Brigham Young University (BYU) approved in advance the commencement speech of valedictorian Matt Easton in which he publicly came out as gay, KUTV reported Monday.
In the speech Sunday that has since gone viral, Easton, laying out his personal achievements and experiences leading up to the graduation, said that he is “proud to be a gay son of God.”
Coming out, Easton said, was “a phenomenal feeling, and it is a victory for me in and of itself.”
{mosads}Easton told KUTV in an interview that he had told some of his close friends and family, but had never come out publicly.
“I’ve never come out publicly before, I had to — only my close relatives and my close friends, not even all of my family knew,” he explained.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns BYU, teaches that attraction to someone of the same sex is not a sin, but acting upon those feelings, including being in a gay relationship, is sinful.
Easton told KUTV that he was still grappling with how to live as a gay Mormon.
“There comes a time when I’m going to have to start thinking about these questions, you know? Am I going to get married? Am I going to have children? What are these pressures that my family and my parents want for me to do? Are they a reality for me? Um… those are some pretty hard questions and I don’t have the answers to all of them,” he said.