Love and Excommunication

By Kseniya Sovenko

Fall 2015 Kaplan Award Winner

There were no gay people in Conrad, Montana. There was no space for them. Populated by nearly 2,500 residents at the time, the small town had just become home to an eight-year-old military brat. Growing up, Celeste Carolin thrived in the tight knit community. She’s a people person.

On Sundays, two older women—Mary* and Agnes*—sat in the back of Conrad’s little Mormon Church. In rural Montana, the number of Mormons was scarce. Young Celeste thought the pair was adorable, her heart full of love for Mary in her navy blue skirt-suit and dark-haired Agnes with her glasses and nearly matching gray suit. They were always snickering, their sense of humor joyfully captivating the young girl.

Once, somebody suggested her two favorite ladies might be gay.

“Oh no,” Celeste remembers thinking. “That’s really bad.”

Being Mormon, there was no way being gay could be a reality.

* * *

Eleven-year-old Kathleen Majdali hated Sundays. She had a big problem with going to her Mormon congregation. Classes at church were divided by age group, and Kathleen had the misfortune of being the only girl in a classroom full of mean, rowdy boys. As soon as the California girl turned 12, however, she entered the Young Woman’s program and fell in love with going to girls’ camp. Her faith in the church was miraculously restored.

For two years, being Mormon was Kathleen’s lifeline. Instead of entering high school as a sophomore, she took to homeschooling, depending on church for any semblance of a social life. To compensate for the lack of human interaction, Kathleen became a legendary marathon churchgoer, attending three back-to-back congregations every Sunday. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., you could find her at church.

As a child, Kathleen felt she already knew the name and face of her husband. At 7, the brown-eyed girl unveiled her grand plan to the boy who captured her heart: She would marry him at 18. Despite the miles between them—he was in Utah and she was in Torrance, California—Kathleen grew up believing in her vision. It didn’t matter if her steadfast determination was reciprocal or not.

Adulthood finally came the summer before her senior year of high school, quickly shattering Kathleen’s grand plan for marriage. The man of her dreams returned from his Mormon mission utterly changed, leaving the lanky girl surprisingly apathetic.

Though she had crushes on boys, Kathleen always felt strong urges to befriend certain girls. From fifth grade onwards, she would feel nervous and awkward around the girls she admired, wanting badly to impress them. These feelings were pushed aside, however, rationalized as mere friend crushes. After her failed scheme for lifelong romance, Kathleen set her sights on finding a new prospective husband.

* * *


At Brigham Young University-Idaho (BYUI), Celeste shared a house with 17 girls. One of her roommates was a real cowgirl. With slight curves and chocolate brown hair, she drove a big Ford truck wearing wranglers, cowgirl boots and a hat made for a Western. This cowgirl caught Celeste’s heart with an emotional lasso.

Celeste wanted to cuddle with her all the time. In Mormon culture, girls tend to be very affectionate, so sharing beds with others is typical. Celeste quickly learned to capitalize on this normality. At the same time, she began to realize her own patterns of behavior meant she might like-like girls. Before long, she even felt strong urges to kiss the cowgirl.

Recalling Conrad’s small town gossip about Mary and Agnes, Celeste knew these feelings weren’t any good. She was sure something inside of her was broken. The inner turmoil eventually led Celeste to confess her secret crush. Despite being warm and empathetic, the cowgirl suggested Satan was to blame.

“The concept of good and evil is so black and white,” said Celeste. “If it’s not good, it had to be evil. And being gay wasn’t good.”

After consulting with their bishop, who advised the girls to leave each other alone, Celeste tried to pray the gay away. She bailed on her friendship with the beautiful cowgirl, began to teach Sunday school, volunteered to serve in any way she could and allowed church to swallow all her time.

This tarnished thing inside of her had to go, she decided. Celeste dated boys, but those makeshift relationships lacked the emotional intensity she had with the cowgirl. Boys were her buddies, plain and simple.

