Monday, Jun 16, 2014, at 07:38 AM
The Problem With Niceness: My Excommunication From The Mormon Church
Original Author(s):
Margaret Merrill Toscano
Filed Under:
EXCOMMUNICATION AND COURTS OF LOVE
Themes
My excommunication from the Mormon Church happened quietly on November 30, 2000, without public attention; it really seemed to change nothing. In a way, it simply made official what had already happened unofficially in 1993 - my exclusion from the Church. But I think symbolically it represents what I see as the central, on-going problem the LDS Church faces today, both in terms of its stated mission to be a gospel-centered Church of Jesus Christ and also in its desire to be accepted as a legitimate and positive organization within the broader American society. The problem centers on the uses and abuses of authority. My excommunication is a test case for how well the Church can balance its desire for control over its members with its desire for public respectability.
There are at least three major themes that run through my excommunication. The first is sometimes put forward as a maxim in cultural anthropology: what is culturally marginal may be symbolically central. Second, there is the problem with niceness - from which I have drawn my title. Niceness can cover over cruelty; a polite exterior can be used to hide underlying psychological violence. And third, I want to explore the larger social implications of my excommunication, namely the interplay between hierarchical authority and personal identity.
Initial Contacts with Leaders
In September of 1993, six prominent intellectuals and feminists were excommunicated from the LDS Church, later called "The September Six" in the much-publicized media coverage. In a way, the purge really began with a threat to me. That summer I had given a presentation to "Voice," a feminist club at the Church owned Brigham Young University. It was a slide show of images of Female Deity, exploring how women's identities and empowerment are connected to envisioning God as female. The presentation was written up as a front-page article in BYU's student paper, the Daily Universe, with my photograph highlighted (the faculty adviser was on vacation). Apostle Boyd K. Packer, a top official in the LDS faith, apparently saw the article and was furious. He made a few phone calls and put some pressure on Kerry Heinz, then the president of the Salt Lake Big Cottonwood Stake, of which I was a member. Heinz called me in and, in his honesty, told me that Elder Packer had been very upset and was pressuring him to take action. In fact, he even told me what Packer had said to another of his General Authority friends: "Why can't he [Heinz] control that woman?"
The stake president Heinz and I had a series of discussions. It started out doctrinally, but when he saw that he could not easily counter my arguments for ordaining women to the priesthood (one of the issues I'd written about), he quickly resorted to his own priesthood authority, telling me he wanted a promise that I would no longer talk about these issues. It should simply be a matter of obedience, from his perspective. Then we started discussing the problem of blind obedience, which finally culminated in a letter he sent warning me that I could not speak or write about, publish or discuss in any forum or media presentation anything to do with Church history and doctrine. It was an all-encompassing ultimatum. If I did continue to speak out, he would hold a disciplinary council on me, which could mean excommunication from the Church.
At that point, my husband Paul got involved in the discussion. Both Kerry and I have described it as Paul's jumping to my defense in a "gallant" way. More importantly, President Heinz immediately saw that Paul was much more offensive than I was in his criticism of Church policies and leaders. I'm known for my niceness, and Paul is known for his abrasiveness. It's hard for a considerate person like Kerry to excommunicate a nice woman - what gentleman could do this? - but an abrasive man is fair game. So Paul was the one who was excommunicated that year, and my case was put on hold.
After the traumatic events of September, 1993, neither Paul nor our four daughters wanted to return to Church activity. I tried for a few months until our youngest, Sarah, who was only nine at the time, confronted me. From her perspective, for me to continue being involved in the Church was a betrayal of Paul and the family. She basically said, "You choose: us or the Church." So of course I chose my family, stopped going to meetings, and discovered my anger about our treatment at the hands of the Church.
We continued to live in that ward for two years, then moved about a mile away. It was across the boundary into a different stake, the Salt Lake South Cottonwood Stake. When we first moved in, we got the usual Relief Society visiting and home teachers. When we told them we were excommunicated "apostates," they left us alone, and we didn't hear from anyone until July, 1998. At that time I received a telephone call from a Bishop Warnick asking me to meet with him. I'd never met the man, so I decided to go in and see what he had to say. I found him to be intelligent, thoughtful, and embarrassed about calling me in. He gave the usual Church line about "No, no one asked me to do this." He focused our discussion on Strangers in Paradox, the theological book Paul and I had written together in 1990, and said he'd read only the chapter on polygamy, which he actually liked. But then he asked me about women and priesthood and Mother in Heaven, two of the big issues I've written on. We had a very friendly discussion for about an hour and a half. At the end, he said, "I was so afraid to talk to you, but really, you're a very pleasant person." He didn't say what he was expecting, but I had images of a raving feminist. He also let something else slip inadvertently by confiding, "I hope I don't have to do anything else."
That was my last contact with anyone from the ward or stake until November, 1999, when I had a call from Dale Blake, president of the South Cottonwood Stake, whom I'd never met, requesting a meeting. I was curious and decided that I would go, and we met on a Sunday. His first counselor was also present. Dale Blake presented himself as a friendly fellow with a big grin. He shook my hand and seated me. He persistently mispronounced my name, calling me "Sister Tas-KAN-o," even when I corrected his pronunciation two or three times. He explained, "I just wanted to get to know you." I answered, "Well, I've been in this stake for four years, and no one has been interested in getting to know me or my family. I'm wondering why, all of a sudden, you're interested." He hemmed and hawed a bit, but basically repeated that he just wanted to get to know me.
I asked, "Do you know anything about me? Do you know, for instance, that my husband was excommunicated with the September Six?"
"Well, I have talked to President Heinz."
