In 1979, a gay Mormon presence appeared for the first time in the Los Angeles Pride parade, and in September of that year, a gay Mormon contingent joined the Washington D.C. March for Gay Rights.

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The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ offers another kind of support for queers who still feel connected to their religious roots. Founded in 1985 by Antonio Feliz, a former LDS Bishop, and other members of Affirmation who had been excommunicated from the LDS Church, the RCJC professes belief in benevolent Heavenly Parents who do not condemn homosexuality.

Following a long LDS tradition of belief in personal revelation of the word of God, the RCJC have their own holy book of scripture, titled Hidden Treasures and Promises, accept women in all church offices, and teach that gay sexuality is not sinful in the context of a loving relationship. The Church is believed to have about 500 members, with one ward (congregation) in Salt Lake City and members in California who have not yet been organized into wards.

Other Mormons find that their negative experiences within the Church compel them to make a complete break. These ex-Mormons may gain support from such websites as http://recoveringmormons.tribe, http://www.postmormon.org, and http://www.exmormons.com.

E-mail lists, such as TGI Mormons and Qsaints, offer gay, lesbian, transgender, and intersex people from Mormon backgrounds a space to connect with others who understand their issues.

The response to this queer activism from the LDS Church and its more uncompromising members has been predictably negative. While the official church position is one of compassionate censure, individual incidents demonstrate an atmosphere of intolerance.

In 2004, for example, gay photographer, and ex-Mormon, Don Farmer had several prints stolen from a Salt Lake City Community College Gay Pride art show. The photos, which showed pairs of young suit-and-tie-clad Mormon missionaries in erotic poses, had enraged many in the local LDS community and had been the subject of physical altercations before the theft.

In 2007, when the Soulforce Equality Ride, a Christian youth group that travels to Christian colleges to protest discrimination against glbtq students, made a stop at Brigham Young University, they were not allowed on campus, and several protesters were arrested.

Several films and plays have explored the subject of gays and the LDS Church, including most notably Tony Kushner's Angels in America, which opened on Broadway in 1993 and was made into a Mike Nichols film in 2003, and Latter Days, a 2004 film directed by C. Jay Cox. Both examine LDS culture through stories of love between Mormons and non-Mormons.

Evangelical Christians, who tend to be fundamentalists and socially conservative, have not been welcoming to glbtq people.

Many glbtq people reject a fixed definition of family imposed by society, and instead claim the right to define their own families as they choose.

Marches on Washington in support of the rights of glbtq people have been a significant part of the modern movement for equality.

McCarthyism, which attempted in the late 1940s and early 1950s to expunge Communists and fellow travelers from American public life, made homosexuals the chief scapegoats of the Cold War.

The New Right, which emerged during the last two decades of the twentieth century, combines evangelical Christian morality with a political agenda in opposition to glbtq equality.

Reparative therapy is a dangerously misguided attempt, supported by homophobic religious organizations, to change a person's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.

Historically, the Roman Catholic Church may be the institution most responsible for the suffering of individuals involved in same-sex sexual relationships.

Lesbian and gay couples have been fighting for the freedom to marry since the dawn of the modern glbtq struggle for equality; despite some success abroad, progress toward same-sex marriage in the United States has been slow.

The Southern Baptists have become the most intolerant of the major American religious denominations, especially (but not exclusively) for their opposition to equal rights for gay men and lesbians.

Controversial for defending sadomasochism and pornography, gender outlaw and sexual anarchist Patrick Califia, who recently underwent gender reassignment, is widely admired as a defender of individual freedom.

In addition to being a prize-winning playwright, Tony Kushner has become a celebrity spokesman for gay politics and AIDS activism.

Novelist Tom Spanbauer probes the darker undercurrents of sexuality, race, and violence while simultaneously using his unique prose style to meditate on and question received notions of time, subjectivity, and history.

In addition to the general risk factors for suicide, such as depression and substance abuse, glbtq people also face stressors such as discrimination and harassment, which put them at an increased risk for suicidal behavior.