We support equal marriage rights and value our gay friends.

I curtailed church attendance some months ago. While I love the people of my ward and would gladly take a bullet for many of them, I can’t imagine rejoining them any day soon. In that regard I know what people are thinking. I’m sure that when my name comes up in conversation, some sigh and say I’ve given up a heavenly reward to feed a petty objection. They have, no doubt, assumed that anger and pride are what’s keeping me from God’s good grace and that the church’s support of Proposition 8 was at the root of my small-mindedness.

While I certainly opposed Prop 8, I was never angry with the church’s position. Rather, from the mix of emotions I’d felt at the time—shock and embarrassment among them—the one feeling that emerged most dominant was an overwhelming sorrow. As someone who has suffered long episodes of depression, I had to put distance between myself and the church, if for no other reason than to protect my health. My reckoning was this: If God really wants gay men and woman to miss out on the most growth-promoting and love-inspiring of human relationships, I will accept the consequences of not worshiping Him.

That being said, nothing Christ ever taught gives me reason to fear.

I, like many young LDS men and women, fulfilled a proselytizing mission for the church. In my case, however, there was no burning conviction that I was doing God’s work. I could have easily declined the call, since my parents didn’t share my devotion and were alarmed, even upset, by my decision. But I went eagerly, hoping and believing that by my efforts the truth would be revealed to me—that everything I’d been taught would piece together like a finished puzzle and express itself as logical, beautiful and perfect. Yet by the end of my mission, that hadn’t happened. Neither has it happened since.

Instead, it became clear to me that the truth is far more complicated than I, or any mortal, can comprehend, which is why God said, “Let there be light,” instead of, “Let the universe be filled homogeneously and isotropically with a high energy density.” In this way, I liken the words of the prophets to first grade readers that point us in the right direction but leave for us a world of learning ahead. With respect to the teachings of the LDS church, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t accept two primary claims supporting it as God’s only “true” religion: namely that the church was led by a prophet and it possessed additional scriptures that revealed more of the mind of God. Nevertheless, the church seemed to offer a helpful—if not imperfect—rule of thumb as to how people should live and I supported it on that basis. Now, I no longer feel that way, but Prop 8 was only one of many reasons leading me there.

To me, Christianity should conform to Jesus’s teachings and not some lesser throwback to Judaism. In this failing, the LDS Church is not alone, but that doesn’t make it right. Its belief in blood atonement, for instance, harkens more to Old Testament justice and animal sacrifice than Christ’s admonition to forgive. The many Mormon scriptural references that describe God’s nature as vengeful and jealous smacks less of John than Leviticus. As a person of color, I’m offended that God cursed his wayward Book of Mormon children with a dark skin and called them loathsome, just like He’d done in Genesis. The numerous oaths Mormons take (and they know what I’m taking about) is consistent with Israelite practice, but is counter to Christ’s directive to “swear not at all.” The prohibition against gay marriage is an extension of the Mosaic Law’s demand to stone homosexuals—not to mention the LDS Church’s early restrictions against miscegenation—but it’s inconsistent with Christ’s ideal of love unfeigned. On this point I could go on and on, but to summarize: Jesus wants us to be better than the Ten Commandments, yet we remain more Judeo than Christian. And while the points I’ve raised may seem minor, they sum to an intolerant worldview that causes its followers to be motivated by fear and a loathing for the very human attributes God imbues in us.

If the church would grant me a wish, I would ask it to eliminate the phrase Mormons everywhere teach their children to repeat like a poor affirmation: I know the church is true. The sentiment not only leads to self-deception, but it runs counter to the intersection of two of the church’s most important beliefs, that: 1) we came to earth, in part, to develop faith and 2) faith is not a perfect knowledge. If we took these two beliefs to heart—embracing uncertainty as a necessary human condition that demands humility and eschews judgment—we would see our dogmatism for what it is: a silly kind of boastful swagger unbecoming of Christ’s disciples. If we were to do that, we might learn to love unconditionally and be the better angels inside of us.

And here’s a final note. If we did practice that kind of humble and non-judgmental faith, we would pray fervently that God, in His infinite wisdom, would make us instruments in His hands to help His gay sons and daughters find solace and a place of welcome somewhere. We would pray that they find joy, not to mention alternatives to what seems like an epidemic of suicide. Unfortunately, they won’t find that in the Mormon Church—not today—where prayers are never uttered in their behalf, but where that adage, “We love the sinner, but hate the sin,” rings as often as it is hollow and hackneyed.

