TLC promotes new reality show about gay Mormons happily married to women
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What do you do if you suffer from same-sex attraction, but your faith tells you that homosexual acts are sinful and marriage and family are a man’s highest calling?
Well, if you’re one of the several Mormon men featured in this weekend’s TLC special “My Husband’s Not Gay,” you set aside your urges and refuse to make them your identity. If you’re lucky, you find someone to marry and live the life your faith calls you to live. And if the men who star in the show can be believed, through obedience, you find peace and happiness.
But homosexual activists are calling for the show to be yanked from the lineup before it has a chance to air, saying it promotes the “dangerous” idea that people can choose not to act on their homosexual urges.
“My Husband’s Not Gay” follows three Salt Lake City-area married couples – Jeff and Tanya, Pret and Megan, and Curtis and Tera – along with 35-year-old Tom, a single man who is sexually attracted to other men, but wants to find a wife.
All four men featured on the show say they are primarily physically attracted to other men. But according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (more commonly known as LDS or “Mormon”), “the only acceptable expression of sexuality and romantic feelings is within a marriage between a man and a woman.”
The three married men on the show all say they became aware of their same-sex attractions as adolescents and experimented with the gay lifestyle early on. But ultimately, all three decided that true emotional and spiritual fulfillment could only come from obedience to God.
"Just like I can't choose not to be gay, I can't choose not to be a person of faith,” said one of the men on the show.
The show explores the relationships between the three married men and their wives and children. Pret and Megan have been married nine years and have two living daughters (a third passed away in 2013). On the show, Pret explains that “the Latter-day Saints church teaches that behavior is a choice.”
“Choosing to act on these feelings [is wrong],” Pret said. “Having these feelings, not so much.”
Pret said he goes out of his way to focus on the positive when it comes to his relationship with his wife, and that as a result, their sex life is better than a lot of “normal” heterosexual couples he knows.
“The attraction has grown over the years,”Pret said in an interview with the New York Post. “I’ve really paid attention to being in the present with Megan and finding her beauty and uniqueness. It’s been a process, but we’ve had to go through the difficult times to get to the good times.”
Added Pret, “It’s definitely been worth it.”
Jeff said that the key to success for him and his wife of ten years, Tanya, has been brutal honesty. “The main thing is, there are absolutely no secrets between us,” Jeff told the Post. “Other people might look at us from the outside and say: ‘That’s unusual.’ But to us, it’s not a big deal and just part of the way we live our lives.
My wife and I love each other and our son very much, and that’s what counts.”
Of the three couples featured on the show, only Curtis and Tera married without Tera knowing that Curtis struggled with same-sex attraction. They have been married 20 years, but she only learned of his homosexual inclinations five years ago.
“When Curtis first told me, it was very upsetting and confusing, and I didn’t know who to talk to at the time,” Tera told the Post. “But because I love him so much, I never once considered divorce. I knew there was a way for us to work through it. And we did. Now, I think my husband and I have a better sex life than any of our straight friends that we know."
But regardless of how happy the couples on “My Husband’s Not Gay” claim to be, homosexual activists aren’t buying it. More than a hundred thousand of them have signed a petition urging TLC to cancel the show without airing it, claiming that by showing successful examples of people who have mastered their homosexual urges and gone on to live happy lives with members of the opposite sex, the network is putting harmful pressure on other gay people to do the same.
"This show is downright irresponsible," GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. "No one can change who they love, and, more importantly, no one should have to. By investing in this dangerous programming, TLC is putting countless young LGBT people in harm's way."
But TLC said in a statement that they have no plans to drop the program. “TLC has long shared compelling stories about real people and different ways of life, without judgment,” the network said. “The individuals featured in this one-hour special reveal the decisions they have made, and speak only for themselves.”
Watch the trailer for “My Husband’s Not Gay” below:
Youtube Video