Three days later they found the note on Stuart's bed, recounting how "throughout my life, despite all the pain I endured, I always trusted in God and hoped for the best. This hope fed my desire to live. Now, however, I have become convinced that my anxieties will never be resolved. . . . As I am incapable of resolving them myself, I have decided to end them in the only way I know will work. I must remove the chains of my mortality."

Stuart's body was found outside an LDS stake center later that day, a gun lying next to him. Until Feb. 25, 2000, his secret had been kept. With a gunshot, his story became national news just days before the vote in California, spotlighting a subject that has been whispered about but not widely discussed among the ranks of ordinary Latter-day Saints.

In their living room, the Matises have hung a rendering of a young man who represents their son, dressed in a collared shirt with sleeves rolled up, moving up a stairway toward heaven and reaching back to other young men with outstretched arms. Other figures above him reach out as well, looking to draw the anguished to a place of peace.

The couple hopes their effort to reach out to the many who are as tormented as their son will be seen for what it is: a willing embrace of those who are shunned or are isolated by fear that they will be found out. In February, they invited Ty Mansfield and his friends to celebrate the book's publication at their home. More than half of the 65 young men who showed up were gay Latter-day Saints.

"We had dinner for them. Even after Ty left, they didn't want to go," Marilyn remembers. The group found the family piano and began singing LDS hymns "with the sweetest spirit."

"If people could just have been here seeing them sing together with tears in their eyes. I got e-mails and calls afterward saying they had felt loved. That's really all they want."

After the gathering, one young man approached Fred and asked, "Do you do this often? I would like to come here more."

"They felt relaxed, like people were not looking at them in any critical way," Fred remembers.

Following their son's death, they were contacted by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve, who asked to meet with them. They spent two hours talking about Stuart's experience and what they have learned since. They have also talked at length with Elder Cecil Samuelson of the Quorums of the Seventy, who serves as president of BYU. "Several of these young men have gone to him and he has given them time," they said, adding they believe top church leaders have great compassion for those who struggle.

At a recent BYU Women's Conference workshop on same-sex attraction, presenter David Pruden, who serves as executive director of Evergreen International — an LDS-based program that helps clients with same-sex attraction — told the audience that LDS therapists estimate from 2 to 4 percent of LDS membership, or about 400,000 people, experience same-gender attraction.