Mormons Plan Resignation From LDS Church Over Gay Marriage, Polygamy

[moonbladem]

SALT LAKE CITY, June 29 (Reuters) - Troubled by issues ranging from polygamy to gay marriage, several dozen Mormons plan to resign this weekend from the church en masse in an unusual public show of defiance in Salt Lake City

Comments

[fifthmorn]

Gods I was baptised a LDS and went to church there starting again when I was around 12, because my mom wanted us to go again (since we went when I was very very young). My dad became a member of LDS when he was in his twenties, though apparently he liked how nice everyone was, compared to his upbringing in a very fire and brimstone kind of church in Alabama. After he died, my mom stopped taking us, and only after her divorce from my step-dad did we start going again. I honestly never felt more awkward in my life. Because I was a very...opinionated kid, and I am a very opinionated person still to this day, and my statements generally just got me punished by the church community. I hated going to Young Women's because I felt like they were trying to change me (which they were), I mean, they made me start cross stitching, and my 21st century little ass was not having any of that.

They wanted to come and collect me from my house at 5.30am for bible study before school, and then they'd take me on to school, and I told the missionaries I would never do that because I like to sleep.

So basically I was never allowed into temple, almost always because I broke their precious goddamn caffeine rule, and even if I lied, they kept me from entering anyway. They kept my mom from entering because she wasn't married, she enjoyed coffee, and she wan't teaching her children enough of the fundamental values of being a Mormon.

I also hated that I would spend my ENTIRE SUNDAY at church. I'd get there at 7am, and wouldn't leave until 7pm. I spent all fucking day there and then I'd have to go home and go to school the next morning, or well, they'd want to come and pick me up at 5.30am and then I'd go to school.

I became so incredibly miserable going there because I didn't have any friends either, because I was so defiant of their rules and regulations and the other kids thought I was weird. But I went to one of their houses for dinner with their family and it was like a stepford house. I couldn't take it. The kids could only watch tv for like 30 minutes out of the day, and they spent almost all their time practising their instruments or doing homework. And for me, as a kid, that seemed like torture.

I told my mom I wasn't going to go anymore when I was 14 or 15. After that, I had missionaries continue to come to my house, to my SCHOOL, trying to entice me to come back. By that point I was 16 and saying, "Omfg, they're recruiting me back into a cult." They would find out wherever the fuck I lived and basically harass me. I met another Mormon girl in theater and she told HER WARD about me and I even had her missionaries and Young Women's leader coming to me at school and saying, oh they'll pick me up and drive me back home, it'll be nice for me to be around the church again, they'd love to have me join again.

College was a brief moment of silence from them until my junior year where my mom let some of the missionaries in and she enjoyed their company of course, because they're always so goddamn nice. They'd come over every fucking weekend, when I would try to make it home, and I'd get calls because my mom gave them my cell number, and once again it was the Young Women's mentor contacting me saying she'll come and pick me up and drive me home. I just ignored the phone calls after that.

I moved to Japan after I graduated college. I was then approached by Mormon missionaries who were told that I had moved to Japan, and they wanted me to come to one of their functions up north about two prefectures away from where I lived. I almost lost it with these people, I told them there was no way in hell I was joining their church or going with them anywhere.

I have moved in Japan twice now and haven't heard from them again. It won't be the last time, but it's been about a year since I heard from them.

[labelleizzy]

wow. that's some seriously organized stalking you've documented there.
=(

[fifthmorn]

I think what bothers me most is that if you meet one Mormon and tell them that you used to be LDS, they will immediately start this whole recruiting process all over again by giving the church your newest information. I specifically told this girl in high school that I wasn't interested in going back and she went and told her whole fucking ward of LDS members about me and like tried to convince me to come back during rehearsals and stuff and that basically ended any friendship we would've had. She went on to college at Brigham Young (of course) and got married her sophomore year, and now has three beautiful children, and is pregnant with her fourth. Which is what you're really trained for growing up in the LDS church as a woman. You're indoctrinated into believing that that is your purpose and that is what will and should make you happy. At least at my ward, other wards are less strict, and I think it also depends on your parents.

[corinn]

Holy crap! That's like religious stalking! I'd have flipped the fuck out if I was approached in a completely different country. Hooooly fuck. I hope you never hear from them again.

[fifthmorn]

LOL thanks. I was a bit like, "Ummmmm...how the hell did you know where I live IN JAPAN??" when they showed up at my door.

[koshkabegemot]

Holy shit, they came to your fucking door? The way I read it in your OP, I thought it was like maybe you ran into two American ex-pats who happened to be Mormon & were in Japan, not like . . . they showed up at your house. That just makes this 10 times worse.

[fifthmorn]

I can only imagine how they got my actual address, but there aren't confidentiality agreements for information like that in Japan. Basically everyone knows exactly where the foreigners live and they're told by neighborhood watch to keep an eye out in case we rape, murder, or rob anyone.

[koshkabegemot]

Still, I can't imagine people coming from like AAAALLLLL the way the fuck around the world and showing up on your doorstep and being like, "HEY COME JOIN US FOR BIBLE STUDY!" or whatever. God, that would have been like someone from my synagogue showing up at my door when I was living in Russia. I would have gone through the roof.

[fifthmorn]

Yeah I'm just surprised cause I haven't been an active member since I was 14, which was a decade ago. I mean, a decade is a long time to follow someone's movements.

[tiddlywinks103]

Omg, this is terrifying.

Seriously start pepper spraying them, and crying out that you're being stalked. I think that might deter them from approaching you physically.

[fifthmorn]

I'm not scared of them, just annoyed as shit.

[oceandezignz]

That... that is absolutely BONKERS dear Heaven I am so creeped out over this and I feel for you terribly so.

For the fact that they ostracized you, but still "want you back" is welp, nothing short of something abusive in my book. The stalking (cross continental too!) is just the icing on this religiously fucked fail cake.

*hugs and caffeine!*

[fifthmorn]

I think it's a matter of conversion, and how dedicated they are to "saving" you. I almost feel that if I were a man, they would've stopped bothering me about it, because they haven't bothered my brothers, just me. I don't know why though. Maybe they did bother my brother and he just went postal and scared the shit out of them.

[blackjedii]

If it makes you feel any better, I learned to not like going to "The Church" when I was a little kid at another little boy CRUSHED MY ARM IN A DOOR and never had to apologize for it.

Feel really bad for the missionaries though - they supposedly only get something like $5 for food a day so I think half the reason they're so clingy and come by so often is just that they're secretly hoping you'll feed them.

Hate that place though. It gave my mother so many different psychological issues that she won't ever recognize and they just treated us like crud all these years.

[fifthmorn]

Our missionaries would always bring pizza, so I'm not sure if that applies everywhere. I know they are limited as to what they can and cannot do, watch, or listen to.

They treated my mom like crap, just made her feel so shitty about herself. Considering my mom is bipolar, it didn't help her at all.

[blackjedii]

I have memories of quite a few sets of two guys (who shouldn't be bothering us anyway when I'm by myself, me being a "single young lady" and all) pretty much getting all starry-eyed when they saw me holding a DS or playing with any kind of recent technological device.

Yeah - they were never good to my mom, even when she was going through a really messed up divorce. Because how ~dare~ she divorce a man! I don't think she holds it against them, but the Mormon "family is everything, so are men" line has left her with quite a few neuroses.