Dean Genth and Gary Swenson have no regrets.

Genth and Swenson, a married gay couple and sponsors of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, talked of their journey and struggles in coming out of the closet Tuesday night at Collegiate Presbyterian Church, 159 Sheldon Ave.

A quiz consisting of 24 pictures of individuals was presented to the audience of 12 to decide whether each was gay or lesbian. Members of the crowd took their best shots at trying to label each one correctly, but it was a trick question – Genth and Swenson revealed that all 24 individuals were gay.

“You cannot tell – absolutely cannot tell – by looking at someone if they are gay or straight,” Swenson said.

Genth said that when jokes, discriminatory or anti-gay attitudes are used, it hurts more than some people expect. You never know when the person you are talking to is gay, he said.

Genth and Swenson refer to each other as “husband” because they feel using the word “partner” doesn’t give an indication they are married and finally happy.

Both men began life looking for the “American dream” – a wife, two-and-a-half kids, a white picket fence and a dog. But what they were living in was a “dark, ugly place,” Genth said.

Both men spoke of their struggles with their life-changing experience of coming out to their loved ones, which included their wives of many years and three children each. Swenson also spoke of a strong Mormon religious background.

“For me, coming out, during most of my married life, meant that I would lose my job, would lose my family, would lose my church,” Swenson said. “[I] would lose absolutely everything.”

Genth and Swenson sponsor the PFLAG North Iowa Chapter, stationed in Mason City. Before this chapter opened, members of PFLAG had to travel almost two hours to the nearest other chapter, here in Ames.

The couple met in December 2002, when they both realized they were at the same point in their lives, where “playing the game, the charade” of being straight just left them miserable.

“The lie was killing us, destroying us,” Swenson said. “And for one to destroy our families at sometime in the future and that realization just kept coming on to us more and more.”

Worried that suicide or unhappiness were the only options if the continued on, both men ended their marriages.

“We’ve decided we’ve lived closeted long enough, and we were going to be open and honest – not push it in anyone’s faces that we were a same-sex couple,” Genth said. “But we weren’t going to hide it, either.”