Bad Mormon

“My parents were Mormon, but they weren’t weird. I wasn’t one of those run-of-the-mill Utah girls, I was a Carmel-by-the-Sea California girl, and I planned on living a life worthy of the distinction.”

Although Gay was raised in a family of devout Mormons, she grew up thinking of herself as distinct from the other members of the church. Gay’s insistence on this distinction reflects both her discomfort with the church and desire to stand out, two of her defining characteristics.

“We arrived on time, starched and stiff in our Sunday best, and sat attentive for all three hours. We’d come home hungry and happy and gather for a family meal of fork tender Crock-Pot roast, Rhodes rolls, and frozen green peas, eating and talking and laughing until our stomachs and hearts were overflowing with family togetherness.”

Criticisms of the Mormon church and the structure of Mormon families appear throughout the book. However, this passage reflects the many positive episodes that Gay includes of her early life in a Mormon family. Although she grew to question the church’s teaching, Gay nevertheless treasures the family time and feelings of togetherness that came from her family’s involvement with the church.

“I was thirteen, I had a pink phone in my bedroom shaped like the letter H, I listened to Yaz and Madonna and doubled up my Swatch watches. I was not prepared to stand across from the living prophet and follow his drill-team routine like an erratic windshield wiper that had gone absolutely haywire.”

Gay’s first experience in a Mormon ceremony comes at the age of 13, when her father is chosen as a driver for the church’s Prophet. The pop culture references in this passage contrast with the sacred purpose of the temple and demonstrate the ways in which Mormon rituals felt alien to Gay at this age, despite the fact that she had been raised in the church. The secrecy of the Mormon church regarding its rituals remains an important theme throughout the book.

“It was not the type of environment where you were free to be a good-time girl and regret it in the morning. You flashed your tits and someone told? You were going home in a body bag of shame and debt.”

In the first season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Gay was famously accused of being a “good time girl” by a castmate who suggested that Gay was known for flashing her breasts at parties. This passage suggests that Brigham Young University was not the type of place where that behavior would be tolerated, let alone allowed to be common knowledge. Gay’s criticisms of BYU are connected to her larger criticisms of what she views as the church’s culture of secrecy.

“Every part of my normal brain was saying, Uhhhhh, what in the world?

But then, as if on cue, my Mormon brain responded: But we are not of the world. We are of the divine, and this prayer circle is evidence that God’s ways will never align with our ways.”

Gay’s internal struggle between her desire to conform with the Mormon faith in which she was raised and her discomfort with the reality of the religion provides the central tension of her memoir. Her experience in the temple endowment ceremony represents a crucial moment in which Gay decides to lean into Mormon life full-heartedly despite her misgivings.

“‘They are watching us’ was all it took to remind us that if you dabble in the gray, the Lord always knows, and he immediately informs his priesthood leaders so that they can help you get back in line.”

Gay’s time at the Missionary Training Center on her mission is marked by a strong sense of observation. In this instance, a well-liked instructor was fired after gossip spread about him being gay. Later, this culture of surveillance and reporting made it difficult for Gay to connect with her peers on the mission.

“The women would then come back to us with their sacred white garment top underneath their purple bra, and we would breathe a sigh of relief: all was right and true. We were fixing the church in France.”

Gay’s memoir is marked by the sarcastic, cavalier tone she uses to write about the sacred secrets and rituals of the Mormon church. Although she wore Mormon undergarments for over a decade, the tone of this passage suggests that she no longer considers the garments to be holy and above reproach.

“This woman trusted us to do therapy on her child because we were the only ones who were willing and hopeful enough to try. We understood the importance of repeated patterns and rituals. That performing these things with exactness held the keys to salvation.”

Although Gay is often critical of the Mormon church’s restrictions on women and the strangeness of some of its rituals, she retains a strong sense of empathy for people within the church. This passage demonstrates her belief in the value of the rituals inherent to the Mormon community of faith. Although she believes the therapy in question is harmful, she understands the impulse to perform rituals.

