21:09] I'm comfortable, yeah. But I wouldn't, I don't use that because going forward, I have no intention or feeling towards finding another wife or being with a woman. So if it's more comfortable to look at my situation and say, this gentleman is bisexual, and that's why that works, okay. But I don't use that word in trying to define myself really, because going forward that's not going to be the case. I'm not going to find another woman.

John Dehlin [00:21:45] I'll just add this one last thing. In same sex attracted sort of studies, there's a scale called the Kinsey Scale which goes from zero to six. Zero means exclusively attracted to the opposite sex. No attraction to the same sex. Six means exclusively attracted to the same sex. And then three means half and half bisexual, Right.

Eldon Kartchner [00:22:13] Genuine bisexual. There's also a measure called X for asexual.

John Dehlin [00:22:17] Right? That's right. That's right. And then you could even do the Kinsey scale, not just on attraction, but also on identity and on behavior. So, you know, it can be. But you can say someone's a five, right. And they're still bisexual technically because they're not fully exclusively same sex attributes.

Eldon Kartchner [00:22:38] Well, I think the general understanding is that it's actually very rare that anyone is a six or zero.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] I've heard that, except I know my experience and I know other men I've talked to and a lot of people, I know a lot of guys that claim to be zeros, you know, of

Eldon Kartchner [00:22:59] course they do, because that's what you want to be. If you're straight and identify as straight in a world where being gay is disgusting and awful and would mean something horrible for you, you're not a zero, you're a negative one, you know.

John Dehlin [00:23:12] But no, but I'm not aware of having ever felt same sex attraction myself.

Eldon Kartchner [00:23:18] However, if you broaden the idea of sexuality to mean more than just being involved in some intercourse or some kind of naked, you know, involvement together, if you broaden it even just slightly to any sense of emotionality, to any sense of personal connection, to a, like any sense of I just need some guy time, I just need some girl time, you know, I feel uplifted by so not just sexual, but my romance or whatever. Yeah. Like if you can broaden sexuality into any sense of these other things, which I, which I think you have to because that sexuality involves those things. Intimacy is not just a physical act, then it's really hard to say that anyone anywhere is a 6 or 0 because to say that you have no connection to or no need for anyone who is, you know, opposite or same wherever you're at, get her. It's hard to believe that.

John Dehlin [00:24:25] So for you, the sexual thing, everything is somewhat sexual. Are you saying in, in relationships of intimacy because like you can like really care for somebody, really want to be with them, but not want to be physically intimate? Have no arousal.

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:39] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:24:41] No desire to hug. You know, maybe goodbye hug, but no,

Eldon Kartchner [00:24:45] what I think what I'm really starting to do is to take away the black and whiteness of it. Yeah, that's what I would hope, because it's not growing up. And especially, again, this is my interpretation of Mormonism. But the lessons I was giving all over is it's really black and white. It's that simple. Sex is absolutely black and white. It's wrong until it's right. And then when it's right, it's only right in this particular context and with particular things that you do. And so under that guise, it's completely separate from. It's wonderful and beautiful in marriage, but really not even necessary. It's just a nice perk and it's necessary for procreation.

Eldon Kartchner [00:25:23] And I did get different messages growing up from different areas in the church about some, you know, sometimes. No, it's really beautiful and important for couples, you know, in opposition to. Well, it's really. It's fine and it's good and it's good for procreation, but it's definitely not necessary when it doesn't happen. It's fine. And I think that it's. That kind of sex doesn't really matter for intimacy position that makes it all the easier to hold a religious idea that you can be married as a gay man to someone else. Because if you don't have an active, fulfilling, so to speak, sex life, so what?

Eldon Kartchner [00:26:08] That's not part of righteousness and the plan of salvation, that's necessary. So bucket up, shut up, pull it together, be righteous. So, yeah, I guess coming back to. I just really. I view it, sexuality as something that is so fluid in human beings that people are really, really individually different from one another in a lot of ways. The Kinsey skull is really good. There's actually more detailed, Lots of more detailed skills measuring sexual orientation out there. This is just the best known one. So I think it's best to work with that.