(For more, see www.newchristianethics.blogspot.com)

Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of man kind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own … The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional ‘do-gooder,’ who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others—with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.”(The Proper Role of Government, Ezra T. Benson)

I spent 30 years in a church which taught me that nothing was more sacred than my agency - my right to choose how I would live my life. I was taught that it was Satan’s plan to force people to live a righteous life.

The LDS Church also promised me that it would never get involved in political matters, and we were always only encouraged to get out and vote according to our own conscience. They lied.

They can certainly lead by example, and teach their own members how they should live. But the law states that there should be a separation between Church and State. It is wrong for any religion to impose their views on the rest of society.

The 11th Article of Faith reads:

“We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”

They certainly have no problems claiming the first part of this Article of Faith, but they seem to have a major problem with believing in the second part of it. Do they truly allow all men that same privilege? It doesn’t look like it to me.

The degree to which the LDS Church became involved in this political campaign both shocked and appalled me. My integrity and my conscience will no longer allow me to support this organization, so I have sent in my formal resignation.

I have since learned just how involved the Church was in fighting the civil rights of women, blacks, and even mixed-race marriages in the past. And now they fight the rights of gays and lesbians as well.

I will no longer be associated with this bigoted organization. Jesus sought out and loved those who were rejected by society. The LDS Church shuns them. It simply cannot be God’s true church, and I will not accept it, or the Mormon god as such.

It feels wonderful to be free of the box that I once lived in. I didn’t even realize that I was in a box, until I left. I am finally at peace.

I want my name removed from the records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints immediately. I can no longer stand to be associated with this organization and its anti-gay paranoia and lies. Those in the local congregation in Vermont have been wonderful, but the leadership in Salt Lake has politicized the church as an organization in such drastic and hateful ways that I can no longer be guilty of the hypocrisy that would be required to keep me a member.

While churches should take stands on moral issues, the extremist measures taken to advance Proposition 8 in California by church leaders, and the mindless following of church members, has moved the church from proclaiming its views to persecuting people for their marriage practices. I have watched some of the best people I know turn into hateful, venom-spewing bigots because they feel that that is what God is ordering them to do through the prophet.

All summer long, meetings in the wards I attended in California were co-opted by this hateful campaign of fear and lies, and it was disgusting to hear so many formerly honest people working on ways to break the spirit of the tax laws but keep to the letter of them, and disseminating information that was deceitful – like the “Six Consequences if Prop. 8 Fails.” It makes me sick to know that the church, through its tax exemption, is being subsidized by the people and families that it has set out to destroy, and that those people not only have to find ways to survive emotionally in the climate of fear you push, but that they have no choice but to pay the church’s share of the national tax burden or be hauled into court by the IRS.

The church broadcast on October 8th was disgusting, with Elder Ballard and Elder Clayton speaking of love and spreading hate, especially to the youth of the church. Salt Lake certainly has enough lawyers to know that the issues as presented there were deceptive at best and out-right lies at worst. It proved that the leadership of the Church will do anything to win its political aims, no matter how much hatred they stir up against innocent people, how many lies they have to push on people who don’t know better, and how much fear they send out into the world to get their cruel agenda funded. Utah has the highest teen suicide rate in the country mainly because the church’s pathological obsession with persecuting gays tells those kids that their parents would rather see them safely dead than to be what they are as the Lord made them and find love and companionship.

Mormons speak of their healthful lifestyle and yes, you have healthy lungs and healthy livers and longer lifespans than other American groups, but Utah leads the nation not only in teen suicides, but also in bankruptcy filings almost every year, it has the highest rate of anti-depressant prescriptions, and the highest per capita subscription to online pornography in the country. Your society has enough sickness in it that it has no business calling on others to change their ways, and taking choices away from people because you think their choices are bad for them. When the day has come that I have to choose between being a Christian and being a Mormon, I’m going to be a Christian.

Catholics and evangelicals have long despised Mormons and proselytized against them, but were gleeful at accepting your money and time to take marriage away from loving families. You celebrate your new acceptance among the other Christian denominations, but the truth is that the friends you’ve lost aren’t coming back, and your new friends won’t stand by you. Everyone I know who has left over this has been a returned missionary and a teacher in the church, and some were my companions on the 1997 pioneer re-enactment that generated so much positive publicity for you. We’re the ones who can’t stomach supporting an institution that takes a gospel of love and twists it to feed the bigotry of socially insulated, elderly leaders who don’t know any gay people because gay Mormons kill themselves or leave or live closeted lives of self-loathing.

