Introduction to Cody Alan and His Book

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It's November 19, 2021, and we are so incredibly excited for today's guest. Today we have in studio a real kind of legend, I think his name is. For those of you, for the three of you who don't know, his name is Cody Allen. Hey, Cody.

Cody Alan [00:00:23] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:00:24] Welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Cody Alan [00:00:25] John. It is so good to be here. Thank you for having me. This is like years in the making, this, that I would have the chance to be on Mormon Stories and, and share my story. And so I'm thrilled to be here. I'm a fan. First of all, I want you to know that, like, I love what you do. I love the podcast. And right after I came out, people should know, you called and said, hey, don't you want to come in? I was like, oh, God, I really want to, John. But I. And that was 2017. I'm like, I. I need to, like, get myself right first. It was such an overwhelming moment and I wanted to make sure I could tell the story in full and feel good about it. And so I wrote a book which made me feel much better about it and about talking more about my faith struggle and about my journey, about my family. And so the culmination of all those things has sort of led me now to this moment where we can get together and have this chat finally. So thank you again for having me.

John Dehlin [00:01:20] My pleasure. We have a mutual friend, Jeremy, right?

Cody Alan [00:01:23] Yep. Jeremy Young.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Jeremy. Yeah. And we are here. I just finished this morning, an amazing new book. You've been going around the country kind of promoting this book. I think you were even on Good Morning America, right?

Cody Alan [00:01:35] Yeah. We did New York and did Today show and Today Show.

Guest [00:01:39] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:01:39] The Hoda.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] You met Hoda.

Cody Alan [00:01:41] I love Gayle King. She's become a friend of mine over the years and had dinner with Gail and she's reading the book and I got everybody reading the book, so. Which is a good thing.

John Dehlin [00:01:53] So the book is, here's the thing, Lessons on Listening, Life and Love by Cody Allen. For those of you who don't know who Cody is, he is the host and executive producer of CMT Radio, which has millions of listeners on more than 200 radio stations across the United States. He is also host or co host of CMT's flagship music show, Hot20 Countdown. His face is seen in 90 million homes. He is sort of friends on a first name basis with people like Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, and a bunch of country and western musicians that I've never heard of because that's not my particular genre.

Cody Alan [00:02:33] I love that you call it country and western as well.

John Dehlin [00:02:35] What is the term?

Cody Alan [00:02:36] Well, we dropped the western. I think somewhere in the late 70s.

John Dehlin [00:02:39] I grew up in Texas in the 70s, so.

Cody Alan [00:02:41] Sorry, I haven't heard country in western, but I do, I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] Country. What do they say? Country.

Cody Alan [00:02:46] Country.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] Okay.

Cody Alan [00:02:46] Country. Yeah, yeah, sure. And it's great to be, you know, talk about those houses that I'm in. It's great to be in your house. I didn't know you lived here in the basement of the Mormon Stories podcast, but apparently this is also. I see trail mix over there. We've got some nice lighting, some West Elm furniture. Not really. Did you still steal these chairs from a. From a congregation?

John Dehlin [00:03:06] We used to have Thrive meetings here until Covid.

Cody Alan [00:03:08] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] So we. We turned it into a. A production studio when Covid hit.

Cody Alan [00:03:13] There's a ward house right now missing their chairs because of this.

Guest [00:03:15] There's a mother who should be nursing a baby in one of these chairs in one of the nursing rooms.

John Dehlin [00:03:19] Right. And we have Cara Barrell with us.

Guest [00:03:23] Hey, Kara, I'm over here. Hi, everyone.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Yeah, so glad to have you, Kara.

Guest [00:03:27] Thanks for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Cody Alan [00:03:29] Great to meet you also.

Guest [00:03:30] So good to meet you.

Cody Alan [00:03:31] I'm a huge fan of John's, as I mentioned. I just regard him so highly and I love the. The kind of work that he's doing that really is making a difference in a lot of people's lives. But great recently to have also you part of the show and this cast you also have built over the last little bit of people who can really speak to the subjects so clearly and eloquently. Gerardo, I met earlier and all kinds of great people around you, so well done.

John Dehlin [00:03:58] Gerardo woke up early to get our lighting just right. So shout out to Gerardo. Thanks so much. So for those of you who don't know, Cody has got an amazing story. He grows up in South Carolina. We're going to cover it. But he grows up in South Carolina and ends up converting to the Mormon church as a teen. Teenish serves a Mormon mission and does all the Mormon things. Gets married, has kids and has a successful career as a radio disc jockey slash executive and multiple radio stations, including Salt Lake City. And inconveniently happened to know inside from a young age that he was gay. So he had to navigate a mixed faith marriage, mixed orientation Marriage, which we're gonna talk about, and eventually do something super hard, which is not only come to your Mormon spouse and kids as gay, navigate that, but also do that in the public eye as a celebrity in the country scene, literally in. In Nashville and. And the South. And so it's an epic, important story, and that's what's covered in this amazing book. Here's the thing. And we get Cody for two full hours to kind of just have him tell his Mormon story. And by the way, you mentioned, like, Spencer W. Kimball and the Miracle Forgiveness. You mentioned Ty Mansfield.

Cody Alan [00:05:10] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:05:10] So you actually mention Mormon stuff in the book, but the book's focus isn't your Mormon journey. You touch on that. So that's what we get to do, is kind of dig into your Mormon journey.

Cody Alan [00:05:20] Yeah. So there's a whole chapter on my mission, what I learned from it, and then how I came to love the faith and. And then later in life with my kids and family and how we dealt with the faith in dealing with my challenges. So. Yeah. But I wanted to make sure that it was true to what I know, what I felt at the time. And the fact that I did read the Miracle of Forgiveness anti Mansfield's book and thought, was it in quite desperation?

John Dehlin [00:05:47] Is that what it's called?

Cody Alan [00:05:47] Yeah. Yeah, it's exactly right. And. And I thought, oh, gosh, that's. I was. I was left with no answers and feeling worse about myself afterwards, as many people do.

John Dehlin [00:05:58] Yeah, we'll come. We'll come to that.

Cody Alan [00:05:59] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:06:00] All right, so. And we're. We're live streaming this on YouTube and Facebook, so we. We would invite our livestream listeners to feel free to comment or ask questions. Kara's gonna aggregate those and either sprinkle them in or kind of save them to the end. Whatever Kara decides makes sense. Sound good, Kara? All right. All right. Well, where does your. Where does your Mormons. Well, where does your story begin? And I'm just dying to know you talk about this in the book, but, like, how does a smart, up and coming, talented kid become a Mormon in the South? Yeah, of all places. But back up and talk about your family. Whatever you want to talk about.

Early Life and Getting Into Radio

Guest [00:06:35] Yeah, sure.

Cody Alan [00:06:35] I grew up in a house. Music all the time. My dad had an incredible vinyl collection.

John Dehlin [00:06:40] Vinyl?

Cody Alan [00:06:41] Yeah, a wall full of it. I mean, it was. I lived in a trailer for the first 10 years of my life. My mom and dad finally were able to buy a home in the suburbs after that. In both places, I remember a wall in their bedroom, much to the chagrin of my mother was filled with stacks and stacks and stacks of wax, of vinyl records. And he had an incredible sound system, gigantic pioneer speakers. And he would play this music constantly, blaring out of those speakers, you know, 25 or whenever he could. My mom wasn't yelling at him to turn it down.

John Dehlin [00:07:12] Was it country or everything?

Cody Alan [00:07:13] It was country and it was rock and roll. He was a big fan of like the Billy Joel's and Elton John.

John Dehlin [00:07:20] Like Billy Joel, of course.

Cody Alan [00:07:22] Yeah. He played all the Billy Joel stuff, which I. Of course, only the good die young. So I loved all that stuff. And I loved at the time, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. That was sort of, you know, this has been 80s, all those huge sort of crossover pop hits that the Country Boys, Oak Ridge Boys,

John Dehlin [00:07:43] yeah.

Cody Alan [00:07:43] Charlie Daniels, Devil Went down to Georgia. So I was exposed to all that stuff. Yeah, Alabama was a big player at that time.

John Dehlin [00:07:51] I grew up in Texas, so I. I do I share that with you. Kind of a Southern upbringing.

Cody Alan [00:07:55] There you go. So because of all that, my dad would also listen to the radio. And I would hear on the radio in between the songs, all the stories about the artists and the stories behind how the songs came to be. And I just was fascinated by it. I thought, man, I'd like to be that guy telling those stories and telling people about music and getting excited about the artist and the artistry. And so for whatever reason that was deep within my soul and being that that's what I was gonna do. I'm gonna be a broadcaster. And so from that tender age of whatever, probably toddler of hearing all that music to, you know, I remember 9, 10, starting sort of my own little radio station in the house. I talk about in the book how I had a Mr. Microphone long before these nice microphones you have here were ever invented. There was something where you could. And the karaoke machines were no thing back then. So you had to have a Mr. Microphone, which had a wire that hung from it. And then you would tune into 89.7 on your FM receiver. And then you could hear your voice magically come out of the speakers. So it was in fact this amazing device as a kid that allowed me to broadcast. So I used to, you know, we have a range about 20, 25ft. The little wire would. So I would cram it through my screen window in the house, in my room, and then I would go out to my mom and dad's car and whatever was playing inside on the radio or in my room, I could be able to hear on their radio in the car. So I really had my own little mock radio station there at 652 Cedarfield Lane, West Columbia, South Carolina. I had my own little transmitter and broadcast going. And then I thought, man, I'd love to be on tv. I thought, TV weatherman. That is my calling. So I used to make, like, cardboard weather maps with all the forecasts for my mom and dad. So they. They were so instrumental in encouraging all this. And I grew up in a house that was very supportive. So you see that, that kind of support, getting to be 15 years old, Keys to the car. I went down to the local radio station and said, hey, I want to be on the air. Lucky for me, they said, yeah, you can come in for the summer and, you know, do some, you know, watch the DJs, help with, like, the copy machine or pour some coffee, you know, clean up behind everybody. And I was like, I wanted my foot in the door so badly. I didn't care. So I was all about it. And I worked for that summer doing. Making no money, but just soaking up like a sponge everything that happened at a radio station. And so when someone got sick on a late night graveyard shift on the weekends, the program director called me and said, hey, could you fill in tonight? And it was a midnight to six kind of thing where you go in at 11:30, get off at 6am and you work all night long. And I was all about it, of course. So my mom and dad, for those few months where I did that weekend shift after I got my own, like, permanent gig going at the station, my mom and dad would take me because the South Carolina laws would not allow a teenager my age. I only had a permit. They would not allow you to drive after dark. So in other words, my mom would have to drive me at 11:30 at night to work. My dad would pick me up at 6 in the morning. And so they did this, you know, for years, until I actually was able to drive myself. But.

John Dehlin [00:11:17] So your first gig actually appearing on a radio show, was it. Was it what, age?

Cody Alan [00:11:26] 15.

Guest [00:11:27] Wow.

Cody Alan [00:11:27] 15 years old.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] Amazing. Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:11:28] I was on the air since then, and I haven't stopped since.

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Did you have a deep voice or.

Cody Alan [00:11:32] No, I look back and I had terror. I was terrible, John. It was. I thought it was great. I mean, I thought I was, like, so good. I got this. And then you realize, and I do have some of the cassettes, in fact, in an old trunk. And I've taken them out since I started writing the book because I wanted to review them and see how atrocious they really were. And it was just, it's bad. But I was mimicking other people. I was pretending to be something I wasn't, which was good at radio.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] Fake it till you make it.

Cody Alan [00:11:59] Fake it till you make it. And eventually, you know, I got a little better at it. I kept studying the craft and figured myself out, which is also something I really talk about heavily in the book is like, how important professionally it was to sort of have a process of figuring myself out, parallel to figuring lots of other things out in my life as well.

John Dehlin [00:12:19] I get the sense that your family was kind of working class a little bit and your parents sacrificed a lot to invest in your career. That was impressive, the, the support your parents gave you.

Cody Alan [00:12:30] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:12:31] Really quickly I, I had the idea of becoming a DJ myself growing up, and my dad said, you don't make any money, so don't do it because DJs are poor, because everyone wants to be one. Right? Did no one ever told you that?

Cody Alan [00:12:42] No one ever told me that. And I did have a. I take it back. I did have a few people say, radio, don't want to do that, don't. That's not the business you want to be in. And it's happened since a few times, you know, over the years. But I always go back to it because I feel like it's in my blood. You know, I was born to do it. I was born to be on the air. And I'm so grateful that I have, you know, whatever God given talent given to me that I was able to like make into something bigger than. Than it existed at first. And so, yeah, I've been very lucky, you could say. Or I worked hard for it. I know that I worked hard at lots of stations and I took gigs and made decisions along the way that hopefully built something now that can stand for sure.

Religious Upbringing and Discovering Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:13:29] Tell us really quickly what type of religious upbringing you had. Were you raised in a church or in a Christian church? And what led to you even having Mormonism cross your mind?

Cody Alan [00:13:40] Well, my mom and dad were pretty religious. We went regularly. My mom was much more gung ho, I think, than my dad most of the time, although he went with us to church. But I remember Sunday mornings at Southern Baptist most of my life. We jumped around a little bit, but all kind of Southern Christian churches. I remember going to a Nazarene church for a little while, visiting a Lutheran church with my friends, been in a Methodist church as a kid as well. But really Southern Baptist is kind of the roots of my upbringing. It was also the Roots of not just my immediate family, but my grandpa was a Southern Baptist.

John Dehlin [00:14:18] They don't love. They don't tend to love Mormons.

Cody Alan [00:14:20] No, they don't.

John Dehlin [00:14:22] Especially not in the 80s. Yes.

Cody Alan [00:14:24] And it was a different kind of approach. We all know that Southern Baptists, I don't disparage anyone else's preference in how they want to be taught or what they like on a Sunday, but to me, it was always very scary. Almost sort of the, if I don't do something, God does something to me.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] Like fire and brimstone stuff.

