Nearly two decades after his daughter, Elizabeth Smart , escaped the kidnappers who held her for nine months, Ed Smart is having another emotional and very public experience — coming out as gay. This weekend, he spoke about his journey at a conference in Lehi, Utah, calling the experience the "second miracle" of his life, the first being his daughter's safe return.His comments were an important statement on religion and sexuality, but he raised some eyebrows when he went on to compare his experience to his daughter's trauma. During the conference, Smart choked back tears often, showing just how emotional it is for him to talk about. “In my situation, I felt like being gay was something that was not acceptable. It was something that I didn’t want,” Smart said of his late-in-life experience with accepting his sexuality