This topic that you obsess over is unmentioned by Christ in his earthly ministry, and I’ve never seen anything Joseph Smith said about it, either, yet it is so important to you that it is the only subject on which you’ve sent your members campaigning in the streets for and emptying their wallets for within my adult lifetime. What Joseph Smith did say, emphatically, was that it is wrong and dangerous to allow religious groups to write their preferences into the laws, but that is exactly what you have done by pushing Prop. 22 a few years ago and Prop. 8 this year, and next year with the votes across the country against children being placed in foster care or adopted by families headed by gay parents.

My family was among those who were driven out of America into the Western Territories by other so-called Christians who felt that they not only had a right, but a religious duty to persecute them, so Mormons are the last group in this country who should be doing the same to others. Nobody knows better how far that kind of hatred can go, and nobody has less excuse for the vicious, patently un-Christian persecution the church is engaging in. I am through with that institution.

Kathy Stickel

A few years ago, I resigned my membership in the LDS Church. The reasons are many, however I was not offended nor did I have a desire to live a life void of values and spirituality.

As I grew and changed, I came to understand that I needed to live a more authentic life, with my beliefs grounded in honesty. No person or organization is perfect, but a testimony must be based on all the facts, and one must be allowed to doubt and question, so that truth is indeed part of the foundation of one’s hope.

I could no longer answer the temple recommend questions honestly that ours was the one true church on the face of the earth. This was my revelation: that to use our agency and make decisions out of love and not fear brings us closer to our Heavenly Father. My faith is strengthened knowing I can listen to and trust My own Voice. I do not believe that Christ’s Church would exclude any person. No exceptions. I feel the Church has lost sight of what is really important by putting their political ambitions above members of their own Faith. There are thousands of Gay members in and sadly, now, out of the church who have devoted their lives, love, money and time to the Church. I say, proudly now, without shame, that I am one of them.

Religious organizations should be less concerned about losing their freedoms and more concerned about losing their own members. I have lost respect for the Leaders of the Church. From the pulpit, they preach fear and bigotry in sweet tones. There is no Gay Agenda. Marriage and Family will not be destroyed by other people who are trying to live and love and be together as families. Love builds and can create. Satan wants to destroy the family? Really? Who gives him that much power? Only those, who are afraid and can’t follow their own truth and light.

Donna J. Nagel

I was always the broken one. The one they wanted to fix or make better. I never understood why. I was born to a very disfunctional mom and that made me the project of the family. Past from one reletive to another. Till finally my uncles family took me in after ” praying for an answer” I went to live with them two years after my dear grandfather and the only one that every understood me had past away.
I was raised in a church i never understood and was forced fed a set of rules I couldn’t grasp. I was always trying to fit some mold and look at as the black sheep of the family. Not only uncomfortable in my own skin but i felt like a liar every time i sat in the church bench..arms folded neatly.
always compared to my other siblings, a;ways the one that needed to pray more, do more. so I left home when I was 18 and met a nice missionary. He went home and called me when he was done. A week before marrying him he admitted to not being in love with me but felt like we had no other choice. We were married 10 years and had two amazing children. Five years into the relation ship we both realized that we were living a lie and i began sleeping on the couch… Five years after that we couldnt live the lie any more. I went to the bishop many times and was told repent, pray..repeat. After my divorce i moved home and thought I could handle being near my parents. The ones that “save” me fell back inti that pattern. I had to wak up and realize I was never broken just hiding. I am now in an amazing relationship with a woman who treats me and my children like gold. Their father, before he passed away told me he always knew and was happy i finally saw who i was. My parents choose not to speak to me but i know that they love me, no matter how broken thay think i am. And me? I am happy with the little cracks.. thats where I like it most. I am perfectly unperfect.

Dear Brethren,

I am writing another letter after the passing of prop. 8. I am struggling to understand why it is taking so long for you to tell the full story about your involvement in the campaign. I also struggle to understand your lack of movement on the Common Ground Campaign. Looking at your statements in “The Divine Institution of Marriage” your lack of involvement looks like this statement was never meant “The Church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights,”.