The meeting lasted an hour and a half, and I'm afraid that I disclosed a lot more than he did. The only two issues he brought up in this meeting were his concern over whether I had kept my temple covenants and what he called my anti-Mormon website: "I'm really concerned about the anti-Mormon website that you and your husband have." I was astonished because I had no idea what he was talking about. As I questioned him, what came out was that he had seen a page from the Signature Books website advertising Strangers in Paradox. He saw this as an anti-Mormon website. I finally realized that it was our chapter in Strangers on the Mormon temple endowment that was the reason he kept asking whether I had kept my temple covenants. His assumption was that if I had talked about the temple in any way, then I had broken my covenant of secrecy, which I told him is not I how interpret the issue.
After I'd given him my views on a lot of things, he said, "I appreciate your candor." I responded, "I've been candid with you and you haven't been forthright with me." He answered with a nervous laugh and reiterated his desire to get to know me. I asked him why first Bishop Warnick and now he had called me in. "Where are you going to go from here?" I asked. "Are you investigating this more? Planning to hold a church court?" He seemed a little shocked but didn't respond.
It was a disturbing session. The thing that struck me afterwards was my realization that these two men who claimed they wanted to get to know me cared absolutely nothing about me as a person; they had no concern about the welfare of my soul, and they didn't see themselves as ministers of the gospel or of my salvation. They saw the issue as strictly them defending the Church. The non-stop smile of the stake president was a fa ade. He didn't ask about Paul, the children. He made no pretence of caring about my family. And mostly he wasn't really interested in my beliefs either. He didn't ask about my testimony, only about my activity, whether I intended to go to Church, why I didn't. I talked about the hurt we'd suffered from Paul's excommunication, the way I felt so damaged by what had happened to me in the Church and how difficult it was for me to attend because I felt that there was no love or concern for me or other members. He said nothing. He made no attempt to make any statement of concern. He just kept on smiling, no matter what I said.
The Summons and Charges
I didn't hear anything from him for a year. Our next contact was in November, 2000, when Dale Blake's executive secretary called and said that the stake president wanted to see me. I had determined after the first meeting that there would be no purpose in having a drawn-out series of meetings and that I was just going to tell him "no," so I thought it would be better to go in and just end things. I went in on 26 November, 2000, and again met with a friendly handshake, a big smile. My perception of Blake was of someone playing the part of the fool and doing it with considerable expertise. He presented himself as a happy-go-lucky fellow, amiable, not very bright; but actually, from comparison with his abilities later at the court, he was using this as a screen and displaying an impressive ability at sidestepping questions. He greeted me effusively: "Oh Sister Tas-KAN-o, it's so good to see you. How is your husband? How are the kids." I responded with polite generalities.
Then he handed me a letter: a summons to appear in a Church disciplinary council. "The stake presidency is considering formal disciplinary action in your behalf, including the possibility of disfellowshipment or excommunication because you are reported to have been in apostasy." There couldn't be a more passive and evasive sentence.
I responded: "Who reported me and what are the charges?"
"Oh, we don't need to get into that right now. That's what the council is for, but if you do want to bring witnesses, they have to be members in good standing, and you have to have their names and a detailed list of what they're going to testify about to the bishop by tomorrow night."
I responded, "Well, if you won't tell me the charges, I do have five issues that I'm concerned with: (1) What is your definition of apostasy? Are you basing it on some principle or doctrine, or is it simply the arbitrary feeling of a leader. (2) What assurance do
I have that this council is going to be run in a fair way? (3) What about freedom of speech? Is there any kind of place for respectful disagreement in the Church? (4) What is the purpose of the council- to punish me? Label me? Protect the Church? What do you see as its purpose? Why do you think this is necessary? (5) Why now? Who reported me? What have I said or done that is apostate? Have you been instructed or sent material by any general committee in the Church, or the area president or anybody else?
He was madly writing and kept saying, "I didn't quite get that. Could you repeat that?" After I repeated everything about four times, he finally said, "Okay, I've got everything. I'll see if we can answer these at the council." And then he said he had had no contact with any other leader and had not been sent any information by any Church committee, and then added: "I feel so sad that you have such a low opinion of the Church and that you think we have secrets."
I got up to leave. The smile broke out again. "Oh, Sister `Tas-KAN-o,' I hope you have a great day."
I started to laugh. "You've got to be kidding," I exclaimed.
"Oh, no. I mean this very sincerely," he said. He then emphasized that the meeting would start at seven o'clock sharp and I'd better be there on time. I assured him I would be.
The Court Begins
The court started at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 30. I had decided that I did not want this to be public in any way or to have anyone there, even to offer support. No one would be allowed to be with me in the court itself anyway, according to Church policy. My primary concern was my daughters. Paul's excommunication was very hard on them. They suffered a lot from it because of its public nature, which was difficult for them among their Mormon dominated schoolmates. When I went home and told them there was another court, one of them said, "Oh no, do we have to go through all that embarrassment again?" This confirmed my decision that I was going to avoid any kind of attention that would add a public element to the experience. I was also stretched very thin with my teaching at the university and working on my doctoral dissertation. I knew that I personally could not deal with the trauma that Paul's excommunication had represented with all its public attention. So I went by myself. I didn't tell anyone but Paul and my daughters beforehand. The building was rather dark, and the church leaders had told me to come through a small back door, which I did. I learned later that they were expecting a big vigil and had locked all the doors so that no one could get in. The single open door was guarded by one of the bishops in the stake with orders to admit only me.
The executive secretary greeted me and went to get the stake president, who had already been talking to the assembled high council. When the stake president led me into the room, I must admit that it was a little daunting facing sixteen men, all looking official and solemn in their suits. I knew none of them. I'd had no contact with any of them in any context of which I was aware, so they didn't know me either. There I was, a lone woman accused of being a Church enemy facing a group of men whose allegiance was to the Church hierarchy. How could I possibly convince them I was not bad?