* * *


“Our relationship isn’t natural. I think you know it, and I can’t be in this anymore,” said the thin, dark-haired girl, who had recently returned from her Mormon mission.

During the first six months of her time away from home, the same girl had stamped and mailed letters to Celeste with almost daily punctuality. According to one letter, Celeste was her everything, her reason to come home. According to the scene unfolding in their home, Celeste was now her nothing.

“Are we breaking up?” asked Celeste of her best friend, with whom she shared an intense emotional attachment. “Are we breaking up as friends?”

“I think that’s what we need to do.”

Breathlessly, they went from spending every moment together to rarely exchanging words again.

* * *


In one summer, Kathleen managed to leave the lowest rung of the social ladder to successfully climb to the top. Returning to high school from her experiment in homeschooling as a cheer squad newcomer, she began dating seriously her senior year. Her first boyfriend, an African-American goth guy, towered at 6’6” above the entire basketball team. It was a match made in teen sitcom heaven.

Even Kathleen couldn’t have predicted the plot twist. Struggling to gain some sense of intimacy with her basketball-star boyfriend, she quickly realized she had more feelings for her best friend. Thoughts of locking lips with her female partner-in-crime constantly swam in and out of her mind. As the two grew closer, those dreams entered the realm of possibility, and eventually, reality.

Kathleen wanted it to happen all the time—the kissing. Throughout childhood, church teachings specified it was wrong to want such things, and even worse to act on them; same-sex attraction itself does not constitute a sin, but acting on it does. Still, Kathleen only felt it was right.

“It occurred to me that I might be bisexual,” admitted Kathleen. “But I never thought gay and I definitely never thought lesbian.”

The secret love affair was halted when the Kathleen’s mother began to suspect the intimacy of their friendship. She called together an intervention.

“Are you lesbians? What’s going on? What are you doing?” Kathleen’s mother questioned during the confrontation, having called both girls as well as her friend’s mother and aunt into a room stiff with the anguish of broken expectations.

Kathleen sunk deep into embarrassment, horrified to be called the “L” word. Nightmares hijacked her nights. Sleep deprived and wide-eyed, Kathleen lay in bed, terrified her mother would forcibly separate her from her best friend. Those nightmares became a reality, just as her dreams did. Her best friend cut off all ties, quickly finding a new replacement.

“You don’t just break up with your best friend,” thought Kathleen.

She vowed never to tarnish a good friendship by letting her feelings get in the way again. For the next 11 years, Kathleen dated men, falling in love with female roommates and girl friends along the way.

* * *


It was the middle of the night and Celeste couldn’t focus. She certainly couldn’t sleep. All she wanted to do was kiss her roommate, who was sharing the same twin sized bed. The two of them had fallen asleep reading Mormon scriptures, and a bible resting on the covers promptly reminded Celeste to leave her sleeping companion alone.

But her face was so close.

This was the face she’d spent the past nine months studying as their new best friendship sprung to life. When Celeste’s mouth finally drew in close, a blooming sense of joy mixed with corrosive shame. Though it was merely a short peck on the lips, passionless and naive, the first kiss was full of sparky energy. Her roommate woke up to kiss her back.

Satan, it must be Satan, thought Celeste.

“At that moment, I thought my life was over,” recalled Celeste, who left her roommate’s side to sleep in her own bed. “I felt ashamed, like I had somehow injured her. Like I had inflicted her with this horrible thing by kissing her.”

The next morning, Celeste’s young body was flooded with hysteria. With tears streaming down her face and breath out of pace, she called her other best friend, a guy, to confess her potential homosexuality. To escape her feelings, Celeste marooned herself in Montana for a week, depriving herself of all contact with the only person she wanted to talk to.

Upon her return, however, she discovered her roommate wanted to kiss her again.

* * *


Their relationship became a burden that was beautiful and heavy at the exact same time. The young women carried their shame as they snuck around BYUI to kiss and be together. Utterly unacknowledged, the relationship progressed slowly but never came to a stop. Despite their growing feelings for each other, they were quick to suggest men for the other to date.

