Youth FAQ
Q: "I think I'm gay. Should I go on a mission?"
A: Many gay or lesbian Mormons--gay men especially--have served missions. Many say that their mission was an important positive experience in their lives. Others look back on their mission as a very negative experience...
Many gay or lesbian Mormons--gay men especially--have served missions. Many say that their mission was an important positive experience in their lives. Others look back on their mission as a very negative experience.
Here are some things to consider as you grapple with this decision:
As a missionary, you will be with a same-sex companion twenty-four hours a day. It's not uncommon to hear gay returned missionaries joke about being attracted to their companions, but in fact that kind of sexual tension can be highly stressful. A mission is a time of intense same-sex bonding; it's also a time when you will be susceptible to feeling lonely or down. How will you cope with the temptations that situation will create?
The Church, for its part, does not want gay missionaries: individuals who have confessed to homosexual acts are supposed to wait three years before they can be cleared for missionary service (individuals who have confessed to heterosexual acts only have to wait one year). Therefore, to serve a mission as a gay or lesbian person, you will have to be closeted. How will being closeted affect your spiritual or emotional health?
Missionary service is meant to prepare you for adulthood as a Latter-day Saint. This includes a lifetime of church activity, not to mention temple marriage and raising a family. If you have accepted that you are gay or lesbian--and if one of your goals is a same-sex partnership--then you're setting yourself up for a life path very different from the one that a mission is meant to set you up for. What do you see as the benefits of serving a mission, given your life goals as a gay or lesbian person? If you decide to serve a mission despite the serious challenges that mission life presents for a gay or lesbian person, you need to be absolutely clear about why you're doing this.