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Discipline, Excommunication, and Name Removal

Resignation Letter by a Gay Mormon

By Robert
December 3, 2003

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Member Records Department
50 East North Temple Street
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150-3810

RE: Resignation of Membership

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is my written and formal resignation as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is to be put into place effective immediately upon receipt and is to occur without any waiting period. While you have just learned of my decision, my decision has taken considerable time and thought, months and even years. I will not be dissuaded, and my mind will not be altered. I understand the seriousness of my actions and understand my resignation from the church renders null and void my baptism, confirmation, my holding of the Melchizedek Priesthood as an Elder, and revokes my temple ordinances.

I withdraw all consent to being a member and/or treated as such. I withdraw my consent to being subject to church policies, rules, beliefs, and/or disciplinary action. As I am no longer a member, I require that my name be permanently and completely removed from the membership records of the church and that I not be counted among the millions of its members.

One may ask why I have chosen to make such a decision.

On May 2, 1995, I wrote a letter to President Gordon B. Hinckley, which stated the following:

I write to you versus others, because we have met personally, talked quietly, and have corresponded to one another throughout many years. I do not write to you because you are the Prophet, or the President of the Church, I write to you because I worked for you personally, we have talked quietly several times, and because of that, I am hopeful you will, at the very least, attempt to understand these words from my heart. You know who I am.

In the membership pushing ten million, I suppose I am just one small dot and my departure from attendance at our ward is not missed, or the talents I brought forward there. I have no real hope that my voice would be heard locally, but sometimes I think it is better to speak than to be heard, and at some point I will.

I am not an animal from some place of outer darkness, as some seem to believe. I am a homosexual, and like other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an integral part of its people. Because of my sexual orientation, I am condemned by the church in general, my parents, a large part of society, and considered an outcast by the majority of, supposed Christian loving people.

There has been compassion by some for my brothers and sisters who have died of HIV and of the result of suicide, but the hate, oppression, and intolerance of the church, by a rather large group of members in leadership roles as well as some in the general membership, gives tacit approval to continued discrimination, lack of compassion, and in some cases... lead to, violence against homosexuals.

President Hinckley, this sheep is tired. I weary of the struggle to belong to a church I experience as increasingly reactive and oppressive. Jesus once said, "Come to Me all you who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you." It is that voice I now heed, for unlike other shepherds, His yoke is easy, and His burden light. The burdens that are otherwise being laid up are almost impossible to bear. I trust in Jesus and in His promise to be with me always.

In this dark hour, however, I find myself wondering, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where is the Shepherd??

The response I received was not from President Hinckley, but had been forwarded for a response from the LDS Social Services Commissioner's Office. Their response in June 1995 was, in short, "Sorry to hear about your 'problem'." I said to myself, What problem? They couldn't even bring themselves to identify what the "problem" was.

I have tried for over eight years to find my place at the table. I have asked for home teachers in my ward here in Sacramento, on at least five occasions since I became less active in the church, either by telephone to the ward or by letter, who have never come or called. I went to church for a while. I stopped. I went again. I stopped. I went again, only to hear hate spewed from the pulpit about some local child abuse case where some "pervert homosexual guy," as the member said, had hurt a child. Turns out it was a married heterosexual Mormon guy. Interesting that the Bishop or the speaker never did correct him/himself to the members who were misinformed that day with yet more hateful information. I however chose to do so, after asking the Bishop to correct the statement in which he refused, during a recent Sunday when I shared my testimony of a God I know that loves all. I further spoke of a fairly recent case I had investigated in my work in Child Protective Services in which children, are pressured into good and sometimes into some not so good things. This pressure may come from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, family, friends, schoolmates, but in this particular case from an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This child, who at age 17, who was a Mormon, lived a righteous life, respected this particular Apostle beyond all others, loved his family, and was gay. He committed suicide because he felt he had no other choice because he was ashamed to live. He was ashamed that he would not be able to fulfill a mission, be married, have children, be accepted by his family, and was hated--hated by his church--and therefore life did not, and could not, possibly matter. This he wrote in a note he left in his pocket. We have no idea what this young man could have become, although he wanted to be a Foreign Services Officer, this I also found on the hand-written note in his pocket. He could have been an Ambassador for this Country or even a future Secretary of State, or better yet, we society, and the church, could have, and should have, just let him be, himself. The fact is he could have served a mission, he could have lived an eternal life with a loving partner, and he could have had children. This he could have done all with another man, in a loving monogamous relationship. I cannot speak to the personal feelings of intolerance, hate, and pain he experienced for no one will ever be able to do that for him, except to say, I have experienced intolerance, hate, and pain as well, from the same church.

I have seen families destroyed, divided, and distanced, because a child of God is gay in the Mormon family and the church condones this hate behavior; I here understood the church promoted love and family unity no matter what. I know many families that have been destroyed, but I also know many families who have defied the church and have stuck together through thick and thin. I commend those who have stood strong and not allowed the church to destroy their family. Unfortunately, my family does not stand among them.

Through the First Presidency, the Twelve Apostles, the Seventies, and down through the Priesthood leaders in the Stakes, Wards, and Branches the message of intolerance and hate is literally killing our young people who need to talk to their fathers and Priesthood Leaders about their sexual feelings. Some are rightfully questioning and some are truly gay. The church is not going to take the gay out of those who are. The church must teach love, acceptance, and compassion to all members, regardless of orientation, as God would desire. God would not teach any form of hate, under any cover. I lay the blood of those children who have used suicide as an option at the feet of the Brethren as they have literally taught it from the pulpit, or have condoned it. The Brethren have seemingly given our youth no other option, no hope, no saving light, save change to heterosexuality itself. I can not and will not be a part of a church that teaches intolerance or promotes hate through silence anymore.

This is a simple administrative procedure under my constitutional right to practice freedom of religion in the United States of America, one of the few deteriorating rights we still have in this Country anymore. I expect this matter to be handled promptly and with full confidentiality. If my family or friends learn of my resignation through anyone but myself, I will consider it an invasion of my privacy, and consider legal action. This is a private matter between the church, whom it chooses in its leadership structure to deal with such a matter, and me, and should be limited in scope to a Bishop and/or Stake President, and no other person. My name shall be removed promptly upon receipt of this letter, without delay. There is to be no waiting period.

After today, the only further contact I wish from the church is a single letter of confirmation to advise me my name has been removed from the membership records of the church at my request.

In closing, I want you to know I love and believe in Jesus the Christ and know he loves me just the way I am. This, I am sure without a shadow of a doubt. At the resurrection I will stand tall, as I do today, and know he will welcome me with my brothers and sisters who are heterosexual and homosexual. Jesus the Christ loves everyone, and none of us are without sin. I pray for those in the church leadership that continue to cause, and have caused, lives and families to be destroyed and personal hardships to be fought for many years because they are cast aside by a church they so loved, respected, and were tormented from within by the oppression of this church. My hope is that my gay brothers and lesbian sisters will once again rise up and shine knowing they are loved by the everlasting love of Jesus the Christ, and like I and many others, will find the strength within themselves, and accept who they are even if the church will not. I am an individual; I am who I am; and that is something the church can not take away.

Sincerely,

Robert (Last Name Withheld by Request)