Cody Alan [00:14:43] Yeah. And so I just never felt it in my heart. So when, when I had a friend who was a Mormon who I'd known for years, and by the way, I was at school, high school, I. I had really group a great group of Mormon friends. They were all. And I thought they were very cool people and I just loved them. So when one of them invited me to church, I went and I thought, man, this is really different because you, you see that there's not one guy and on a, on a. Preaching on a pedestal, but the congregation is giving talks and there's a bit of a softness almost to the Sunday approach. And then I learned about the missionaries. I thought that was so cool to have this sort of like army brigade for God. And then as I got to more of the doctrine, I thought, this is really cool, the idea of eternal family. You know, I knew I was gay at the time, but I also thought I'm not going to go against what I felt like others wanted me to do, which was be straight and get it, you know, have a family. And that comes back a little bit, John, to just childhood. I think I knew from a very young age I was different and. But I didn't have anyone around me. There was no Ellen. I didn't have Will and Grace. There was no media to turn to to say, oh, there's someone like me. I didn't have any friends who were gay, nobody in my family. I didn't have an uncle. I didn't have, you know, there was no one. And so I just thought, it's just me, just me. So I very much sort of toed the line with what I thought I was supposed to do, thinking that maybe it would go away at some point or maybe I would just work my way through it knowing that I did have the same sex attraction, as they say. So going back to the church thing a little bit. So I started taking the missionary discussions and at what age? I was 18. Yeah, you know, the missionaries are cool. I mean, they were like me. And I thought, man, this is fun. And my mom really raised me to believe in things bigger than myself. I talk about how in the book, often we'd pray, and my mom would bring up angels in heaven, and she would describe the Rapture. And I could picture Jesus and the trumpets and the. You know, we've seen that photo or that. Not a photo. It's a. It's a painting in the church where, you know, I'm talking about Jesus coming down from the heavens with the angels on all sides. And that visualization, to me was real. And so when I heard about Joseph Smith and angels, I just thought, okay, yeah, that could happen. I believe. I believe that could happen because I think God still is around. And so for me, the message wasn't a lot to swallow. It was like, okay, yeah, this is really interesting and good stuff. And so I studied it pretty hard and.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] And, you know, this is pre Internet, right?

Cody Alan [00:17:50] Yeah, pre Internet.

John Dehlin [00:17:51] Wouldn't have had a lot of them.

Cody Alan [00:17:52] Yeah, I didn't have a lot of

John Dehlin [00:17:53] resources to kind of God investigate.

Cody Alan [00:17:55] God Makers was out. I remember seeing that.

John Dehlin [00:17:58] My mom saw it. You saw God Makers before you joined?

Cody Alan [00:18:01] Yeah. Whoa. What's wrong with me? Right? Why did I.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] No, no, no, no.

Cody Alan [00:18:06] That's cool.

John Dehlin [00:18:06] I mean, yeah, we interviewed a Decker, the. The creator of the God Makers on Mormon stories.

Cody Alan [00:18:12] I heard that.

John Dehlin [00:18:12] Okay.

Cody Alan [00:18:12] Yep. Because I wanted to hear that guy's story.

John Dehlin [00:18:15] But that didn't deter you.

Cody Alan [00:18:17] It didn't. It didn't. I don't know why I. Maybe you call it spirit or just intuition in my own heart. I just. I felt good about the church. And there's a tribe that begins to form around you as well. We all know that when you start to investigate the church, this great community there is it a ward branch is a branch.

Guest [00:18:39] Okay.

Cody Alan [00:18:40] And later, I'd become, like, the first missionary to leave from my branch. Believe it or not. It's crazy. So. But my point is that with that all that love and all that green jello that served, you start to just fall in love with the church for reasons that you can't quite explain. But they just feel good. You know, some may call that the spirit, and. But that definitely is. It definitely led me sort of down that road to feel good about it and to defend it, because I thought some of the stuff in that video was like, what? That's not true. I've been there later to find out. There is lots of truth there in that video. Again, doctrinally, not sound airbrushed over the years, all that doctrine to make it look better, I believe. And so, yeah, it was. It only became a struggle later for me. Some of that stuff, and particularly on my mission, is when it really kind of hit me that maybe I need to investigate some of these things a little more.

Joining the Church While Navigating Sexuality

John Dehlin [00:19:42] I had the thought that if you want to be not gay, what's a better church to join than the Mormon Church to help you be not gay? To cloak.

Cody Alan [00:19:49] It's Right.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] Yeah. Right.

Cody Alan [00:19:50] Yeah, good point. I don't know that was even in my head consciously. Yeah. But I did seek out, like, what does God want me to do? Because I thought I just need to get that right. And these other problems I have, these internal things I'm working through will just work themselves out. So that's what I thought. Of course, you know, we learned later that that's not exactly how it works. But I did feel like I was headed in the right direction because I was doing what God wanted.

John Dehlin [00:20:18] Did you do that thing where you pray and you get the answer, like, as you're praying, or was it more just a building feeling that grew for you? Because later you talk about God not necessarily being there for you? I'm wondering how, how you felt God was communicating this to you at the time when you were doing good to pray.

Cody Alan [00:20:35] It felt good to pray. It still does for me.

John Dehlin [00:20:37] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:20:38] I don't know what it is. I think that there was, not, to answer your question, an overwhelming lightning bolt revelation moment. It was just a process, but I knew I felt better when I got up off my knees and said my prayers. And that carried me. And whether that is just a strength of faith and just strong belief in my head that then translates to my heart, I don't know. But by the way, it still exists now, even though I'm on the other side. I'm on the dark side, Right. Supposedly.

John Dehlin [00:21:11] Or the, the light side.

Cody Alan [00:21:12] The light side, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:13] That's your point.

Cody Alan [00:21:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:13] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:21:14] So it, it's still the same. I thought it would change, honestly, that, that somehow that feeling of goodness, that wanting to be Christlike and kind to the people around me would somehow go away because I'd be so evil and gay. Right. The truth is, it doesn't. And I'm probably. I know I'm more empathetic now. I'm. I. I'm a better person now. I'm more Christ like now than I was before because I'm just honest. It's all those things about being a person of integrity that the church teaches all the values that we Espouse, supposedly. And that I've always felt in my heart, I didn't want it to be. Now I can be that and not be a fraud.

Family Reactions and Serving a Mission

John Dehlin [00:21:55] How did your family react to you joining the church? Not just your immediate family, but your extended family. Were they worried? Were they concerned?

Cody Alan [00:22:02] Yeah, for sure. I think my mom was most worried because she was super faithful to her Christian and Southern Christian beliefs, and yet there was a great deal of love and support there, which was very surprising as well. I mean, I did watch the God Makers with her.

John Dehlin [00:22:23] Really?

Cody Alan [00:22:23] Yeah, yeah. And then I let it digest a little bit, and she did, too. And then I came back to it and I said, I just feel like in my heart, this is what I want to do. I want to be a good, noble person. And I love what I'm learning, and it makes me feel like I can be a better person because of it. And I think that was enough, you know, for her to say, okay, well, you're your own man, 18 years old. You got to decide. And so she was respectful of that. And that also extended to my grandpa, who I was very close with, who was, again, Southern Baptist, very involved in his church. He was, along the same lines, concerned and disappointed, I think, in me. His brother, who lived in Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello. Yeah. I love it. His brother was my Uncle Billy. He was a Mormon. He converted because his wife was a Mormon and believed in the church and was strong in his beliefs. And so I really admired Uncle Billy. And of course, that helped my conversation with my grandpa to say, hey, Uncle Billy's a believer in what I believe, too. And we also believe in Jesus Christ. And so I went through all the things that he was concerned about doctrinally in hopes of making him feel better. And I think it helped. I think he knew that I had a good heart, that I was trying to do what I felt was right. And again, going back to just being a person of integrity throughout my life, he really thought that I was doing what I felt, what I was supposed to do, and he respected that. Although I think it was tough to swallow.

John Dehlin [00:24:04] Yeah. So you, like, as you mentioned, you have a whole chapter in your book dedicated to your mission in Washington state, right?

Cody Alan [00:24:11] Yep. Went to Seattle.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] Anything you want to. Anything you want to share about your mission? Like what. What age did you go on your mission? Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:24:17] It would have been the year after joining, so, like, 19.

John Dehlin [00:24:19] Wow. You didn't have a whole lifetime of seminary and. No. And church education. Sunday school.

Cody Alan [00:24:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] You're just like, get baptized then Go on a mission.

Cody Alan [00:24:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] Preach the gospel.

Cody Alan [00:24:30] Yeah. It was a. Again, I was looking for answers. I was looking for my place in the world, I think when you're at a tender age like that. And for me, I didn't feel like I needed to go to college yet. I did take some classes right around that time to sort of figure myself out. And I thought, this is boring and I've already got a career. So I was already on the radio. I was already, you know, in high school I was voted most likely to succeed. So I was like. I felt like I had a good head on my shoulder. And so going on a mission felt like a good, noble, almost Peace Corps or military sort of thing to do because it would make me a better person over two years. And I thought that's a good thing to do. So I had lots of encouragement, of course, from the families in the branch and. And beyond, including my. My family out here in Pocatello. So I felt good about it.

John Dehlin [00:25:30] Yeah, and you had some success. You brought many people to Christ, so to speak.

Cody Alan [00:25:35] Yeah, you know, I did. I. I was. I think I was a really good missionary. I just worked hard and worked smart and I tried to be positive and I just love the work. It was. There are definitely moments, and I talk about in the book a few times where I can't do this anymore.

Coming Out During the Mission

John Dehlin [00:25:53] What happened?

Cody Alan [00:25:53] What, you know, I started having doubts. I started, you know, learning more about polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] How did you learn about that as a missionary?

Cody Alan [00:26:01] Well, I think I've been given maybe some anti literature from someone's door we knocked on. I remember going home with it and let me just look at it and I'll just study this and see what's up. And of course, it was the typical things that I had heard before and polygamy, you know, look, I was gay. I was hiding it. Eventually I'd be with one woman.

John Dehlin [00:26:25] But you had never. Just to be clear to the audience, you had never, like, dated a boy or kissed a boy?

Guest [00:26:30] No.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] So you were.

Cody Alan [00:26:31] No.

John Dehlin [00:26:32] No one knew you felt those feelings. But I just don't want people to think you had, like, no, you know, not that that matters, but like, yeah,

Cody Alan [00:26:39] I knew how I felt. I knew that I was more into. Again, I describe it as a kid, I was more into the shape of Batman over Wonder Woman.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] I just knew that the men's underwear catalog. Right.

Cody Alan [00:26:49] And the men's underwear catalogs I talk about in the book as well, because I hid those from my mom like a. You know, the cliches, you Hide the Playboy, Playboys under the bed. It was, it was underwear magazines for me, men's underwear. And I'd hopefully get to the mailbox every month before my mom or dad ever saw that. I was always fearful they were going to catch me in that and ask questions. Never happened though. Um, so going back to the mission though, knowing I was gay and thinking about polygamy, I thought it'd be hard enough to have like one, one woman, but then the idea of like multiple, I mean, think about that as a gay person, you're like, that can't do that, that's crazy. And outside of that, just, you know, from the society that we live in now, it is, it seems so bizarre. And I'd been to the temple. The temple freaked me out a little bit. And I had struggled with that from the get go. And then as I started delving a little more into sort of the Joseph Smith, all those issues from where the book came from and all the possibilities of it being from made up sources in and around Palmyra and beyond, all those things just started to get to me. So I called an old friend back home and every time I got close to leaving, he kind of helped me through it. And I asked him point questions about the doctrine and he would help me through it. And he had some good answers for almost everything. So I ended up sort of staying.

John Dehlin [00:28:30] I love the conversation you had with your mission president and what his response was.

Cody Alan [00:28:34] You know, it will be one of the things that taught me how to handle tough situations later in my life. I always go back to that conversation and dealing with anything that's difficult with someone I love or even an employee or someone I work with who I need to counsel in some way. But I wanted to leave because I felt I was missing home. The mission was tough. I was tired of the bike. I was questioning all the doctrine and second guessing myself that I'd even been there. Why did I come here in the first place? And so I knew I needed to have my. A solid talk with my mission president. So he, he drove up to Everett, Washington. I'll never forget. We were in this basement apartment, you know, crummy cement walls, bad furniture. And he came in and I told him how I felt. Just what I just described and said, I think, I think I need to go home. And he said, you can. You choose. I will love you no matter what you choose. If you need to go home, I will support you, but I want that to be your choice. And I didn't expect that. I expect him to Say, no, no, you've made this decision. You'll be here for two years. Stick it out, you're fine. That's what I thought it was gonna be tough, a tough love sort of approach. And it was completely not what I expected. And it floored me because it showed, I believe, this sort of unconditional love that I think I want to carry, that I think Christ carries. And a Christlike attitude is that. That's what it is. It's so. It stuck with me every time I'm with my kids and it's been a tough situation or some weird. Not weird, but difficult decision they've had to make. I've always kind of leaned on that counsel and try to go back to that moment and let them know that I love you. And you've got to make that decision because it's really big. I can't make it for you, but I will love you either way, and that's powerful. So I was very grateful for that moment. And I ended up staying, of course, because I, I made. It was in my decision to make, I felt. And I was able to make that decision. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:02] And you stayed.

Cody Alan [00:31:03] And I stayed. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:04] It worked.

Cody Alan [00:31:05] Right?

John Dehlin [00:31:06] But it sounds like a great guy.

Cody Alan [00:31:08] Great guy. Yeah. And so many, so many great people I've met over the years as well, in the church. I do not bash the church in this book. I did not want it to be a book about that because I've had great experiences. But I did want to point out some flaws and some of the, what I call airbrushing, some of the face tuning that has happened over the years. If you got the app facetune. Yeah. You can do anything with that app. Make your chin bigger, smaller, whatever, your nose. So I think that, I think the church has done a little bit of that, and I, I, I do point those things out and my sort of metamorphosis into who I believe God is. So all that I cover.

John Dehlin [00:31:52] Yeah. Cara, did you have a. Did someone anything from the comments?

Guest [00:31:55] Yeah, let me just read Jeremy Young's comment really big, really quick. He said, love you, Cody. Thanks for sharing your story. Your story is going to help so many people. So I agree with that as well.

John Dehlin [00:32:05] Hey, Jeremy. Shout out to Jeremy. He's in Washington now, so.

Cody Alan [00:32:08] Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [00:32:08] Yeah. Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:32:09] Love that guy.

John Dehlin [00:32:10] All right, thanks.

Cody Alan [00:32:11] Good dude.

John Dehlin [00:32:11] Thanks, Kara. All right, so thanks for sharing something so vulnerable and beautiful and powerful. I love it that you are willing to embrace the good. You're willing to discuss openly the problems, but you're also not trying to make that claim that it's all bad, it's all been bad, and there wasn't any good. That balanced approach. I want to just model on Mormon stories.

Cody Alan [00:32:37] You do such a great job of that. I do believe. And I think that. I think anyone who has a faith crisis coming out of the church, it's so incredibly difficult and no one wants to look back at a chapter of their life that was so dedicated to the church and go, it was all a waste. I think we want to look back and say, no, there were really good things that came from that. And the story I just shared about my mission president is one of those for me and there are many others that are positive and I always look at as okay, no, no. I learned a lot in those chapters, the chapters I was living in the Mormon Church and I. So that's all good. I learned a lot of stuff I didn't like too. And I think that's. You know what I mean, that's coming. But I do think we need to anyone and I know many of your listeners are dealing with that right now. Perhaps how do I cope with this idea that I've wasted time in the church and I just don't want people to think that didn't waste time. Look at the positive you did gain and, you know, realize truth is truth and the truth will set you free eventually.

John Dehlin [00:33:46] Right?

Cody Alan [00:33:46] Sounds cliche, but it's true.