For a summer, the two tried to be fully out. Being out was uncomfortable, so they went back in.

During her last few years in Idaho, Celeste thought of suicide often. Every day, she wanted to die because there was no space to be gay in the world she’d been brought into. Based on her beliefs, being gay meant she didn’t deserve the love of her friends, the love of her family, and, most importantly, the love of her god.

Eventually, Celeste followed her roommate to Boston, where they would live and lie together for six years. Sometimes, they would be best friends; sometimes, they would act like they were dating. The line existed in a constant state of flux, continuously blurring and snapping back into razor sharp focus. Their finances were connected and every minute of their lives spent together. These things don’t happen in best friendships.

Celeste wanted to be with this woman. She wanted to marry her. She wanted to find and negotiate some space in between—but being trapped between love and her roommate’s indecision was not the space she wanted to occupy anymore.

As light spilled in through the large bedroom windows to bathe the walls and flood the hardwood floors, Celeste sat on her bed feeling the weight of a Clayton Christensen book in her hands. She thought about what she could change in her life. There, inside that 110-year-old house, Celeste found clarity.

“If I could change anything today, I would break up with Diana and move across the country to hang out with my 89-year-old grandma,” she remembers thinking. It was that specific. Celeste needed to figure out how to dismantle a world built together.

“Who’s going to get the dog? What are we going to do with the TV?” she wondered. For the third time in her life, Celeste was breaking up with her friend, not her significant other. This time, it felt like a divorce. “I guess you can take this, and I can take that.”

Two weeks later, she moved to Seattle.

* * *


Kathleen was deleting all her browser history, playing hot potato with her laptop. She was googling questions about what she considered her dark past, trying to find information on the internet about homosexuality. Ten years ago, she had kissed her best friend on the lips over and over again. Now, she lived in Salt Lake City, intent on pursuing a potential husband but struggling to keep her gaze off her attractive female roommate. The inner dissonance and failed attempts at finding someone to marry catapulted her into severe depression.

“I was trying to do as much as I could to live a good Mormon life according to everything I had been taught,” said Kathleen. “But part of that is being honest, and I never felt like I was living with integrity because I was hiding this part of myself.”

After a few rocky months of soul searching, Kathleen moved to Seattle and decided to be honest. With a degree in art from BYU-Hawaii, she began working at Zulily’s creative department, where conversations of crushes and home life with same-sex partners dominated casual workplace dialogues. She wanted to feel at peace granting herself the ability to participate in those conversations. She was bisexual and she had to come out.

* * *


“I can’t do this. I’m quitting,” Celeste told her bishop. During her time in Boston, she was assigned to teach Sunday school. After teaching just one session, she couldn’t go on.

“Celeste, you can’t quit.” In the Mormon Church, members aren’t supposed to quit callings. “Why do you feel that way?” he asked.

“I’m not a good enough Mormon to do this.”

“What are you doing that’s so horrible?”

“I don’t read my scriptures,” she said, trying to tip-toe around the real reason.

“That’s OK, Celeste. That’s fine—not a big deal.”

“Well, sometimes, I’ll hang out at bars.”

“That’s fine.”

“I watch R-rated movies?” She was grasping at straws.

Again: “That’s fine.”

“I’m gay.”

Silence.

“It’s okay, Celeste. We still love you, you should still do it.”

“But I can’t.”

Despite the kind response from the ward’s leadership, she felt there was no space for her participation. Celeste had already repurposed her self-hate into anger with the Mormon Church. She came late every Sunday, finding her way upstairs to the balcony. Per unwritten cultural rules, members who sat up there were considered less Mormony.

* * *

“If you hate it so much, why don’t you just leave?” asked one of Celeste’s roommates as they sat inside the kitchen of their small apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. Her body language closed up as the two argued about Mormon culture.

Celeste looked at her roommate, completely threatened. Silence followed as she processed the question, but the answer was starkly simple. Because she didn’t want to. She wasn’t done with church.