“I wanted to say, ‘I know you, because I was you […] And what you hold sacred I held sacred. And if one day you realize that you want to leave all of this, you can. And you can come find me and I’ll still know you. And I’ll help you.”

This passage reflects Gay’s continued affection for Mormonism, despite her departure from and obvious criticisms of the church. The sight of a young missionary struggling to conform to the strict guidelines of the MTC causes her to reflect fondly on her own mission, and to reaffirm her emotional connection with her Mormon heritage.

“Mormons are as devout as the men and women in Borough Park or on Bedford Avenue with their yarmulkes, their payot, their wigs to cover their hair. We just hide it from the world. We are zealots on the inside, masquerading as good old-fashioned, ‘God bless America,’ go-with-the-flow soccer moms and dads.”

In this passage, Gay compares Mormon communities to Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, New York, arguing that, while most Mormons are less visibly religious that Orthodox Jews, they are equally zealous in their faith. The comparison highlights the hidden nature of Mormon religious practices and rituals and the church’s insistence on secrecy.

“In the faith, I knew there were only enough lifeboats to take half the women and children after all the men were rescued. Billy was my shot, he was my life preserver. And no matter how I felt, no matter the little, tiny voice and the muffled white noise, I wasn’t going to say no. I wasn’t going to drown.”

From the earliest introduction to her relationship with Billy, Gay is clear that she married him because she felt that she needed to be married, rather than because she loved him. The use of the lifeboat metaphor in this passage suggests that this is a life-and-death decision for Gay, who believes that her survival as a Mormon woman requires a husband. As she argues elsewhere, salvation for Mormon women also depends on being married.

“Overnight, I went from safeguarding my virginity as my most sacred treasure to highlighting passages out of a book about faking an orgasm so that my husband never felt inadequate.”

Throughout her memoir, Gay criticizes The Strictly Prescribed Roles for Women and Girls in the Mormon Faith. In this passage, she highlights the 180-degree shift that happens after marriage: while Church doctrine previously emphasized the importance of her purity and virginity, she is now expected to do everything in her power to satisfy her husband sexually. Gay argues that this dramatic shift made her wedding night a disappointment, centering her husband’s pleasure while disregarding her own.

“I didn’t need to worry about my own life anymore, because I didn’t really have my own life anymore. I was a wife. A plus-one to the patriarchy that ruled and reigned. I was his problem now. And the thought was thrilling and terrifying.”

Before her marriage, Gay ran a successful business and had an active social life—qualities that the memoir suggests initially drew Billy to her. However, after marriage, Gay felt she was expected to drop her own life and hobbies in order to support his. Although she was raised believing this was the formula for a successful marriage, Gay quickly realizes that she finds it dissatisfying, highlighting her thematic engagement with Expectation Versus Reality in Mormon Marriage.

“This was the life for which she was assigned. Choice, autonomy, independence were all secondary to the throne and the kingdom she was inheriting. And I was willing to abdicate my throne for just a singular moment of true sovereignty and recognition. The absurdity of it all had me spinning.”

The baptism of Gay’s eight-year-old daughter Ashley represents a turning point in both her marriage and her relationship with the Mormon church. Gay’s disagreements with her husband spur a fight that ends with Billy threatening to move out. For Gay, the realization that her daughter’s baptism could lead her to an equally disappointing marriage prompts her to question her own faith and the spiritual legacy she’s passing on to her children.

“‘He took the boat out with his friends and a bunch of single girls,’ my friend reported. ‘They called to ask me if he was still married to you.’ I felt the hot shame flood my cheeks. I was livid. He was boating? I was raising his three little girls and crying in the shower so they wouldn’t hear me and he was…boating?”

This passage reiterates the memoir’s criticism of the gendered expectations set for Mormon marriages. While they’re still married, Billy feels confident that he can do whatever he wants while Gay takes care of their children. When Billy’s indiscretions are exposed, Gay feels shame, as if his behavior is her responsibility. The inequality inherent in their dynamic catalyzes Gay’s decision to leave her marriage.

