Lupe Bartholomew and her son David Archuleta
“If I have to live without you
I don’t want to live forever
In someone else's heaven
So let 'em close the gates”
They are lines many parents in this space understand. For Lupe Bartholomew, they are the lyrics she inspired in her son David Archuleta’s new single, “Hell Together.” Once Lupe realized the depth of pain her son was experiencing at the crux of his faith transition, she made it clear she would navigate this road with him in words that resonate with many listeners:
“If they don't like the way you're made
Then they're not any better
If paradise is pressure
Oh, we'll go to Hell together”
However, this was not the initial response Lupe offered when David first came out as queer. Having had little known interaction with the LGBTQ+ community until the moment her son shared his news with her on a phone call at age 29, (after three failed engagements with women and years of trying to make the LDS church’s teachings work), Lupe admits it took her time to get to a place of understanding and affirmation. She is now intentional about sharing her side of the story of her recent decision to step away from the church in solidarity of her son and her newfound understanding, so that she might sit with others. In this space, she recognizes many might echo the lyric, “I'm afraid of letting go of the version of me that I used to know.”
That version grew up in Honduras, the youngest of four daughters born to loving parents who worked hard to provide a happy home amidst widespread poverty. Lupe and her sisters loved to sing. After some missionaries introduced their mom to the LDS faith and they were baptized, the Mayorga girls would often don matching dresses and sing at new members’ baptisms and other services, taking their show on the road. At a young age, Lupe was also an accomplished basketball player and champion free throw shooter on Honduras’ national team. When she was 15, her father’s job allowed the family to move to Miami, where the girls continued their missionary efforts, singing at baptisms and church events.
While in Florida, Lupe met a man from church. At the time, she didn’t attend much as she was working long shifts as a caregiver to help her family pay the bills. But as she became more involved with the young man, she also increased her involvement with the church. The two eventually took a bus to Salt Lake City to get married in the temple, then right back to Florida, where four of their five kids were born. There was a sixth child, but Lupe’s third pregnancy resulted in a full-term stillbirth, which devastated her. But with two young toddlers at home, she had no choice but to keep living, not wanting them to “see me crying in my bedroom all the time.”
The Archuletas traded the sun for the snow when Lupe’s then husband felt Utah would be a better place to raise the kids, surrounded by the influence of the church. They moved west to Bountiful and then Murray, UT, where they could walk to church instead of driving 30 minutes as they had in Florida. Lupe says they loved being surrounded by temples and the church culture. Having always wanted eight kids, Lupe especially loved the supportive environment for men to work and women to stay home with the children. When they were little, Lupe loved homeschooling and taught all of their kids to read by age four. As the children also inherited their mother’s pipes, music filled their home as she taught them to sing. Lupe admits she didn’t love to cook or bake, so instead they would treat their neighbors with Christmas carols at the holidays, and often go sing to residents of senior living facilities.
David was just 16 when he appeared on American Idol. Though he had won Star Search at age 12, this newfound fame was “exciting, but so unexpected.” Lupe continues, “I had trained my kids to sing for fun, not to be famous… And David had always been so shy.” While the fame was “cool” at first, it quickly became overwhelming for Lupe as it affected the family’s privacy with people taking pictures of their house, randomly knocking on their door, and leaving presents. When people at church would ask, “How’s your son?” Lupe would think, “Which one? I have two?” She recalls, “The rest of us kind of became invisible.”
Once American Idol launched David’s career, Lupe says he never really came home full-time after that, nor experienced the childhood many other teens get to. His father handled most of the travel with David, while Lupe stayed home with their other kids. And the rest of the world watched as David took bold actions that affirmed his faith—he served a mission in South America. After he returned, Lupe says, “I saw David praying the gay away—he was so righteous. I thought he’d be a general authority or something, he was so obedient and dedicated. He’d stay in a white shirt and tie on Sundays, listening to conference talks. And he was put on a pedestal by the church, like a posterchild.”
Lupe and her first husband divorced, yet she remained devoted to visiting the temple every week for guidance. It was there while praying that God would send someone who understood her needs that a name clearly entered her mind: “Dave.” The next day, she felt a strong presence of love in her living room so overwhelming she started crying. She now wonders if that might have been a spiritual force nudging the union. Although they’d only been out a few times, Dave Bartholomew turned out to be the man she would marry, and later get sealed to in the Salt Lake City temple. With their blended family, they now enjoy time with nine children and 18 grandkids whom Lupe cherishes, saying, “The love I feel for them is so strong it hurts sometimes.” Lupe and Dave have been happily married for ten years, and she now sees how he’s the perfect person for her in all the ways as they have navigated this road together. She has watched some friends’ husbands leave them after calling them “apostates” when they underwent faith transitions, and she appreciates how Dave has stuck by her side.