“Being Mormon is part of my DNA,” said Celeste, reflecting back on this scene. “It’s part of me and I’m okay with recognizing that it’s a little broken.”

In Seattle, Celeste wanted to do things differently. In a new place, she could be anything she wanted, and she wanted to be out. Though she had been gay for a long time, she had no idea how to be out. She started by being honest.

Whenever a Mormon moves and visits a new ward, they set up a meeting to become acquainted with the bishop. The scene is always the same—walking into one church is like walking into all of them. Chairs line the walls of the bishop’s office, and he sits with a table defining the space between him and his visitor. Over the phone, Celeste had asked to bring her partner, a new girl she was seeing at the time.

She thought they had understood what partner implied. They didn’t.

“You do understand the doctrine of the Mormon Church?” the bishop asked, perplexed.

“Yes…” Celeste replied with annoyed hesitation.

“If you do come, we want to limit the amount of physical interaction between you two around the children,” said the bishop, still visibly struggling to understand why Celeste had called a woman her partner. The meeting didn’t end well. Celeste had tried to dip her toe in the water, but she ended up diving into a waterless pool.

* * *


At the sight of an unfamiliar face at church, Mormons will always follow a similar script of questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? Where do you work? Oh, are you married?

Recognizing this pattern, Celeste, fueled by her newfound passion for honesty, chose to unveil her sexual orientation whenever prompted with the last question. “No, I’m gay,” she’d planned to say.

During her first Sunday of full disclosure, Celeste was told the Elliott Bay ward had an active gay member. That wasn’t possible. In her entire life, Celeste had never met an active gay member who was out.

The following Sunday, Celeste couldn’t stop herself from visiting the ward, which covers Seattle’s downtown and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. As the social butterfly mingled amongst new faces, ready to play the questions game, she calibrated her gaydar. Though he remained a mythical creature for several months, everyone at the new ward asked her whether she’d met Justin—he was gay too.

After a couple of months, the ward’s bishop called her in to have the same conversation she’d had at the West Seattle ward. The setting, the desk and the chairs were all the same, but the words were different. Instead of pelting her with questions and equating her sexuality with alcoholism, this bishop leaned forward, teared up and said: “That must have been so hard, growing up in the church and being gay. Can you tell me about that?”

Celeste had finally found a place to be honest. With her bishop’s blessing, she devised a plan, guided by a numbered list made on an adhesive chalkboard plastered to her closet wall. She would pick 10 people in the ward to befriend—rejection was not an option. Celeste followed her intuition, harmlessly stalked her targets and asked other church members questions about them. The plan didn’t fall into place immediately, but after some time, everyone knew she was gay.

“So often in the Mormon community, nobody knows anyone who is gay, because they are all gone. They’ve all left or they’re hiding,” she said. “No one is out in front saying ‘I’m gay and I’m not broken about it.’ I wanted to be that person.”

* * *


Celeste first noticed Kathleen lurking in one of the long halls. This girl was too cool for school, embodying the skater look with utter perfection, wearing frilly dresses with chucks and gray beanies.

Kathleen had seen Celeste around at church, simultaneously inspired and terrified by the open dialogues she was having about her sexuality. Desperate and in need of starting a change, Kathleen sent Celeste a message on Facebook, asking if they could discuss LGBT issues.

Coming out to Celeste was awkward for Kathleen.

“I think I’m bisexually attracted,” said Kathleen.

“That’s a made up term,” responded Celeste. “Do you plan on dating women?”

“No, never.”

“Why are you coming out in this culture that’s going to reject you? You’re still planning on dating men?”

“Yes,” said Kathleen. She felt like she had been quiet for way too long.

“Well, if you’re going to do it, can I call and check up on you?” asked Celeste, who was about to leave for a six week business trip. They called each other every night.

