Rudy Gay saw his two-season n wh the Utah Jazz e to an end when the team ma the John Colls al, now he's a ee agent.
Contents:
- STONEWALL, AIDS AND GAY LIBERATN: ONE HISTORIAN SHAR HOW THE CULTURAL MOMENTS SHAPED UTAH’S LGBTQ MUNY
- MEET THE GAY COUPLE WHO MA HISTORY UTAH
- 3 LANDG SPOTS FOR FORMER UTAH JAZZ PLAYER RUDY GAY
STONEWALL, AIDS AND GAY LIBERATN: ONE HISTORIAN SHAR HOW THE CULTURAL MOMENTS SHAPED UTAH’S LGBTQ MUNY
Specifilly, Williams, 71, has bee the chronicler of the history of Utah’s LGBTQ+ muny — much of which he has experienced as a young Brigham Young Universy stunt who was kicked out for beg gay, and later durg the AIDS epimic of the ‘80s when he cid to e the box, he rri bs and piec of the history he’s kept. And there’s a dty block, a lifetime achievement award the Utah Pri Center gave him ’s the 2015 certifite, for outstandg ntributn, given to him by the Utah State Historil Society — which, Williams said, was the “first acknowledgment of [the existence] of a gay muny om a state agency. “I always felt that there’s gog to be a time where Utah’s gog to rewre history and say how much they loved gay people, Black people, people of lor and everythg else, ” Williams said.
“Very few ci n trace the orig of their gay muny, not only the origs, but who the people volved were, ” he of those journal entri have been chronicled Q Salt Lake Magaze and on his blog “This Day Gay Utah History. “I look back now on and was mostly to overe my homosexualy, ” Williams said of his nversn.
In high school, he said he remembers beg love wh a boy named John who didn’t love him heartbreak, and the general shame associated wh homosexualy at the time, ma life difficult.
MEET THE GAY COUPLE WHO MA HISTORY UTAH
“I was fairly relig and I thought, ‘This is not what God wanted me to be, ’ and everybody I knew that was gay California were Mormons. Homosexualy wasn’t somethg his fay talked about.
Once, he relled, he was upset about tellg a different boy that he was gay.
Williams said his mother tried to fort him, whout knowg he was gay, and the nversatn got awkward. “I had to fort her by not tellg her that her son was queer, ” he 1973, he started attendg Brigham Young Universy — the Provo llege owned by The Church of J Christ of Latter-day Sats — but was kicked out 1976, when the school learned he was his time at BYU, rerds show, the universy was performg shock therapy on stunts as a “gay cure” — somethg Latter-day Sat apostle Dall H.
3 LANDG SPOTS FOR FORMER UTAH JAZZ PLAYER RUDY GAY
Williams’s time at BYU, he said, was a “homophobic wch hunt perd” — and he said he knew of two “purg” of homosexuals om mp. Williams eventually was kicked out of BYU, whout gettg his teachg 1977, Williams did what many gay men the Latter-day Sat fah had done at the time: He got married to a woman, to “get back to the good grac of the church. … The church at that time was tellg you that marriage was a cure for homosexualy.
… They preached homosexualy was a s next to murr. “I never would have e to Utah and been a Utah gay historian if I hadn’t found the Mormon church, ” Williams said. The gay muny, stricken by grief, rallied together.
“The state wouldn’t do anythg, they wouldn’t allote om the health partment a dime for the gay muny, even for tn. ”Instead, Williams says all me om grassroots anizatns that the lol gay and lbian muny “we were dyg left and right, ” Williams said, he cid to chronicle the epimic.