Church disciplinary councils are most commonly convened in the high council room around a long conference table. This was not true in my case. The room appeared to be the Relief Society room, with most of the chairs pushed to the back. I was led to a single chair at the front of the room, standing alone without a table. I faced the high council who were sitting on chairs in front of me arranged in a semi-circle. At my right were two small tables that met at right angles. The stake president sat directly to my right at the table facing the high council, with his two counselors to his right; and the executive secretary sat at the far table facing me and taking notes during the whole procedure. I was wearing a conservative dark suit, but the straight skirt was such that I had to keep pulling it down and be careful to keep my knees together the whole time since there was nothing between me and the high council facing me. It increased my discomfort. Would they think me immodest? This is one of those small detailsthat remains fixed in my bodily response to the whole experience.
Since I was not allowed to bring anyone in with me for the whole procedure, I brought a notepad and pen, both to help me remember what happened later and also to jot down quick notes for a defense as they brought up various issues so I wouldn't forget when I was given a chance to speak. I took as many notes as I could, trying to maintain eye-contact with the speaker while I did so. It was very difficult to do this and also think of a response at the same time, but I'm glad I tried. It was also difficult since my main accuser was the stake president, who was at my side. So I had to shift back and forth from him to the high council, all the while keeping my knees together. I used my notes to tell Paul and our daughters what happened as soon as I got home, and jotted down some clarifications. Then, on Sunday, three days later, I used this expanded outline to talk through the court with Lavina Fielding Anderson, recording what I said on my end, while she was doing a rough transcript of what I said, while asking clarifying questions on her end. So I feel that the record of my excommunication is quite complete and quite accurate. My interpretation of tone, the men's motives, and my own feelings are personal interpretations, of course. I'm sure that President Blake and the other men present would have their own interpretations.
As soon as I came in, they all rose to their feet. It was almost humorous. Whenever I stood up, they all jumped to their feet. When I sat down, they sat down. They were very polite. They all wanted to shake my hand. I was introduced to each and shook hands with each (though I couldn't remember any of their names afterwards). Then all of a sudden, the bumbling, happy-go-lucky stake president became the articulate, incisive and callous public prosecutor. One strong image I have of this disciplinary court is its Kafkaesque quality. This man, who previously implied he had never read anything I'd written except for the alleged anti-Mormon website, had in front of him a stack about 10-12 inches high of photocopies of things I'd written, including transcripts of things I'd never published, photocopies of newspaper articles where I was quoted, and photocopies of my published articles, all highlighted with yellow on pertinent passages, all of which he later claimed he had read. He also had a typewritten script in front of him which he followed very closely. He proceeded very systematically and aggressively to present and prove his case that I was guilty of apostasy. Did he prepare this script by himself? I don't know, but I do know that he couldn't have collected all of this material by himself; and the telltale yellow highlighting bears the mark of material sent from the general church committee, as other disciplined members have observed. Certainly, I'm convinced that Dale Blake was not as dull as he appeared in our first meeting.
The Case Against Me
He began with a definition of apostasy. The Church handbook gives basically two definitions of apostasy. The first is "clear, open, deliberate, and repeated opposition to the Church and/or its leaders" and the second is "teaching as Church doctrine what is not Church doctrine after being corrected by a leader." He read these definitions and said, "What I'm going to show you tonight is that Sister "Tas-KAN-o" [he never pronounced my name right] was instructed by her leaders not to talk about certain things, and I will show that she disobeyed those leaders and preached as doctrine what is not doctrine; and therefore she is guilty of apostasy." He explained that Kerry Heinz had instructed me not to write, publish, or speak, and that I had continued to do so. The argument was a legalistic one: If a leader has told you to do something and you disobey, then you are an apostate. That was all he felt he needed to demonstrate and win his argument. Blake set the whole issue up as a cut and dried court case.
My Initial Response
Then President Blake let me make an initial statement at this point. I told the council that when President Heinz gave me these instructions, I told him I could not in good conscience obey him and therefore wouldn't because I felt that the command itself was not righteous, that it was not within his power as a loving leader representing Jesus Christ to ask me to do this. It wasn't that I felt my writings themselves were so important, but that obeying his demand to be silent would set up and participate in what I thought was an abusive act. To be silent would not only hurt me individually and my relationship to the community, but it would damage the entire community of Saints spiritually because it reinforced notions of silence, obedience, and negations of free agency that would promote fear and oppression and enforce a model of community that I disagreed with. I then explained that I had never used my Church membership or any Church calling to get people to believe me, that I had never discussed controversialideas in the Sunday School class I was team-teaching with Fred Voros at the time of Heinz's letter, that I had always left my most radical ideas for Sunstone and other such private groups. I had never presented my personal views as official Church doctrine either. I also said that I disagreed with the definition of apostasy because I felt it promoted arbitrary action and that it fostered the view that anything a leader says is right.
At this point President Blake interrupted me. "Oh no. A Church leader would never ask you to do anything that is not right." Then he quickly added, "Well, maybe they might tell you not to bring Cheerios for your kids to eat during sacrament meeting - something small like that - but a Church leader would never tell you to do something important that isn't right."
I countered with, "Well, let's look at the situation of blacks receiving the priesthood."
I was still in mid-sentence when he interrupted me and said: "You may not lecture us. We will not allow you to lecture us. You may not talk about issues like blacks and the priesthood. You are not to bring that issue up again. In fact, you can only talk as I give you permission. And if I feel that you are misusing this permission, I will stop you immediately." I was surprised and alarmed at his command, and I stared at him without saying anything more at this point.
Surprise Witness
He moved on to ask me about the specific instructions I had received from Kerry Heinz. I said, "You'd really have to ask President Heinz." And then, quite dramatically, Dale Blake said, "President Heinz happens to be here." And in comes the surprise witness, Kerry Heinz, looking quite uncomfortable. The court then produced the letter Heinz had sent me seven years before. President Blake had one of the counselors read it. In that letter, Heinz had been quite careful not to get into doctrinal issues. He said, "Your beliefs are not being questioned. They are personal to you. I'm simply asking you to obey me as your stake president as a test of your faith."
Then President Blake questioned President Heinz in a dramatic little interchange:
"President Heinz, did you send this letter?"
"Yes, I did."
"Sister Toscano, did you receive this letter?"
"Yes, I did."
