Episode 772: Bryce Cook, LDS Father of Two Gay Sons, Longtime Ally

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2024

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend and mentor Bryce Cook (married, father of 6 children/7 grandchildren) joins us to talk about how he and his wife Sara navigated the road of having two gay sons (which started in 2003 when their son Trevor came out as gay). Bryce talks about how his worldview of gay people dramatically changed upon learning his good/talented/spiritual son is gay. Bryce talks about Trevor “wanting companionship” just like he saw with his parents (Trevor married his husband Ben in 2023). Their third son Tanner also came out as gay after he saw how his family responded to Trevor’s coming out. Bryce talks about deep spiritual promptings that he and Sara needed to do something with the knowledge they gained and not be silent, which led to the formation of All Arizona in 2012. Bryce talks about how their home became a safe place for queer Latter-day Saints and the resulting spiritual/sacred experiences that followed—and how the annual All Arizona conferences provided support/community to LGBTQ members and education/understanding for their family members and church leaders. Bryce talks about the promptings he received to write about this topic, which became a groundbreaking widely-circulated essay called “What Do We Know of God’s Will For His LGBT Children? An Examination of the LDS Church’s Position on Homosexuality (see show notes). This essay (which has helped me better understand this issue) is powerful and brings more insight/understanding (and possibilities) for queer Latter-day Saints and those who support them. Thank you, Bryce and Sara (and your wonderful family) for teaching how to better love and support. Your story is a beautiful family love story. I encourage everyone to listen to Bryce’s podcast and read his essay—I believe you will have better tools to support LGBTQ Latter-day Saints and their families. Links: Bryce’s essay: mormonlgbtquestions.com/ All Arizona: www.allarizona.org/ Bryce/Sara’s earlier podcast (episode 116): soundcloud.com/user-818501778/episode-116-bryce-and-sara-cook-active-lds-6-children-including-two-gay-sons

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:10.3	I have a returning guest coming on the podcast, my friend Bryce Cook. Welcome to the podcast, Bryce.
0:17.8	Thanks, Richard. It's fun to do this again.
0:26.7	I don't know if I can add any more than I have before, but I guess there's some things we could catch up on, maybe. I think so.
0:29.0	And listeners, when I stepped in this space, and it's almost been 10 years, there were a few other kind of mentors for me that were in the space before me and provided
0:39.3	prospective mentorship tools to navigate the space and Bryce and Sarah Cook.
0:45.4	The Wises have been people like that for me.
0:48.3	Others that I recognize have been in this space even longer.
0:50.9	Bob Reese,
0:52.2	Carolyn Pearson,
0:53.0	and probably many others I'm not even aware of.
0:55.2	And, of course, many of our LGBTQ Latter-day Saints that have since passed away.
1:01.8	But Bryce has been really helpful, just a little bit about his story.
1:07.1	He came on the podcast in episode 116, which is a long time ago, five years ago.
1:13.2	And I just reached out to Bryce a couple weeks ago.
1:15.9	And I thought, you know, every week there's new parents, this space, new local leaders, new siblings that want to support somebody.
1:23.9	And maybe not everybody knows about Bryce and Sarah's story, the essay that they
1:29.1	put together, um, being parents of two gay sons. So I just wanted Bryce to come back on the
1:35.0	podcast and share a family update. His overview I've seen his outline. He's going to let you know
1:41.1	about his family background. And part of that is a letter he got from his son Trevor in 2003,
1:48.3	opening up about being gay.
1:50.4	So Bryce has been on this road and Sarah for two decades.
	...

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