With This I Close a Chapter of My Life

Today I sent the following to my children, siblings, extended family, several news threads and over 50 media contacts.

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Letter to the Editor:

In an email last Sunday morning, I asked my son in California (and indirectly my entire family) to walk out of church on Sunday (June 29th, 2008) when their bishop stands up to read a letter from the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). I disagree with the reading of this letter because in it the Mormon prophet has asked all California Mormons to “…do all [they] can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of [their] means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman.”

I thought that by asking my family to do this, I was simply asking them to send a strong message to Salt Lake City that they disagree with the idea that any church has a right to entrench clearly religious dogma into the constitution of a state or country. By asking my California family members (again, most importantly my son) to stand up and walk out of church, I was just asking them to defend my civil rights. My logic was that this would be a simple way for them to demonstrate the love that they profess to have for me. Over the past three years (I came out at age 45 after 25 years of marriage), my four children, two brothers, three sisters, and several of my 30+ nieces and nephews have all in some way tried to communicate their unconditional love for me in spite of my “chosen lifestyle”. Only a handful of them actually think I was born gay, but many, including my four children, have told me to my face that they support my right to live a full and authentic life as a gay man. They all have a different way of saying it, but the message is clear that they want me to know that they do not have to agree with me in order to love me.

My question to my family members in California is this. Before I can “live a full and authentic life as a gay man”, which is what my son specifically thinks I should have the right to do, the constitution must proclaim that I actually do have those kinds of rights. The courts in California have determined that this is in fact the kind of constitution that they have now. If I choose to abstain and be free from all religion, then that is my right in America. My personal beliefs do not restrict a free expression of love between two people, and as long as marriage exists as the contract that it is in our modern culture, then it must be made available to any two people who wish to enter into it (while still holding fast to the existing laws that are in place to protect the rights of both parties to the contract, such as prohibiting fundamentalist Mormons from marrying their close relatives, minor children, and having more than one spouse).

To walk out of church is not to disagree with the prophet, but to simply disagree with his efforts to force the religious dogma of the majority into the lives of a minority. In my mind, this act of protest would largely be symbolic and leave the prophet intact as a prophet. To my family, I say this: “If you can muster the courage to do this, your professed love for me would be validated for the very first time because it would have been demonstrated by your willingness to defend my rights as an American citizen in the face of bigotry.”

In response to my appeal, this is what was in my inbox from my older sister:

“…you are asking us to choose between our God (our Father in Heaven) and our brother (you). I cannot, nor will I, go against what I know to be true, which is this church, and that it is guided directly by God through the prophet. I will never go against that.”

The last sentence echoed in my mind. I had read a very similar line the night before in an email from one of my favorite nieces. After regurgitating the tired line about her love for me in spite of my sinful “lifestyle”, she finished the email with:

“...but I follow the doctrine and that includes the First Presidency and anything they sign in accordance with their callings as Prophets of God!”

I was stunned. Finally two people had found the courage to articulate the truth. I re-read both emails and finally identified my fear.

“What if they serve up the purple Kool-Aid?”

I really do not think there is a risk of the Mormon prophet taking millions of Mormons to their graves, but in the infinite shades of gray between having millions of followers who will unquestioningly cast a vote and almost a thousand followers who will willingly drink cyanide, at what point did the Mormon prophet cross the line and become a cult leader? I assert that it was at the moment that the prophet had the unmitigated gall to even suppose that he was within his rights to even ask such a thing.

If my son tells me on Friday that he supports me as a gay man, and then on Sunday listens quietly in his seat without speaking out or leaving in protest, what does it symbolize? In America we pride ourselves on being free to “vote our conscience”, so to me, unless they’ve all just been placating me with empty words, this means that I have already lost my son and my family to the cult because they have allowed their conscience to be subverted by the voice of a mortal man.

Today, after a lifetime of turmoil, I finally found the courage to resign my membership in the Mormon Church and admit publicly for the very first time that it exerts enough power over the minds of its congregants to be considered a cult. With this, I close that chapter of my life.

Lester Leavitt
Pompano Beach, FL