I go back to the huge amount of prejudice that undeniably exist in the church. I see hateful comments said in every ward I have ever attended. I know personally Mormon homosexuals that have never acted on their feelings and yet they are encouraged to be secretive about who they are. They painfully attend church afraid that their fellow ward members will reject them if they find out. If the church’s position is truly there is not sin in the feelings of homosexuality why than do we put up with this kind of bigotry. Also, if the church truly “does not condone any kind of hostility towards homosexual men and women”, why do you not act to stop the hostility these members face every time they come to church. We have seen your ability to mobilize millions of dollars, if your words are true why do you sit and let these members experience hostility and why to you let so many members believe they should fight the Common Ground bills in Utah when they so clearly support what you said in the “Divine Institution of Marriage”.

Thank you,
Gail F. Bartholomew

In their attempt to exempt themselves from California’s campaign finance laws, Yes on 8 took their case to Federal Court and lost. It’s a good thing for us they did.
Yesterday, the LDS Church finally released their accounting of their donations to Yes on 8. It totaled over $180,000. It’s a far cry from their previously reported $2000. Even the new amount could be arguably low if one were to consider the market value of the media the Church produced. It is very likely they only counted the hourly rate of the employees that created the material.
But even so, weren’t we told when Yes on 8 went to court that all donations $1000 or more had been reported?
In fact, even in their press release regarding the case poses this Q&A.
“Isn’t this an attempt to shield large donors to Prop 8 from the public?
No. All donors of $1,000 or above have already been disclosed, as have all donors of $100 or more as of October 18, 2008. Only disclosure of those donors of $100 to $999 who contributed since October 18, 2008 are impacted.”
We knew the Church had more disclosures to file. When Fred Karger filed a complaint with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission regarding the Church’s seemingly modest filing, a spokesperson for the LDS Church said they had until Jan 31 to file. Surely the Yes on 8 Campaign, in their constant collusion with the LDS Church knew this was coming.
So that begs the question, exactly who was Yes on 8 seeking to protect by filing for an exemption of disclosure? Was it really about the little donors of $100 or was it to protect the LDS Church from even more bad PR?

To Whom It May Concern:

[The original letter contains 5 paragraphs of standard legal jargon requesting official name removal.]

As stated above, I have given my resignation much thought and prayer. Inspired by the great Reformer, Martin Luther, my original intent was to submit a list of doctrinal issues that I did not find acceptable or compatible with my beliefs as a child of God. I soon realized however, that the composition of my own “95 Theses” was bearing more fruit for my own spiritual evolution than it ever would as protest and demand for reform of LDS theology. Nor do I truly believe that anyone at the church headquarters would even give the list any notice or attention.

So, today it is a much simpler letter that I write. Rather than a treatise on theology and dogma, I write a letter from the heart. Quite simply, I can no longer affirm that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has any direct revelation from God or that the church is acting justly in the sacred duty of representing the Jesus Christ whom I adore. It is quite obvious that everything that the church teaches and stands for, is for naught if it can not truly represent the teachings of Jesus Christ in every aspect and attribute, every jot and tittle, every word and deed. If it does not receive direction from God, then its teachings are without basis or merit, its assurances are dead and pointless, and its promises are empty and vain.

While there have been many horrific evidences shown in the history of the church to stand as the basis for my assertions above, none does so with more audacity than the church’s recent endorsement and subsequent involvement in the passage of California’s Proposition 8.

It is without question, pure spiritual barbarism and hypocrisy for a church to claim to represent Jesus Christ himself, while at the same time attempting to remove any and all possibilities from a minority to experience the very thing which the church teaches can bring the most happiness in our mortal realm: marriage. To support such a Proposition is in blatant disregard for one of the most basic teachings in not only Mormonism, but all of Christianity: The Golden Rule.

To add insult to injury, it is even more unfortunate to realize that the church originally sought to practice its own non-traditional definition of marriage. Yet it now persecutes and works to deny another minority group of people for doing the same. The majority of the culture at that time insisted that the Mormon definition of marriage was sinful and wrong. Yet the Mormon people begged and pleaded for equality, patience, and understanding. In fact, it was most likely this severe persecution for its non-traditional definition of marriage which inspired the 11th Article of Faith, a simple rephrasing of The Golden Rule. I marvel at how loudly we cry for justice to be served and equity to be sought when we are the persecuted. Then, as the sands of time cover our humility and we rise to recognition and fame, our cries for justice as a minority, transform into dictatorial commands to conform as the majority.