* * *


The two quickly developed a game plan. Kathleen made a list of all the people she needed to come out to. Her youngest brother’s name topped the list—he had come out nearly two years before. Kathleen apologized, feeling guilty and responsible for not having taken the brunt of their parents’ disappointment.

Every friend she called questioned her decision to avoid dating women. Kathleen’s justification was simple: She still wanted to go to church. Though accepting her decision, her friends wondered whether she wouldn’t be happier lifting the self-imposed restriction. With each successive conversation, Kathleen began to realize she had never considered how the decision would affect her own happiness. It was time to put that first.

Whenever she crossed a name off her list, Kathleen would call Celeste with the news. Despite being on a business trip, Celeste would welcome Kathleen’s long calls with nothing but warmth, support and congratulations.

“Celeste, I need to tell you something,” Kathleen said over the phone after a couple of weeks of prolonged conversations.

“What’s that?” replied Celeste, lying in an apartment building in Denver, Colorado.

A full minute of static and loud silence filled Celeste’s ears.

“OK, it seems like you’re not ready to tell me,” said Celeste before moving on. But she didn’t forget the weight and quality of the silence.

“Hey, you were going to tell me something the other night,” said Celeste a couple of days later, commandeering the lull in conversation.

Thirty seconds of awkward silence passed. Nothing but deep breaths and a sigh.

“I think I love you,” declared Kathleen, finally. Celeste’s steadfast support had won her over, and she wanted to give dating her a try.

“That’s alright,” began Celeste. She wasn’t in love with Kathleen, and she had rules, safeguards about dating people who were coming out. It’s always messy, she reasoned. “I think you’re amazing and I am so glad we’re friends. If you feel that way, it’s okay.”

* * *


Celeste woke up, gasping—she was embarrassed. Lying on the floor of an empty walk-in closet in Chicago with pillows from her bed, she felt her face flushing red. She had fallen asleep on the phone with Kathleen, who was expressing fears about coming out to her parents.

“It was just for a second, right? A minute? How long was it?” she asked Kathleen, who was still on the other end. Celeste had a 5 a.m. flight to Seattle; her business trip was cut short by news that her beloved grandmother was dying.

“Celeste, you’ve been asleep for an hour.”

“What?” she exclaimed, “Why didn’t you hang up?”

“It brought me a lot of comfort that I could stay on the phone with you and I was also a little worried that you were going to miss your plane.”

“Oh no,” thought Celeste, who was previously adamant about not blurring the line of friendship with Kathleen. “I like this girl too.”

The flight from Chicago brought Celeste home for a day. An empty house does little for a grieving extrovert, so she cautiously asked for an invitation to Kathleen’s in order to be around people and sleep on the couch. Once there, the two cuddled. The entire time, Kathleen thought about kissing her. Temptation drew her mouth close to Celeste’s, but reality pulled her back—she knew Celeste didn’t want to kiss her.

Again, Kathleen got close, hovering near Celeste’s lips until the gravity of her feelings outweighed reality. The kiss was exciting. It was amazing. When kissing men, Kathleen often felt dead inside, trying to kiss the nonchalance away. When you kiss somebody and it feels right, it’s hard to deny it, she said.

* * *


“When you were a kid, did you ever make that dumb list of the person you wanted to be with?” asked Celeste. “I’ve had that list my whole life.”

The list occupied a chalkboard on the inside of her closet door—a twin sister to the one Celeste had used to execute her previous plan. She wanted to date someone confident. Someone who was her “equalish” in intelligence, play style and emotional intimacy. Someone who was OK with her being Mormon. Someone fun. At 36, Celeste still surfs, skateboards around town and jumps off of everything.

Kathleen was a perfect match to Celeste’s dumb list.

For 11 years, Kathleen had tried to find a man to embody the characteristics from her own list. She wanted someone who surfed, skated, danced, had nice hands and feet, light eyes and blond hair. Someone kind and outgoing. A people person who would love hosting social gatherings at their home.