Blake then asked Heinz whether or not I had disobeyed the letter. Yes, she did. Did Heinz have discussions with me about it? Yes, we did. Did she ever use her Sunday School class to push her radical doctrine. "No, she didn't," said Heinz. "As far as I heard, she was a very good teacher."
"Why didn't you follow up on the letter?" Kerry Heinz squirmed a little. It was clear that Dale Blake was positioning himself as the champion who was doing his duty as the priesthood leader vs. Kerry Heinz who had somehow dropped the ball. Heinz gave three reasons: First, Paul was very protective of me and had told him not to contact me. (This startled me because it didn't sound like something Paul would do. He knows I'd be really mad if he tried to arrange to have me treated as if I were helpless and weak, as if I needed to be controlled. But this was Heinz's perception.) The second reason was that I had already removed myself from the Church, by which he meant that I stopped attending meetings after a couple of months. And third, we moved out of the stake. Of course, we didn't move out of the stake until two years after Paul's excommunication.
I was then given a chance to respond. I explained my reasons for the inactivity - that it had been my concern for my children and desire not to alienate myself from them. My daughters, particularly the youngest who was only nine at the time, were very affected by Paul's excommunication. For his whole six-hour trial, the little one sat on the couch outside the high council room waiting; all the girls were there. They were so hurt by this that none of them wanted to go back to Church at all. They didn't want to consider themselves Mormon. A Church that treated their parents like this was not something they wanted to be part of. I decided my relationship with my children was much more important than going to Church. This was the only point in the whole court where my voice even wavered. It was the only place where I got choked up. For some reason, I found myself trying not to be a "weak" woman by appealing to their emotions.
I then asked about the exchange between Dale Blake and Kerry Heinz - whether or not my records had been tagged, whether President Heinz had made the initial call, and what information had been conveyed. They both hemmed and hawed around and did not give me direct answers. Heinz did not stay long; as soon as the questions were over, he left.
Blake Acts as Prosecuting Attorney with Case Against Me
At that point, President Blake reverted to his prosecuting attorney mode, and referring often to his script, he went down all the ways I had disobeyed Kerry Heinz's instructions. Interestingly, he didn't start with the speeches I had given after the 1993 letter. Instead, he went clear back to my first publication, a 1984 Sunstone conference talk: "The Missing Rib: The Forgotten Place of Queens and Priestesses in the Establishment of Zion," which was later printed in Sunstone magazine. Then he went systematically through my speeches. He missed a few, but not many. I hosted a half-hour bimonthly radio interview show on KRCL with guests who were knowledgeable on feminist issues for four or five years, which he didn't mention. But he went through Sunstone and Dialogue articles, and Mormon Women's Forum articles and presentations. He had a photocopy of the entirety of my book Strangers in Paradox. The issues he was concerned with were Heavenly Mother and women holding the priesthood and references to the temple. He was not interested so much in the content itself as the fact I had discussed certain topics, and mostly he refused to let me discuss doctrinal issues. Instead, he focused relentlessly on the fact that "you had been commanded not to talk about any of these things and you did. Therefore you are an apostate." For example, he quoted my statement in a newspaper article during the September 1993 excommunications where I said, "I will not be silent." But at times Blake would comment on some aspect of my work that disturbed him. One interesting document was a photocopy of my Mormon Women's Forum article, "Images of the Female Body, Human and Divine," which is a complex piece on symbols and how they work. His main objection was that the article, which drew heavily on representations of the feminine in art, contained "lewd pictures that she said could be pictures of our Heavenly Mother."
He did not let me answer much or at length; he warned me several times that I was not allowed to give long speeches. I tried to jump in when I could. For instance, when he made the comment about the art images, I said, "First, I don't consider them lewd pictures. They are beautiful works of art." "But there are naked bodies!" he exclaimed. I repeated, "I don't consider the human body lewd."
In 1993 I was on a panel at Sunstone with Michael Quinn, Linda Newell, and Maxine Hanks exploring the question, "If Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843, Why Aren't They Using It." In that speech I had disagreed with Elder Boyd Packer who had given a conference talk in which-probably in response to me, Michael Quinn, and others-he had said there was no such thing as "free-floating temple priesthood." I had engaged in a bit of a debate with Packer's talk in that presentation.
President Blake used this as another example of me disagreeing with my leaders and therefore "vocally" opposing them to fit the handbook definition of apostasy. He also kept claiming that I spoke using my membership as a place of authority. Although I answered, "I never remember doing this. I really don't think you can find a written statement like that," he kept insisting I had.
During the discussion about Packer and priesthood, I tried to explain to the high council why I didn't see temple priesthood as free-floating authority; I said I had never argued that temple priesthood means a woman can just seize authority or go out and do ordinances. I was merely using women's temple priesthood as an argument for the legitimate, doctrinal basis of including women in the priesthood in Mormon doctrine and practice. When Blake talked about Strangers in Paradox, he said I'd talked there about women being bishops. So then I chimed in, "I want to put that into context. I was not just saying that a woman should go out and make herself a bishop. I'm saying that in what I think of as the ideal Church, we'd have women functioning in priesthood offices. I argued that ideally husbands and wives could work together in bishoprics."
Interestingly, in everything Blake quoted to the high council that I had written, he would focus on just a phrase or a sentence or two out of context; but in contrast, he read a lengthy passage from Packer's talk - it seemed to take about five minutes - glancing up frequently to glare accusingly at me as if to say, "Be instructed. This is true doctrine." The discussion over Packer's views was the closest we got to a doctrinal debate. But Blake would still not give me the time to fully defend what I had said.