It is my hope that my words to you today may be as a record and testament before God, that I can no longer be part of an organization that actively seeks to remove fundamental human rights of equality and happiness from anyone, especially from an oft persecuted minority. Instead, I seek to associate with those who would fight for truth and right. I seek to nurture my spirituality with those who stand for equality and justice. Most of all, I seek to follow those people who in true humility, exemplify the love of the Master by helping ALL of his children to enjoy ALL of his blessings.

In Sincerity,

Aaron J. Cloward

[Note: I made a video interview with my mom (who is also lesbian) about our resignations and posted it to my blog if you are interested in seeing it. The address is http://masach.wordpress.com]

Rear View Mirror

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda seem to be a pretty good mantra for my views into the past of being LDS. It all seems so surreal in the rearview mirror that now, eight years later it feels a little strange to think I EVER belonged. (Do the Wayne’s World dream move…. dooodooodooodoo, dooodooodoodoo)

When you’re born in the LDS church you are in essence drafted. Basic survival, family approval, support all depend on ones ability to get along, keep the machine going, and keeping peace. I was the seventh of eight kids, born to a truely cruel and abusive schitzophrenic chain smoking Jack Mormon father, and the third generation devout hard working sweet, long suffering and very devoted LDS mother. You don’t grow up in all that without plenty of hangups and I had plenty that I’m still working through. I went along because we weren’t given any other options. It’s what you do so therefore, what you “Believe”.

We went to church in a small branch in Sandy, Oregon back when the meetings were split up throughout the week even more than now. Church was our only escape from our father’s wrath and a social setting that was very warm and loving. As a little girl I never even questioned that I belonged, would always be a Mormon, and that I’d always do Mormon things. It was actually a great place to find solace from the other harsh things we dealt with and we were supported and cherished by the branch. They truly felt like brothers and sisters.

When we moved to Utah when I was 12 yrs. old I saw a different side of Mormonism. The little Utah town was very isolated, a bit backward, and cliqueish in the way they accepted anyone, especially the children of a smoking cussing Jack Mormon father and a family even more economically disadvantaged than most of them. We were not their cousins, not known, even spoke differently than the locals. I remember telling them that I was from Oregon and they corrected me by telling me it was pronounced, “Ogden”. I don’t think it occurred to most of the small town LDS that the world outside of Utah was even real. This sets one up for a lot of frustrations and I started butting heads early on.

It wasn’t just Utah Mormons that grated on me even as young as Jr. High. I craved science, anthropology, literature, history and travel more than anything and many of the things I’d find in National Geographic, Scientific American and other publications contradicted the things I was taught from a biblical and Book of Mormon standpoint. I was often chastized for even looking, but especially when I questioned things like the age of the earth, origin of the races, even LDS historical events that contradicted each other.

By the time I was about 14 I had been called into the bishop’s office on more than one occasion and told very directly to “Leave it alone”, or the ever useful, “We don’t need to know that stuff”. For me, that was like putting a red button with a sign that said, “Don’t push this button” below it. I couldn’t help but look deeper, especially into the things they told me I had no business or right to understand.

I went along all those years because that’s what you do. My huge family is deeply cemented and connected in the church. Even my fathers Jack Mormon relatives still claim that someday they’ll stop their carrousing and come back to the church. Leaving just wasn’t considered, even for me. Maybe it’s like a tightly woven tapestry. We all held each other together and completed the picture. I began to unravel early, but even as I sort of wiggled my way out of the fibres of my connected family, I felt a lot of the same things everyone on these boards feels, alone and vulnerable.

That feeling keeps one stuck for a long time, even when the cognitive dissonance starts to make your mind twist and manifest itself in very physical ways. I would have headaches in church early in my teens until the year I left. I did typical rebellious teen stuff but nothing so bad or dangerous to get me more than reprimanded by my bishop. No one expected much of the trailer trash and so I rode under the radar most of the time.

My first year in college I got engaged to a very nice young man from a prominant LDS family. We were like a sculpture made from a nice tidy kit where all the pieces fit, and something welded together from scrap metal, hard edged, ragged, and very strange. His family pressured him to break it off and he finally did after eight months. I really thought I wanted all that they represented, but they for sure didn’t want what I represented. We were genuinely mismatched. I was heartbroken and my self esteem really damaged. I saw the elite LDS in an ugly light that I’d never seen before.

