Mom used to love reading the obits in the Salt Lake Tribune – especially the ones best described as “over the top.” I wonder what she would have made of this one? For my part, it’s a sad, even tragic story… and whoever felt they needed to mention that the subject “drifted from his standards” should be ashamed of themselves.  Because? Ew. Also, HIV and “Aids” are not two diseases, they are the virus that causes the disease, and the disease itself.

This man sounds like a lovely, talented person – how sad that he had to reject himself in order to be “happy” and acceptable in the society in which he lived.

The Salt Lake Tribune Obituary Notices

He loved music and acting and performed in theatres throughout the valley for over 30 years. His favorite role was of Ebenezer Scrooge-a role that changed his life. After graduating from Granger High School and serving an LDS mission in Paris, France, Scott drifted from his standards. During this period, he struggled with addiction and also contracted HIV and Aids, diseases which he survived for 21 years. In 1997, Scott was cast as the understudy for Scrooge in Hale Centre Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol.” During his first performance, Scott’s life profoundly changed. “I will have Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I shall live in the past, the present and the future, the Spirits of all three shall strive within me and I will not shut out the lessons they teach.” This was the beginning of an amazing transformation.

The “amazing transformation” was that he apparently decided not to be gay anymore, and made a big production of proposing to his future wife on stage before a large audience, and marrying. And thus, returning to the fold of the righteous as far as the rest of his family were concerned.

How sad.

As a commenter at City Weekly noted, “….he ‘married’ a beard, and his family [knew] it.”
The same commenter wondered if Scott had written the obit himself, the better to convince his family he really had changed. Even more so, “Ew.”