Eldon Kartchner [00:26:44] But coming back to the personal, I really think if you want to just easily sit on top of numbers for the sake of not trying to nuance till the end of the day, I was really like a four and Heather made me a two.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:08] But nobody else, Nobody else that you've ever met since never before, never after. It was very, very individual. I think that that's for several reasons, because. And first of all, I want to say really, really, really clearly saying that, like, if you were just to take that quote and stop it there, it's Too, too easy to take that and say, oh, well, then all you need to do is find the one magic person.

John Dehlin [00:27:46] Yeah, just pull out. Right.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:47] That will pull you from your place to them.

John Dehlin [00:27:49] Be righteous.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:51] Live the plan.

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:52] And you'll find that yes.

John Dehlin [00:27:54] And Lolly or Heather will show up, right?

Eldon Kartchner [00:27:59] No.

John Dehlin [00:27:59] Well, what do you mean no?

Eldon Kartchner [00:28:01] It doesn't happen for other people. That's not statistically valid. It doesn't. It's not okay to not live your whole life waiting for something that you don't know exists because you don't. There is no promise of that anywhere, even scripturally or conference docs that I know of. Nowhere does it say, if you wait righteously for long enough and do the stuff that you're supposed to do for long enough, you will be given your one special person as a gay individual that will pull you just across the line on the Kenzie scale so that you can be happy with them sexually. That's not promised anywhere. And to expect it is inappropriate.

John Dehlin [00:28:46] So you were, you were happy with Heather sexually?

Eldon Kartchner [00:28:49] Yes, I was. But I think it's important to note like. So here's this short list of stuff that I think that matters. It is not exhaustive. I am sure that there are so many factors as to why Heather works so well for me and I was so happy with her. But I can identify some that I think are particularly important. Big pieces of the puzzle and one of them has to do with the Kinsey scale. First of all, I identify. I think I'm about like a four and Heather makes me too, like I said. But so by that just simple math definition means that just by that aspect alone, I'm more capable of getting somehow closer to a 3 than a 5 is. Which means that individually there's something in me that was capable more capably close to that already individually. Why is that? I do not know.

John Dehlin [00:29:54] So if you had been a six, it would have been a bad.

Eldon Kartchner [00:29:57] If I was a 6, I wouldn't even tried.

John Dehlin [00:30:01] Right, right, right.

Eldon Kartchner [00:30:02] Well, I shouldn't say that. I'm sorry. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would identify as a six that definitely try. But you know, so there's that whatever reason, something in me that is closer to bisexual, that not everybody is. So to say that everybody can just do this. So that again, just one aspect that

John Dehlin [00:30:24] made it possible and my understanding is that men with same sex attraction, at least the ones in the studies I've seen, tend to cluster more towards the extremes. Women can tend to be a little bit more Fluid men, you know, it's not like everyone clusters around three.

Eldon Kartchner [00:30:42] No, no. And this is where, again, I want to be really careful with this about talking about culture, because there's such a stance out there about that you can learn your sexuality or that it's something that culture teaches you. And I am not going to get on board with that because I don't believe that. But to balance that, and I don't want either of these to be louder, per se, because I think they're both important. But in addition to the fact that you're born, I really maintain you're born with your sexual identity.

Eldon Kartchner [00:31:17] There is a lot that you learn a lot in terms especially of emotional connection. And what soothes you. I mean, as you develop attachments growing up, even as an infant, there are particular things that soothe you that I think play into what we want to fill our life with and what makes us happy and joyful through our life.

Eldon Kartchner [00:31:43] And in our culture, women are allowed to be more emotionally intimate. They are allowed to be closer without ridicule. And so I do think that there's an element of fluidity for women in general. I do not want to talk about individuals, but in general, they are more allowed to do that, and hence they can develop a greater sense of the fluidity of sexuality and intimacy and closeness that men in general cannot because they're not allowed in our culture. So, again, sexuality not learned. But can you learn some wiggle room? Yes.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] Especially if you're female.

Eldon Kartchner [00:32:23] Right. And so technically, then you could learn it as a male, too. It's just not going to be easy in our culture. But so is there some part that's learned? Of course there is. Is it all learned? No. And to say that you can unlearn your sexuality is inappropriate because it's only just a portion of your whole sexuality that you have probably learned and developed. And I think anybody who has an active sex life can actually also attest to. You learn to love and like things that you didn't before, even as you develop and grow with your partner. And so it learning happens.

