Bad Mormon

At age six, Heather Gay walked out her back gate, despite her parents warnings, and found herself unable to get back in. Lost and afraid, she decided that her parents’ rules were in place to protect her, not to restrict her.

Gay’s parents were devout Mormons. Because they were married in the church, Gay is considered a born-in-the-covenant (BIC) Mormon. Her mother was also a BIC Mormon, and her ancestors were among the original settlers in Utah. Gay’s parents met in college and quickly married, and her mother quit school after becoming pregnant. After seven moves to support her husband’s career, Gay’s mother insisted that the family settle permanently in Colorado.

As a child, Gay viewed Mormonism as an all-American way of life, and assumed that most families on television were Mormon because of their wholesome nature.

As a child, Gay accidentally cut a hole in new curtains while pretending to be a robot. When she refused to admit to the truth to her father—an FBI agent—who hit her as a punishment. Gay understood that she was being punished for not relenting to his authority, and vowed to be more submissive.

Gay’s elementary school featured pioneers, homesteading, and the American frontier in its curriculum and celebrations. Gay understood this history as inextricable from the Mormon pioneers in her family and those celebrated in her church. Sundays were reserved for family time, and from the age of eight Gay was expected to help her mother prepare the family’s meals. Gay believed her mother’s cooking lessons were preparing her for life as a Mormon wife. Her parents involved Gay and her siblings in their attempts to evangelize neighbors and workmates, and Gay prayed fervently for their conversion.

Gay’s mother loved to try to identify other Mormons when the family travelled. Most often, she could identify them by the outline of their garments, the sacred items of clothing that Mormons wear to remind them of “covenant promises and associated penalties” (30). As an adult, Gay often notices garment outlines and is reminded that she wore them faithfully for 20 years.

The garments proved foundational for Gay’s realization that Mormonism was not as universal as she thought. While coaching her soccer team, Gay’s father got into a fight with another player’s parent. As Gay and her father left the scene, the other parent loudly insulted his visible undergarments. Unaware that other adults didn’t wear the garments, Gay demanded an explanation from her mother, who dismissed her and encouraged Gay’s father to switch to less noticeable garments. Gay’s fears of being seen as strange were calmed.

Throughout elementary school, Gay competed with the boys in her grade academically and athletically. Sixth grade brought changes as all the boys seemed to hit puberty at once, and Gay began competing with other girls for the boys’ attention.

At the age of 12, Mormon boys undergo a ceremony where they are given the Aaronic priesthood, which Mormons trace back to founder Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ. Later, this priesthood allows Mormon boys full authority in the church. At the same age, girls are brought into the Young Women Organization, which prepares women to be modest and faithful wives and mothers. When Gay began to resist these prescribed gender roles, making jokes and acting out at meetings, she was punished.

At 13, Gay witnessed a temple ceremony for the first time. She found the ceremony unsettling and unserious, but suppressed her laughter.

As a teenager, Gay struggled to reconcile her compulsions to act out with her desire to conform to her parents’ wishes. Gay took her family’s move to Utah as a sign from God that she needed a fresh start surrounded by faithful Mormons. However, she discovered that Utah Mormons were more willing to break rules than those in Colorado. Early on, some of Gay’s new friends tricked her into kissing the crush of another friend. In another instance, Gay’s father drove to a party at 2 am to chastise the boys Gay had been with for inviting her to a hot tub. His actions aligned with the church’s policies on purity for women. As a teen, Gay was questioned about masturbation by her bishop, who was a family friend and the father of her classmate. Gay lied to end the conversation. When her friend’s older sister got married, Gay recommitted herself to the idea of being a faithful Mormon wife.

Although she was awarded a full-ride scholarship to the University of Utah to study piano performance, Gay’s family encouraged her to attend Brigham Young University (BYU) instead, hoping that, like her sister, she would find an eligible Mormon man to marry. Gay saw BYU as a restrictive place where nonconformity was strictly punished. Gay felt less attractive and less traditionally feminine than her peers and decided to focus her efforts on her career instead. During her junior year, she founded an earring company that was sold in Nordstrom and multiple independent boutiques, earning her an entrepreneurship award. Her family dismissed her achievements, focusing on her non-existent romantic life instead.

In her final year of college, Gay ignored an impulse—which she later defined as a spiritual call—to visit her grandmother, who married a non-Mormon. Two days later, her grandmother died. As she helped her father through his grief, Gay determined to always follow spiritual calls and to remain a faithful Mormon.

In her final year of school, Gay met James Barnes, a client at the tanning salon where she worked. Barnes was 33 while Gay was 20, but she was immediately drawn to him and agreed to go on a date. She wanted to go on more dates and have a physical relationship, but her friends convinced her that Mormon men expected their wives to be virgins.

As she approached graduation with no husband, Gay began to panic about her future. No one in her life had encouraged her to aspire to anything beyond college, and she knew that her family expected her to marry and have children like her older sister. When her friend Regina’s mom offered to sponsor her mission—a period in which Mormons dedicate themselves to volunteer service and the sharing of the Mormon faith, often traveling around the world to do so. Gay was assigned a post in the south of France. She took the prime location as evidence that God wanted her to serve a mission.