I believed I was trailer trash and destined to live a life befitting my past. It sounds so cliche, but I went for what I figured would never leave me. I think a lot of LDS girls are conditioned to believe this and succumb to marrying one they don’t understand or really love. We were taught that marriage and children would fill in all those holes. I met a young man from California that decided to join the church to win my heart and approval from my family. He asked me to marry him a month after we met.

Some sick twisted part of me must have resigned myself to the LDS illusion and I threw away a scholarship and my college education and fooled around. I got pregnant the first time. (Isn’t abstinenence education marvelous?) I convinced myself that conception of our child must equal love, so I went through with the marriage even though all my senses were screaming at me to run. I know this isn’t unusual for LDS women.

We went to the temple a year after we got married and that experience horrified me. The social pressure to go along with it was overwhelming but all my senses were screaming at how wrong it was. I came away from it sick to my stomach and angry that I’d been tricked into such a bizarre ritual. The seeds of doubt were allready growing, but that one experience sent the roots very deep indeed. I never enjoyed the temple and always came away with that sense of dread and anger at it’s twisted messages and rituals. Even with all I was questioning, I didn’t even consider that my questions had validity and I even suspected that I was evil or wrong to have such questions.

After the first time in the temple I made an appointment with the bishop to discuss my fears and frustrations and he had me meet with a scholarly High Priest who tried to put a very airy spin on the whole thing and finally suggested that I was a child in the understanding of the church and not ready for the more complex gifts that I could learn in the temple. He in essence gave me the ol’ Milk before Meat speech and patted me on the hand and told me to focus on my marriage, home, new baby and becoming a better wife and leave the heavy lifting up to the Priesthood holders. This worked much like the red button and I wanted to dig even deeper to make sense of what I was told was none of my business.

I still knew that I had to make my marriage work for the sake of my son. I had my mothers shining example as a beacon of perfection, long suffering, and feigned joy to live up to and no matter how mismatched my husband and I were, I felt compelled to stick it out. I’d tell myself as each ugly fight would boil up, “Well, mom put up with far worse, so I can do this.”. It was the ol’ pioneer spirit and a sense of duty and denial that held most families together.

My husband was a new convert and so in some weird sense of heroic missionary duty, I felt it my responsibility to re-raise him from the infancy of church understanding to the leader I wanted him to become. I come from a long line of such women and they’ve perfected those skills to very twisted degrees. Homes, food, children, jobs, school, men, all were “Projects” that with enough work, love, revamping and decorating would someday reflect the perfection our benevolent talented gifted souls could shape them into. If they didn’t turn out, it was because we didn’t try hard enough, give enough, sacrifice or suffer or pray enough.The only reason there isn’t world peace is because LDS women just haven’t tried hard enough. Lazy slackers!!

My mother gave my father 25 yrs. and in those years he beat, abused, neglected, dominated, and hurt her and his family, and still she believes if she’d just tried a little harder, she could have FIXED him. Maybe this is the quintessential LDS woman’s mentality, the manifest destiny of other peoples’ souls.

No one ever taught me that I had no right, nor the futility of such things. I spent 18 years trying to FIX the father of my children and never saw him as acceptable as the man he was, only as my “hair shirt” of a project. It was a doomed relationship from the start but I recognize how the LDS culture and the things my mother and other LDS women emulated influenced the sickness that was rampant in our marriage. Even when he or I would actually achieve a goal or overcome a small problem, the church taught us that we could always do better, more, faster, higher, … You know the drill.
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I pushed myself really hard to be a perfect mom and in my pursuit actually damaged my children and husband. On Sundays we were the picture perfect family, with matching outfits, tidy hair, clean shoes, gorgeous happy quiet book and everything on the surface was lovely and of good report. Our kids gave the best talks, knew their scriptures inside and out, and held leadership positions in all their classes. They were model students at school as well. We held parties and were the koolaid house where all the kids came to play. I moved up through the ranks of all the various church callings in Primary, RS, and even Stake womens leadership positions.

When we’d been married about six years we had our third baby. She was born with severe genetic defects and went through three months of various intensive care and operations but finally on Easter Sunday 1989, she went into cardiac arrest and was put on life support. We had to go before a hospital board and get permission to have her removed from the respirator and tubes and then hold her in our arms as she gasped and finally died.