“I found everything in Celeste,” she said. “What do you do when you find everything on your list and they just happen to be a different gender than you expected?” Growing up in the Mormon Church, the two women were constantly asked to think about the kind of wife and mother they’d like to be someday.

“What is the probability that I would find a Mormon woman, who fits my list, whose list I fit, in the same city, in the same ward, at a time when she’s willing to come out?” asked Celeste. “The probability is almost zero. We dream of this. When those moments happen, you have to pay attention.”

* * *


On Oct. 19, 2014, Celeste stood at a podium to speak at a special sacrament meeting. The 80 people who normally come to church on Sunday were replaced by a crowd of nearly 300. The room was radiating with love and energy, and Celeste met the eyes of an old couple, one long-haired woman wearing glasses and the other with shorter hair, wearing pants. They were holding hands and sobbing.

Mitch Mayne, a gay Latter-day Saint from San Francisco, was invited to Seattle to lead an LGBT initiative in accordance with gay and lesbian community outreach initiated by the president of the Seattle North Stake. The stake had estimated that nearly 20 percent of inactive members in their area were gay. Last year’s outreach efforts, including an LGBT ward social, a private stake fireside with Mitch Mayne and stake leadership training around LGBT issues, all coalesced with the epic, LGBT-themed sacrament meeting.

“I can honestly say this was one of the most spiritually powerful and uplifting meetings I’ve ever attended,” wrote Aaron Brown, a member of the Seattle North Stake High Council who was tasked with spearheading the outreach efforts.

Kathleen swelled up with pride watching Celeste speak. It wasn’t until she followed Celeste’s example and came out that others in the church felt safe coming out to her. Becoming a positive example to others was worth any hardship, vulnerability, stress or emotional anxiety, reflected Kathleen.

Everything was fine as long as inactive members were coming back to the church. The tone changed, however, once members who were already active came out of the closet. Despite working with the church for a year and half to put on outreach events and foster a tolerant environment, progress eventually came to a standstill.

“With every two steps forward, it feels like we are taking a jump back,” said Celeste.

* * *


Kathleen and Celeste found themselves alone inside a beautiful Italian restaurant. Summer had just begun to kiss the German landscape and the sun was preparing to set. Sometimes, the romance of the scene was interrupted by P!nk’s vocals—of course an Italian restaurant in Germany only plays American Music, remarked Celeste—but otherwise, everything was perfect. Except Kathleen was strangely fussy, and Celeste’s face hurt.

During the day, they’d exhausted themselves at a water park, which didn’t have the same rules as the ones in America. The rides were more dangerous, tailored for the two adrenaline junkies. Celeste’s face was hurting from all the fun.

But there was no reason for Kathleen to be fussy. A picky foodie, she usually doesn’t know she’s hungry until it’s past the time to eat. The Italian meal should have satiated both her hunger and restlessness. Instead, she found her skin coated with a thin layer of cold sweat. Though she was a musician—she’d even performed for the America’s Got Talent judges—sitting at the dinner table with Celeste was making her more nervous than any stage could. A special ring was burning a hole through her pocket.

Belly half-full of pasta, Kathleen made futile attempts to lead Celeste through a beautiful courtyard after their meal. Unsuspecting, Celeste interrupted such attempts at romance by declaring her need to use a bathroom. She ran upstairs to their hotel room with no intention of coming back while Kathleen continued to sweat.

As Celeste exited the restroom, she noticed that the huge windows leading to the balcony were open. The evening wind was playing with the linen drapes that usually clothed the glass panels; they were swaying in and out, making melodies of movement. Looking for her girlfriend, who was not responding to her calls, Celeste made her way outside. Kathleen was in one corner, and her phone, propped up with a blinking red light, was in another.

Kathleen wanted kisses from Celeste. The indiscreet phone, obviously making use of its video-recording capabilities, inspired hesitation in Celeste, who didn’t want to engage in any weird stuff. Still nervous and now embarrassed her intentions were being misread, Kathleen decided to finally ask the question as tears ran down her lightly freckled cheeks.