John Dehlin [00:33:05] Were you nervous, like, on the wedding night? Like, am I going to be able to perform or is this going to work?

Eldon Kartchner [00:33:10] Like, you know I wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:33:13] You just knew I did. Because you knew you were attracted before.

Eldon Kartchner [00:33:16] Right, Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:18] So you knew it was.

Eldon Kartchner [00:33:18] I wasn't. And because we talked about it so that, like, here's my, you know, down my things that I think actually matter that made it work. There's the Kinsey School, where I was personally at, which Cannot be where other people are at.

Eldon Kartchner [00:33:36] Also, we talked about stuff. I like communication. I believe in communication. And for heaven's sake, the week after we got home from our honeymoon, I started grad school to be couple and family therapist. So I was taking class every day and, like, being inundated with how to communicate and coming home and talking about how to communicate. And she's an incredible communicator. So we are talking about stuff all the time, really openly and with great depth. And because she was amazing that way and I was learning how to do it, I do really believe that the amount of constant communication, starting with my telling her that I'm gay, which Joshua talks about his experience with, that too, played into our relationship staying.

Eldon Kartchner [00:34:31] Okay, let's balance it. Does that mean that if you are in a mixed orientation marriage and you talk about it every day and you learn to be really good communicators, you can stay together? No, it does not. But I do think it was a part of us staying together that was vital and really important and kind of a part where some heterosexual couples can not communicate but stay together anyway.

Eldon Kartchner [00:34:56] And I think. I think it's a little harder for a mixed orientation marriage to never talk and then really stay together the whole time.

John Dehlin [00:35:04] Right?

Eldon Kartchner [00:35:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:05] Because the things you were talking about very early on, being a good listener, being empathetic, liking to talk about feelings. I could even hear some advocates for mixed orientation marriages saying, hey, women, you're going to be lucky. You're in for a lot of emotional intimacy.

Eldon Kartchner [00:35:21] Right? Right. If they are. And if he is, I mean, because let's come back to part of this is the individual. I'm talking about me as an individual. But Heather, who I can't say enough about how. I can't say enough about how amazing she is because I love her, she wanted that communication because of who she is and where she was at at life. When she found out that I'm gay, that was not disturbing to her. It wasn't threatening to her. And I don't want to disparage anybody, any other woman or a man married to a lesbian who feels threatened by their partner's homosexuality. But I will say that Heather was not threatened by it.

Eldon Kartchner [00:36:07] And that was a really big helpful deal. She could talk about it because it didn't scare her. And so again, I'm not trying to say that this has a solution, like, stop being scared of it. And then you can make a mixed irritation marriage work. But I do think it mattered that she was confident and not scared of me.

John Dehlin [00:36:32] How Does a woman not be terrified? Was there something about, did she have a tough upbringing? Was she just. What was it about her upbringing or personality that would make a 25 year old woman go, yeah, I knew, no big deal, let's do this instead of like, oh my gosh, I'm terrified that I might be making the biggest mistake of my life. Do you have any sense for.

Intimacy and Sexual Identity Within the Marriage

Eldon Kartchner [00:37:00] Well, my answer to that is not great, but I would lead into it by saying I can remember one time I was like halfway into our years being married, that I was listening to Mormon stories where you interviewed Emily Pearson.

John Dehlin [00:37:19] Yeah.

Eldon Kartchner [00:37:19] Who is clearly amazing. I've never met her, but I just, I love her from listening to her and she was making such valid, gorgeous points about, you know, that I, I am sad to say, had not previously really, really thought about. But she's talking about what it does to a woman to be married to a gay man who cannot ravage her. And, and how this is not okay. It's not fair. So I was really like, oh my gosh, Heather's life is completely subpar. It's not, it's not.

Eldon Kartchner [00:37:57] Oh, I was just. I was so the woman, the person who I love the most on the planet is suffering and she's not well because she doesn't have the relationship she really should have. I mean, I had thought about that before. Let me be honest. I had thought about that before, but not to this level. So I ran like, I ran home and was like, heather, you're clearly disturbed and you have problems because you think this is. That you're not worth more than me. And I. You know, first of all, it's not wise to go to your partner and tell them who they are.

