Today Guest Host Jon Young sits down with Ty Mansfield and discusses Same Sex Attraction, how we as a Church culture handle LGBT issues, Ty’s personal journey and how he has persevered on his own spiritual journey. Ty’s spiritual struggle and need to separate the gospel from culture in the church is a story all of us can relate to, regardless of our challenges.
http://ldsliving.com/story/68799-our-story-living-with-same-sex-attraction
http://farbetweenmovie.com/ty-danielle-mansfeild/
http://ldslights.org/author/tymansfield/
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56744185-78/attraction-sex-mansfield-lds.html.csp
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I really love your message and North Star. I don’t experience SSA, but my best friend and some of my cousins do. When I started my journey a few years ago to really understand what SSA was and was trying to discover what kind of support I could or should offer to my loved ones, I was really confused. I didn’t understand their points of view, and often wondered why and how they came to have SSA. My interest peaked especially on the issue of gay marriage. I wanted to know for myself what Heavenly Father’s feelings were on the matter. I knew my own feelings on the matter and my testimony and some of my personal beliefs seemed to be aligned, but somehow I didn’t feel peace over the matter. I ran across voices of hope online and it really helped me to understand SSA and the feelings of those who struggle with it. I also knew that people who experience SSA are generally directed to belief that going foreword with their feelings was the only way to be happy. I wondered if that was really true. And when I thought of my loved ones, I was worried for them and their relationship to Heavenly Father. What did that mean for them? Did Heavenly Father give them this challenge on purpose? That didn’t seem fair, but if He did, why? What did it all mean? It was about two years after I started exploring this issue that I ran across voices of hope and began to study the feelings of the people who were opening up about their lifelong experience with SSA. You and other like you who are opening up, gave me hope again for my family and a much better understanding of what it’s like to have SSA. More importantly, you and others taught me that a life close to Heavenly Father and the Savior are possible when experiencing the strong feelings of SSA. And it gave me hope that people like you were paving a trail of hope for others to follow, one that I don’t think many people in the world had ever considered before. I am so grateful for your example as it brings peace to my life concerning my loved ones and on the issue of gay marriage. I feel more love and compassion towards them then before. And more importantly I feel like I understand them better and don’t feel at a loss for their sakes. Thank you for paving this road for many who struggle and for those of us who are trying to understand SSA.
I did enjoy reading this. I am glad that Ty has found a way to live that he can authentically live with his religion and a relationship with a woman. More power do you. I am equally glad that he is clear that this isn’t for everyone. I do feel there are MANY in the church that see Ty and want to say, “See – He can do it, so you need to also.” It is an option a gay person should think about, but when I put the shoe on the other foot and if as a late teen I was told, “you need to be married to a man and have sex with him” I would have chosen not to marry at all. I would have to assume there are some gay’s that marrying a woman would feel about the same.
My bit of study of human sexuality seems to indicate that attraction to one gender or another isn’t a binary, but more of a continuum. I could not come away from the “my husband is not gay” show without feeling like most of the individuals on that were at least a bit bi-sexual. That is fine and it seems like in their cases they had all been up-front with their spouses before they were married.