Evergreen International, Inc. was a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization[1] located in Salt Lake City, Utah[2] whose stated mission was to assist "people who want to diminish same-sex attractions and overcome homosexual behavior".[3] Evergreen supported the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Founded in 1989, Evergreen closed in 2014.[4]
Conferences
LDS church leaders spoke at the following Evergreen conferences:
2007 – Church seventy Douglas Callister spoke at an Evergreen conference and urged listeners to battle their challenge of "same-gender inclinations" and thoughts through prayer, fasting, and taking the sacrament.[5]
2009 – Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the First Quorum of the Seventy gave an address at the 19th annual Evergreen conference. Hafen said, "If you are faithful, on resurrection morning—and maybe even before then—you will rise with normal attractions for the opposite sex. Some of you may wonder if that doctrine is too good to be true. But Elder Dallin H. Oaks has said it MUST be true, because 'there is no fullness of joy in the next life without a family unit, including a husband and wife, and posterity.' And 'men (and women) are that they might have joy.'"[6]
2010 – Keith B. McMullin of the Presiding Bishopric addressed the 20th annual conference. McMullin counseled that "If someone seeking your help says to you, 'I am homosexual' or 'I am lesbian' or 'I am gay,' correct this miscasting. Heavenly Father does not speak of His children this way, and neither should we. It is simply not true. To speak this way sows seeds of doubt and deceit about who we are. It belittles, depreciates, and disparages the individual."[7] He further teaches that the "such limitations" as same-gender attraction won't exist after death, though "in and of itself it is neither evil nor sinful".[7]
Effectiveness
As many as 40% of Evergreen members were in heterosexual marriages.[8]Warren Throckmorton reviewed Understanding the meaning of change for married Latter-Day Saint men with histories of homosexual activity by J. W. Robinson. Robinson interviewed seven heterosexually married men who had been through Evergreen and previously identified as gay. They believed that they had a spiritual transformation that changed their orientation. They also stated that they were no longer troubled by feeling different or rejected by heterosexual men, emotional attraction to men, sexual attraction to men, feeling bad about same-sex desires, social isolation, or compulsive sexual thoughts and behaviors. Robinson found that their change came from a new understanding that prior same-sex attractions did not require them to be gay.[9]
Closure and transition to North Star
In January 2014, Evergreen International announced that it had closed and had merged some of its operations with North Star, a support group for LDS church members with same-sex attraction. North Star takes no position on the question of whether sexual orientation change is possible.[2][4][10]
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