Work for LGBT Issues
Books
Published by Random House in 1986, this is the story of my life with my husband Gerald, a homosexual man, our twelve-year Mormon temple marriage, our four children, our divorce, our ongoing friendship, and my caring for him in my home as he died of AIDS. This book took me on a national tour with appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America, and many other major talk shows, as well as a feature in People Magazine. For numerous people, this book opened up the conversation on homosexuality.
Published 20 years after Goodbye, I Love You, this book is a powerful look at LGBT issues in the Mormon community in the first years of the twenty-first century. Tragic goodbyes are still being said: to suicide, ill-fated marriages and family alienation. But it also has an abundance of positive stories, families letting nothing come between them and their gay loved ones. This book has saved lives and changed the hearts of family members and church leaders.
A stage play that tells the story of a Mormon couple dealing with the suicide of their gay son. The scene is the cemetery directly after the funeral, with Alex and Ruth trying to understand. Suddenly someone arrives whom they have never met, Marcus, their son’s deeply-loved partner. Tension turns into listening, and understanding begins. “Best Play” award by the Deseret News, followed by a limited Off-Broadway run.
What if, after all, being gay is not a defect, not a lesser life, but a different calling?-- an invitation to travel the road of heroes mapped out by mythologist Joseph Campbell and find the life-giving substance that cures all ills. The Hero’s Journey of the Gay and Lesbian Mormon is offered to LGBT people of all religions, and their families and friends, as a traveling companion that will ease the path and celebrate the various destinations.
Work in the Oakland Stake
I have been deeply involved in the good work the Oakland Stake of the LDS Church has done for gay and lesbian members and their families. To read a report of that work, including a front-page article that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune, click here.
"Thank you, Carol Lynn Pearson, for reminding us that the task of any religion is to teach us whom were required to love, not whom we're entitled to hate."
—Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People