Post-Mission Career and a Mixed-Orientation Marriage

John Dehlin [00:33:48] So as you read, here's the thing. I really enjoyed you talking about your career, coming off your mission, starting to be a dj, working your way up, and the way that you really brought energy and creativity to build the programming and the marketing in the various radio stations you worked for Dallas and in Florida, here in Orlando. We'll refer to listeners more for your career kind of stuff, if that's okay. Just because we want them to buy and read this book because it's so important.

Cody Alan [00:34:25] And Salt Lake City, too. Just doing radio in Salt Lake is a whole different ball of wax before Nashville. Whole different crazy, awesome experience, one that I'd never had. I always wanted, because I wanted to live here, because I. I love waking up at these mountains. I loved it this morning. I drove past the temple last night and this morning. I mean, I love these streets. There's so much about Salt Lake I love. So I. I hope for a blue sky morning today. It was one of those gray ones in Salt Lake where you don't get this or the vivid mountains bouncing across the blue skies. But maybe tomorrow morning.

John Dehlin [00:34:57] So.

Cody Alan [00:34:57] But I do love it here, so. And I Do talk about the radio experiences I had here, which were probably the most adventurous. And then that radio experience bringing me to meet the prophet at some point as well, is covered in the book, which was a whole different thing that I hope, I think people will enjoy reading.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] Yeah, I may want to jump to that. But tell us how you get off your mission. I get the sense that you're trying to stay Mormon. It seems like you may have tried beer a couple times, but you were also. You wanted to marry a woman and you wanted to kind of do the live the Mormon. You know, kind of the traditional Mormon family. So talk about navigating, being a single return missionary in the south and then eventually finding your wife and deciding to marry a woman as a gay, closeted gay Mormon man.

Cody Alan [00:35:48] Yeah. How does that happen? I mean, I. It's a. I get to people. I get that people would say it's such a mystery of how that might happen to somebody, particularly in 2021. We don't understand it. But again, we're going back 20, 30 years here, this process of me coming to where I am now. So, yeah, I came off my mission and worked radio, which was the centerpiece of my life, the biggest thing that I had going, and took up all my time. And then I moved to Dallas from Orlando and I got a big job at a big radio station, which of course, at 20. The wolf. Right. And at 20, whatever, 23, maybe. And it was super scary because it was millions of people listening and the potential there to screw up was so great. So I was trying not to mess that up. And I got set up on a blind date with Teresa, and I saw a picture of her, and she was so cute and, you know, beautiful. And I thought, I need to figure out myself. Anyway, so I'm gonna. I didn't date a whole lot. I did date a few Mormon girls, but I was like, not for me. That one. I'm not for me. Until I met Teresa, she was the only one that I thought, oh, wow, she. There's something there. There's something special about her that I really do like. And we love spending time together. She loved country music. You know, I was the country music king at the time, even with the cowboy hat on and some boots and some wranglers.

John Dehlin [00:37:17] John.

Cody Alan [00:37:18] I was, you know, and I show you some pictures of that, but. But I was definitely sort of living that Texas life that I sort of like. I was a little bit of a caricature. The cowboy costume was, in fact, a costume a lot of times, but nonetheless, I Kind of liked being in Texas and I like doing country music and she sort of liked all that about me. I was playing a little bit of a part, no doubt about that. But I also was going to, to work every day and playing country songs and trying to relate to the audience, which was Texans. So I was trying to be as close to the audience as I could be. So I, when we got together again, blind date style, we just kind of hit it off. She was a lot of fun and I think she kind of dug me. And there's something about that flurry of butterflies because someone likes you that is very attractive. Even though I knew again, my inclinations are elsewhere, I liked her. I like being around her. And her overwhelming us, overwhelming me with such love and such interest was very attractive to me. So I kind of liked all that. And so we, we just kind of worked and before long we started talking about getting married and we got married and then we had our first kid

John Dehlin [00:38:36] and not in the temple.

Cody Alan [00:38:38] I didn't know.

John Dehlin [00:38:38] It wasn't clear.

Cody Alan [00:38:39] She's not a Mormon. And at this point she.

John Dehlin [00:38:41] In the story.

Cody Alan [00:38:42] In the story? Yeah, at this point in the story. And then, you know, year, I guess, year. So two, maybe two years after getting married, I said, you know, my church is kind of important to me. Maybe we ought to talk about getting the discussions with the missionaries. And of course with that, come, you know, young men to the house who are energetic and fun themselves and charismatic and they teach her the gospel. And she just loved it. And somewhat reluctant again, she come, she, she came like me, from a Southern Baptist family who didn't necessarily agree. And so she had to make her own decision. But I think she loved me enough and I certainly was supportive of her joining the church. And we really got from there super involved. All the callings, all the things with the full family in tow and, and sort of made that picket fence Mormon family in the frames on the mantle thing work. That's what we were going to be. And, and I was thrilled over that because it's something I dreamed of. Didn't know if it would ever happen for me again. I'd never really dated, but she was special and she was spunky and fun and you know, I spent a whole chapter talking about the kind of Texan she was because she's just, you know, spitfire and yet the most compassionate, big hearted person you'll ever meet. Just an all around great person. So I, I knew if I was going to marry anybody, I could marry her.

John Dehlin [00:40:15] Yeah. And I don't think Straight people have any idea what it might be like to marry someone you're not necessarily attracted to or to commit your life to somebody for whom, you know, their gender isn't something that kind of naturally calls to you psychologically or sexually or whatever. Was it hard? And if it was hard, in what ways was it hard? And how did you mask or cope with the parts that were hard? Because obviously you were close friends and you loved her.

Cody Alan [00:40:43] Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:44] Were there hard parts?

Cody Alan [00:40:46] Yeah, I. But honestly, I had psyched myself out so much, and I had dug that hole so deep my soul about being gay. I just. It's like a box you put on a shelf and you never open. I had let that box just sit up on the shelf and I was never going to open it. And I thought, I can figure this out because she's cool and I'll figure out the sex part. You know, we got through those things, and it wasn't horrific. I'm sorry. It wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:41:21] You didn't experience aversion? Some people experience aversion.

Cody Alan [00:41:24] Some people do. And I didn't experience that. I just thought, this is. I had never had sex, so I'm like, maybe this is how it's supposed to be.

John Dehlin [00:41:31] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:41:32] And so I just work through it. So I. I didn't experience those negative.

John Dehlin [00:41:38] I mean, that says a lot. Work through it. That actually says a lot. Because I think. Yeah. Because for some, it just might come more natural or be super exciting.

Cody Alan [00:41:48] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:48] Not something you work through, maybe.

Cody Alan [00:41:50] Yep. You're right. You're right.

John Dehlin [00:41:51] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:41:52] For me, it was like, let's work. Let's just get it done. It sounds so bad to see how this sex get it done. Let's get it done.

John Dehlin [00:42:01] Yeah.

Guest [00:42:02] And from, like, your philosophy of what you understood about Mormonism at that point, you said you were pretty much all in. So what were your ideas about what it meant to be gay that you couldn't even open that box? Because what would that mean for you to open that box, to even look at it?

Cody Alan [00:42:16] I. Telling anyone was just foreign to me. I couldn't even imagine telling. I couldn't tell myself, really. I just thought, again, it's just something I got to keep inside because I can't say anything about it. Here's a. Here's a story that's not in the book that I think relates to your question. I was on my mission, teaching a young man, me and my companion with a family who were. Member referral situation. And the kid who probably was 16, 17, something like that, he asked me about well, what about gay people? What does your church believe about that? And what is something wrong with them? And it's like a bold question. And, of course, my companion, silent. So is everybody else in the room? And then all of a sudden, I felt like I could maybe explain it from the standpoint of, we all have strengths. We all have things we also have to work through. And so I went to sort of that thought process. And frankly, I. I hate when people call it a weakness. I know the scripture that I'm pointing to. I think it may be in Mosiah or either maybe, but that one about your strength becomes your weak or your weakness becomes your strength. And I thought, okay, that's how I can explain this. It's just about making that your weakness, your strength. Figuring. And at the time, the people in the room, you know, afterwards, the family was like, wow, that was a great answer. And I was like, I don't know. Was it. Was it. Was it a great answer? Because it was like. And I started from there. Sort of. It sort of relates to, like, trying to figure out how I could reconcile the two. And I. I just never could honestly, in the end, reconcile the depth of what the faith believes versus what I know is the truth.

John Dehlin [00:44:09] Yeah.

Guest [00:44:10] Yeah. Having sex with a woman was never a strength of yours. Never became a strength. That's what you're saying.

Cody Alan [00:44:16] I don't think she complained. Let's get her on the line. I don't. Let's get on the line. No, I do think that, yeah, we never made an issue and never felt like an issue to me, but the lights are out. I mean, what do you want to say about this? The lights are out, and you just do things, and maybe in your head, sometimes you're not. You're thinking of other things, and I think sometimes you just go. Go with it, and you just sort of, again, work through it.

John Dehlin [00:44:45] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:44:46] But it never was a. A really negative experience like I've heard people describe.

John Dehlin [00:44:50] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:44:50] I didn't have that.

John Dehlin [00:44:51] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:44:53] So I don't know why.

John Dehlin [00:44:54] And I also got the sense from your book that you really buried yourself in your work. And so if you are packing down emotion or sadness or longing or whatever, then being a workaholic or being really committed to your work can. Can cover or compensate for a lot. For a time, maybe.

Cody Alan [00:45:12] Yeah. I think many people who are struggling with themselves, LGBTQ issues of any kind, I think there is a sense of, like, what can I do to distract myself as you look for things that will keep you from thinking about it. And for me, it was all work. I just loved and I love my work. So it was easy for me to like, totally engross myself in. Yeah, let me. I. Sorry. I got to work on a Sunday. I got to go in, I got to work on the transmitter. I got to work on these music logs, whatever it was. I would always find things that sort of distracted me on, on times where I was like, I don't even want to think about this today. And so. And by the way, I say Sunday because I. I've always thought Sunday was the hardest day for me of the week. You know, I could work all week, even on a Saturday often. But, you know, Sunday church, you know, lots of downtime, awkward home teaching visits, all this stuff that seems so it was really hard. And it just reminded me constantly that I am a fraud. You know, it reminded me that I was sort of just fake because I'm. On one hand, there's all these values you want. The church teaches honesty, don't lie. And yet I feel like I'm lying all the time. And that over time, over years began. Began to grate on me. Like, I'm not. This isn't working really. It's not reality.

John Dehlin [00:46:39] Right.

Cody Alan [00:46:39] It's this sort of fantasy thing that you're trying to make yourself believe and do.

Mormon Teachings on Sexuality and Their Impact

Guest [00:46:44] And you mentioned in the book that you read, Miracle of Forgiveness. What kind of influence did different Mormon leaders or whatever have about teachings about homosexuality? How did that kind of make up your view about being gay and that. That you could possibly pray the gay away and that just enough church activity would get you through it? Did you have any kind of philosophy?

Cody Alan [00:47:05] You know, there's all those talks about mental illness. You know, somehow you've got something mentally wrong with you if you're. If you are same sex attracted. Yeah, I, I knew there was no listening ear there. Even that four was the pamphlet they

John Dehlin [00:47:22] give out to the kids for the strength of youth.

Cody Alan [00:47:23] For the strength of youth. Even that was like, oh, gosh, I didn't want to read that. I don't read it with my kids. I worry myself.

John Dehlin [00:47:30] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:47:30] Because it was just so blatantly. It just lays it out there in a very black and white way. And I thought, and over time I've realized this. It's not really black and white, certainly not when it comes to sexuality and orientation. So, yeah, I got nothing but negative messages about me not being good because it's how I was wired. I believe. It's the way I was born. I believe. And I don't think God would have made a mistake with me. And yet that's kind of what you end up having to believe if you are trying to toe the line with the church, is that somehow you're messed up and you gotta be ashamed of that. First of all, shame is such a driving force behind that thought process. And so for me, it was a lot of that all the time. A lot of just feeling in the dumps because I'm really not good enough. I'm less than. And that feeling constantly of, I gotta be this happy, go lucky, awesome guy on TV and radio and do all these things, and yet when all the mics are off, the lights are down, you realize, okay, I'm really not truthful with people. I'm really not honest. And that sucks. No one wants that.

John Dehlin [00:48:59] Yeah. So your. So Teresa had a daughter from a previous marriage, Right. And then together, you guys had how many kids together? Two. So three kids, kind of total. That you. Okay. And I got the sense that you moved to Utah as, like, a last. Not as a last ditch, because in Nashville, you tried the Mormon thing for a little bit too, but Utah was like, we're gonna do. We're gonna figure this Mormon thing out, and Utah's gonna help make it all possible, I think.

Moving to Utah and Building a Career in Country Radio

Cody Alan [00:49:26] So there was a. I really wanted to live here. I thought it'd be exciting to, like, be in the home of the faith, and I thought I could do a better job with my kids because the church is everywhere, and it would be less likely that they would be influenced by people outside of the church who might be wearing shorts that are above the knee, Heaven forbid. So I knew that there was a lot more acceptance here of Mormon beliefs, and I thought that that would be good, particularly as my kids were getting a little bit older at that point. So, yeah, I definitely wanted to be here. And when I knew there was an opening at one of the local stations, I kind of talked my way into the job and eventually got here, and it was great. I really enjoyed our time here.

John Dehlin [00:50:11] Go ahead and tell the David Archuleta and Thomas S. Monson story, because that's good Mormon goodness right there.

Cody Alan [00:50:17] Oh, yeah. You got to read it in detail in the book, whatever you want to share. My memory of it is so vivid, though, because I'll never forget that being sort of the peak day in Salt Lake City, Utah, for me. And again, we were only here for, you know, two years, three years with the whole fam. So really quick time. But the station was struggling that I was at. It was third place among five country Radio stations. This market is, like, filled with radio stations. It's, like, insanely saturated. And so to break out of that and be, you know, competitive is so hard. So I would look for, you know, we had like, a shoestring budget, so I'd look for, like, crazy propaganda things, things that we could get attention for and. And get people to want to come to the station because they were like, oh, some sort of hype, some sort of, like, little hook that they might fall in love with or for. So David Archuleta was on American Idol, big TV show at the time, probably the peak of when that show was popular, ratings wise. And Kara, did you.

John Dehlin [00:51:23] Did you say you, like, slept out in the rain or something? Yeah, I did tell us that just really quick.

Guest [00:51:28] That was 2008. David Archuleta versus David Cook, American Idol. I was gonna drive there, but my friend's rich dad actually flew us all down there, me and my friends, and

Cody Alan [00:51:38] we slept to la.

Guest [00:51:39] To la outside the Kodak Theater, and we slept on the floor at 3am so that we could be like fifth in line to go see David, to go to the finale. So I was. I like David Arjuletta's stories. I'm in.

