A Republican Utah county commissioner and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has come out as gay via a video posted to social media.
"When I ran for office I made a commitment to be authentic and honest," Nathan Ivie, 40 wrote in a post on Facebook. "Today is a day to be honest, hopeful and trusting. Today is a day to follow the words of Dr. King and drive out darkness with light and drive out hate with love."
“There’s no easy way to say this," he says in the accompanying video. "I might as well just jump up and say it, I’m gay. That’s my reality."
The conservative said that he would like to “continue to serve my county as Utah County commissioner with all of my heart. I know there are haters in every area of our lives, but we cannot let that be what defines us as a community.”
Ivie said that he'd long struggled to come to terms with his sexuality: “I believed that there was something wrong with me and I fought from the beginning to find some way to change myself. That battle resulted in a failed suicide attempt when I was 22 years old.”
He recovered from the incident and “tried to live the life that was expected of me. The truth is, I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I felt I was living someone else’s life rather than my own.”
Informing followers that he and his wife had separated, he said he was determined to “move forward as a different kind of family to fulfill the responsibilities we took on together to our two amazing children.”.
“It’s OK to be different, it’s OK to live authentically. You can be gay and a Republican… You need to trust that people will love you for who you really are.”
