ST. GEORGE, Utah  One bond among many of the members of the Gay-Straight Alliances in Utah high schools is a history of secrecy, depression and even self-loathing in a community where gay children have sometimes been shunned at church or kicked out of their homes.

A few years ago, Jason Osmanski came close to committing suicide. Today, he is the leader of the new Gay-Straight Alliance at Snow Canyon High School  one more step forward for the 17-year-old in an often torturous process of asserting his identity.

He was only 7, he said, when he realized that his crush on his best male friend was a deeper attraction. He was attending a Baptist church, where he heard that homosexuality was a sin, and as early as age 8, he recalled, “I believed that if I didn’t change, I’d go to hell.”

He prayed harder and went to church more, he said, and he tried punishing himself in hopes that it would make a difference. He snapped a rubber band on his wrist every time he “had these feelings,” he said, until at one point he bled.