I had also talked about praying to Heavenly Mother in a couple of presentations. Blake did the same thing in response to this issue. He brought in a talk from President Hinckley about how we shouldn't pray to Heavenly Mother. At this point I tried to defend myself a little by talking about the Mormon hymn "O My Father" and asking what prayer is. I tried to make a distinction between getting up in sacrament meeting to defy priesthood leaders publicly by praying to Heavenly Mother and the private experiences I was advocating. I said: "This is more about encouraging women, who have often been damaged by a patriarchal system, to connect with God in whatever way they can. Maybe this is hard for you to understand, but there are women who have been abused who have a hard time with a male God. Just look at this council. I'm one woman and there are sixteen of you men. There are no women in leadership positions who can represent my feelings here."
President Blake immediately got very defensive and said, "I hope you don't feel that we're trying to intimidate you or trying in any way to hurt you."
I said, "I teach. I'm in academia. I'm used to dealing with tough situations.-But the point I'm trying to make is that this is an inequality of power." Later I regretted not pointing out how hurtful and intimidating it is to be threatened with excommunication itself. But in the heat of the moment, without any idea beforehand what their tack would be, it was hard to think of everything.
President Blake ended with my 1998 Dialogue article: "If I Hate my Mother, Can I Love the Heavenly Mother." He actually said he liked this piece. He said reading my description of my mother's depression helped him understand me. He was disturbed, however, by my image of God as lover in this piece; he thought it was encouraging homosexuality. After Blake had gone through all this evidence, he made a summary. He said he had proven that I'd disobeyed Kerry Heinz and that I'd also been in opposition to Presidents Packer and Hinckley because I'd disagreed with them. Therefore I was an apostate.
My Chance to Respond
The procedure thus far took a little more than an hour and a half. Then President Blake gave me a chance to respond; he hadn't allowed me more than a sentence or two here and there while he was making his case. By this time I understood that trying to argue doctrine wasn't going to help much. I had had no chance to prepare or plan a response to his approach. So I made a split second calculation and decided I would go for the freedom of speech argument. In fact, it turned out to be very disturbing to them.
I began by stating that freedom of speech and free agency are essential both for moral choice, individual growth, and healthy community. I talked a little about my vision of a spiritual community. I said I had no intent to harm the Church, that I wasn't its enemy, that in fact from a very young age I had loved the Church. I saw my feminist theology as faith promoting, that it was my way of coming to grips with my tradition and my faith to work out a space that I felt I could live in. If I succeeded, maybe I could help other women and men, too. I also said I'd always tried to be a devout member of the Church, had a strong desire to understand the gospel. I tried to give them this kind of context, though I'm sure not as articulately as I am stating it here because it was all ex tempore.
I then argued that if the Constitution is inspired in any way, as Church scripture claims, it is in the Bill of Rights and that freedom is the basis for individual and spiritual growth. I argued that there should be a place in the Church for respectful disagreement. If we don't have freedom of speech, it creates a climate of fear, which kills the workings of the Spirit of God. Many people had told me they are afraid to speak from their hearts in Church contexts because they think they will be punished in a variety of ways - from ostracism to excommunication. They aren't just afraid of being argued with or disagreed with. They are afraid of being denied callings, of having their temple recommends confiscated, of seeing their children ostracized, and of being marginalized from their spiritual and social community.
I didn't feel free to elaborate much. I could tell that President Blake was listening patiently but that he was also very willing to interrupt me or cut me off. In fact, when I got to this point and paused, he didn't wait or ask if I had more to say. He stepped in at once to say that now the high councilors could question me.
Questions from the High Council
During the whole presentation so far, the high councilors just sat there very solemn, very intent, looking at me, looking at the stake president. It was all very intense for me too; it's difficult to have a jury whose responses are hard to read. Now was the first glimpse I got of their feelings about the matters being discussed. The first man to talk complimented me on being articulate and passionate. (Several times they complimented me - I guess it was a compliment - on being so passionate; but I really didn't understand what they meant. Was it a surprise for a woman to be assertive?) He also asked if I had plans to publish more on feminism. I answered quite truthfully, "All I want to do right now is finish my dissertation."
The second man focused on the free speech issue and gave me the extreme example of a white supremacist Mormon who was arguing that blacks should be killed. Should he be excommunicated? Afterwards, of course you think of your best answers then, I wished I had asked him if he saw me in the same category as a white supremacist. But at this point, I said, "I'm very strong on freedom of speech. I think speech should be countered with speech and action with action. If somebody says something that is wrong, I think the Church should speak back by making a clear, public denunciation of the offending statement or idea. Members are more likely to believe leaders anyway."
The next question was why I came to the court tonight when I'd been inactive for so long? I gave him three answers: "First of all, Mormonism is my heritage," I said. "Part of me will always be Mormon, even if you excommunicate me. Second, I wanted to come and bear my witness. I didn't want you to be able to cut me off without having to look me in the face. I wanted you to see the kind of person I am. And third, I came because I felt that to do so was a way to try and help the Church be a better organization. I want it to be a loving, fair, just, nurturing organization, and unless all of us work for that, it will never be."
At this point, President Blake, sounding surprised and pleased, said, "That's good. I agree with that. We all want that too."
The next question was: "Are the topics of your speeches assigned to you or were they your own ideas?" I think they thought that Sunstone must be like Church. I said they were my own ideas. Sometimes on a panel the topic would be assigned, but what I said was my own idea. I took responsibility for them.
The fifth question: "Do you still pray?" I answered, "Yes" without elaborating much, though I said my prayers were more informal than Mormon custom dictates. I wondered whether he would ask if I prayed to Mother in Heaven, but he didn't.
The sixth question was a hard one, coming from a very gentle man. He asked, "Did you speak from your heart?" I wasn't quite sure what he was asking-whether he meant during my public presentations or that night in the court. I universalized the question and answered, "I try to. It's very important to me to be sincere."
The seventh question was: "What do you think of the Church now?" I said I thought two things. "First, the Church does a lot of good. It helps people. It gives them meaning and purpose. But the Church does a lot of harm too. It hurts a lot of people in many different ways, and it doesn't take responsibility for that."
For and Against?
