David Archuleta on His Experience of Coming Out in the Mormon Church

[penelopetaynt]

David Archuleta opens up on The Jennifer Hudson Show about his experience growing up religious and his journey to coming out. (TW: SUICIDE)

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The American Idol alum also talks about how he almost got married three times, coming to terms with his sexuality, and learning to love himself

Comments

[ladychips]

poor guy. isn't mormonism the one that wants your family to cut you off if you leave?

[kary1591]

Jehova Witnesses do this too. Half my family is one and I’ve seen it happen plenty. I don’t know how my dad escaped that cult but I definitely count my blessings there.

[jinxeh13]

Depends on their ward, but sometimes.

There do seem to be varying degrees of how "strict" some wards are. I'm thinking about Mormon TikTok, so many "Mormon Influencers" dress in skinny jeans and crop tops and apparently that's fine...? But maybe they just use those people as recruiting tools, all, "look, we're capable of being normal, totally, come check us out," lol. I've also known ex-Mormons to still be close to friends and family that are still in the church, so I don't think every ward is like that.

Jehovah's Witnesses seem to be more strict about that, and more commonly "shun" ex members.

[beaucadeau]

mormon tiktok is 100% a recruiting tool. same with a lot of evangelical tok too lbr

[imnotasquirrel]

i knew a woman who had left mormonism, iirc she grew up in utah but when i met her we were in nyc. she told me about how the nyc ward (?) would find out where she lived, maybe from her parents, and would send various ward members to try to talk to her about coming back. she had a hell of a time getting her name off the membership records.

[ladychips]

honestly i used to work at a mega church, and when i quit the first thing i did was go into their system and delete ALL of their contact info for me. hard pass.

[fauxkaren]

I don't think it's a requirement, churchwide?

Like my friend married an ex-Mormon and his family still went to their wedding. And they spend every other Christmas with his family. So his family hasn't cut him out. lol. But he does still get guilt tripping conversations! So there's that.

[misato]

i think it depends on how devout the family is. some will and some won't. but it is common to be ostracized and shunned if you leave the mormon church. my ex was afraid he would lose his friends years ago when he finally made a fb post about not believing anymore.

[hallyujah]

This is one of the biggest distinguishing factors between a cult and a religion. Mormonism can kinda blur the lines on this too.

[hallyujah]

I'm being too charitable, it's mostly cult. Not as bad as Scientology but that really says nothing.