Cody Alan [00:51:51] Devoted. She was devoted. I love it. Yeah, David was. I mean, he was a superstar during the last few weeks of that show. And so, you know, on the final episodes, they actually go to the hometown of the finalist. And so we knew they were coming to Salt Lake City, David's home, this little Murray, Utah boy to visit his high school and see his life. And so leading up to that, I thought, you know, Napoleon Dynamite was really popular also in Mormon world at the time. Again, I was looking for things that would, like, touch the audience here. So I thought it'd be fun to, like, do those on the. On the movie. It was. I love. I voted for Pedro, I think, right? I voted for Pedro. Vote for Pedro.

John Dehlin [00:52:31] Yeah. So I made it to my friend Jared Hess. He's been on Mormon stories.

Cody Alan [00:52:35] Oh, he's been.

John Dehlin [00:52:35] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:52:36] So I made. Someone said, I voted for a David Archuleta.

John Dehlin [00:52:40] Vote for.

Cody Alan [00:52:40] Vote for David Archuleta.

John Dehlin [00:52:42] Nice.

Cody Alan [00:52:43] In that crazy, like, 70s 80s font or whatever it was.

John Dehlin [00:52:46] White shirt.

Cody Alan [00:52:46] White shirt, exactly. Like the. One of the movies. So we started passing those out. We made boxes and boxes of them. I was like, this is the only thing we're gonna do marketing wise, in this whole. My whole tenure here, but we're gonna do it. And so I talked to the executives upstairs and I said, we gotta do this. It's Big. It'll be big. It'll get a lot of attention. So we started handing out the T shirts all across town. We go down to the malls and wherever we could to hand out these shirts. And so it kind of became a thing. So when Fox came to town, Fox tv, to do the final episodes, they chose our little podunk station which again far, far down in the ratings, not a powerhouse. But they decided they would come to our station to do their live American Idol home visit. So they came into our studios.

John Dehlin [00:53:34] Which station was.

Cody Alan [00:53:36] Was the eagle. 101.5 the eagle. And yeah, again, to choose us over the powerhouse stations, the big ones was crazy. So they set up all their cameras that morning. I remembered like gaggles and gaggles of girls all around our windows right there at trolley, down by Trolley Station or Trolley Square.

Guest [00:53:58] Yeah, me and my friends. Great.

Cody Alan [00:53:59] Okay. Yeah, you guys.

Guest [00:54:01] I actually, my friends were there. I couldn't get off work that day, but I know what you're talking about exactly. This is a fine time in my 18 year old brain that you were talking about here. That time in Utah around David Archuleta time.

Cody Alan [00:54:11] It was like Ed Sullivan's theater with the Beatles. It was like nuts. I couldn't believe it. So I'll never remember, I'll never forget. I always remember walking down the hall with David and welcoming into the studio with the cameras following us and like all the big lights of television. And so I had a friend after that who called me once he realized David was in town and had visited the station. Said hey, I, I have. He was very high up in the church. I suppose he still is. I'm going to be in the box with President Monson tonight. And I was like, okay. He said, do you want to bring David tonight to meet President Monson? And I thought, sure, let me talk with David about it while he's here at the station. So literally that morning I remember David, you know, had to go to the, the bathroom and we talked for a second in front of the mirror in the bathroom because he, you know, just so many people outside the hallway. It's like, I got to talk to you about this real quick. Do you want to do this or not? Go visit President Monson. And tonight I'm like, I know it sounds weird, it's weird for me to even be asking you, but let's, if you want to, I can make this happen with my friend who's tied in. And sure enough, we went that night and met President Monson and you know, impressive miles with those gigantic Hands. I remember them being just like, so soft and, like fat, and he was so nice and of course, to us. And, you know, we had a great conversation, talked about missions, if David was going to go on a mission. And he asked me about my mission and, you know, all these things that I guess prophets probably ask. Ask people. So it was great. It was a great experience, and I think one of those that I'll always treasure. But, yeah, it was the peak of both things of the Salt Lake experience with the radio station. Certainly the biggest they had ever seen. Biggest moment. And then, you know, sort of a spiritual peak as well, in some ways, in the sense that we got to kind of go and hang with the prophet, which. Who, who, who does that? So at a Utah jazz basketball game, by the way, in a box. That was just nuts.

John Dehlin [00:56:12] Monson Love loved the jazz. It was kind of a well known secret that President Monson experienced dementia towards the end of his life. Was there any indication of that, that you remember when you met him, or.

Cody Alan [00:56:22] No, this would have been 2008, like you said. And so he seemed pretty sharp. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:56:29] Yeah. And then David Archuleta had not come out yet as being a member of the LGBTQ community. Did you wonder about that? Did you have. Did you guys ever discuss that? Was that ever, like, something that would have even been a thing?

Cody Alan [00:56:45] No, we didn't discuss it. And I knew, you know, he lives in Nashville now.

John Dehlin [00:56:51] Yeah.

Cody Alan [00:56:52] He came off his mission, and I think he may have moved to Nashville shortly after that. And I know I've had a few LDS gay friends in Nashville say, well, David doesn't really date or doesn't hate girls or whatever. He's, like, doing his thing and music and whatever. And, you know, there's some people like that who are asexual or whatever. I kind of thought maybe that was just the case. So, you know, I'm happy to see that he processed all of it and actually was willing to say it, you know, and come out. And even though it was a little bit confusing, I think what he said. But even confusion is okay, if you, if you can admit I'm. I'm trying to figure this out. I think that's a very positive good step. But I never had any inclination that that was the case. And there's several times in the book where I talk about that, where I've met people, and then later to find out, for whatever reason, they're. They are part of the LGBTQ world and, and, and come out later in life. But we met earlier.

John Dehlin [00:57:52] Yeah. So I Imagine, I imagine as your marriage is progressing and you're raising these kids and you're realizing. Talk to us about, like, when you started thinking or realizing that you were either curious or needed to explore, or you were starting to see the writing on the wall, or you, you know, you were kind of tap out, like, talk to us about that progression towards eventually deciding you needed to look. Look into other possibilities because the marriage thing wasn't probably going to work long term.

Nashville, Recommitment, and the Decision to Come Out

Cody Alan [00:58:30] Yeah. Well, after we moved from Salt Lake to Nashville, we really all committed. I. I recommitted to. Because I'd already, while I was in Nashville, been living sort of this weird single life. I would kind of go back and forth to Salt Lake and see everybody.

John Dehlin [00:58:49] You got a big opportunity. Maybe just talk briefly about what to get.

Cody Alan [00:58:51] Yeah, absolutely. CMT brought me there, obviously, to work for CMT as a pinnacle sort of career.

John Dehlin [00:58:57] Tell listeners who that is. The ones you don't know.

Cody Alan [00:59:00] Country Music Television. It's a.

John Dehlin [00:59:02] A.

Cody Alan [00:59:02] It's a TV channel on. On cable. Cable television. Y' all don't cut the cord yet. We're still there. And, yeah, no, it's a. It's a. The prominent country music television source. And. And it certainly was in 2008 when I first got the call to perhaps go and work for them. And so obviously, I had to wrestle with. My family was living in Salt Lake. Do I want to be in Nashville? Can I make it work? So I went through all those questions, I analyzed all those things from different angles, and finally decided I absolutely needed to be in Nashville, and this was where I needed to be next. Teresa was super supportive, as were our kids. Eventually, they all moved there as well, and I sort of recommitted with that move that I was going to be absolutely committed to the church and once again, get back to who I needed to be, because I felt like I'd kind of left all that for at least a time when I was in Nashville without family, and I hated that.

John Dehlin [01:00:06] So you mentioned kind of like. I mean, the one thing that really comes out in all the interviews I do with LGBTQ Mormons is like, you don't ever have a chance as a teen to just kind of, like, figure out who you are and explore and date. And so you talk in the book about this time where you're kind of commuting to Nashville. Your family's back here.

Cody Alan [01:00:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:28] And you're not. It's not like you're playing the field or anything, but you're. You start. Do you want to talk about that starting to allow yourself to kind of, like, at least ask the question and maybe even make some friends.

Cody Alan [01:00:40] I was really curious. And again, you had described it perfectly. When you grow up and you're gay, you just. There's not a whole lot of opportunity to, like, figure yourself out through real experiences. So I wanted to talk to people. So, yeah, I did meet and talk to gay people, because I thought, man, I want to hear your story. I was like, John Dehlin then, though, I was like, tell me how you got here.

John Dehlin [01:01:05] Like an interviewer.

Cody Alan [01:01:06] Yeah. Like, tell me how you got to the point where you were out and you feel good about it. Like, and at what age did you feel this way? And do you think anything happened to your family that made you this way? Because I was curious about all those things in my own life. And then, you know, obviously, the more I heard those stories, the more I realized it was. So many people just felt, it's. It's my wiring. It's the way I am. And they couldn't pinpoint anything in their childhood that would have made them this way. So I started reading a lot. I. You know, I went back to as much science as I could find. Data, like, real, actual truth and data from experiences people have shared on the Internet. And I read all those things from every, you know, medical source possible. So at that time, I also, you know, like I said, I was chatting with other people, trying to figure it out, and I think that was really helpful. It was really helpful because then I realized, like, okay, there are people like me. I've got a tribe here. I don't have to. I'm not alone in this feeling. And that's sort of good. That was very good at the time.

John Dehlin [01:02:16] Yeah. Okay. So that. That takes you to the point where you start realizing you're gonna have to make some big changes. And that's. I. You know, I talked to you about this a bit. We haven't even really talked about the country scene, and I want to get to that, but, like, there's. There's being Mormon, and then there's coming out to yourself, and then there's coming out to your. To look to. To your wife and kids, but then there's coming out to the church, into your family, and then there's doing this as a TV and radio celebrity in an industry that probably doesn't have at least a historical reputation in the past of being super LGBTQ friendly. So, like, I can't imagine the pressure, because it's so hard. It was so, so much effort to Build your career.

Cody Alan [01:03:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] I just can't imagine the pressure you felt.

Cody Alan [01:03:12] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:13] How you navigate.

Cody Alan [01:03:14] There was a lot of pressure. I. I called friends to help me often, and many straight friends, people in the church even, because I started sort of just revealing myself to more people and talking about it, because I knew I had to. I had to turn to people and find guidance and counsel because I knew I was coming to a point where I was just so unhappy not being able to be happy. And. And again, with all the weight of all those decisions to all those people around me and all the work that I also felt like, oh, my gosh, I could be risking with any of this. And so there was a. There was a huge fear at the time, but I also had. I also felt like with every conversation, I got a little closer to being happier. It felt like I was venting a little more. And even with Teresa at this point, obviously, we had a first conversation I talk about in the book because I want people to know, like, the process. It happened many years before I came out, came out to the world, but I needed to start with her. And after that, I started opening myself up to more people and chatting more often to kind of understand who I was.

John Dehlin [01:04:28] So, real, real quick, just because I want to really spotlight this. You've got a wife you love, You've got kids you love. You've got a successful family, and now your career is super successful. Some would say, like, well, you've got it all. Like, okay, this is a. This is an inconvenient thing. But, like, there's so much going for you. Why even risk it?

Cody Alan [01:04:50] Right.

John Dehlin [01:04:51] I think that probably shows how dark it must have gotten for you, that you could have everything else almost perfect in your life, but it still was. Was tearing you apart inside. Can you talk about that moment where you're just like, I can't keep doing this, even though everything else seemed to be perfect?

Cody Alan [01:05:13] Yeah, I. You're exactly right. I think that I actually carry that guilt around with me that you just described. I've got it all. What's wrong with you? Why would you even want to mess this up or rock the vote? And I thought to myself, then I'm being selfish. Like, this is just for you. Stop it. I did see a therapist, which helped a lot because I started unload, loading some of the shame and the guilt that I just described. And it helped to have someone to bounce things off of, who's unbiased and who could also guide me and introduce me to things that I had not thought about before, like, for most of my life, it was so black and white to me. Everything was one way or the other. And we're sort of taught that way in the church, too. Like, it's just this or that. And when you realize, like, there's a myriad of colors in between the black and the white and a spectrum for sexuality, but also just decisions in general, that it doesn't always. It's not always as clear as you may think. Once I started opening my mind up to sort of concepts like that, I realized that. That I could talk about it more and then start sort of peeling back the onion to get to the core of who I was. And that's what I started doing. And there was a darkness in that time because I was scared of it against shameful, guilty, and scared that I might be messing up my kids, messing up my family, and all the things that I really love about my life. Then I started thinking about Teresa and how I'm going to mess her up eventually, too, with this.

John Dehlin [01:07:09] Yeah, there's. What if you stayed? You know, I'm sure you wondered that. What if I just.

Cody Alan [01:07:13] Yeah, exactly. I thought. And my kids, you know, when they do see me, I'm a grumpy guy. I'm not a happy guy at home. Sometimes they see that. They see me not real happy, going to church. So I. I asked myself, what. What is it that I'm doing wrong? And I prayed during that time, too. Like, what can I do to change this? And it occurred to me very clearly, what's the one thing you haven't fixed? That's the one thing you haven't fixed ever? Your core, who you are. And. Yeah. So at that, after that sort of epiphany, I started trying to fix again. Peeling back the onion slowly, trying to fix that and get to what my core was, because I knew it needed to be made right.

John Dehlin [01:08:10] And you were talking about Teresa, too. Like, what it would be like for her if you were to try to stay in.

Cody Alan [01:08:15] Yeah. What would that be like? You know, you sort of. She's living a fraud then, too. And. And she knows it. And so, yeah, there's no. She deserves the best. She deserves to be happy. She deserves a husband who is 110% and into her.

John Dehlin [01:08:36] Right?

Cody Alan [01:08:37] Huh?

John Dehlin [01:08:37] Yeah.

Cody Alan [01:08:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:39] In all the ways.

Cody Alan [01:08:39] In all the ways.

John Dehlin [01:08:40] Yeah.

Guest [01:08:41] Right.

Cody Alan [01:08:41] So, yeah, I really agonized over that and somewhat, even to this day, that it took me so long, you know, But I was trying to do the right thing for the family, and I was trying to wait till the Right moment in time. And I needed to get myself right over that time as well. So, yeah, eventually it started feeling better as I talked more. As we talked more, Teresa and I. And then eventually, as I revealed myself to my mom, who I did not talk to her over the phone. She lives in South Carolina. I was in Nashville and super busy. So I decided I was going to write her an email to tell her how I felt and who I was. I just didn't want to get on the phone and just ball. So I wrote her a really poignant email, and I share that in the book as well. I hope it'll help people to know what to say or how to write it or how that might sound if you ever have to do that. And I called her. I said, hey, are you by your email? Because I'm going to send you something very important and. And then just read it and then call me right back. That was the way I needed to deal with that with her. And so we worked through it and, you know, eventually told my dad, you know, all the people in your life who are important, eventually told my kids, and. And they accepted with a lot more love and compassion than I would have ever imagined. And so, yeah, we just unraveled it slowly over a process of time. And I tell people it's a. A In the book. It's a. It's a evolution, not a revolution. It's something I evolved to and eventually figured out.