Next, President Blake explained the Doctrine and Covenants procedure about drawing lots: six of the council are supposed to make sure you are defended and six are to represent the case against you. He said, "In consideration of time, we've chosen two for you and two against you. They were really worried that you would be offended and think they are attacking you, so I want you to know that this is their job and they have to do it."
I said, "That's okay. I understand the procedure."
Since the two high councilors who were against me both started out with a statement affirming their belief in freedom and free agency, I knew that my argument had made an impression on them. The first speaker said almost fiercely: "I fought for free agency in the war in heaven and I will still fight for it here. But you didn't obey your leaders, therefore you are an apostate."
The first man "for" was the man who asked if I'd spoken from my heart. He was a very sweet man, quite emotional. He said he'd been moved by my love for my daughters, he felt my testimony of Christ and the Church, and said he felt I had good intentions."
The third speaker, who was against me, also began with a strong affirmation of freedom of speech. He also complimented me: I was intelligent, articulate, and passionate. His take was that I was "well-meaning but misguided." Then he quoted from the handbook: "The Church must protect the innocent and safeguard the purity of the Church." Some people may have been misguided by me. I had placed people's testimonies in jeopardy. I had disobeyed after being warned. Therefore I was an apostate.
The fourth speaker was supposed to be speaking for me, although it was fairly difficult to tell which side he was on. He said that I was guilty in terms of the letter of the law because I didn't follow the directions of Kerry Heinz, but in terms of the spirit of the law I was innocent because I didn't intend to harm. I was not allowed to respond to any of these four statements.
Deliberation and Pronouncement
Then President Blake asked me to leave. I waited in the foyer and had a little conversation with the bishop who was guarding the door. This is when he explained that they had been afraid of a big demonstration. The stake presidency and high council deliberated for about half an hour, then called me back in. President Blake began with a series of compliments. The high council wanted me to know how impressed they were with me- I was so nice and polite and lived by my ideal to disagree with respect. I was so intelligent, so articulate and passionate. (This was the third time this particular compliment had come up.) But the bottom line was: I was so excommunicated.
President Blake told me that the decision was unanimous, that I now had no privileges of membership, that I could come back to the Church - and here, all of a sudden, he switched the discourse from disobedience to doctrine - but in order to do so I would have to publicly denounce all of my false doctrine and repair the damage I had done to people's testimonies. He reinforced this interpretation when he sent me the official letter almost three weeks later. In it he said I had to make "full, public denunciation of all of your false doctrines and that you must try to make restitution to all the people whose testimonies you have damaged."
Of course, they had not shown in the trial that I had, in fact, damaged anybody's testimony, but suddenly it had become a condition of being a member of the Church again - that I must restore people's faith.
At the end of the Council, President Blake reverted to his original smarmy, ultra-friendly mode, asking if he could keep in touch with me. I said, "You may if you like, but don't call me at home. It's upsetting to my family." Though I gave him my office number, I never heard from him until the first time I spoke publicly about my excommunication, at the Sunstone symposium in August of 2001. When the program came out, Blake left a message on my answering machine at the office saying, "Oh, Sister Tas-KAN-o, President Blake here, just wondering how you're doing. I'll get back with you." But he never has to this day. And neither has anyone else in the Church; no one has tried to fellowship me or my family back in.
When the court was over, I stood up, and they all jumped up again and wanted to shake hands again. It seemed more than a little ludicrous, as though they were congratulating me on something. President Blake and his counselor wanted to walk me out to my car too. It was almost 10:30 p.m. Blake was relieved, happy, very pleased with himself. When he remarked that they couldn't let me be alone in the parking lot after dark, I mentioned that Paul had wanted to come and support me; but that I'd preferred to come by myself. At that point, President Blake let it slip that they were afraid Paul would come and be belligerent.
"President Heinz told us how protective Paul is of you and we were a little afraid that he might come here and cause some trouble." He also let it slip that they were expecting a big vigil. I explained that I wanted to keep it nonpublic for the sake of my children.
Aftermath
Then came the aftermath, which brought emotions I didn't expect. At first I was relieved. In a way, I felt that I was fatally wounded in 1993 and left to die at the side of the road. So it was like receiving the coup de grace, the merciful killing blow. I was also glad I didn't have to go through my sister Janice Allred's ordeal where there were a series of trials with increasing penalties until excommunication. When I got home after the court, my daughters helped cheer me up by telling me jokes. After Paul had been excommunicated in 1993, the efficient Church bureaucracy had already gone into action by the time we got our ward Christmas card two months later. It was addressed to "The Margaret Toscano Family." So my eldest daughter Angela joked, "I wonder if the Christmas card will be addressed to the Angela Toscano family this year?" Maybe they'll pick us off one by one and we'll each have a chance to be in charge of the family." (In fact, the next Church Christmas card was addressed to the Angela Toscano family.)
But my next reaction was extreme grief and sadness. I couldn't stop crying for three whole days. I had to teach Latin the morning after the council, on Friday at 9:30 a.m. I kept weeping uncontrollably all the way to the university, so before going to class I tried to repair my face by first walking around in the cold and then applying make-up to disguise my state (and my acting ability did kick in when I entered the classroom). But the grief was still there. I thought because I had withdrawn from the Church seven years before that this final blow would not hurt so much. I did not expect to feel this extreme sense of loss and violation. I even felt angry at myself for letting those 16 men off the hook so easily during my disciplinary council. Why hadn't I told them more strongly how wrong what they were doing to me was? Why did I participate in their niceness? Why did I excuse the high council at the end by saying I knew they were just doing what they saw as their job? Why couldn't I express my anger to themabout how much they had hurt me and my family? It was true I felt they really wouldn't let me talk, but I still felt self-reproach about it afterwards. I felt sad that I hadn't been able to express how much damage they do. I also felt really frustrated.
Although I could understand their point of view, I couldn't get them to listen to me or let me express my views. I felt so restrained, so constrained in that council. They kept saying how articulate I was, but from my perspective I felt like I was being choked and gagged. My husband's description of my court afterwards rang true: I had been gang-raped by the Care Bears.
