Archives West Finding Aid

This collection contains research for a project conducted while Dr. Horlacher was a doctoral student at Brigham Young University and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California. When he was a doctoral student, the BYU Institutional Review Board rejected Horlacher's proposal twice: once in November 2002 and again in March 2003. Unable to complete his research while affiliated with BYU, Horlacher turned the project over to Dr. Ronald L. Schow at Idaho State University. Horlacher resumed work on the project as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California. The results of his findings were published in "Coping with Injustice: A Developmental Model" a chapter in the book, Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice for All Families .

Materials include the original surveys administered by Dr. Horlacher between Fall 2002 and Winter 2003; a control survey of non-gay participants; follow-up surveys conducted between 2006 and 2007; correspondence with survey respondents, fellow researchers, and Utah State University Special Collections and Archives; Dr. Horlacher's original research proposal from BYU; and proposal reviews from BYU, ISU, and USC.

The original surveys are numbered as they were by Dr. Horlacher from 1 to 164. They are arranged from those that accept Mormonism completely and reject homosexual behavior of any kind (No. 1) to those that completely reject Mormonism and totally embrace their own homosexuality (No. 164). Surveys 1-39 were classified by Dr. Horlacher as "Strugglers" as they believe in Mormonism and reject homosexual behavior. Surveys numbered 40-132 are referred to as "Moderates." These are those who as accept a gay orientation but still believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. Surveys numbererd 133-164 are referred to as "Secular." They don't believe in Mormonism and they do accept their sexual orientation. Nearly half of the original correspondents completed follow-up surveys. They are denoted with an “F” after the number. Their numbers correspond to their originally assigned number except No. 182 which should actually be numbered No. 165 and included with the first round of surveys but was misordered and discovered too late.

Eighteen additional participants filled out surveys the second time they were administered. Nos. 165-183 (except no. 182) are similarly arranged from high LDS believing, low homosexuality accepting (no. 165) to those who rejected LDS beliefs totally and totally embraced their homosexual identity (No. 180). Nos. 181 and 183 were also added at the end and may fit better elsewhere between the extremes.

Finally, Dr. Horlacher administered surveys to 12 non-gay participants including parents, siblings, or friends of persons who were attracted to the same sex. They are denoted with an “S” before the number. Dr. Horlacher similarly arranged them from “orthodox LDS believers” at the low end of the scale (S1) to “rebels” at the high end (S12) who, in the words of Dr. Horlacher “accept gay people but reject Mormonism.”

See Box 4 Fd 5 for Dr. Horlacher’s description of his colletion.