The Mormon Curtain
Take Heart From Hancock: You Can Stand Down The Mormon Cult And Resign!
Monday, Aug 19, 2013, at 08:48 AM
Take Heart From Hancock: You Can Stand Down The Mormon Cult And Resign!
Original Author(s):
Steve Benson
Filed Under:
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RESIGNATION PROCESS
As a personal preface, I wasn't "allowed" by the Mormon Cult to resign my membership (as some have suggested, supposedly due to my in-Cult family heritage). Rather, I resigned without seeking or being given Mormon Cult permission to do so. As far as I was concerned, it was a simple decision: Damn the demagogues; full speed ahead. To me, being "excommunicated" suggests that a believer is being kicked out of the Mormon Cult against their will. I was no longer a believer and wanted out on my own terms.
Besides, as has been demonstrated by the famous Norman Hancock case, it is unlawful for the Mormon Cult to force a member to remain in the ranks (through refusing to recognize their individual right to voluntarily resign), in order for the Mormon Cult to excommunicate them.
Enter Hancock, a lifelong Mormon who decided he finally wanted out. Thanks to Hancock's determination (and putting it bluntly), his case knocked the Mormon Cult back on its abusive butt.
Hancock served notice of his membership resignation but the resignation was rejected and Hancock was summarily excommunicated by a clueless Cult court. The endgame played out with Hancock subsequently suing the Mormon Cult for multi-millions of dollars in damages, which got the Cult's attention real quick. The Cult melted like Jell-O in the hot sun and relented, thereby recognizing Hancock's inherent right to resign.
Here's a brief synopsis:
"'Excommunication of Non-Members, Norman Hancock'
"The case of Norman Hancock is an interesting one. It establishes firmly that churches cannot excommunicate members who leave during discipline, based on the Marian Guinn precedent. That once someone quits instantly their legal protections against libel and slander are restored. The state has no authority over the the disciplinary process within the church, but the person has no longer given their consent and this changes things.
"The case is standard. In 1985 the Mormon Church excommunicated Norman Hancock after he submitted a letter of resignation to the Church. Hancock filed an $18 million lawsuit against the Church, saying a person has a right to voluntarily resign from a church. The suit was settled out of court. Church representatives agreed to change the records such that there would no longer be any record of an 'excommuication'; the records would show that he resigned-- that is, he had asked his name be removed from the Church roll."
http://church-discipline.blogspot.com...
For the blow-by-blow details of Hancock's infuriating but ultimately successful case as described in a report authored by Lavina Fielding Anderson for the "The Mormon Alliance," see: http://mormon-alliance.org/casereport...
As another individual aside, one of the former Mormons who wrote in support of Hancock's right to resign his membership was John W. Fitzgerald, who was thrown out of the Mormon Cult in 1972 for his opposition to its ban on African-American males receiving the priesthood. He wrote:
"The guarantee voiced in the Constitution of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion, also contains with it the concept of freedom from religion; that no individual or religious organization can coerce or force anyone to join or stay in any religious group against his or her will. . . .
"Norman L. Hancock's suit against the LDS Church for possible defamation of character . . . was settled out-of-court when the Church agreed to drop him from membership without the taint of excommunication, which is very real in Mormon communities.
"[It is time for the Church to take] a long look at their policy on excommunication and their practice of ignoring requests of individuals to have their names removed from the rolls of their church.
"The LDS Church is a pseudo-democracy. It never claimed to be a democracy like the one we believe in, where secrets ballots are taken, and it is nobody's business how one votes."
(John W. Fitzgerald, "Freedom from Religion," in "Salt Lake Tribune," 6 March 1985, p. A-17)
John W. Fitzgerald (or Dr. Fitzgerald, as I knew him) was my principal at Morningside Elementary in Salt Lake, where I attended 3rd and 4th grade. I remember him being a strong, thoughtful man who played the violin beautifully and who, sadly enough, announced to all of us students assembled in the school cafeteria on November 22, 1963, that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.
At any rate, I personally phoned Hancock (who was living in Mesa, AZ at the time) to congratulate him for his courage and tenacity in standing down the Mormon Cult. He graciously and matter-of-factly accepted the compliment. What Hancock did in behalf of individuals seeking to sever their membership with the Mormon Cult was an absolutely amazing personal story; an historically ground-breaking event in the annals of LDS-inflicted bullying; and a stirringly significant reminder of what can be done to fight and win against tyrannical theological overreach.
Yo, Salt Lake: Beware the Storm of Norm!
:)
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