Questions
My excommunication story raises many questions. I don't have hard information or definitive answers to any of them, but these are my speculations. The first question is obviously why the excommunication happened when it did? Why seven years after I was first threatened? And why after I had been inactive for so long? I feel that the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly but inexorably. It was written already in the fates that I was to be excommunicated, but Kerry Heinz didn't push through with it because it had been painful for him to excommunicate Paul. There was a lot of publicity in 1993; Heinz's name was in the paper a lot, and it was not really his personal inclination to hold a court in the first place. I don't think he wanted to repeat the experience. But there was obviously someone in the Church hierarchy that wanted me out and pushed it through. Second, I think it took time to make it happen. "They" (whoever ultimately was pushing it) wanted a bishop to hold the court, but it seems two bishops refused. The Church policy for women is a bishop's council since women don't hold the priesthood. The stake president had to decide that it was more important to get me excommunicated than to follow the handbook on this point. And third, I think President Blake and the Strengthening Church Members Committee (a group at LDS headquarters who collects information on Church "enemies") was building its case. That careful, detailed script Blake was following, amassing all of those documents - it took time.
Another important question is: Who instigated it? Was it indeed from Church headquarters? Again, I don't know for sure, but my impression from what I saw is yes. Certainly President Blake was not as foolish as he first appeared and could have acted on his own, but I really do not think he did. I'm certain he did not collect the newspaper clippings, or the transcripts of talks, or all the articles by himself; he would have had to have been collecting these for years, long before I moved into his stake in 1995. This means he lied to me outright. I assume it was the Strengthening Church Members Committee behind the research since it would have taken some doing, much forethought, and considerable resources. And maybe President Blake was encouraged by a higher up leader (like Packer) or had help from one of the Church attorneys, though I have no direct evidence of this. Certainly the case was presented in a clever and legalistic manner. And so many of the arguments were those I've seen used against other intellectuals and feminists. There seems to be a consistent Church line against "apostates."
At the very end of the court, when President Blake announced that I was excommunicated, he made what I thought was a very odd analogy (and interestingly one also used by other leaders against dissidents). "You know," he explained earnestly, "the Church is like a social club. Just as a club has a legal right to set up rules that you have to obey in order to be a member of that club, you did not obey the rules of this club, and we have the right to remove you." I wondered, but couldn't say at the time: Is the legal right the same as the moral right? Shouldn't the group that claims to be Christ's true church be concerned about the spirit of the law and being something more than just a social club? I remember thinking how ironic Blake's club analogy was. I realized I would have been better off if I had been a social Mormon only. My real problem was that I believed too much. I cared too much. I cared about doctrine. I cared about the spiritual quality of the community. If I had been only a social Mormon - even anatheist who only attended because of family connections to Mormonism - I would probably never be in this spot. It's fascinating to me how much Church leaders, such as President Blake, like to think of themselves as fair and a court like mine as being conducted by all of the proper rules, even when it's obvious that the outcome had already been determined beforehand and that the Church held all the trump cards. But, of course, leaders like Blake assume that they are right by definition and that anyone who questions them is an apostate. So why bother with evidence and rules then? Is it merely for the appearance of justice? Mormons do care a lot about appearances.
After the PBS documentary on Mormons where my excommunication story was featured (May, 2007), there was a huge uproar from many mainstream Mormons about the dramatic recreation of my excommunication "courtroom" because the arrangement of chairs was different than is common in such church disciplinary councils, which are usually held around a high council table with those "for" and "against" the "defendant" on either side. The interesting question is why all the uproar? I am conjecturing it is because Mormons want to believe that my hearing was fair, that it was a "court of love." And the arrangement of the chairs with one lonely chair in the middle symbolically represents something else. Yet this was how the chairs were actually arranged at my hearing; it was not a mere metaphor. But even if the more common arrangement around a table had been used, would this guarantee fairness? This was the arrangement at my husband's court, but there is strong evidence the outcome was still predetermined.
Another important question raised by my disciplinary council is why the Church leaders felt I needed to be excommunicated at all. Most Church members knew nothing about my writings and were not likely to be influenced by them. Ironically, people would more likely hear about me if my excommunication were publicized. And even if members did read my work, they would probably not believe me in contradiction to the Church leaders, if they were to see a discrepancy. Still, it was very clear in my disciplinary council that the leaders didn't want me speaking as a member of the Church, even a member just giving her own personal opinion without the authority of any priesthood office.
This issue falls under the umbrella of Church identity and authority. The Church's insistence in the spring of 2000 on being called the Church of Jesus Christ, rather than the Mormon Church, probably has a variety of motives. Part of it is certainly their desire to identify as part of the larger American Christian community; but I think they also want to emphasize that they're a Church that has the right to say who is part of their organization. By insisting that the Church be called "LDS" rather than "Mormon," they are attempting to eliminate the possibility of people self-identifying or connecting to the Church through their ethnicity, cultural or family connections, or any other way. In other words, they want LDS identity to be strictly about official membership in the Church, which they alone control.
Authority Issues
Of course there are all kinds of authority issues involved in LDS excommunications. One scary thing about President Blake's final letter pronouncing my official excommunication was his statement that the current leaders' opinions are absolute. He said that neither the scriptures nor any "dead leaders" hold up against the living leaders. So what we have come to is that the only standard of truth we have in the Church is the current leaders. This situation seems like a perfect set up for abuse of authority, for a repeat of something like the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The fact that Blake was so insistent that I couldn't bring up any examples of past Church mistakes, like denying blacks the priesthood, is telling.
It is also significant that the two issues that seemed to be particularly offensive to Church leaders were women holding the priesthood and God the Mother, especially when you consider that both doctrines are based in Church texts and Church rituals. I can't think of anything more Mormon than the Heavenly Mother or women receiving priesthood authority in the temple because both doctrines can be traced back to Joseph Smith. But now they're considered an absolute threat to the present authority structure. Even when feminist issues are argued from a believing point of view, they are seen as opposition from the outside. Keeping women out of the all-male leadership structure is a very important part of LDS identity.