Eldon Kartchner [00:38:39] Oh, she was mad. She was really mad at me because I, in so doing and trying to be considerate of her and how she had sold herself short, she was like, what? You. You're treating me as though I don't know what I'm doing.

Eldon Kartchner [00:38:55] As though I am stupid. I knew exactly what I'm doing. Maybe not exactly, but I knew what I was getting into and I loved you and I knew you loved me. So, you know, she shut that down immediately.

Eldon Kartchner [00:39:13] Not. And again, I don't want to say that someone else should have to be in the place of being able to shut that down to make their marriage work. But the real answer, how does someone get to that place? How does some of that, oh, it's that nasty little word magic.

Eldon Kartchner [00:39:30] Because she was who she was, that it was just her, that she was Confident and wonderful. You know, even talking to her parents, they'll say she just came out that way. She was okay with her own sense of self and was confident that we were okay. And we checked in on us being okay all the time. So my best answer is magic. It's just. It's who she was.

John Dehlin [00:40:07] Were there other parts of that list?

Eldon Kartchner [00:40:08] So it was who you were, who she was, who. Yeah. And magic's part of the list. Like, let's. Let's go ahead and go there now. Since the word is out there, there is an element, and I think this is the element that people want to get a grasp on. And I cannot speak for the universe, because I am not the universe, but if you want me to bet all my socks on it, you will never figure this out. The magic cannot be figured out. Why did it work? There is some percentage of why it worked that you will never know. You will never understand, because it just did.

Eldon Kartchner [00:40:48] Why do you love who you love? You can break it down a whole lot, but. But you will always end up with something at the end that. Because they're them. So some element or some big element of it is magic. It can't be replicated. I can't explain it. And it needs, I think, to be really sad and really clear that there is an element of a mixed orientation marriage that is working and where people are happy. You cannot deconstruct. It doesn't make sense. And all I can do is apologize that it doesn't make sense, but there it is.

John Dehlin [00:41:28] Okay, I'm gonna come back to that point, but I want to get you off. Any other points on the list? Yeah, yeah, let's go through them, and then I'll come back to.

Eldon Kartchner [00:41:37] Well, I have only two more things that I think are relevant, and again, they're not. It's not an exhaustive list. It's just things that have really stuck out to me as I've really thought about it. One of them is a connection. And I don't. I just know. I want to speak about this specifically, personally. I just know that personally, this mattered for our relationship, that we connected to one another emotionally as well as sexually very, very frequently. Very frequently. There was never, ever a day in our whole marriage that I didn't talk to her, ever. One time, early on, marriage, she went for her job, to a camp thing, and was gone for two nights. That is the longest I've ever been away from her before she died. Well, we texted, we called. We like. And I really didn't.

John Dehlin [00:42:29] Like.

Eldon Kartchner [00:42:29] We weren't all over on top of each other, but had some kind of connection with each other. And if we hadn't connected to the point of feeling like, hey, I'm with you, I see you in, you know, somewhere in 12 or 24 hours, one or both of us started going, what's going on? So I think that mattered that we were constantly connecting such that some kind of drift apart was really never tolerated.

John Dehlin [00:43:05] But was that a born partly out of a paranoia that you might go do something inappropriate and she wanted to keep her eye on you?

Eldon Kartchner [00:43:11] Oh, that's so fair to ask. But I don't think so. I don't think so. I can see that happening for a lot of people, but no, because it was happening in and around all the time when I hadn't done something wrong.

John Dehlin [00:43:30] So it was just connection breathing.

Eldon Kartchner [00:43:33] Yeah, I think that matters. And then finally, what I don't see discussed much in places is the actual sexual connection that happens in mixed orientation marriages. And so, you know, we're going to talk about sex for a second and try to be very, very appropriate about it. But it's relevant. It matters. First of all, here's my bias. Here's where I come from being this idea that sex doesn't matter and that it's just kind of periphery and maybe a little bit fun on the side or, you know, any number of this way of describing that. It's not that it's nice and it's fun and it procreates, but it's not really important.