John Dehlin [01:10:20] Yeah, yeah. One of the things we haven't talked about is just how kind of like, you know, there are people that just aren't into the country music scene at all. And so for them, they might be oblivious. Oblivious to all this, but, like, my. My family and I, we just started watching the Voice this year. So, for example, I just discovered Blake Shelton this year. I wouldn't have known who he was, but, like, now I totally am into the Voice, and I'm in. I love Blake's personality. And so I start going on to YouTube to see all the people you've interviewed, and it's like Dolly Parton. It's, you know, Taylor Swift. You knew her. And Blake Shelton. And you can see just all the biggest names. George Strait, Garth Brooks, like, you have met them all. You know, all these people.

Cody Alan [01:11:08] Crazy.

Success in Country Music Broadcasting

John Dehlin [01:11:10] So I want to give people a sense for just. This is probably hard, just how incredibly, like, you've won country music awards, like, multiple. Lots of broadcasting awards. You're a big deal. And that's why one of the many reasons why I was so honored you'd come on the show, talk a bit about as you ascend into your career, just all the people that you've gotten to know and what it's like. And then I want to talk about how many of those people came to your support and what that was like.

Cody Alan [01:11:43] Yeah, I've been very lucky because particularly at cmt, you just. You're inundated with interviews constantly. There's always someone coming by the studio to talk. And I was a pretty good interviewer before I got to cmt, but I really had to dig in and get great edit because it was such a big spotlight and such a huge opportunity. So I, yeah, I did meet all, you know, these heroes of mine from. From my childhood, like Dolly, for example, who is larger than life. She's just as funny in person as she is on tv. The exact same person you've seen in movies and you hear in music. I mean, she's the genuine article and such a great person. You just love being around her and so you have a. Moments like that with her. And then Taylor, who I got to know very early in her career, I

John Dehlin [01:12:40] love the Crock Pot story. Oh, yeah, it's very Mormon, by the way.

Cody Alan [01:12:43] It is long before she was a huge superstar, but she was already gaining traction in Nashville, you know, for a few years. And so I was. We were friends. So she's one of those people that makes you feel at least like she is your friend. She comes in, knows your name, wants to give you a hug. Let's talk about life. Let's dig in. And so she had mentioned that she got a new condo and she was living on the. I think it was the highest floor of the. Of the complex. She's like, it's so lonely when I go home at night because the lights are off when I come in the door and I'm like, well, what can I do to make Taylor feel better? So I. The next interview, I brought her a crock pot because I thought everyone deserves an 8, 8 quart oval. And. And I, you know, anything to sort of make it feel like it was. It was her home. And so that became sort of a tradition. Blake, your friend Blake, who's. Who, by the way, is about as tall as you are, John.

John Dehlin [01:13:37] Is he big?

Cody Alan [01:13:38] You surprised me by your height today because I didn't know what to expect. But yeah, he's a tall guy and he.

John Dehlin [01:13:43] You guys have a really cool rapport. He kind of ribs you a little bit.

Cody Alan [01:13:46] Yeah, well, yeah, there's always a little bit of, like, fun tension between us. And he's not. He's willing to just say anything. You don't ever know what he's going to say. And that's the fun of it. And I don't think he ever knows. He doesn't know what the questions I'm going to ask. And I always try to get him, you know, you know, the questions that'll poke the bear a little bit and get answers that'll be kind of fun out of him. But he said to me one time, after giving Taylor the crock pot, he's like, I can't believe you gave the biggest international superstar in the world a crock pot. And she seemed like she was. She loved that crock pot. And it's so true. She was, like, so enthusiastic about receiving it. But, yeah, there are a lot of these little country music stories and adventures and behind the scenes things that I share in the book that, you know, I see because the mic's not on or the cameras are off. I wanted it to sort of be a little bit of a VIP pass into what I've seen over the years with so many stars from Blake to Taylor to Garth, Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, all these people. Dan and Shea, Miranda Lambert story.

John Dehlin [01:14:52] So they're on the book.

Cody Alan [01:14:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:54] And all in the book.

Cody Alan [01:14:55] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:14:56] Here's the thing.

Cody Alan [01:14:57] Thanks for the plug. But you're right. When I came out in 2017, because of years and years of knowing these people, I thought people.

John Dehlin [01:15:08] Keith. We didn't mention him, right?

Cody Alan [01:15:09] Toby Keith. Yeah. You know, I. I didn't know how people would react. Again, there's this fear. I don't care how comfortable you feel with yourself about it at that point, because you got to feel comfortable about coming out if you're going to announce it to the world. And I felt pretty good about just letting it off my chest. It was almost a selfish thing. Like, let me just get this out. Let me just say it and be done. And. And then to have that love come back in waves from the stars. You've interviewed over the years, from Carrie to Carrie Underwood to Toby Keith and Dirks and Dan and Shea and Casey Musgraves, all these people sort of spoke up that day.

John Dehlin [01:15:48] They're like tweeting.

Cody Alan [01:15:49] Yes, right? Yes. They were all like, we love you, Cody. Hearts, Hearts or thumbs up. You know, from. I think Toby, who said Cody, I. I'm paraphrasing, but I think he said, cody, I admire your courage today. And I thought, okay, here's alpha male, straight, seemingly sort of conservative in so many ways, and yet he's saying nice things about me coming out. Boy, that's powerful. If you're a fan of country music, you're some kid living on a dirt road thinking you're not like anyone else, you're different. You feel like you're somewhere in the LGBTQ world, and you hear Toby Keith say that about a media figure, that's something else. And I hope. I hope it means something to people like that, because, again, I never had that. I knew I was different, but I thought there was no one else around me like me. So, again, different generations, we see it more. There's a lot more love and acceptance in the world today, but there's still a lot of fear around speaking up and telling people that you're gay. And I hope in some ways that message was sent that day that, hey, it's okay, you're loved. You can love country music and be gay.

John Dehlin [01:17:06] I want to come back to that part about country music. But there's this powerful part in the book that we talked, we texted about where earlier, years earlier, Ellen. Ellen comes out. And you kind of feel pressure to kind of comment on that. Do you. Do you feel like telling that story a little bit and then. And then we'll flash forward to your own coming out.

A Pivotal Moment Around Ellen's Coming Out

Cody Alan [01:17:28] It's a great story because this shows you how insecure and naive and sort of green I was living in Texas, doing morning radio. I had. It was me and my co host, who was a brilliant broadcaster, super smart gal. Her name was Stacy Brooks. I was intimidated a little bit by her because I never felt like we were equal. Like, she's always a step ahead of me, but she did her best to make me look good, and I loved her for that. And we always. We're friends to this day, very close friends.

Guest [01:18:02] That sound familiar, John?

John Dehlin [01:18:04] Absolutely. Tracking, tracking.

Cody Alan [01:18:07] Never. Never your equal. But nonetheless, the Ellen story was huge. When she was on the COVID I think, of Time or one of the magazines, and of course, on her show saying, I'm gay, it was a gigantic thing. Now it seems so, like, okay, so what? But at the time, it was big. And so it was a huge media story. And because our show was versed in pop culture, we had to talk about the pop culture events, the things that were going on in the world. So the day before we had this broadcast on the morning show to talk about Ellen, we met with the executives of the radio station who basically said, hey, we want to make sure that we balance this out, that there's one side, both sides are being represented. That's all we need. Which is completely, I think, fair minded in their minds. But that meant that my co host, Stacy, was going to go for the pro Ellen. It's all good. She should be speaking up. She needs to say this. The world needs more love. And then I had to be the anti tag in the sense that I had to then say, no, no, be careful about this. It's Adam and Eve. Eve, not Adam and Steve or something like that. And it was just. I couldn't even get the words really out of my mouth without feeling icky because here I am sort of just totally faking it, faking that moment. I was such a fraud, and I felt terrible, and yet I was trying to do my job and make everybody happy and make the executives happy that we were doing a balanced approach. So it was a very difficult moment for me, Honestly. I look back on it and I squirm a little bit and cringe at what I said because I. I knew then that. That it was not right. It wasn't who I was. And yet I was playing. I was playing a character, essentially.

John Dehlin [01:20:01] That's hard.

Cody Alan [01:20:02] Really hard.

John Dehlin [01:20:03] That's hard.

Cody Alan [01:20:03] Yeah. Fast forward, though. I did meet Ellen later.

John Dehlin [01:20:09] Yeah, tell that.

Cody Alan [01:20:10] Yeah, So I did meet her.

John Dehlin [01:20:11] And she heard the comment or no,

Cody Alan [01:20:13] she had no idea about. I mean, yeah, I'm sure at that time there were many, many people who were, you know, again, anti Ellen, who were speaking about it on talk radio and. And on morning shows. It was. It was another time. And it was a little more allowed, I think, back then to be anti gay in some ways. And unfortunately. So she really did catch a lot of wrath, I think, back then. Nonetheless, when I met her, I guess in 2018 or 19, it was in Santa Barbara. We were doing a wildfire rescue benefit after the wildfires sort of ravaged that area. Ellen was there. I was there with Brad Paisley, who was also performing with Ellen. And I had the chance to go out and introduce them. But before I went out, Ellen was like backstage, and I was like, you know what? And I was out by now. This is past 2017, so I would have been out and proud. And I was like, I'm gonna go tell Ellen how I feel like I want to meet her. And I'm not gonna miss this moment because this is the only time it's ever gonna happen. So. And Ellen's a little hard to get to. She's got people around her, but I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna walk up. So she had a modelo beer in her hand, and I Don't even drink beer, but I got a Modelo beer. And I was like, I'll just go say cheers to Ellen. So, sure enough, I walked over to her and said, hi. And I said, I do country music television. And I just want to know, I want you to know how much I appreciate you. And paraphrasing, of course, it was something along the lines of, you've made lives better for a lot of people. I know you hear it all the time, but I want you to hear it from me. And then at the end of the conversation, we spent a few minutes together, and she was really kind, very sweet. At the end of the conversation, I said, oh, and I'm gay to her. And she goes, me too. It was a great comedic moment and exactly how you wanted it to sort of, like, end, but it was a great meeting. And that picture is somewhere on Instagram.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] That's fun. So I, I, I've been more classic rock kind of pop guy, and so. But my parents were really into, are really into country and country music awards and all that, but I don't know that I have had a fair perception ever. And you can't ever really group any people and kind of characterize people as a group, because there's always individuals in a group. But I would think of all the different industries, entertainment industries, or genres that one might come out in that my stereotype of the country scene would be that might be the most risky to come out in. So. So can you talk a little bit about kind of the, kind of like, the context prior to you coming out? Had there ever been a country star who had either come out or had been closeted? There's a perception that kind of, like, country music represents Southern, conservative, Christian values, quote, family values. And so, like, just how scary and. Or risky was it? Were there any trailblazers within the country scene that were lgbtq? And then what did you, you know, what type of environment was it that you came out in and how risky was it?

Cody Alan [01:23:32] Yeah, you're right. All those perceptions, I think, are correct. And there is a lot more conservative, traditional thoughts, I think, still in country music. So 2017, before that, there were a couple of country artists who came out. One was Shelly Wright, who wrote a book and appeared on the Oprah, I believe, in 2010, in 2013, I want to say Ty Herndon also came out. He was sort of the first male country artist to speak up.

John Dehlin [01:24:07] Do you have a sense for how that was for their careers?

Cody Alan [01:24:10] Well, here's the thing.

John Dehlin [01:24:11] Oh, sorry. Show the book.

Cody Alan [01:24:13] Show the book. Here's the thing, here's the thing, here's the thing. I love both those people. I don't want to. I don't want to sound like I'm at all. They are trailblazers. Both of their careers, by the time they came out, had faded somewhat. They had had their hits. And so there wasn't a. There's definitely always risk. It wasn't the kind of risk that one might have if they were making a hit that was on the chart today. And I think by the time they came out, it was. It was passed. That said, they now have great careers because they're able to go back and sing all those classic songs and they're able to fill up venues where LGBTQ people want to be too. So it's actually, I think, help them blossom. But for me, in 2017, there weren't a lot of faces who were making current country music who were out. We've had Casey Musgraves sing Follow your Arrow, which is definitely a pro gay LGBTQ song. We had Shane McInally who helped co write the song. He's a out songwriter. So again, just giving you a few tidbits of the. The times, the things that were the hot points that were happening at the moment, but really there wasn't anyone on the current scene who had stepped up. And so, yeah, it was risky. It was risky because I am a guy who's seen on television sets every week. I am a guy who people hear every single day on the radio if they listen. And so would they like me? Would they hate me? Would it be 50, 50? Would I then become like a polarizing figure, even though I've always been this kind of like, all in, everyone's welcome. Have fun. Let's ask some great questions. Let's have a little bit of a party while you're here. A welcoming human. Would they then think I'm not that or change their perception about me? So, yeah, there was that definite risk involved, and I was scared of that. So I went back to the 50, 50 thing because I thought it would be like 50% of people won't like me, and 50%, you know, maybe like me more. It turned out to be just like a. Like a 9010, I mean, of people just overwhelmingly showing support and compassionate love. You know, of course there's haters with everything you do, and there certainly were haters, but for the most part, people were very, very accepting. I go to country concerts all the time, or at least pre pandemic I did. And we Went. We go to festivals and often people will come up and say something about all this to me. Thank you for coming out. I love country music. I'm gay. Love you. Something along those lines. TJ Osborne is the 1/2 of the group. Brothers Osborne just won a CMA last week for vocal duo of the year 1. In the past, Grammy winners. I mean, they're incredible country musicians. So TJ decided he would come out this past January in Time magazine, and he had a huge article written about him and his reasoning behind all of it. And it was incredible because he is a guy currently on the scene making music that charts selling millions of albums, streaming, you know, bazillions of songs. So that was really the first big major artist to say I'm gay. And it was a. That was a big moment. Now there's a sort of inclusion happening all across a wave that you're starting to see. We've got great lesbian artists like Lily Rose or Brooke Eden who are trying to find their way. The interesting thing about them is that they are out first and then they're going to give you their song Other Way, you know, Other Way around. It was like, oh, let me make a hit first, and then I'll tell you about myself. They're actually wearing who they are every day as part of who they are, trying to sell you on a record, you know, sell you on a song. So it's a whole different approach and it's really exciting because that means we've made some progress.

John Dehlin [01:28:20] Yeah. And I, you know, country entertainment scene is so influential, let's just say it to the Southern states, you know, and they're just, they have as many, you know, LGBT kids percentage wise as any other state. So I don't think it can be overemphasized how influential popular culture is in helping kids see themselves and others right in, in helping to promote visibility. I just can't, I just can't overstate how, how respect. How much I respect what you and others have done.

Cody Alan [01:28:54] Hey, thanks. And, and the folks at GLAAD and, and many other outreach groups have stepped up because they see this as being a issue or challenge to reach out to Southern states specifically and say, and, and start campaigns and, and make sure to influence for positive. To the kids who may be LGBTQ there or frankly in Utah as well. I mean, there's been great campaigns started here to emphasize love and acceptance and it's. I think it's a really wonderful thing.

