This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I grew up in Salt Lake City, where I attended Highland High School and the University of Utah. I worked for Walker Bank and then First Interstate Bank of Utah. In 1988 I left banking, attended three years of graduate education and was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. I am a "cradle Episcopalian," as were my mother and her family going back to the Norman conquest of England.
Well-meaning friends who are members of the LDS Church tried to convert me. When I was a child and a young adult, they tried to convert me away from my church and my family's church with no thought of what it would do to our family.
My daughter is a deputy district attorney in California who prosecutes felony domestic violence and crimes against children. She is a lesbian and married to a wonderful woman whom we are proud to call our daughter-in-law. They have one child and another on the way. I had the honor of officiating their wedding at the Bit and Spur Restaurant in Springdale, Utah.
From the time she was 8 years old, her friends and their families tried to convert her away from her church and her family's church with no thought to what it would do to our family. Mormon friends told her their father was an "agent of Satan." I suppose now her friends are glad they did not convert her, for now she would no longer be welcome.
The LDS Church is known for strong family values, yet it had no problem trying to split my family apart. I simply do not understand the church's current stand on LGBT persons and their children. It seems to me that only Mormon families are important.
The Rev. Dr. John E. Day
Elk Grove, Calif.