“I didn’t want the current version of who he was, it was too difficult, too incompatible, too dismissive, but I wanted to stay married and I wanted to grow old with the father of my children. I just wanted the father of my children to be a different man.”

Because she was raised believing that marriage and motherhood were the highest achievements to which women should aspire, Gay’s indoctrinated instincts tell her that no amount of bad behavior on Billy’s part could justify a divorce. As she grapples with the expectations of her faith and her desire for freedom, Gay realizes that the reality of her marriage will never be what she wants.

“While I was gone, he had gone through all his drawers and his closet in order to collect more things. He was preparing to leave, loading things into his car, as the girls ran around with their diapers full, bellies empty, and snot running down their cherubic faces […] The things I valued were of little worth to him. Our priorities were different, our lived experiences foreign.”

Throughout their separation, Gay gives Billy multiple opportunities to return to the family and act like the father and husband she wants him to be. In this instance, he uses time alone at the house with their daughters to pack up his belongings in order to continue his life without them. The visceral image of their neglected daughters shocks Heather enough that she accepts the divorce.

“First they filed a charge of DUI metabolite, only to dismiss it and then refile a charge of DUI, which they then reduced to a charge of Reckless Driving. In 2012, the legal limit for drinking and driving was 0.08 BAC, and even though I tested well underneath that at 0.05, filing charges was still at the officer’s discretion. It felt like a horrible black mark on my soul.”

Although Gay shares a number of private details about her life, the chapter detailing her DUI arrest is deliberately vague, providing only bare details. She does not reveal what caused her to be pulled over, or what drugs led her to be charged with DUI metabolite. The fact that drinking is forbidden for Mormons provides context for her hesitance to discuss details of the arrest.

“The Standard of Truth had been newly erected in me—persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame—but I was determined and destined to go forth boldly, nobly, and independently for the sake of Ashley, Georgia, and Annabelle.”

This passage demonstrates the extent to which Mormon patterns of thinking and Mormon orthodoxy influenced Gay’s worldview. Even as she gives up on her dream of being the perfect Mormon wife and mother, she uses the Mormon Standard of Truth (a relic of her time as a missionary) in thinking about her life moving forward without Billy.

“We make it our mission to alleviate all the anxieties that come with self-care. […] It’s your appearance, the most sacred part of your identity.”

The importance of self-acceptance is an important thematic concern across the memoir. For Gay, improving one’s physical appearance is a form of self-care that she frames as central to self-acceptance. Gay’s involvement in the beauty industry ultimately opens doors for her in the world of reality television.

“This casting process was my dress rehearsal. I was auditioning for the role of a lifetime: myself, no longer hiding behind the curtain of Mormonism.”

The process of being cast for The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City forces Gay to reckon with the reality of her life as a single, divorced businesswoman. Pitching this version of herself allows Gay to try-on a new identity before fully committing to it. She later argues that the show empowered her to leave the church for good.

“Instinctively, I knew that I’d never be the housewife I had always wanted to be by the church’s standards. But now, I had the opportunity to reclaim the title on my own terms. The only qualification was a simple, four-letter word: real.”

Gay explicitly depicts the Real Housewives franchise as filling the void left by the Mormon church after her divorce. In this passage, she suggests that her failure as a Mormon housewife is what allowed her to be successful as a Real Housewife on reality television.

“If they stayed Mormon, as I had raised them, I would be cut out of the major milestones of their life. I would never see them get married. I wouldn’t be a part of their eternal family. If I left the church to give my daughters autonomy and choice, that choice could be one that ultimately excluded me from their lives.”

This passage is reflective of Gay’s larger argument that the restrictions and secrecy of the church make it difficult for people outside the church to meaningfully connect with non-members. In this case, leaving the church excludes Gay from sacred temple ceremonies such as marriages. Gay includes this detail, highlighting the stakes of her decision to leave the church even if her daughters choose not to—underscoring The Importance of Self-determination in her journey.