Why He Does Not Recommend This Path

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:12] I reject. I am coming at this point and I approach my life and my beliefs are it is not irrelevant that we are sexual beings and that it is relevant and important and vital that we connect with each other sexually to some degree and that we become sexually fulfilled. It's really important to our whole human experience.

Eldon Kartchner [00:44:41] And now can I now explain and talk about all forms of asexuality or anything? No, I cannot. I just think there's a way for each person to, to explore and express and understand their own sense of how they are a sexual being. And that matters. It is not just dessert.

Eldon Kartchner [00:45:01] It's part of the nourishing, important part of a human being. Okay, so that's why I'm coming at this. But I really, I think that it's important to note about mixed orientation marriages that some can work a little bit better than others.

Eldon Kartchner [00:45:18] Again, I'm getting so many caveats here, but this is just a portion of why some seem to work better than others and why I think I have no stats on this because gay people, especially gay men, I can't speak as well to lesbians, but gay men come in quite a variety.

Eldon Kartchner [00:45:39] What gay men desire sexually runs on a range. And some men desire to have one particular thing where others desire this kind of thinking on again, trying to be very clear, but not too explicit on a give and receive basis. Some men desire to receive and some desire to give and some really land in the middle about liking both activities sexually. And I say like, but I don't, I don't even want to rest on like that. That's what for sexual fulfillment they crave and what they need.

John Dehlin [00:46:25] So if, and I'm going to be just a little bit explicit. So if you happen to be a gay man that's more into giving than receiving, then you might be a little bit more. More. The conditions might be such that you're a little bit more well suited for a mixed orientation marriage. If the other things also are there.

Eldon Kartchner [00:46:46] Right? To be technical, I don't know how technical it is, but if you're going to get into the world of discussing this with anybody, there are actual terms for it. So a giver in the sexual world is called a top and the receivers are called bottoms. And then a versatile is in the middle somewhere. And then to be honest, there's other realms of desire and what they really like, which, let's be honest, also exists in the heterosexual world. What men and women really prefer to do in their. In the privacy of their own relationship or without privacy. I guess there's a whole realm, but let's not go there.

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:29] No, but what people choose to do, what's really fulfilling for them and really connecting to them is very individual. But yes, exactly what you're getting at. Somebody who is referred to as a topic in the gay world or who identifies themselves as that, meaning that they have particular sexual predilections that will work with having intercourse with a woman.

Eldon Kartchner [00:47:56] There can be fulfillment there, maybe not full fulfillment. Okay. But there can be to a level that I think it can contribute to a mixed orientation marriage working better for some than others. If you are married to someone who cannot or will not give you what you sexually crave at all, like in any way, you're gonna have a problem. It's gonna create friction and have. And it's gonna be destructive to your intimacy. So.

John Dehlin [00:48:33] So a bottom is the opposite of a top.

Eldon Kartchner [00:48:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:48:36] So if a bottom marries a woman, they might be in trouble.

Eldon Kartchner [00:48:39] They might be in trouble. Now, I think that men, especially young men, since Mormon men tend to get married young it's also can be confusing for people about mixed orientation marriages because you look at them and they're very unfulfilled and they're so unhappy and they get divorced. And I just, I'm gay and I couldn't be part of this. And the outside can look at it and say, but you have children, you're clearly not gay. You've been having sex with your wife. But I think that's also. It's important to note the fluidity of sexuality. And it's important to note, especially for young men, you can have sex, even for a lot of people can have sex even if it's not the sex they want, because you get two bodies

John Dehlin [00:49:24] rubbing up against each other.

Eldon Kartchner [00:49:25] You're 23 and you're 23, and there's

John Dehlin [00:49:29] going to be something.

Eldon Kartchner [00:49:30] There you go. Yes. It's not impossible.

John Dehlin [00:49:33] I mean, if masturbation works, then so

Eldon Kartchner [00:49:40] can heterosexual sex, even if it's not fulfilling, happy making. And in the end, even so, in the end, even if you can technically have sex, as in intercourse, even though sex, I think, involves so many other things, if you can technically have intercourse does not mean that you're having a fulfilling sex life by any means. May I refer you to Jennifer Clinics and Fife's podcast and the realities of needing wonderful sexual fulfillment in your.

