Matt Easton says being gay is ‘who the Lord has made me’ in commencement speech at Utah’s Brigham Young University

Four minutes into valedictorian Matt Easton’s speech last week at Brigham Young University’s graduation, he made an unusually candid declaration for a commencement address – especially one at a Mormon school. He came out as gay.

“I stand before my family, friends and graduating class today to say that I am proud to be a gay son of God,” Easton said.

Cheers immediately erupted throughout the auditorium.

“I am not broken,” he continued, sounding a bit choked up. “I am loved and important in the plan of our great creator.”

Easton, who studied political science at the private college in Provo, Utah, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, later posted the whole speech to YouTube. It’s already been viewed over 170,000 times.

In the speech, he said being gay is “not who I thought I should be, but who the Lord has made me”, and that he’s grateful for the support system of family, friends and the BYU community for making it possible for him to be himself openly.

“Four years ago it would’ve been impossible for me to imagine that I’d come out to my entire college. It is a phenomenal feeling and it is a victory for me in and of itself.”

Easton celebrated progress that the university, which was founded in 1875, has made in recent years: “We have seen new buildings rise up, old policies change, a shift to our church”. Another especially exciting development, he noted, was the introduction of fully caffeinated Coca-Cola on campus.

The Mormon church recently reversed its 2015 policy that classified people in same-sex marriages as “apostates”, announcing that children of parents who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender may now be blessed and baptized. In 2007, BYU removed language from its honor code banning “advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct”. However, the current honor code is unclear on the rules regarding same-sex relationships, other than ruling that the same rule of chastity applies to students of all sexualities.

In his speech, Easton said having the courage to come out is the second of his personal victories at the school – the first was his freshman year, when a deer ran into him as he was walking across campus. Thereafter, he was known as “the deer boy”. He laughs about the incident – “It did not get to the best of me” – but it was traumatic enough that he had to get hernia surgery.

In conclusion, Easton said he hopes his declaration inspires others – at the school, but presumably also beyond it. “What are your victories the world needs to know?” he said.