John Dehlin [01:29:24] I love it.

Cody Alan [01:29:25] Yeah.

Faith Unraveling and Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [01:29:26] So let's switch back to the Mormon question now. So there is. Let's talk about the unraveling of your faith in the final stages of it, and then your decision to leave the church and what led to it. You talk about moving to Nashville in the book and, like, making one last ditch effort. You mentioned again, reading Miracle Forgiveness by Spencer B. Kimball, reading in Quiet Desperation by Time Mansfield, trying to pray the gay way and all that.

Cody Alan [01:29:52] And talk to my bishop. Oh, my bishop.

John Dehlin [01:29:55] Yeah, Talk about. Just talk about the. The. The final efforts you made to make it work as a Mormon. And then what were the really important factors that made you decide to let it go?

Cody Alan [01:30:06] Well, I started, you know, I was still super involved. The bishop brought me in to teach gospel doctrine, and I thought, okay, either he's not inspired or something is going on here that God somehow wants me to teach gospel doctrine when he knows all this about me. And by then, I had already, you know, obviously, I had the talk with Teresa, and we were, you know, in that stage. I spoke about a moment ago where we're reading and researching and trying to just figure it out, but we're still kind of going to church and teaching our kids. And I said, I need to think about this to him. And then I thought about it, prayed about it, and I said, I just need to tell you something, though. I'm gay. I sat him down and I said, I have same. I know you guys call it same sex, attraction or whatever, but I've known this about myself my whole life. This is who I am. And, I mean, I struggle with it. I don't know what to do about it, but here I am. He didn't offer a whole lot of guidance, really. I feel sorry for bishops. I feel sorry for these guys who have to sit across a desk and hear these things without much experience. When it comes to counseling people, they just sort of, like, have to say something. What do you say? He didn't have any answers, really, other than no, pray about it. Ponder, you know, read the Scriptures. Are you reading the Scriptures every day? This sort of thing. And so that was a tipping point. I think that sort of, like, was, okay, this is not gonna. I did teach gospel doctrine, by the way, for, like, two weeks. And then I went back and said, you know, I can't. I'm not. This is not for me. I just don't feel comfortable anymore telling people things that I don't know if I believe anymore, because I know who I am. I know I'm different. And. And by then, I also had started to understand a little more about the gospel. And it's many cracks.

John Dehlin [01:32:11] What were the biggest cracks for you? If you had to list like three to five or seven, like what are the big ones?

Cody Alan [01:32:16] We talked about the polygamy. To me, that was always unsettling. Blacks in the priesthood. I always, that was always really hard for me to understand that the church kept priesthood. Priesthood, yeah. From African Americans till 1978.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] Yeah.

Cody Alan [01:32:33] That was tough for me on my mission as well. I struggled with that big time. And then I started to hear more about like the Pearl of Great Price and like all of the crazy claims that the church has in regards to that document and certainly the Book of Mormon too, and just the lack of there being any evidence of truth to them and all the discrepancies that exist. So yeah, I started to hear some of that. It may have been about the time I discovered you, John boy, I found great comfort in some of that as well. Even though it's a little bit of destroying your faith that you've believed in for so long. It was like, okay, yeah, I was getting to the point where I knew who I was and, and I knew that God hadn't messed me up. And the teaching of the church that said that you were a mistake or you're imperfect or you need to, you need to come to church, but don't do anything about it. That whole idea was crazy to me at that point. And, and then I think 2015 with the, that new. Whatever you call that.

John Dehlin [01:33:45] Was it the November 2015 policy where the.

Cody Alan [01:33:47] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:33:48] Basically declares same sex marriage an act of apostasy and tells children of same sex couples that they're not welcome in any of the major ordinances of the church, including baptism and priesthood and confirmation. That. That exclusion policy.

Cody Alan [01:34:02] Yeah, yeah. Exclusion policy is a good way to put it. And I thought about my son, honestly, and we talked about it, he and I, about that time, because I, by then I had talked to him about myself and I said, what does that mean to you? That suddenly you can't serve in the priesthood?

John Dehlin [01:34:21] Right.

Cody Alan [01:34:21] That's what it said. And you can't go on a mission. You don't have a choice anymore with those things. Because I'm your dad. What in the world? Are you kidding me? You should be able to choose for yourself because you're a individual and yet the church is going to keep you from doing those things. And then I think we all decide at that point, is this a church we really want to be in? That. That would exclude like that in a such a hateful way. Hateful way, of course. That whole policy was rebuked and taken back or whatever.

John Dehlin [01:34:52] That didn't fix it for you?

Cody Alan [01:34:54] No, it didn't fix it for me. And then I thought, what, these guys are supposed to be inspired, right? You know, a prophet and 12 apostles. Who aren't they supposed to be in touch with this? Why would they do one thing and then, you know, within a short period of time, just take it back? Like, that doesn't seem correct. And so that, that piles on with all the other revelations that seem a little bit out of whack with truth, including the, the priesthood and polygamy and beyond. So by, by that point, it was really sort of the straw that broke the camel's back, if you will. For me, I think for Teresa to some degree, and for the kids as well, it's like, okay, we're good. We got love here. We're living as Christlike as anyone else we know in the church. And so we can keep being great people and good people and move forward together with love. And that's what we decided to do in a very deliberate and intentional way. Let's love each other through all of this. We're always going to be a family. Nobody can take that away. And so we decided then that we were going to be together, together, family. But, but one that would looked a little bit different than everyone else's family.

John Dehlin [01:36:07] So, yeah, I wanted, I love this and I, I, this book was really moving to me in, in so many parts. But I brought, I, I underlined a few areas that I really wanted you to read just as we're kind of wrapping up here, both to let people know how important this book is, but also, you write so beautifully and thoughtfully.

Cody Alan [01:36:27] Thanks.

A Personal Crisis and Finding a Path Forward

John Dehlin [01:36:29] This is, this is some emotional stuff, but there's a section in your book on page 108, 109, called the End of the Line. And it, it's about the journey within, because so often you talked about basically trying to run from who you are and not, not listening to who you are. And I think one of the major themes in your book is learning to quiet down and listen to who you are.

Cody Alan [01:36:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:54] So I'm going to, I'm going to hand this book to you and if you're comfortable. Have you, have you read maybe, maybe a few passages?

Cody Alan [01:37:03] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:37:03] There's a couple others after this, but read what you're comfortable there. I've outlined a little bit of it,

Cody Alan [01:37:09] but, you know, I may break down, you know, I did the audiobook for this as well. I read every single page into a Microphone in a small studio in Nashville. And we had to stop so many times because often I would get so emotional reading these passages, even the happy ones. It's just. It's your life on paper and you are reliving it as you're reading it. So, yeah, the audiobook is great.

John Dehlin [01:37:32] That's how I consume.

Cody Alan [01:37:33] Oh, is that right? Okay, well, anyway, I'll read this to you here. It's called End of the Line. Like I said on page 108. As brief as it was, I'm glad we had that time as a family in Utah. It gave us all a chance to immerse ourselves in the Mormon faith and take it as far as it could go. It gave my kids an opportunity to fully understand the religion they were being raised in and take them through their spiritual roots. In some ways, the experience helped them all to grow. No, not the move didn't fix me. But sometimes you have to take the road all the way to the end before you can redraw the map of your life. I was making the point there that moving to Utah, I thought would be some sort of fix. Like I would be so engrossed in Mormonism that I would feel better about everything that I was doing. And of course, it didn't work that way that we had to take the road all the way to the end and sort of redraw the map afterwards. Once again, I found myself leaving that life behind from. From the outside in, seeming ideal. I'm sorry. Leave that life behind from the outside in seemed ideal. In Salt Lake City, I had faith, family, and career all tied up in a bow. It was a my last ditch effort to get it right. Instead of dialing into my inner authentic self, I drowned out that voice with the heavenly noise of church life and the heart of Mormonism. Surrounded by the community that shared my faith, I had hoped I could finally put an end to all those urges. It took listening to everything but my own voice as far as it could go. I tried turning to God. Maybe he would speak to me and tell me what to do. Some religions have a third eye, but I think of hearing messages from your maker as more like having a third ear. When I allowed myself to be still enough, I would occasionally pick up on a few of those signs. But mostly, the path that I'd been on was long and circuitous and a detour that only brought me back to myself. And at a point that I wasn't ready to hear what he had to say, I'd already reached the end of the line. And by the way, I say he there and I put it in quotation marks because, you know, God is much bigger than he and it doesn't. I don't. I've been very careful lately to make sure the pronouns of God aren't said. I don't know that I know or any of us know exactly what those pronouns are. I'd rather just say God most of the time. That's why I put it in quotes. I go on to say, you can never drown out that inner voice, no matter how much you try. The harder and longer you try to shift the focus away from your true desires and your authentic selves self, the louder that voice in your head will eventually scream. Meanwhile, you'll live a life in denial and make all kinds of decisions that cut you off from the road to happiness. You may think you've got everyone fooled, but deep down they know something is missing. And there's a breakdown in communications with the people you hold most dear. You're too busy just reaching and reacting to situations, listening to outside sources and following your fears. You may not know your. You may not know. You may not even know while you're unhappy. But there's always a reason. I don't regret embracing my religion and doing what I could to hear God and do what I thought he was calling me to do. But that call from Brian, Brian Phillips, who hired me in Nashville, was some other kind of divine intervention that pulled me off that path. Ultimately, that path was the wrong one for me. But you got to live those chapters. You know, that's what I was kind of pointing out is that for me, I had to get there. I had to get there and it didn't happen quick. And I think that's. That's life. You know, you got to listen to what your heart's saying in the moment you're in and. And then go back and you realize in retrospect, okay, there was things that were good about that experience and there's a reason why it took me so long to figure that out. And that's okay. Giving yourself permission to be okay in that, you know, difficult time.

John Dehlin [01:41:42] One of the. Thank you for reading that.

Cody Alan [01:41:45] Sorry I'm a little bumpy. These glass. I'm wearing glasses and I'm.

John Dehlin [01:41:48] No, I can't.

Cody Alan [01:41:49] I can't see very well.

John Dehlin [01:41:52] No, I love it. I. Later you talk about God. One of the things that I think is that I love about your story. You know, so many people who leave Mormonism for some reason, Mormonism ruins a lot of people forever believing In God or Jesus again. And I think we talked a little bit about this when I was on my ladder, cleaning my gutters, making all that noise, first time we talked on the phone.

Cody Alan [01:42:15] Right.

John Dehlin [01:42:17] That's not been your path to lose all faith. Am I right about that?

Cody Alan [01:42:23] You're right. You're right. I think it has just been a different sort of approach for me. I just realized it's more about spirituality over religion, certainly, but also that there's some valuable things that come from prayer and meditation and quiet moments. Still, small voice, I feel like, still speaks to me. It's intuition. It's your own sort of personal North Star. And I think that exists. I do think you can lean into that and find answers. And so that's been. I don't want to lose that part of me. It's been good to me over the years. And that's what I wanted people to hear, is that listening to that heart, that gut, that intuition is so important. And it is a spiritual thing. It's okay to call it spiritual, I think. Right.

John Dehlin [01:43:13] There's a. Yeah. There's a part in your book. Is it Quiet Assurance? Is that the title?

Cody Alan [01:43:17] I think so, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:18] I'm gonna have you, if it's okay. This is so beautiful. I'm just gonna read that as well, if you don't mind.

Cody Alan [01:43:23] And I also quote a lot of country songs in this.

John Dehlin [01:43:27] I love that.

Cody Alan [01:43:27] I go back and try to, you know, so many great lyrics in country songs and so many lyrics about God in country songs and about life. Obviously, the greatest country songs are all about life. And so I try to bring them into all this and particularly the ones that related to me directly at the time. Like this chapter. I start with Garth Brooks Unanswered Prayers. It has some lines in it that resonate with me. I write, he says, remember when you're talking to the man upstairs, that just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care. Powerful, right? Well, I go on to write, the song is about a guy who bumps into his high school sweetheart while he's at a hometown football game. He's with his wife as he stares at the woman from his past, remembering that the time he asked God to make her mine. Then he realizes God didn't answer that prayer to make her mine because it would have made him miserable. The girl he loved in high school wasn't the angel he thought she was. God knew better. I had asked God to change what could not be changed and believed he could not or would not hear me but all along, he was quietly allowing me to come into my own truth. The answer didn't come in a flash or an epiphany. It wasn't like the scenes I'd imagined when I was a kid listening to my mother describe the rapture. The voice of God wasn't booming deep or resonant, as is Morgan Freeman's portrayals. It was more like knowing or feeling. It was more like a knowing or feeling that strengthened my resolve. It was a gradual realization that I was still the same good person growing up, serving a mission, caring for my family. I was righteous and worthy. By virtue of digging within and hearing that voice, I was able to wipe away all the past shame and draw closer to God. That was his way of speaking to me. We tend to put our human expectations on what we want God to be. But my way of finding peace was to let go of those expectations and just. Beautiful.

John Dehlin [01:45:39] Yeah, beautiful.

Cody Alan [01:45:40] That's. Yeah, I. I go on, I think somewhere in that chapter, perhaps, to talk about just how we're taught incorrectly that God is a dude on a planet with a white robe on and gray hair and making up rules for people down here on Earth and how small that is, how small that diminishes God to be. I just think he's. He. Careful. I just think God is much bigger than that. And once you realize that, you know, he's still great and big, it makes it a whole lot easier for you to. To pray and to think things can come to you. Because it's that kind of power that you're. You're drawing on. Yeah. So that's kind of where I leave that love.

John Dehlin [01:46:31] It was a hard. I guess you didn't have pioneer ancestry on both sides of your line, so I imagine. And your wife, maybe. Maybe she was never fully bought in, possibly Teresa and your. In your kids. So maybe it wasn't as hard for you to leave as it has is for kind of.

Excommunication and Its Aftermath

Cody Alan [01:46:50] I don't think it was. You know, they had a. For me, it was.

John Dehlin [01:46:54] Was it relief? Was it a relief?

Cody Alan [01:46:56] Yeah. Yeah. It was like, oh, again, all the things pile on Malcolm Gladwell's book the Tipping Point. Small things lead to a big difference. All these things started piling up for me and eventually the balance became a tipping point. Like, okay, yeah, this isn't right. This isn't for me. And it's not right for my family who are going to be negatively treated from here on out based on the 2015 expulsion. I had lunch with the bishop at the time, different guy after the first story I told. But he had been my friend since I'd moved to Nashville. He became the bishop. Great, great dude. And he never wanted to really talk about it because it's uncomfortable. And I get it. We'd go out to lunch and have some sushi or whatever, and we. I always thought, he's going to bring it up, like, any second now. We're going to really have a deep moment here. And it never got brought up. One day he texted me and said, I'm going to send you the letter from the Stake Presidency in regards to your disciplinary council. I'm crying now. I don't know why at the moment I didn't. I was like, okay, if a bunch of guys want to sit around a table and think that they can decide my future or where I belong in the celestial kingdom or whatever, that's their prerogative. I was so far gone from it at that point. I was okay. Like, I was moving on in a positive way that was making my life better and my family's life better. So hated that. But in some ways, it was like, whatever. So what? So what is how I felt. I know you've talked about your excommunication and you've talked about. And many people have been on to talk about theirs and how painful it was for them. I was embarrassed a little bit because I knew this bunch of guys was going to sit around a conference room in a church building and discuss me. Who knows what they even talked about? What do they even know? Like, what do they think they did? How do they even know anything? I, I so. But it was sort of comical, honestly. So he wrote me afterwards and after they went through all that and excommunicated, I suppose, and said there was nothing but love in the room, and everyone spoke so fondly of you, how much they loved you. And I'm not dead. Yeah, it was a. It was a very. It was a very weird thing. I look back on that. I guess I should have gone, right?