John Dehlin [00:50:14] So quick question. The thing that everyone mentions about Josh Weed is, you know, is he thinking about a man while he's with Wally? You know what I mean? That's kind of the question that people ask. Was that a requirement for you? No. So you weren't thinking of other men?

Eldon Kartchner [00:50:31] No, but remember, individually, I can only say that about me. I have met. Talk to other men who have said yes, that's a requirement. A requirement for them to have sex with their wife. They have to fantasize other men. And I have talked to lesbian women who have.

Eldon Kartchner [00:50:52] Have to essentially get the same place in their mind about where things are at and really not be with. And to me, that's just. It's tragedy. It's tragedy to think of two people sharing in a completely intimate act where they are mentally, almost spiritually, elsewhere, somewhere else, habitually. I mean, okay, sometimes, sure, whatever. But habitually I have to not be with you while I'm with you.

Eldon Kartchner [00:51:31] That's so sad. That's so sad. And I think that that actually played into really helping Heather and I, because I loved being with her. Being with her, and I was sexually attracted to her and I was close enough on this Kinsey skull that she pulled me over and we were communicating all the time and then magic the piece that you cannot explain. But I just, I think it's important to note these other things because they're at least what I can offer to anybody wondering about it. That these things, none of them is the bullseye, but they all, I think, matter as to whether it cannot work.

Eldon Kartchner [00:52:19] And finally, the last one that is kind of super massively vital like this one, I think you cannot do without is the expectation. Lots of stuff in life works because you need it to. I think that it's easy to take this element of my marriage worked because I needed it to, because I. There was no other option. But to have a wife and children is very dismissive of the beauty of a relationship. And so I don't want to do that. In fact, all of this, it's almost a little hard to say all of this without wanting to know that I, I can't stand the idea of disparaging my relationship with Heather.

Eldon Kartchner [00:53:05] I can't stand it. I can't abide it. I won't tolerate it from anyone. I guess I can't change anybody else's mind. But it's not okay to me to have that disparaged in any way because I loved her completely and fully.

Eldon Kartchner [00:53:22] But to say that expectation was a part of us getting together would be a lie. It's a part of straight people getting together. You are expected to get married. In our religious beliefs as Mormons, you can't even attain celestial kingdom unless you get married. Your whole purpose, your eternal purpose, is to procreate and to have those children forever with you. And if you're going to go back to the old doctrines, which we don't know about anymore, but the whole point is that you do that forever and you have this, I mean, it's a family connection forever and ever. That's the plan of salvation. And you cannot progress, move forward, have anything unless you do that.

Eldon Kartchner [00:54:11] So, yes, a mixed orientation marriage, I can especially say in the Mormon Church, is about doing what you have to do, what you need to do. What if you don't do, the world around you will look at you with disdain.

Eldon Kartchner [00:54:28] I'm glad that that's kind of changing a little bit these days. But that was my experience. That's most, you know, our generation, a lot of them younger still, all of their growing up experience, you have to do this. Expectation plays a large part in why mixed orientation marriages happen and why they stay together.

Eldon Kartchner [00:54:50] If you don't expect it, then it's not going to happen. Now, can I Say that across the board, 100%. No, there's probably like 1% of 1% or something that, yes, people will. There will still be individuals of mixed orientation who will fall in love with somebody of the opposite sex because these or whatever other things are all in place and all the magic is in place and all the stars are lined up and they'll still get married.

Eldon Kartchner [00:55:23] It'll be so, so, so, so rare. If we don't expect people to get married, they won't. And we shouldn't. We shouldn't. We shouldn't expect them to. I realize that now. Now we're into the area of, like, going against the plan of salvation as it stands. And I'll own that.

Eldon Kartchner [00:55:49] That's exactly what I'm doing as it stands. Maybe, hopefully, cross my fingers, it can change for the Mormon perspective about what the plan of salvation involves and is. But here's my position. We should not expect or ask gay people, men or women, to get married to the opposite sex.

Eldon Kartchner [00:56:14] Period. I will be grateful to the day I die that I married Heather. I am not sorry. I want her back. I don't. I don't. I would not change it. I wouldn't. I would have her. I would be with her. I love her. I.

