Leaving Mormonism
The Mormon church is losing people because it’s horrible.
Since November of 2015, when LDS leaders passed an anti-gay policy barring children of married LGBT couples from being baptized, the Mormon church has experienced a steady mass exodus, according to critics of the faith.
The controversial rule, adopted after same-sex marriage became legal in the US, said that if Mormon children of gay parents wanted to be baptized, they would have to denounce same-sex cohabitation and leave their family’s house when they turned 18.
Protests erupted, and within several weeks, Utah attorney Mark Naugle had helped more than 2,600 people file resignation papers.
Family values, eh? Ordering people to denounce and abandon their parents. Nice.
Leaving the church can be particularly challenging in a state like Utah, where a majority of residents are Mormon.
“It’s really important for people going through this to know that they’re not alone,” said Steve Holbrook, an ex-Mormon who helps organize mass resignation events.
Some who try to remain in the church and fight for change are ultimately forced out. Kate Kelly, a speaker at the Saturday ceremony, was excommunicated in 2014 after advocating for the ordination of women into priesthood.
Excommunicated for saying that women are human beings too.
The Utah woman said that Mormonism is defined by rituals and that many want to formally celebrate the act of leaving.
“The idea of the mass resignation event is to be able to mark your dissent with the way that the organization treats gay people, people of color and women.”
We’re cheering from the sidelines.
Note that “priesthood” means something a bit different to Mormons than it does to other Christian cults; as I understand it, it’s more akin to an initiation ceremony, and most male Mormons attain it as long as their behaviour isn’t too egregious. So the fact that Mormonism explicitly forbids it to women is evidence indeed that their official position is that women are Not People Too, much like (but possibly even more than) other cults of Jesus.
Oh right – I had indeed forgotten that all Mormon males become priests. Dayum that’s…blunt.
Well, until the late 1970s, all white Mormon males became priests. Then suddenly they had a revelation that now non-white males were people, too, and should be allowed the priesthood. With this latest loss of members, how long until the new revelation demonstrating that women, too, are people, surprise surprise?
They aren’t doing as good a job with mind-control as a lot of religions. People are actually caring about values and principle rather than obedience.
‘Sudden revelations’ are a Mormon specialty. Their leadership had an S.R. about polygamy, when it threatened their hopes for Utah statehood. Of course, god came through with the necessary amendment…
But those same leaders continued to practice and promote polygamy in secret. Many of the ‘compounds’ in Mexico and Canada were founded at this time, for the express purpose of allowing polygamous marriages to be carried on out of sight of U.S. law.
They could have a sudden revelation right now and fix all this bullshit; it’s a great mechanism for fixing shitty things about the religion but it doesn’t do any good if they don’t get with the times and fix it. What good does holding on do? You’ve lost, Mormonism, get with the fucking program.