A 12-Year-Old Girl Came Out to Her Mormon Church, and a Man Told Her to Stop 

I believe I was made the way I am, all parts of me, by my heavenly parents. They did not mess up when they gave me brown eyes, or when I was born bald. They did not mess up when they gave me freckles or when they made me to be gay.

Then she says something which seems crazy to have to affirm to a room full of adults:

I cannot make someone else gay. And being around me won’t make anyone else this way.

The Mormon Church is presently a little fuzzy on the gay rule-making. Last year, it took the official stance that you’re not allowed to do gay things, but you have permission to think gay thoughts. It’s when Savannah says, “I want to love myself and not to feel shame for being me” that a man (whom she identifies as the stake president) asks her to sit down.

Savannah spoke about her testimony in a podcast on queer Mormons, “I Like to Look for Rainbows”:

Savannah: …So, I wanted to share my testimony from the beginning of this year, and I kept asking and asking, and getting a “no,” because it would be—

Jerilyn: Who were you asking?

Savannah: Oh, my mom and dad, and they finally said yes, and we started writing my testimony, and we went through a couple of rough drafts, and by the time we finally made the perfect one, I was waiting until the next Fast Sunday, and when I finally did do my testimony, I got most of the way there, like, I only had a couple more sentences of a paragraph to read out loud, and I got cut off by my microphone being turned off by the stake president, and, yeah, and then, I was pretty sad and happy at the same time.

Afterward, she says, the stake president’s daughter told her that she disagrees with her dad. Savannah’s mom tells the Huffington Post that she is in awe.