John Dehlin [01:49:39] So you did. You didn't.

Cody Alan [01:49:40] I didn't go. I did.

John Dehlin [01:49:41] Yeah.

Cody Alan [01:49:42] I guess it would have been interesting to hear what they would have said or what they would have asked. What would you possibly have asked me? I don't know. So how uncomfortable, how weird that is. It is weird that what? Excommunication. Disciplinary councils for people who are humans is equal as you are when you

John Dehlin [01:50:07] frame it as you're, like, trying to get well, trying to get right, listening to your inner voice, getting healthy, becoming a better person, and that's what you get Excommunicated for. And it wasn't like you were, like, writing the CES letter and starting a anti Mormon podcast. You're literally just living your life trying to get healthy and happy, right?

Cody Alan [01:50:25] Yeah, totally. And.

John Dehlin [01:50:27] And that. That's an excommunicable offense, right? In 20. Whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Cody Alan [01:50:33] It was odd. It's odd. It's odd that I hope the church will come around to figuring out that that's not the best way to handle human beings. I was looking at this morning, I drove by the temple downtown and they're reconstructing everything. It looks so different down there, Temple Square, if you haven't been down there yet. I mean, there's scaffolding up all the way to the top of the temple and all around gigantic holes being built, I guess, for whatever underground things are going in there. I don't know enough about it, but I do know it seems like things are changing in the church. I do think, and I hope there'll be some changes that might be as drastic as whatever they're doing at Temple Square right now in regards to how they treat people.

Guest [01:51:19] Foundational changes.

John Dehlin [01:51:20] You mean foundational temple and otherwise, it's almost symbolic, right? What they're doing the temple is almost symbolic.

Cody Alan [01:51:25] It is totally symbolic church right now. It's the first thought I had. Yeah, this is all messed up right here. This is all a mess, and it's got to be fixed. And it struck me as metaphorical. Yeah, I hated not to see a beautiful temple down there, honestly. But I thought, boy, this is exactly how I kind of feel about the church right now. There's some scaffolding up, there's some repairs that need to be made.

John Dehlin [01:51:49] One of our viewers, Pat, asks, what you got excommunicated for specifically. Did the letter say it can't be apostasy because you weren't speaking out publicly, which is what a lot of us have been excommunicated for. Did the letter say. Do you remember?

Cody Alan [01:52:03] I honestly don't remember. I think it may have been apostasy. Could it have been?

John Dehlin [01:52:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. If you had a partner by then. Sometimes, like, same sex marriage is grounds for apostasy. But you're not married yet, so that

Cody Alan [01:52:18] wouldn't have been the case.

Guest [01:52:20] Breaking the law of chastity.

Cody Alan [01:52:22] I think it was after I came out, so they knew because I obviously was out on socials and. And I was with Trey, my current partner. And so maybe. And we definitely posted photos and so maybe they.

John Dehlin [01:52:34] They're still making assumptions there. You could have Been dating.

Cody Alan [01:52:37] Right. That's what. I mean, what's the. What question would you want to ask that? How uncomfortable would that meeting have been, like, there? Because it. It is. So assuming. It's. So assuming something's going on. You don't know what's happening. And. And why. Why is it your business, by the way? Yeah, it's all a little. It's all a little creepy to me now, looking back on it. And it makes you wonder, like, why. Why was I involved with such an organization that would do that to somebody, to myself?

John Dehlin [01:53:05] Yeah.

Cody Alan [01:53:05] Yeah. It's all, you know, kind of culty, you know.

John Dehlin [01:53:08] Yeah.

Cody Alan [01:53:09] You're not following the rules, so we gotta figure out something to do with you.

John Dehlin [01:53:13] And I warn people that sometimes there's, like, this excitement. Oh, I'm gonna get excommunicated. It's almost never fun. Yeah. And sometimes it's surprising how yucky it feels. But that's just what. What I experienced. For you, it sounds like it was like, hey, see you later.

Cody Alan [01:53:28] It really was. I didn't think twice about it. And I, you know, I was busy at the time. There were a lot of things going on in my life. I think the night that it happened, I was even traveling. So it's like, I can't be there for this. And why would I show up anyway? What to explain what to you? Like, we've already sort of made some decisions that are clearly not in line with what you want. So it didn't bother me. It really didn't bother me.

John Dehlin [01:53:52] That's good. Well, for me, the most inspirational part of the book is to hear what your family is like today, including kind of the annual vacations you talk about. Do you want to talk about Teresa and your partner and your children? And it almost seems like there's no such thing as happy ever after. But, like, for me, it represents the ideal aftermath of a Mormon mixed faith, mixed orientation marriage. Do you want to talk about that? Like the happy ever after in quotes?

Life After the Church and Living Authentically

Cody Alan [01:54:28] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:54:28] Yeah.

Cody Alan [01:54:29] Well, there's always challenges. The happy ever after is an everyday journey, obviously, for everyone, with look, with marriage, with love, relationships. But certainly in this situation where you've got lots of challenges you faced and overcome and worked your way through. I do feel like we started, Teresa and I, when I told her the first time, I was like about myself, that we sort of deliberately and intentionally said, hey, let's figure this out together. Let's work through it with love. We love our families so much. We love our kids so much. Let's make sure they know Their love, no matter what. And that, you know, even the day that we talked about separating and getting a divorce, I remember, just, let's meet it all with love. Dad's not going anywhere. I'm still here. Mom's still here. We're still going to be a family forever, and you're right here with us, and nothing's going to change that will make you feel any less loved here. And so, as hard as divorce is for any family, it was probably a little exacerbated because of this issue. But I think that my kids met it with great compassion. And they are a different generation that thinks a different way. And for them, it was like telling them that the color of my eyes is green because I'm gay. For them, it was like, this is the way it is. This is the way you came. And I told them exactly what I've told you, that I had to sort of unravel this over time. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier these sort of things, but they were incredibly kind and sweet and loved me. And again, I talk about those real conversations in the book as well, how those went down and what the kids said. But in fact, after that, you know, they got introduced to my partner now, Trey, and he's an amazing guy. And they have way fun. Way more fun with him than they do with me, first of all. And they love him so much, and he's just sort of grafted into this family. And then Teresa's got her fella now, and of course, Mikhail's had boyfriends, and Landis had girlfriends, and Lawrence had a husband. So, you know, all these things that. And we've all gotten together over holidays. Thanksgiving last year, we were all under one roof, and we invited, you know, I like to call it island of Little Misfits or whoever doesn't have a home for Thanksgiving. We always invite them over. And so we had some friends of mine come over who were gay, who didn't have a place to go on Thanksgiving. And so we were all just one happy family, blended and beautiful under one roof. Is it perfect? No. Does it is. Do we have moments where we still have to, you know, talk and work through something together that's a little bit different? Yes, but. But it is, for the most part, really, really good for. For them, for us. And it's, you know, very happy now. It's a very happy family.

John Dehlin [01:57:29] How are you doing? Do you feel qualitatively different now, being out and authentic and living your full, visible, authentic life? Does it feel different to you? Is it what you thought it might be or even better?

Cody Alan [01:57:42] Yeah, I think it's. I think it's everything I thought and better. I think it's. There are I. I want to be honest with you. There are moments still because you're so indoctrinated for so long and you were such a part of the mindset that is the church. You still go, okay, I gotta remind myself I'm on the right track here. You still have to go back to becoming you every day realizing that it is there. There are reasons why you made the decisions you. You did. And that reminder of there are no regrets you have to think about. Not that I would have done anything really different with the situation. It was what I was given. You know, you're dealt the cards, you are and you have to play them in some way, shape or form and you decide. I decided I was going to play mine with absolute truth, with honesty and with integrity and. And that if I did it any other way, I was not going to be happy. And I felt what that was like. I knew what that would be like, that faking it. And I now feel like, yes, I'm at a really good spot because I feel like I don't second guess myself. I'm better at my job now than I was before because I'm just able to fully be me. Not that it really changes a whole lot of how I might approach an interview on the air or what question I might ask Luke Bryan. But ultimately those artists know I am a little more honest with them because I'm myself and I'm out and the audience itself knows that I'm with them and I'm honest and out. And that human connection that maybe didn't exist before exists now. Something interesting happens whenever you show your vulnerabilities or perceived vulnerabilities. The things that you think people will walk away from you because they know the truth is that they feel more bonded to you when they even know those vulnerabilities. And that's been the case with me over and over again. And many artists who aren't mentioned the book have come up and said thank you and love you and this sort of thing. I mentioned Luke Bryan. I. We can rap on this if you want, but I saw him at shortly after I came out in 2017. I had. Was scheduled to go to his festival in Mexico. We're gonna film there on the beach. Huge thing we do for CMT every single year. And Luke's a great guy from. He's from Georgia, Southern Georgia. And he just. He talks like this and he's just funny and awesome and we've done so many things together over the years, but I remember him at that. And again, not on camera. This is all off camera. He's all very candid. He came over and, you know, he's again, super straight alpha male, red state Georgian, although maybe Georgia's a little more purple these days. But anyway, he came over and he said. He put his hand on my shoulder and he said, man, I'm proud of you. He said, how are you feeling right now? I bet you feel a whole lot better. And I said, absolutely. I do feel a whole lot better. Thank you. There's been a lot of that behind the scenes stuff that's just like, okay, I can do this. Keith Urban wrote the forward of the book, and I tell the touching story of when I came out to him, really the first, like, artist friend I came out to and how it sort of confirmed for me that I was headed in the right direction. When you receive, when you give someone something, some big news, that's very vulnerable and they respond with love and kindness, how meaningful that can be for the other person, that confirmation of you're on the right track and you can do this, being you is what you need to do. So that's what I set out to do from really that moment on. Well, from the. From the time I told Teresa also, like, I was. I was gonna work to be me, work to figure this out. And just so grateful that. That eventually we. We did. She with my help helping her and her mostly helping me. And then our kids, we just worked it out, man. Because at some point you got to live your truth, be who you are. And it's a beautiful thing.

John Dehlin [02:02:09] Beautiful.

Cody Alan [02:02:09] So thank you for sharing my story. It means a lot.

John Dehlin [02:02:11] Oh, and wonderful. And the book is wonderful. Teresa is a bit of a star in the book to me. To me. Yep. Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:02:19] Had someone write me yesterday and say, I don't know Teresa, but I want to be Teresa when I grow up.

John Dehlin [02:02:27] Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:02:28] And I thought that's. That's about. Right. That's how that's. She's a great person. Yeah. So we're planning Thanksgiving next week and trying to figure out who's going to make what, you know, green bean casserole and the whole thing.

Family Life and Teresa's Perspective

John Dehlin [02:02:42] Stuffing in a crock pot.

Cody Alan [02:02:43] Stuffing, maybe. You want to keep making a crock pot. Yeah. So we're. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:47] Theater in town. I'm just kidding.

Cody Alan [02:02:49] Turkey and brisket maybe?

John Dehlin [02:02:50] Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:02:51] Brisket on Thanksgiving. That sounds pretty good. Right?

John Dehlin [02:02:53] I love it.

Cody Alan [02:02:54] I think her boyfriend's gonna make that. So, anyway, we're gonna have a great time, and thanks for letting me share with people what family can look like and what we can be if we are civil to each other and more loving and kind to each other, because that's Teresa's example of that. She could have reacted in a very different way, as I think many spouses would, but that's not her character. That's not who she is. Nor did she think my character was different. She knew the guy she married, and she thought, okay, I can. He's a good dude. I know his heart. Why would he make this up? Why would he bring this to me? It must be true. And he must. We must have a challenge we got to figure out here.

John Dehlin [02:03:39] Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:03:39] So we met it with love and intention to figure it out together.

John Dehlin [02:03:43] Beautiful. Thank you.

Cody Alan [02:03:45] In the name of Jesus Christ.

John Dehlin [02:03:49] Well, Kara, you. You play such an important role on Mormon Stories podcast these days. Any final thoughts or questions before we wrap up?

Guest [02:03:55] Just anyone who sits down in this chair and can do something so difficult, like you did about leaving the church and coming out and being your true, authentic self in the space that you work in, like, that just kind of makes you an new hero of mine. So you're just so articulate and so well spoken, and I'm just really impressed with you telling your story today. And I. It's a stab in my Mormon stories heart. That we could only talk for two hours today feels so unnatural. But we covered a lot of ground. We covered a lot of ground. I still have more questions, but I'll just. We'll talk afterwards. But it's. This has been really, really.

Cody Alan [02:04:26] Yeah.

Guest [02:04:26] Really, really cool.

Cody Alan [02:04:27] Are there any burning questions?

Guest [02:04:29] I do have one. Burning question. I do have one. Because I don't know if you saw Lena and Sal's episode. Episode that came out just a couple weeks ago. They're a lesbian couple who are both married to.

Cody Alan [02:04:37] I loved them. I love their story.

Guest [02:04:40] And probably the biggest highlight of their episode was when they talked about what it was like to kiss for the first time.

Cody Alan [02:04:47] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:48] Yeah. Good question.

Guest [02:04:50] So what was it like that you were. When you were first able to experience romantic attraction to somebody that you actually were attracted to and. And kiss a man.

Cody Alan [02:05:00] It's so interesting, right, because you hear about songs that sing about love your entire life, right?

John Dehlin [02:05:09] On radio.

Cody Alan [02:05:10] On radio.

Guest [02:05:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:05:11] I gotta be half the songs, right?

Cody Alan [02:05:13] Totally. Right. Certainly in country music and then movies. You see the movies and you see the romantic, you know, kisses happening you're like, man, Bradley Cooper, that looks pretty. That's. That's a good kiss right there. Or Ryan Reynolds, who might be one of my hall passes. Yeah. You think, oh, man, what must that be like? Because you live years and years and years not doing it. So I can say that the first time or two, it still felt awkward to me, honestly, because I didn't know what I was doing. Then when I kissed Trey for the first time, who I'm with now, it was. Yeah, it's like sparks. It's like all those things you think you're supposed to feel in the movies and in the songs is. Comes to life and it's special and it's wow. And yeah, it's a. It was a beautiful, awesome thing going so long and not having that and then having it. It's pretty great.