“Celeste, will you surf all of my waves with me?”

Celeste began to cry, because the tears of others inspire tears of her own. Kathleen pulled out the ring, and Celeste agreed to marry her. Her grandmother’s engagement ring was hanging on a chain around her own neck, waiting for the day Kathleen would propose to her.

“She totally tricked me,” said Celeste, who was emotionally prepared to wait at least another year before the question of marriage was ready for mutual discussion.

* * *


Maybe the tides changed, or perhaps some distant stars aligned, but for a moment Kathleen and Celeste found peace. After a series of uncomfortable conversations with their stake president and consequent pressure from a few active LGBT members around the nation, they were given the gift of hope. Though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had always taken a strict stance against homosexuality, on that September day, Kathleen and Celeste were told their future marriage wouldn’t prevent them from being members.

A gloomy cloud had lifted. For a moment, their relationship was not strained by the gravity of a dark, hovering question mark and the mystery of an uncertain future. Celeste couldn’t believe it. The stake president had made the space she was so desperately trying to define. It was all too good to be true.

The momentary state of bliss was merely the eye of the storm, however.

“When I found out it was real, I literally felt like I got punched in the gut,” Celeste began, her phone flooding with emails, texts, Facebook messages and a mix of supportive and condemning wall posts. “I didn’t know whether to swear or to cry.”

Before Nov. 5th, disciplinary action against active gay members occupied a gray space, subject to individual discretion without the structure of succinct rules from the leadership. That night, everything became distinctly black-and-white. The announcement really hurt a lot of people, said Celeste’s cousin, who works for a suicide hotline. Celeste, utterly blindsided, began to go through the five stages of grief.

“The reality of what the church is saying—that I have to be kicked out—it doesn’t feel good to me,” said Kathleen. “You don’t choose gay.”

* * *


“I’m cutting off your right hand or your left hand, which one would you like cut off? It feels like they’re asking us to choose,” began Celeste. “I guess I’m right handed, so maybe the left, but wait a second, why are we cutting off my hand?”

Kathleen and Celeste are getting married next summer. Their wedding day will also be the day they’ll be labeled apostates. Per new policy, approved by the Council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, same-gendered marriage between members requires mandatory disciplinary council. Other serious transgressions include murder, forcible rape and sexual abuse. As soon as they marry, they will be excommunicated from their church, forced out of the religion of their choice. Those are the clear-cut rules.

“It literally feels like I’m in an abusive relationship with the church,” said Celeste.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage this summer, church leadership issued a letter to be read in all church meetings across the country.

“Changes in the civil law do not, indeed cannot, change the moral law that God has established,” it reads. “God expects us to uphold and keep His commandments regardless of divergent opinions or trends in society. His law of chastity is clear: sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife.” A church declaration, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” specifically outlines the structure of a proper family and its central role in achieving eternal salvation.

“Homosexual behavior violates the commandments of God, is contrary to the purposes of human sexuality, and deprives people of the blessings that can be found in family life and in the saving ordinances of the gospel,” it continues. “Those who persist in such behavior or who influence others to do so are subject to Church discipline. Homosexual behavior can be forgiven through sincere repentance.”

The path to eternal salvation, said Celeste, is open only to those who are straight. As gay Mormons, Kathleen and Celeste have two options: They can leave the church, be authentic and follow values taught by the church; or, they can stay, remain celibate and be silent.

“I think there are three choices and the third choice is a compromise,” said Celeste. “The third choice is Kathleen and I. We’re going to stay and we’re going to be honest. There should be space for us.”

“No, I don’t want to be kicked out of the church,” said Kathleen, sadly. “But I don’t want to be married to someone that I have halfway feelings for. I want a good life. It is my belief that I will have the best life with Celeste. I would have a better life with her than alone, and I would have a better life alone than with a man I don’t really love.”

