Foundation for
Reconciliation
When
There’s Love At Home
My wife, Janet and I have 4 sons--the
youngest, Guy, is our gay son. Guy was born in Provo while I was
teaching at BYU. He had a normal childhood but did display an
enterprising talent by the age of 5. One Spring day he had been gone
quite awhile and we assumed he was playing in the neighborhood. When
he came home he burst into the house and exclaimed "I've been out
picking dandelions and I've gone to all our neighbors telling them I
have freshly picked flowers to sell and can you believe it, I sold
all of them."
Guy has had many interesting experiences in
his lifetime. During his early childhood we spent two years living
in Thailand and returned 10 years later for another year in high
school.
At 19 he was called to serve a mission in
Sweden. Upon his return he taught at the MTC and completed his BA
degree at the "Y" in English and Linguistics and started his
graduate degree in Teaching English as a Second Language.
He then accepted an opportunity to serve in
rural Nigeria as a primary health care worker for a year. Just prior
to leaving for that year in Nigeria, on Father's Day, he asked me to
go for a walk to talk-- and confided in me that he was gay. I was
stunned and confused as to what I could do to help this wonderful
son of ours. I have to admit I really didn't know much about
homosexuality at that period of my life.
When Guy returned from Nigeria he finished
up his graduate work at BYU and was employed for many years by Provo
School District--teaching English to foreign students, supervising
volunteers and other programs for refugees and immigrants. He also
directed the Utah County Multicultural Center, a result of his love
for people of various cultures.
It was during this time, especially after
his return from Nigeria and coming out, that we tried to learn all
we could about homosexuality so as to understand it and what we
could to to help Guy.
We heard about the newly formed group in Salt Lake for parents of
gays called "People Who Care" and began to participate in those
meetings with other parents of gay children (prior to the formation
of Family Fellowship several years later).
Years later, we attended Sunstone together,
in 1996. At one session one of the speakers was a young man named
Trey Lathe. When he was introduced Guy whispered to us that he knew
him at BYU and that "he's straight'. They had worked together on
some Human Rights and Peace Symposia at BYU while in a student group
together for a couple years as undergraduates. Just then Trey said
from the podium that he was "a gay Mormon man". So much for Guy's "gaydar"!
After the meetings, Guy and Trey spent much
time together with mutual friends over the weekend and found they
had a great deal in common and so, during a wonderful long distance
relationship, were able to build on the mutual respect they'd had
for one another at BYU, fall in love and commit to building their
lives together. Oddly, neither of them had any idea the other was
gay while at BYU, in those closeted, celibate years. Trey was
getting his PhD in Molecular Biology and was living in Rochester,
New York then, but Guy had just bought a home in San Francisco where
he was investing in property and Trey was planning to move there,
too, so they moved the following summer into the Victorian home they
still share on Haight Street. Trey joined the LDS Church at 17 (the
only member of his family to join) and had served a mission in
Korea, taught at the MTC and had been active in the church until he
and Guy committed to one another, when he was promptly
excommunicated.
Soon after moving to San Francisco in 1997,
they planned a formal commitment ceremony and invited their friends
and family members to join in the celebration. We have attended many
weddings but never have we witnessed so many tears of joy as we
witnessed during this ceremony.
Afterward, they honeymooned for a month in
Thailand and Korea, sharing with each other where they'd earlier
lived. A year later, Trey accepted a post-doctoral position at the
European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, where
they lived 4 years before returning to San Francisco.
It was while there they were able to adopt a
newborn from Washington state--an African-American preemie girl.
They'd just returned from the US from an earlier, failed adoption
when they got word that another baby was just born and they'd been
chosen as adoptive parents.
Guy flew back to be with her at Tacoma
hospital and Trey followed soon after. They named her (after their
grandmothers) Emma Marie Berryessa-Lathe and she has since been the
delight of their lives and ours. They stayed in the hospital and in
the US for a month until she was able to travel to Germany, with her
new parents---exhausted-- and their lives forever changed. Once back
in Heidelberg, they settled back into a wonderful life there, where
little Emma became quite well-known and loved before they returned
to SF in 2003. And also well-traveled (she's probably been to more
foreign countries than most adults in their lifetime).
After several months they met an au pair for
a family there in Germany, a young man from Poland named Radek. He
later came to live with them to help with Emma and allow them more
work time. He was wonderful with Emma and still lives with them as
part of the family, having completed his University education while
in San Francisco and working full-time downtown. Emma has grown like
a weed is now 7 years old and is a beautiful, bright, fun child.
She most of all loves just being at home
with her dads or her friends or pets, though she LOVES school,
especially Music and Art, and also enjoys swimming, soccer,
gardening and watching the TV show Full House! She also really wants
a younger sister or brother, so they've been working on a second
adoption for some time now (and just had a failed match for a
sister).
Like her Dads, she, too, is a little
activist, with strong political feelings. She loves to march or ride
in parades, make her own signs or even lead her school in the Pride
Parade.
Although she may share the same basic agenda
as her Dads and has visited the Capitol and White House with them,
she has a strong mind and will of her own, including about who
should be living there. In fact, the whole time her papa was a
precinct captain for Obama, she was a staunch Hillary supporter ,
even standing on their corner on Primary Day with one of her
homemade Hillary signs and yelling to passersby! She eventually
became a strong Obama supporter, too, and even helped Papa vote for
him on that historic day.
They were married in San Francisco when
briefly allowed in 2004 (though the marriages were later voided)--
but still an amazing time they will always cherish-- and again last
fall, this time for good (barely making it before the passing of
Prop 8).
We have spent some of our most memorable
vacations with Guy, Trey and Emma in San Francisco--Christmases,
Grandparents Days at Emma's school, a cruise with them to Alaska
with hundreds of LGBT families --as well as time in Germany where we
attended the Passion Play at Oberammergau.
We have a wonderful friendship with Trey's
parents and family who are as happy with Guy and Trey's marriage as
we are and love Emma as much as our family does.
-Max Berryessa,
Provo, Utah, September 2009