Guest [02:06:19] So that's beautiful.

Cody Alan [02:06:21] What did they say, by the way? I don't know if I heard that.

Guest [02:06:24] There's a tick tock that I made that went pretty viral that did really well. And they were like, yeah, fireworks. And just that it. Yes, it finally. They said the exact same thing about music and movies. Made sense for the first time that they never understood until it was. It wasn't that they weren't married to amazing men, which they said that they were. That worked through them and their sex life and everything. But it wasn't until that they met each other that the fireworks went off and they're like, this is what it's supposed to be like.

John Dehlin [02:06:46] Yeah.

Guest [02:06:46] I was just curious if you had that similar experience. It sounds like you're with the person now that gave you those fireworks.

Cody Alan [02:06:51] Yeah. At first you're like, you don't know what you're doing. Again, like, it seems like, oh, gosh, is this how I do it with a dude? I don't know what to do now, so. But over time, you learn, okay, maybe that's not the right person for me. And then you sort of search out who is right. And I'm so grateful to find Trey and have those fireworks. He's got really good lips, too, so that helps.

Guest [02:07:14] You got the beard. Does he have a beard, too?

Cody Alan [02:07:17] Only occasionally. He'll grow it out a little bit every once in a while, but not like this. This is actually. I'm due for a groom, guys.

Guest [02:07:24] Well, I think you look very handsome. From a straight woman to a gay man.

Cody Alan [02:07:27] Okay.

Guest [02:07:27] Very good. Thank you. Look fabulous.

Cody Alan [02:07:28] I appreciate it. I think John looks fabulous myself.

Guest [02:07:32] Yeah, he wore his best country western.

Cody Alan [02:07:35] Oh, he's got.

Guest [02:07:36] Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:07:36] Is that your like pearl snaps and a vest.

Guest [02:07:39] I said, he looks like he owns a condo.

John Dehlin [02:07:40] I'm like, is it a vest? Isn't that kind of country? I've got a lot going on. You look like Park City, not country. And that shows how clueless I am. I need all the help.

Cody Alan [02:07:52] It is great to sit across from you and hear your voice in person and to be a part of this. So thank you for that. And I don't want to leave early if there are any other questions you guys want to get to, so don't feel like you have any.

Guest [02:08:03] Oh, I have one more. Okay. So I'm going to do the kind of Mormon wrap up of the way that we talk about Mormonism on this podcast. I want to make sure that it is fruitful and purposeful and that we have somebody here who sounds like you did everything that you could to serve a mission, to pray the gay away. You read Miracle Forgiveness. You did everything that you're supposed to do, and it is just core to your identity and who you are. So if you have any advice to somebody who is gay in the church, who is going through that, struggling with their identity, maybe in the place you were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, what advice do you have for a Mormon who might be part of the LGBTQ community? And then also, what changes would you like to see moving forward? Because we know that the church does change little by little.

Advice for LGBTQ Members and Closing Reflections

Cody Alan [02:08:49] So, gosh, that's a big question. Wow. But a good one to close on if in fact you want to close

Guest [02:08:57] and end broadcast now. I'll give you time to think about it. I know it's a big one, and it's.

Cody Alan [02:09:02] It's a big one. You know, I think you have to continue to listen and hear people learn. The main theme of the book is listening, which I learned from. I kind of came up with the theme of the book from Larry King, the great talk show host.

John Dehlin [02:09:16] Love that guy.

Cody Alan [02:09:17] Yeah, of course. Passed away. Before he passed, I had a chance to interview him and he said to me, I never learned anything while I was talking. And I thought, wow, that's great. That is exactly how I feel as well. Shut up long enough to hear someone else listen to what they have to say and learn. And for me, I reached out to friends, I talked, and I listened to what they had to say back to me. I think Mormon stories is helpful that way because you hear people's stories who you can relate to and learn from and listen to and learn from. So I would say, do. Do all those things. And I Would say, if you can speak up to trusted friends around you who can help you, tell them how you feel. I had that in my life whenever I was struggling and trying to figure out what to do next. Of course, reading on the Internet helps, I guess some, because there's data out there to make you feel like, okay, I'm not a shameful person. I. I am made for a purpose. I think reading, I don't want to promote here, but I think this book might help people with that journey. I didn't write it to be sort of a handbook for anyone who is struggling, but I did write it with that in mind that, okay, someone's going to come to this book and probably have a lot of the feelings I had and try to figure out what I did. Because that's what I was doing. I was reading books to figure out what other people did about this problem, hoping I could glean what I should do about it. So hopefully people see that there is something to be learned from reading the book. And I don't know about the church. I don't know if they're. I understand the basic sort of eternal progression doctrine is so deeply entrenched that there's no way they can see conceivably that a gay marriage could happen in their temples. Maybe it could in the congregations though. Right. Maybe that's the first step. Accepting people into the congregation who may be different, not excommunicating and not excommunicating them, not making them feel less than and using them in a positive way. Even if it means, you know, even if it means that, you know, you take baby steps to get there in understanding other people. They got these groups, I guess, that sometimes meet in some of the wards and I don't know, they got to get at some point past the whole idea of you can be gay here and you can be gay here and act on it. That whole on act and act on it thing has got to be figured out. I get again why they think that. But what are you supposed to do then? I mean, what was I supposed to do? I asked myself that question and Teresa and I, we've sat and asked that question as well so many times. What am I supposed to do? Be miserable?

Guest [02:12:10] Just, you know, because the options are celibacy for a gay Mormon, mixed orientation marriage, and then hopefully not the more tragic and one where people are not quite around anymore, so they don't have a lot of options. And so, yeah, or.

John Dehlin [02:12:26] Or apostatize and get excommunicated. Right, right. And find the love of your life. It's not. Not a great set of choices, really.

Cody Alan [02:12:34] Not if you, if you believe the church is true, then you got to think this is not. This is. It makes you doubt all that truth you think you know, that's been. That is, that is clearly not in keeping with the actual truth, which is who you are, which has to have a place also in the world. And I just don't think the two can really coincide. Honestly, I think the church has to change drastically for that to ever happen. I just don't know if that's possible.

John Dehlin [02:13:15] You just made me think of a quote. The truth of who you are should trump any other truth.

Cody Alan [02:13:23] Yeah,

John Dehlin [02:13:28] Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:13:28] That's so important. Right. Because at the end of the day, you've got to, you know, you got to live with yourself as an individual and every human is important. So, yeah, making sure that is right first, it does make everything else kind of fall into place. And for you to be able to then decode what is really not truth if that truth isn't right first.

John Dehlin [02:13:57] Right. Yeah. It's not that you can't make sacrifices in your life sometimes, obviously, but if you're spending your life suppressing and running from who you are, how can you ever really show up for other people? You know what I mean?

Cody Alan [02:14:10] Right. I think goes back to what I said about being a grumpy dad sometimes when I was like hiding all this is that you can't be great at that job if you're again, you're not living who you are. You're not living any truth and you're miserable inside because you're again, fraudulent. Yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't feel good. It's not good for your kids. The kids talk about it in the book. Everybody has, as you mentioned, sort of first person point of view where they share their thoughts. And I was so proud of them and I let them write whatever they wanted, by the way. Not up to me, but they wrote, this is the, you know, the happiest form of my family I've ever experienced, I've ever had.

John Dehlin [02:14:49] There you go.

Cody Alan [02:14:50] And that was so cool to hear and read that. My kids love where we're at now and I think they're very proud of their family. And my son last Thanksgiving said that was the best, you know, with everybody under one roof. We had a little slideshow at the end where I popped up, you know, I'm total Mormon dad coming out of here, but I popped up. The slideshow of the last year and everyone's photos and all the things that, that we'd done and at the end of the, you know, end of the night, up on the wall and, and my son afterwards said, this has been the best Thanksgiving ever. So that's what you want. You want everybody to feel that way, you know?

John Dehlin [02:15:24] Absolutely.

Guest [02:15:25] Your family has happened happy post marriage, post divorce, new partner, recoupling things, shifting around, leaving the church. What you're saying is you found some happiness with your family?

Cody Alan [02:15:38] Oh, absolutely. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:15:39] Love it. Well, Kara, it's always great to have you running shotgun. So thank you for being here today with us.

Guest [02:15:48] I am so honored. I get, I mean, Cody, you sound like you have a very cool job. I also have a very cool job that I get to interview people like you, hang out with John. So this has really been an honor. So I'm grateful to be here.

John Dehlin [02:15:59] Thanks for being here, Kara. And most importantly, Cody, thank you for flying from freaking Nashville to do a two hour interview to then fly back. It's a busy couple weeks for you promoting this amazing book. The book is here's the Thing, Lessons on Listening, Life and Love. Cody Allen Forward by Keith Urban. It's a great book. Everyone should go buy it. And I just want to say your interview, your story is going to save lives, period. Full stop. It's going to save lives. Thank you.

Cody Alan [02:16:31] I hope so. I hope people hear it and it resonates and they find hope in it that through whatever struggle, this struggle or whatever challenge you're handed that you can reach out to people, speak up, be yourself and find comfort by listening to others and in a non judgmental, empathetic way as well as if you have something that you should talk to someone and let them help you, let them be your listening ears to figure out how to navigate your next step. And most of all, it's in your heart so much. The book is about. There's a lot of logic in there, a lot of decisions we make, logic wise and just through your head. I just believe that intuition is often my guiding force and the heart is so important with that. But that takes time. That takes sort of like practice. But I'm sorry, thankful you said that and I hope it does help a lot of people.

John Dehlin [02:17:28] And so if people want to follow you and your amazing on all the socials and all the amazing work you do, how do they follow you and support you?

Cody Alan [02:17:35] Yep. Odialen C O D Y A L A N Allen is actually my. The name I went by as a kid, Cody was a made up name. I describe how that all came to Be in the book how you get that radio superstar name. I wasn't born with a sexy Ryan Seacrest name, so I had to go with Cody Allen eventually. It's worked out, but nonetheless.

John Dehlin [02:17:56] Alan Chaffetz, right?

Cody Alan [02:17:57] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:17:58] Yeah.

Cody Alan [02:17:58] And so Alan is. Is my. My name. My parents called me as a kid. But anyway, so at Cody Allen for all that with 1L on Twitter and. And all the rest. So.

John Dehlin [02:18:11] Yeah, and your shows.

Cody Alan [02:18:13] Yeah, so the shows are on across the country, depending on, you know, various markets for the radio shows. And you can watch me on CMT every single weekend. I'll be on tomorrow morning, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning on cmt, depending on where you are. But basically, I think it's 9 to 12 Eastern Time. Probably Mountain.

John Dehlin [02:18:32] It might be 11 to.

Cody Alan [02:18:34] Yeah, something like that. So just look it up. Saturday and Sunday mornings on cmt, but I do a lot of fun interviews. It's the best job in the world. And. And of course, lots of music news in regards to country and western.

John Dehlin [02:18:46] John, don't make fun.

Cody Alan [02:18:49] We got both kinds.

John Dehlin [02:18:50] Don't make fun of me. Kara makes fun of me enough.

Guest [02:18:55] Yeah. Two against one.

John Dehlin [02:18:57] I love it. All right, Cody, thanks so much.

Cody Alan [02:19:00] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [02:19:01] And we hope we can ever return the favor. So. Thank you so much.

Cody Alan [02:19:05] Yeah, y' all come to Nashville. Come to Nashville. We'd love to have you.

John Dehlin [02:19:08] I want to do a Mormon stories, kind of like a thrive Nashville, because there's a lot of listeners in Nashville in the surrounding area. So we'd love to come and maybe do a thrive in Nashville.

Cody Alan [02:19:16] I'd love it. And if I can be of help that day, I would love. Or the keynote, of course. I. It'd be my pleasure.

John Dehlin [02:19:21] Would you go to Nashville to hear Cody Allen keynote?

Guest [02:19:24] Yeah. My sister's gonna be a real big star with her name and lights one day. So I'll be doing thrive, and then I'm gonna go support my sister when she moves on.

Cody Alan [02:19:30] Oh, is she gonna be a country music star?

Guest [02:19:32] Yeah, she's a singer, songwriter. She's really talented.

Cody Alan [02:19:34] Oh, nice.

John Dehlin [02:19:35] Bethany.

Guest [02:19:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:36] Shout out to Bethany.

Guest [02:19:36] Shout out to Bethany. So one day I'm gonna go to Nashville to go see my sister perform somewhere.

John Dehlin [02:19:41] See Cody.

Guest [02:19:42] Go see Cody. I love it out there. Go help the community out in the. What's that region called? What do we call it? Like, it's not the south quite, but

Cody Alan [02:19:51] it's like, Tennessee is, well, Midwesty.

Guest [02:19:55] Southy. I don't know.

Cody Alan [02:19:57] I. I don't think there's a. I. We call it the South.

Guest [02:20:00] You Call it the South.

Cody Alan [02:20:01] I think Virginia kind of starts the south, right? And then below, everyone argue in the comments.

John Dehlin [02:20:06] Dixon line.

Cody Alan [02:20:07] Yeah, there you go.

John Dehlin [02:20:08] Below it. And that's the South.

Guest [02:20:09] Everyone please argue in the comments.

Closing Remarks and Support the Podcast

Cody Alan [02:20:10] All right, all right.

John Dehlin [02:20:12] Well, Cody, thanks so much, Kara, again, thanks. And again thanks to all the listeners that make Mormon Stories podcast possible. The donations are what keep Kara in a job, me in a job that allow for Gerardo and this amazing cinematography and equipment and the broadband and the storage and the editing. Brooklyn, all this stuff. Huge shout out to those who support us. We lose 10, 20 donors every month because people fall on financial hard times or lose interest or move on or support some other cool thing. And that's all great. We're happy to give Mormon Stories podcast away for free. And if you're in a position to become a monthly donor, less than one out of a thousand of you who watch or listen actually are contributors. So if you're in a position to fill in the holes of the donors we lose every month, we would love your support. You can just go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor at whatever level you're comfortable. And our pledge to you is to use 100% of your donations to further the mission of the Open Stories foundation, which is to educate people to provide informed consent for people in or out of the church. So no more gay teenagers will join Mormonism if it's not going to end up well for them. So informed consent is huge. But then also just supporting Mormons who are experiencing a faith transition. And for people who have to leave Mormonism or other high demand religions, we have a lot of listeners that are ex Baptist, ex Jehovah's Witness, ex Scientologist, ex Orthodox Jew, whatever. We try and support people who are trying to build a happy, healthy life outside of orthodox religion. So please support us if you can. We're 100 transparent in our finances. It's tax deductible in the US and we need your support. So thanks for your support. Thanks to Jeremy for helping to make this happen. Shout out to you and just most importantly, be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Buy this book. Here's the thing by Cody Allen. We'll have all of this in the show notes and most importantly, we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care everybody. Thanks again, Cody.

Cody Alan [02:22:16] Thank you. That's awesome.