* * *

They think about it every day. They will get a phone call or an email from their bishop, who had previously given them his blessing. He will say that the church will be holding a disciplinary hearing at a prescribed time and date, and he will invite Kathleen and Celeste to attend. A group of men will hold a church court. They will gather evidence around Kathleen and Celeste’s apostasy. The two women will be able to bring forth some character witnesses, and then the men will decide whether they’re in or out.

Celeste and Kathleen will likely be accused of sexual cohabitation, being in a same-gendered marriage, having sex outside of wedlock—despite being legally married—and of being public about their relationship. They will have to talk about their interpersonal relationship with a group of heterosexual men in somewhat inappropriate detail. Then, they will be shunned from their community.

In the church, excommunication is said to be done out of love, to “save the souls of the transgressors; protect the innocent; and safeguard the purity, integrity and good name of the Church.” Eventually, repentance brings the former members closer to God.

“For us, what are we supposed to repent of?” asked Celeste. “Am I supposed to divorce my wife, estrange my family and ruin all of our lives? The process no longer makes sense.”

Changes to Handbook 1, leaked Nov. 5 and confirmed by church leadership the following morning, also stipulate that the children of married same-gendered parents cannot receive a name or blessing, whether natural or adopted. Children of gay Mormons can only participate in baptisms, priesthood ordinations and missions after reaching legal age, abandoning their parents, renouncing same-gender relations and pleading their case to the Office of the First Presidency. Celeste and Kathleen will never be able to raise their children in the church, in the faith that has secured their values and served as the backbone of their lives.

“The only reason I’ve stayed this long is because I’ve maintained this fraction of hope,” said Celeste. “This [change] kind of kills it. All I’m doing is giving and at some point I’m going to run dry.”

If Celeste or Kathleen ever attend church, they will wear an invisible scarlet letter. They will be greeted as excommunicated members, a status which prohibits them from praying in public or answering a calling. They will be the topic of discussion at meetings. It’s not supposed to be a shaming process, but culturally, that’s not true. A visitor can participate at a higher level than an excommunicated member.

“It’s been such a positive part of my life,” began Kathleen. “It’s been really hard to come out, but it would be even harder to say that I’m not a part of this anymore.” Neither Celeste nor Kathleen want to pretend to voluntarily engage in something that doesn’t align with their desires. Being Mormon is vital to their identities.

“I don’t think they understand that I’ve searched high and low, lived in multiple cities and been around hundreds of Mormons,” continued Kathleen. “There was nothing I could have done to make myself like boys more or girls less.”

* * *

Kathleen is the chorister in Relief Society, the women’s meeting at her church. She’s had previous experience strumming the ukulele, playing the recorder and contributing vocals to an eight-piece eclectic gypsy folk-rock band. At least that’s what they called it.

A few months ago, Kathleen opened her choir book to lead a song called “Families Can Be Together Forever.” She glazed over the first verse, filling the room with her honey-sweet voice. Then came the second verse.

“While I am in my early years, I’ll prepare most carefully, so I can marry in God’s temple for eternity.” Kathleen, who is not able to marry in God’s temple or seal her marriage for eternity in true Mormon fashion, was struck by these words. Reality slapped her in the face. Though she used to enjoy the song, she suddenly felt estranged from it, realizing its implications—despite 30 saintly years, she somehow hadn’t prepared carefully enough. All those righteous single women beyond their early years were not good enough.

Upon hearing this, Celeste shut her book and stopped singing. Here’s the path, here are the steps, the song said. But so many people don’t qualify for that path, she thought. Does that mean they don’t deserve happiness, she questioned.

“There are all of these Mormon if-thens,” explained Kathleen. “If you live righteously, then you get married and have children and have a perfect family and then be happy. If you go to the temple, then you feel the Spirit.”

Celeste loves the idea of marriage. She wants to start a family. She wants to make a commitment to the person she loves publicly, in front of all of her family and friends. She’s planning a beautiful wedding with the person she loves, and she is weighed down with impending grief.

“Now what is life, if it’s not all of these if-thens?” asked Kathleen. “I think I need to write some new if-thens.”