Eldon Kartchner [00:56:42] I wouldn't change it. But we should never ever ask anybody else to do that. What if I wasn't expected to get married? Would I have ever had. Had her? I mean, maybe that's saying if we don't expect people, then they can't have what I have.

John Dehlin [00:57:01] That's what I'm wondering.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:04] You can. What if all the way home, what if. To me it's like this. This is a crude example because it doesn't. Like this analogy doesn't work perfectly. But I think, anyway, it'll make my point. I think it's like if I hand you a button and though I don't know the right stats, I'm just gonna pull numbers out of the air. So let's say I'm gonna hand you a button to push. If you push this button, there is a one in. I know what, let's say one in 10,000 chance, maybe more, maybe less. But let's go 10,000 that you will get a million dollars.

Eldon Kartchner [00:57:49] Okay? There is a 9,000, 999 chances if you push this button that you will be shocked till you die. And the person you love just might be electrocuted till they die too. So how about, let's push that button. You want to get a million bucks?

Eldon Kartchner [00:58:13] You willing to push that? Button. We're making people push the button. Thank everything I know that I pushed the button and I got a million bucks. I did. My greatest sorrow for the entire world around me is that they don't have her because I think she's the best human being that ever lived. But, but I got a million bucks.

Eldon Kartchner [00:58:44] So how many people do you want to say? 1 in 10,000 chance that you'll get a million bucks. Otherwise you will be electrocuted to death. Okay, again, it's not a comparison. No word playing perfectly. There's so many weight places that it falls apart. But I think it makes my point. It's so, so, so possible that you will destroy people, that it's not worth it.

Eldon Kartchner [00:59:09] And if we simply remove the expectation and let people be whoever they are, without expectation and let them find joy and love with people that they truly love, same sex or not, then people will end up happy and they can have great relationships like Heather or I did, whether they are same sex or not. Because I think the point is a beautiful, loving, fulfilling, connected relationship that brings you joy, that helps you evolve and grow, and gives you a sense of being home and having family.

Eldon Kartchner [00:59:45] All these things that I could use to describe the wonderfulness of a really good relationship. That's what we should expect people to find. That if we expect people to find that that's possible. If we say no matter where it is, you know, and obviously you have to have parameters about it can't be something that's hurting someone. So I'm not trying to just dive all the way down the rabbit hole. But if our expectation is goodness and happiness for people rather than someone of the opposite sex, then people can be free to find that goodness instead of destroying things.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] So let me, let me try and explore a hypothetical or at least the implications of what you're saying. Tell me if you are on board with this. So if so, if there's a. We'll just say a gay man, if there's a gay man who finds himself not a 6, but maybe a 4, who doesn't spend his whole life waiting, you know, postponing, living, postponing potential meaningful same sex relationships, but happens to find someone with whom there is the magic and there is the connection and there is a sexual arousal and she is attracted to him and he is genuinely attracted to her, if there is a young man that does hit that lottery, you wouldn't tell that man not to push that button. If all those factors are aligned. Right.

Eldon Kartchner [01:01:39] Well, let's acknowledge in the scenario that I don't have all the factors. So there's surely more also to say in that scenario that all the things that I'm talking about, I don't know that you really can explore under the current LDS expectations and norms. I don't know that you really can discover for yourself what your sexual predilections are. So you can't bring that to the table.

John Dehlin [01:02:16] Oh, I see what you're saying. So if you're, if you're a top right, you won't. But you're living the law of chastity.

Eldon Kartchner [01:02:23] Right.

John Dehlin [01:02:23] You won't be able to know that.

Eldon Kartchner [01:02:25] Now I do think you have a sense, like people have some sense for what they're going through to enjoy or like sexually, especially if they've chosen to engage in any masturbation or pornography or pornography viewing. But if you have not, like you're not supposed to, then you and the

John Dehlin [01:02:44] really good boys won't.

Eldon Kartchner [01:02:45] Right? Right. So you may not know. Can you be sure that you want to continue connecting to somebody? You can't be sure. I didn't even talk about the woman's part of experience. Both. I think this probably applies for lesbians, though I obviously can't speak as well for that. But for a woman in a mixed orientation marriage to a gay man, there's quite a bit about women's sexuality that is very beautifully complex.