A year later our second son was stillborn in the 6th month of my pregnancy and we were told that he didn’t need to be put on the family rolls because he had never taken a breath, therefore was not legitimate. He did not exist as far as the church was concerned. Everything sort of changed after that.

I realized that most of the frothy stupid busy things I’d been doing all those years were just that, busy work. I had filled our weeks and lives with senseless things devoted to the church and our ward. I began to examine my motives for all the busy things the church asked of us and few of the demands made sense any more. My husband had been called as Elders Quorum President and that’s when the mantle of “Priesthood Power” sort of took hold of him and he began to believe he was destined to be all I’d been grooming him for.

He’d been given a Patriarchial Blessing that promised he’d become a Bishop, Stake President, even walk on the right hand of Christ in the second coming, which he’d live to see in this dispensation. He took all that literally and was sure that his “Calling had been made sure” so anything he did after that was sanctioned by God, even if it was illegal. Ironically, that’s also when I started going in a different direction.

He insisted on even more devotion and scripture study and I was trying to go for things that broadened our perspective rather than limited it. We conflicted on the movies, activities, and other interests our family participated in. Even though he was publically embracing a very devout LDS persona, he was living a dark secret in his business dealings but justifying it by insisting we go to the temple more and more to balance the illegal things he was doing behind the scenes. He got fired from job after job for embezzlement, and would embrace the church even deeper with each job loss. The financial pressures were really ripping us apart as well.

I went back to school when our youngest was four and in some of my world history classes, geology, and even architecture courses I began to put some dots together that had always floated in space.

The LDS doctrine requires absolute belief in its history and doctrine which forces some to suspend logic and reason or the ability to triangulate information and proof in many instances. Now I was seeing things that were not overtly anti Mormon, but were certainly leading me to question the sketchy history of the church or even the bible.

The little points of light sort of sat there and puzzled me during those years. I was still very much LDS and did all the LDS things and even agreed to all the doctrine and practices, but I found myself asking almost daily, “If this is so, then this CAN’T be so”. One piece after another started to reveal that what I’d been taught, and what had been historically recorded or logically concluded did not coincide. I came to a point where I had to actually choose between my education and my religion. I can look back and see why many leaders believe it’s unnecessary and dangerous for some to seek a liberal education outside of a controlled enviornment like BYU.

The more open my mind became, the more my husband tried to reign me in and impose restrictive rules in the home. We were rising at 5:00 am to study scriptures and he was insisting on attending the temple three or four times a month. We had church activities at least five times a week. When he couldn’t coerce his Elders to do their home teaching, he’d drag me along and we’d visit 8-10 families a week.

He really got off on being the ward hero and I had to be the pretty smiling wife that made it all look so easy. If we went out anywhere, he insisted we find a missionary opportunity at McDonalds, the park, wherever we were. He took unrighteous dominion very seriously and demanded church attendence and devotion in everything

Church became grueling for me. I’d hear and see stuff that grated on my internal sense of right and wrong. Gospel Doctrine and RS were so frustrating that I’d get visibly angry at the false doctrine and bizarre interpretations of the various teachers. The tedium drove me nuts and I’d find every kind of diversion to avoid church from feigning a period two or three times a month to severe headaches that would miraculously stop when church was over. I went late, left early, snuck books in the diaper bag and drawing paper and doodled during Sacrament meeting to wile away the tedious hours.

Sometimes I found the information being shoved down our throats so offensive to my intellect and conscience that I’d actually get panic attacks in anticipation of having to attend church. If we were going to the temple I’d spend two or three hours beforehand in the bathroom trying to psyche myself out for the intense anger and anxiety I felt at being forced to participate in something I didn’t believe or want. I often wanted to peel my skin off from the anxiety I felt. I contemplated suicide almost daily in hopes that it would finally end the frustration I felt. I started to self medicate a mixture of cold pills and diet pills to numb my head and heart so I could do it one more day, and one more day. I did this for five years.

In the background were the dark secrets of a seriously messed up and unhappy marriage, financial nightmares, illegal activities, and sexual dysfunction. I tried to arrange things to leave for years but finally after we’d been married 18 years, I was able to file for divorce. Even my own family couldn’t believe this PERFECT family was splitting up. Still I tried to stay with the church I’d given so much to for 37 years.

