"(Cruisers) don't identify as gay," said Michael Mitchell, who is executive director of the state's gay/lesbian political action committee Unity Utah. "It's a part of their lives they cut completely off, and just to throw them in jail does a great disservice to not only them but their families."

Living a lie

John, who asked that his last name not be printed, led a double life before separating from his wife in 1988 and living openly as a gay man. Before coming out of the closet, John appeared to be a typical Utah man. He was born a sixth-generation member of the LDS Church, served a proselyting mission and was married with four children. But under that shell, John, now 57, said he'd struggled with an attraction to men since age 3 or 4.

"I was just fascinated by the male body," he recalled.

He married his wife in September 1968 but struggled in private for two more decades with his ongoing attraction to men.

"I only knew two people who were gay, and I was not like them, so I figured, 'I'm not gay,' " he said.

John's struggle to identify with openly gay men is typical of many males his age, experts say.

Most of Buie's clients are middle-age men. Cruising among men in their 20s and younger is much less common now, he said. Buie and others in the gay community say that may be indicative of society's increased acceptance of homosexuality. John and other males his age grew up in an era when being openly gay wasn't widely accepted.

"Many of these older men didn't have permission to deal with sexuality as juveniles," Buie said.

John's first sexual encounter with another man came in April 1971. He was fresh out of the military and had a job reading gas meters in Salt Lake City. After finishing his job early one day, John strolled into a magazine shop.

"You could tell there was a group of guys there looking at the magazines and getting excited, and I found that quite exciting myself," he said.

After John left the shop about 20 minutes later, one of the men in the group followed him up the block.

"We ended up having an experience," John said, recalling the ensuing guilt.

"I didn't want to do it, yet the attraction was still there," he said. "It helped to perpetuate the secrecy and the isolation of that part of my life."

Before ending his marriage and active participation in the LDS Church, John had served as ward executive secretary for three different bishops, Elder's Quorum president and counselor in an Elder's Quorum presidency. Despite his sexual forays, he continued attending the temple, a place that allows only upstanding members who are following all of the church's standards and commandments — including shunning any homosexual relationships.