When Lupe’s son David first called to tell her he was gay, she expressed how his family will always love him and be there for him. But as Lupe had recently increased her own activity in the church after being disappointed several of her family members had pulled away, she was in a place of determination to be the strong one, the example, the one to “gather my eternal family.” When her daughters stopped attending, she appreciates how they supported her still going but scoffed when one day her daughter said, “Have fun” as Lupe made her way out the door to church. Lupe thought, “I’m not going there to have fun! I’m going there to work and save others!” Resolved to keeping one foot in the door with the church and the other with her family, Lupe reasoned she could still love her child no matter what while also believing all the teachings of her faith. This resulted in several challenging conversations with her son as she tried to convince him to backpedal his announcement. She says, “I was struggling with it because in my mind, we needed to obey the prophet, and what the prophet says, goes. And I reminded him how the youth of the church look up to him and how was that going to work?... I worried all these kids would lose their testimonies, and was concerned for the youth if David stepped away and came out as gay.”
Lupe says she encouraged him to try to work through things and figure out how to keep up with the thousands of people he’d been an example to. She recalls how when visiting home, he’d join her for church at her request, but eventually he expressed it was too painful to keep trying to show up. Around this time, Lupe started to notice things—how when she looked around her ward congregation, she did not see LGBTQ+ people in the crowd. While she had never been interested in delving into church history before, she learned some information that troubled her. While she had been planning to become a temple worker, she started to wonder how honestly she could answer some of the questions anymore as she deconstructed her faith.
And then David’s article in People magazine came out, which opened Lupe’s eyes to realize just how much her son was struggling “having been hurt so much, trying to take his life away, feeling it better to be dead than not be a good example or sinner.” The article that came out on November 1, 2022 shook Lupe, and on November 5 she wrote her bishop after having agreed to say prayers in sacrament meeting along with her husband, but now realizing she couldn’t do it emotionally (although she had always loved praying). She expressed:
“I’m writing this email with tears in my eyes because it hurts so much to make this decision… After careful thought, ponder and praying, we have decided that we’re going to step away from this lovely church and take a break. My family and I have worked so hard on callings, three of our kids served honorable missions and gave everything they had to preach the gospel to others. The reason why we need to take a moment away is because our wounded hearts need some time to heal from knowing not everyone is welcome in this church.”
Lupe’s letter continued to mention how church leadership at the highest level had made some off-putting comments to David that he found dismissive. She also included an excerpt from his interview with People magazine: "For my own mental health, I can't keep putting myself in a place where it's so conflicting where they say, ‘We love you so much, but at the same time, you must change who you are. Oh, you can't? Then we are going to ignore this problem’."
Lupe told her bishop, “It’s hard for us to believe that a loving Heavenly Father doesn’t welcome my son and others like him in this church if it feels to us they don’t fit the profile God's gospel needs to fit: rich and poor, white skin, dark skin, gays, lesbians, all need to be welcome. There are many of them who are beautiful and talented in the eyes of God, but they are not ‘worthy’ like we are.” Lupe then shared the parable in Matthew of the 99 sheep and how Christ always ministered to the one who “went astray.” The Bartholomew’s bishop replied respectfully, letting Lupe and Dave know they were needed and would be missed, but he respected their choice.
Since, Lupe has said her South Jordan, UT community still smiles and waves, yet respects their space and does not pressure them to attend church. Lupe loves teaching voice lessons at the Lupe Bartholomew Vocal Studio, spending time with her husband, and full time grand-motherhood. She tried to attend another church in Draper, but found they had similar views on LGBTQ and concluded, “If everyone is going to be talking about how LGBTQ don’t belong in the church, I don’t want religion in my life. I just want to love my family and move on.” In her deconstruction, she has learned how the Bible was mistranslated in some parts to conflate homosexuality with child abusers and says, “The poor LGBTQ community has been criticized for a misunderstanding. Now that I know LGBTQ people are the most wonderful, caring, fragile, loving and beautiful people, it breaks my heart. David hasn’t changed, he’s always been the same sweet spirit I raised. I know there’s a God and these kids are going to keep coming, like it or not. I now have talks with my nine-year-old grandchild about how these people need to be loved, not bullied. As parents, we need to train our next generation to be more loving.”
Lupe was touched when she received a box of supportive letters from the Mama Dragons after David came out. Together, they went through them and were moved by the outpouring of love. Lupe has enjoyed finding a new community of like-minded mothers who love their kids and prioritize their mental health above all else. Having been on both sides, she says she now sees and understands a variety of perspectives: the faithful side and the ex-Mormon community who often get criticized or called lazy learners or apostates. But Lupe says, “If you’ve never gone through a faith transition, you never know how hard it is. It’s not like you wake up one day and think ok, I want a different life! I’m still the same person. I used to be critical; now I’m not. I read stories of people not talking to their family because they left church. We don’t do that; we still need to be a family, united.”
Of inspiring David’s new song, “Hell Together,” Lupe recalls how David once told her, “When I sang the hymns for the church and did all the things for the church, I meant it.” She says, “I knew my child was not below me because I was staying in a church, so sarcastically, I said, ‘David if you’re going to hell, we’re all going with you.’ I can’t picture my kids in a lower place than me. How can I be higher than them? So I said, ‘We’re walking out with grace.’ That song made me cry when I heard it. He couldn’t have written a more perfect song to describe it. There’s no way I’ll be in a higher glory than my child. He did nothing wrong but shared that he was gay and wants to live an honest life. And he’s ready to move on, and now everyone knows.”