My husband did everything to force me to stay, took away the car, forced me to close my business, tried to take the little run down house I’d moved into, humiliated me in front of the kids, had our friends and family love bomb me, and finally decided that the only way to make me stay was to actually threaten to take my children away. I think this happens to lots of families, not just the LDS.

In spite of all my time, talents and service to the church for the previous years, my choice to end my marriage marked me as a fallen woman in the eyes of my ward and the church. I was shunned and ostracized by the very people I’d given so much to. They were quick to believe the most outrageous things about me spread by my ex and even to share and expand those ridiculous rumors. This too happens in many cultures and towns but it stung to have my LDS ‘Sisters” treat me so shamelessly. My family was similar and it was a very dark and lonely time. I withdrew and spent a lot of days under my desk crying myself to sleep or walking furiously swinging my arms and cursing all my frustrations out.

I was called into the bishop’s office about a year after my divorce and six men who didn’t know me, had never even visited my home sat in judgement of me. They wanted all the sordid details of my exploits and seemed almost charged with excitement in anticipation of what they hoped would be a good show. At one point I took my shoe off and placed it on the table and said, “If any of you would like to walk in my shoes the 1/2 block from this church to my home, then be my guest. Till then, you have no right to judge me.”. Not one took up the offer so I took my shoe and left. A week later I was officially disfellowshipped.

It was actually then that I realized what a favor they’d done for me. All those years I’d repressed the need to understand things from a broader perspective were finally behind me. I began to read books that surely weren’t on the forbidden LDS list, but that opened my mind to many ideas and experiences that people outside the dark box of Mormonism had experienced.

I didn’t go looking for the church to be wrong, it just became more and more wrong as I learned things about the world outside of Mormonism and Utah. I didn’t know anything about Joseph Smith’s other wives or the seer stone or even the dark history of Brigham Young. I didn’t know the sinister things the heirarchy had done or the financial dealings and twisted things the leaders were involved in. I just knew that what I saw and learned after I left contradicted what I’d been taught all those years.

I started to call myself an Emancipated Mormon a year after my divorce. In some ways I still felt Mormon and even now find myself having typical Mormon attitudes and hangups. Many of the things I learned in the church are useful and practical, but many are dark and twisted and mess ones psyche up seriously.

It’s taken years to deprogram some of those messages. I no longer feel suicidal or have panic attacks unless I am going to a family or social gathering or compelled to participate in a church activity. I’ve not been allowed to go to my childrens weddings. I’ve been excluded from almost every event in their church lives, but even after all that, I still am so much happier now that I’ve left the church. I lost my home, my business, my friends, my self respect in some ways, and so much more, but I’m still happier now than I ever was in the church. I almost lost my children and extended family. Even now, I have to be very careful with all those relationships because every person in my family is still devout LDS. I am the ONLY one in my family that has left.

The price we all pay for freedom can be enormous. To be self emancipated is a glorious achievement. I lost so much, but I’ve gained even more. The years have passed and my children and I have mended some things and have sweet and good relationships. I can even be cordial to my ex, while I secretly revel in his self imposed misery and the Karma of his messed up life. I love my new husband, my new life, my new discoveries.

I’ve made far more deep and worthwhile friendships since I left the church than all those years in the middle of it. I’m not kidding, food tastes better, sex is way better, I read better books, go to better movies, have better vacations, and sleep better since leaving the church. It’s been the most healthy thing I’ve ever done. If I coulda left earlier, I shoulda, and in retrospect, I woulda. I just had to get there in my own time and my own way. I don’t regret my choice one bit. I am free.

There comes a point when one must move from the comfort of the middle of the road on an issue and I’ve sat too long without officially resigning. The rejection of my fellow true brothers and sisters from the church of their birth and the involvement of that church in denying them basic civil rights that should be afforded every adult citizen in the U.S. has compelled me to finally take a stand. I offer my resignation in solidarity with the many others who are participating in the exodus from the oppressive Mormon church and I stand proud with the GLBT community in fighting for their rights. I’m not tired yet. There’s plenty of fight left for the distance.

Someday my grandchildren will be able to look back on this issue as some shameful part of America’s past, much like I do on the way blacks were treated in the 60’s. Shame on the Mormon Church. Shame on so called Christians or anyone who cannot see their fellow man with an eye of love and compassion. Our collective shame for them will make a difference.