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Robert A. Rees
Robert A. Rees, Ph.D., is retired from UCLA where he was a member of the English faculty, Assistant Dean of Fine Arts, and Director of Continuing Education in the Arts and Humanities. Currently he is Director of Education at the institute of Heart Math. He has taught and lectured at a number of universities and was a Fulbright Professor of American Literature at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania (1991-92). Rees has published a number of scholarly studies, essays and poetry.
In terms of church service, Brother Rees has taught Institute and Seminary and served as a bishop, stake mission president, and high councilor. He and his wife Ruth served as education and humanitarian service missionaries in the St. Petersburg, Russia and the Baltic States missions. During this time he was a member of the Baltic States Mission Presidency. Currently Brother Rees teaches gospel doctrine class in the San Lorenzo Valley Ward of the Santa Cruz California Stake.
During the more than five years he served as bishop of the Los Angeles First Ward, Brother Rees counseled with dozens of homosexual Latter-day Saints. He is the author of several pamphlets on the subject of homosexuality including" No More Strangers and Foreigners" and "'In a Dark Time the Eye Begins to See': Personal Reflections on Homosexuality Among the Mormons at the Beginning of a New Millennium."
Personal Statement
Like most Latter-day Saints of my generation, I inherited a strong cultural prejudice against homosexuals and homosexuality. I can remember from an early age being conditioned to regard homosexuals as perverted and their behavior as unnatural and sinful. I didn't understand homosexuals but I did understand that my father had violent feelings toward them. Knowing that my (inactive) LDS band teacher was gay, my father once asked me if the teacher had ever tried "anything funny" with me. Even though by then (when I was fourteen years old) the teacher had molested me, I denied this fact to my father. My father's response was, "Well, if he ever does try anything, I'll beat the ____ out of him." I had no doubt that this is exactly what my father would do.As I grew into manhood, I continued to hear pejorative comments about gays and lesbians. I also continued to hear jokes about them and stories about how perverted they were; I also heard school mates talk about going down to the Pike in Long Beach and "rolling queers," which meant, of course, beating them up. I can remember many times having a deep, visceral at times even violent reaction when I saw someone who was gay.
At BYU I was aware that some men on campus were gay, or at least I assumed they were because they acted "feminine." I heard stories about them, stories that were always told with a raised eyebrow or a shake of the head. On my mission I was aware of several missionaries who were reputed to be gay. One we referred to as "Sister _________" behind his back.
After my mission, several times while hitch-hiking in California I was picked up by homosexuals who propositioned me. I found these frightening experiences and was able to extricate myself from them before anything happened. I don't believe I ever knew a homosexual on a personal basis (beyond my band teacher) until I got to graduate school where a number of my fellow students and some of my teachers were gay or lesbian. There was talk among heterosexual students, but generally it wasn't as vicious as I had been accustomed to hearing. I have a vivid memory from this time of a deliberate homosexual advance made toward me when I was showering after gym class one day. It was an unsettling experience, to say the least.
When I took my first teaching job at UCLA in 1966, I found that a number of members of the faculty as well as a number of students were gay, some openly so. I hired a couple of graduate students who turned out to be gay and it was probably through my close association with them that I first began to see both the complexity and the tragedy of the lives of homosexuals. I understood that this was not something they chose nor something they could change, although this realization was slow in developing. That is, I believe I understood this intuitively before I was able to articulate it. As they described their lives to me, I began to be aware that for the most part they carried am enormous burden.
I remember fixing up one of my colleagues in the English Department with a Latter-day Saint woman friend who was divorced. I didn't know at the time that he was gay. Later he began living intimately and openly with one of my students (who was also a student in his class). One of my graduate assistants told me of his failed marriage and the pain he had experienced during the years he was married. He spoke of being in love with the man with whom he lived, and I was struck by how similar this love seemed to the love I felt for my wife.
During these years I continued to see homosexuals in essentially a negative light. Being in Los Angeles, one cannot escape awareness of the full range of homosexual lifestyles (which is why I refuse to use the term "life style"; there are as many homosexual life styles as there are heterosexual ones), including the more sordid lifestyles that characterize the lives of some homosexuals. During the sixties, seventies and eighties, it was this kind of homosexual activity and experience that seemed to get the most publicity (or perhaps it was just my various prejudicial filters that made it seem so).
The wards that I belonged to, the sermons and "church talk" I heard, and the Church literature I read, all confirmed to me that homosexuality was considered an abomination by God and by his prophets. I remember being confused about this, but still feeling that it was right. I have a vivid memory of a young teenage convert who stood next to me in the tenor section of the Westwood Second Ward choir. I knew he was gay and I also was aware that he gravitated to me not, I later realized because he was attracted to me, but because he needed strong male companionship. I am sorry to say that I distanced myself from him in a calculated way. Before long, he was no longer active.
At some point during these years, I began to feel uncomfortable about my attitudes towards homosexuals. I came to believe that the negative feelings I had were not consistent with my understanding of Jesus' teachings in the New Testament. Most of all, I began to have some sense of the pain that many homosexuals experienced and it awakened a sense of compassion in me. It was during this time that I became the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Sometime during my editorship I received an anonymous manuscript titled "Solus," which was written by a homosexual. The anguish of soul expressed by this faithful Latter-day Saint and the horror of his experience in the Church convinced me that his story had to be shared with others. I believe this was the first honest expression of a homosexual published among the Mormons. The author said, "In a lifetime of Church activity I have yet to hear a single word of compassion or understanding for homosexuals spoken from the pulpit." He closed his essay with these words: "I know the Church is true and I want to remain loyal and active. I can only hope that He who welcomed to His side sinners, publicans and harlots will grant the same grace to me—and that His Church will too." Reading and publishing that essay was a watershed experience for me.
I suppose my first break with the traditional way of treating homosexuals in the Church happened when I was a member of the High Council of the Los Angeles Stake. One evening we had a court for a young man who was accused of homosexual activity. As was the custom, members of the high council drew lots to see who among us would speak for the accused and who would speak for the Church. My number placed me in the corner of the accused. After a lengthy process, including our interviewing the young man about his transgressions, his attitudes, etc., he was excused and the council and stake presidency deliberated his fate. During these proceedings, I spoke on his behalf. When he was excommunicated, I emerged from that whole process with series misgivings about what had occurred.
Several years later when I became a bishop, I had many opportunities to counsel with and relate to homosexual Latter-day Saints. Whatever vestiges of prejudice I had fell away during these years as I heard life story after life story of good Latter-day Saints whose lives were torn apart over the conflict between their sexual identity and their faith. I became convinced that their collective experience represented a tragedy of enormous dimensions. I also became convinced that I had to do something to try and diminish this tragedy. My experience as the shepherd of these gay and lesbian saints constituted one of the holiest times of my life. As I tried to minister to them, it became clear to me that one of my callings in Christ's kingdom was to speak for them, to be their advocate wherever and whenever I could, to lift their burdens, to wipe away their tears, to help them know that God loved them. This I have tried to do. This, with the Lord's help, I am still trying to do.