PROVO — Author and former LDS Young Women leader Virginia Hinckley Pearce will deliver a keynote address this week at the third annual conference of North Star International, an independent group that supports Mormons who experience same-sex attraction.

The two-day conference, titled "Upon the Rock of Christ," begins Friday at 9 a.m. at the Provo Marriott with a keynote address by Alonzo Gaskill, BYU professor of church history and doctrine and co-author of the recent Oxford University Press book "Catholic and Mormon: A Theological Conversation," which he wrote with Stephen Webb, who died March 5.

Pearce will speak Saturday morning at 9. She served from 1992-97 as first counselor in the Young Women General Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the daugher of late LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley.

Other keynote speakers are Clay Olsen, co-founder of Fight the New Drug, and Eve Tushnet, an openly gay and celibate Catholic author and blogger.

North Star's website says it is a resource for Latter-day Saints who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria who desire to live in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines and values of the LDS Church. It also provides a resource for family, friends and ecclesiastical leaders.

An opening social for the conference will be held Thursday night. For a full schedule, visit conference.northstarlds.org/2016-conference/2016-schedule.

Email: twalch@deseretnews.com