Thousands of Mormons are leaving their faith after the LDS Church last week attacked same-sex families, including their children.Â
The Mormon Church’s decree last week that people in same-sex relationships are now apostates and their children cannot be baptized without literally denouncing and distancing themselves from their parents has had devastating effects on LGBTQ Mormons and their families.
First, there has been a spike in calls to suicide prevention groups, and the mother of a transgender teen says she’s “aware of a couple of suicides that have happened.”
Kate Kendell, the well-respected executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is one of the nation’s most-effective LGBT civil rights organizations, published an op-ed in the Washington Post on Tuesday, announcing she is leaving the Mormon Church.
Kendell blames the LDS Church’s “gratuitously cruel and stigmatizing treatment of children” in its latest anti-LGBT move for pushing her “to disavow the church” of her childhood.
“It is impossible for me to be a part of a religion that would attack its own members and punish them by denying their children involvement in the church. The move is as clever as it is draconian. Members seeking to live lives of integrity as openly LGBT people must not only leave the church, but take their children with them. It requires a particular streak of evil genius to manufacture such a ‘Sophie’s choice.'”
Kendell is not the only one denouncing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and leaving it over its latest attack on the LGBT community.
Nearly 1000 Mormons in Salt Lake City have signed up on Facebook to announce that on Saturday they will march around the Church’s Temple Square and mail letters of resignation to the LDS Church – formally leaving the church – in protest of its attack on LGBT families. Since leaving the Church can be a tricky enterprise, far different from leaving other faiths, attorney Mark Naugle will be on hand to assist.
Naugle tells KIVI-TV he is also processing the resignations of 1400 other Mormons in addition to those planning on attending Saturday’s mass resignation.
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Image by Jeremy Franklin via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Friendly Atheist
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