SITTING in a French restaurant on one of their regular double dates, the two married couples enjoy an animated conversation covering the usual small talk about jobs, sports and the challenge of parenting.
The mood lightens when a cute male server approaches the table to take their order. But it’s the husbands — not the wives — who start to flirt with him, suggestively joking that he milk a goat by hand to make cheese for their salads.
“Well, he’s a very good-looking guy,” gushes Jeff Bennion, 44, as he and his buddy, Pret Dahlgren, 32, eye the hunky specimen returning to the kitchen.
Far from being shocked or offended, Jeff’s other half, Tanya, 42, and Pret’s spouse, Megan, 32, roll their eyes in amusement.
“Are we going home together or what?” Tanya jokes, half-expecting Jeff to ask for the waiter’s number when the men check him out yet again after their meals arrive.
Mischievous banter like this, as revealed in the upcoming TLC documentary My Husband’s Not Gay, is common in the lives of the Bennion and Dahlgren families, two of three Mormon households who showcase their unconventional marriages for the one-off reality show.
TLC has faced major backlash from gay rights groups who say the show “promotes the false and dangerous idea that gay people can and should choose to be straight in order to be part of their faith.”
More than 73,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for the show’s cancellation. Critics say the show reflects Mormonism’s deeply-rooted homophobia.
The husbands, all of whom spoke openly with their wives to The New York Post, readily admit that they are sexually attracted to other men, yet deny ever acting on those impulses.
It’s an aspect of their personalities they term “same sex attraction,” or SSA, rather than gay or bisexual.
Their wives stand by them 100 per cent, claiming their marriages — all of which have produced kids and involve plenty of action in the bedroom — are much stronger because they acknowledge the issue, rather than sweep it under the carpet.
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