Eldon Kartchner [01:03:21] Beautifully complex. But as a gay man, what's going to work better is if women can be pleased by what a gay man has to offer that pleases him. I think that's true for any couples. But you know, it's, there's, I'm just trying to say there's an element and an aspect of the whole women's sexual experience as well as a straight woman and what works for her.

Eldon Kartchner [01:03:50] So will she know that ahead of time if she's a good woman girl under the current expectations, probably not. And so there's just a whole lot of aspects of the scenario that you're painting that I think it's still danger, Will Rogers, you know, it's still dangerous.

Eldon Kartchner [01:04:10] And so. But if two people get together and they think I really want to do this, but it's not because I have to. It really isn't. Because the church or Heavenly Father or my family or their culture has said that I have to. If that's really gone and they're trying to do their best, I say by all means, push the button. You have changed. If you've eliminated expectations, you've done the best to educate yourself about the realities and the possibilities Then push the button, by all means. Because the truth is, even straight people, when they are getting married, are pushing the button.

Eldon Kartchner [01:04:51] Getting married is pushing the button. How much the odds are that it might implode. Your life are different for everybody depending on how well they prepared and how close they are and many other things. But do I think no one should try?

John Dehlin [01:05:10] No.

Eldon Kartchner [01:05:10] That's not my right to say. But again, I come back to whatever odds they are because I don't know what the odds are. But I just think if you don't have to, if you really don't, from the God of the universe, have to. And let's be clear. Let me be clear. I do not believe the God of the universe expects people to get married to the opposite sense. And like that whole. I don't believe.

John Dehlin [01:05:37] And the church actually does not recommend it as a way to deal with same sex.

Eldon Kartchner [01:05:42] Not as a way to deal with it. So thank you, church, for switching that. But it's not. It's not enough of a position switch. If the expectation is gone, I don't think people in general would even need to attempt. But if they do, great every try. If you are in love with somebody and you think it's working for you and you've educated yourself to the best, there is no promise out there that you are going to be able to keep your marriage together for anything. Everything has problems. But.

Eldon Kartchner [01:06:14] And I like your question because I feel like it's balancing out. Should we tell everybody? Absolutely. No. No way. Never, ever, ever, ever. No. Because there are some people who. All the stars align and it feels right for them. And you know what? It's their life.

Eldon Kartchner [01:06:33] And if they're both really educated and they know what they're doing, then maybe it'll be okay. So I like balancing that with that. But should it happen?

John Dehlin [01:06:51] What I hear you saying is that in addition to the items you listed about you and Heather, there was an element of luck.

Eldon Kartchner [01:06:59] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:07:01] Like maybe it's really significant.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:02] Oh, yeah. I love the unicorn phrase.

John Dehlin [01:07:06] Yeah. To some degree. There were things you didn't even know were important to you until after you entered into it.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:13] No.

John Dehlin [01:07:13] Yeah.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:14] Wow. We got lucky. We really did.

John Dehlin [01:07:17] And so it's kind of like lots of metaphors. Button. Russian roulette.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:22] The question is how many bullets are in the chamber and do you really want to.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:27] Anybody really know?

John Dehlin [01:07:28] But yeah. You're saying be very, very careful.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:34] And you're not a role model. You're doing a Charles Barkley. I'm not a role model.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:39] I am not a role model. I got lucky. I'm very grateful. You know what? I would love to be a role model. No, I don't want to say I want to be a role model about anything because that's pretentious and pompous and I don't go that bad to finish what I was saying anyway.

Eldon Kartchner [01:07:56] If anybody was to look to me and Heather about Heather and I about our relationship and the way things should be, then I. Sorry. I emotional about stuff. I would wish for people that they could love who they were with.

Eldon Kartchner [01:08:18] As much as I adored her and as much as I really felt loved by her. No matter what the orientation is or how your marriage is, I just wish for people that they would feel so loved for their whole self.

Eldon Kartchner [01:08:37] That's what I wish for. People do not. I won't be an example for you should do this because I kind of think if you need to, then do it. It's your life. But odds are don't do it. Eliminate all expectation that it should happen. And I think pretty much people won't do it. They'll be free to get what they want, which is for most gay people in same sex relationship and most bisexual people. What are they, Jews? So yeah. Am I saying that well enough?

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