The ongoing use of excommunication by Church leaders illustrates their belief that they maintain their authority by keeping disobedient members in line. The leaders seem to think that if they let one person get away with disobedience, this may encourage more. But why classify disagreement as disobedience and sin? What does the Church have to gain by this stance?
Identity and Exclusion
I believe that the Church absolutely needs enemies and apostates. It is only by creating boundaries between themselves and others, by creating an "Other," that they have a meaningful identity. Exclusion is essential for their own feelings of righteousness. I think this is what they mean by "protecting the purity" of the Church. Creating a group of people who can't go to the temple makes those who can feel special. There have to be the impure to make the pure feel clean. Safeguarding the innocent against dangerous people like me creates a sense of purity and purpose for the Church. And yet, anyone who attends Church regularly and actually listens to all the opinions spouted by members each week, some of it nonsense, should realize how resistant and resilient the members are and how silly the idea of a "pure" Church is. Aren't we all sinners in need of Christ's saving power? Besides, a person can lie to get a temple recommend, and I'm sure many do. People have told me I should just swallow my pride and yield towhatever the leaders ask in order to get back into the Church. Should I lie and say I believe what I don't believe, such as obeying leaders no matter what? Emphasizing purity usually means people become obsessed with outward appearance, and often at the expense of inward integrity, spirituality, and charity. My experience is that these qualities are not prized much in the Church. Obedience to outwardly measurable rules is the premium.
The Problem with Niceness
And this brings up the niceness issue, which defines both those disciplined and disciplining. Mormons are known for their niceness; they are encouraged to be mild mannered; they don't like conflict of any kind. Back during the purge of intellectuals in 1993, I heard a lot of people creating a hierarchy of excommunicants, a ranking of who deserved it more than others. Lavina Fielding Anderson was considered pretty pure and undeserving of discipline. My husband Paul was considered pretty impure and deserving of punishment because he was angry and had a sharp tongue. He had even made fun of some leaders. With his Mediterranean temperament from his New York Italian background, he is definitely not nice from a Mormon point of view. In contrast, most people who know me see me as very nice; it's hard to shake generations of Mormon training. Even the high council remarked on how polite I was, but they still excommunicated me. Ultimately it didn't matter whether I was nice and Paul was not, we both still got cut off because we challenged leaders. Interestingly, many in the Church see criticism itself as not being nice. After the fact, many have said that Paul and I obviously deserved our excommunications because we are angry about what happened to us. The important point is this: People have used the question of "niceness" to cover over the real issues. Mainstream members must justify the leaders' actions. Many assume that there must be something more than our writings or doctrinal disagreements with leaders, so they bring up our motives and reactions. And the silence and secrecy leaders maintain about the courts (all in the name of a regard for privacy, but whose?) creates a screen of protection for their actions.
Besides, in contrast to us dissidents, the leaders are so nice and soft spoken; they wouldn't do anything wrong, would they? The politeness of my disciplinary council covered over the violence of what was being done. The niceness covered over the complete unfairness of the whole trial. In fact, much unkindness and cruelty is done in the Church by leaders under a veneer of politeness and niceness. It allows them not to take responsibility for the damage they do to lives by their judgments and policies. It seemed so bizarre to me at the end of my court how everyone smiled at me and wanted to shake my hand as though I were still part of their group. They had just barred me from full fellowship with the Saints in this world and in the next, throughout all eternity. But they did it with polite smiles. Excommunication is a violent act, even when it is pronounced in soft tones. It not only cuts people off from the ordinances of the gospel and from fellowship and Church participation, as outlined in the prohibitionsgiven me by President Blake; it also labels excommunicants as bad people and cuts them off from family and friends in a social context, both here and now and forever in the next life, according to Mormon doctrine. Of course, the defense mainstream members will give for these kinds of actions is that people like me really do it to ourselves. I chose not to obey Church leaders, and therefore I need to take responsibility for the consequences of my actions. Believe me, I have done that more than members can imagine. But has the Church taken responsibility for the extent of the damages done to excommunicants? Few are willing to admit the huge gap between the punishment and so called "crime."
The Fate of an Excommunicant
Excommunication is not "nice." Even if I continue to think of myself as a Mormon by self-identification, I am labeled as an apostate. To be an excommunicated Mormon is to be seen as dangerous and outcast. Even if I don't consider myself Mormon any longer, excommunication still affects my relationship with the people around me, with everyone in the Mormon (not just LDS Church) community-my family, my friends, my alma mater-BYU, my LDS students at the University of Utah, everyone with any connection to the religion or culture. BYU is on my resume because I have two degrees from that institution and I taught there for fourteen years. The fact that I can't exclude this from my resume shows how much I also can't completely walk away from my Mormon past, even if I wanted to. Also, unlike Protestant denominations, since the LDS Church organization is centralized and universal, being excommunicated means there is nowhere else to go to remain part of the faith. All of my extended family are members of the Church. Eventhough they love me and have a long history of my "niceness," when the Church calls me an apostate, there's a part of them that must believe this is true, or they face the terror of harboring apostate beliefs and actions themselves. One of the temple worthiness questions is whether members have any sympathy with apostates, which includes me. Excommunication means being cut off from family rituals and community ties.
The most painful part of all of this severing is being excluded from the basic rituals that bind families together-births, marriages, and deaths-since these are all commemorated within the Church context. How fully an excommunicated person is excluded depends on the interpretation and kindheartedness of individual, local Church leaders. Of course not just excommunicants are excluded from marriage ceremonies in LDS temples; all non-members, children, and non-recommend holders are too. Mormons have many ways of creating groups of the pure and less pure. Mormonism is a judgmental and shaming religion. And these kinds of judgments hurt even more when they come at times when we need comfort-like funerals.
My husband was not allowed to speak at two funerals of very dear friends because he is excommunicated. In both cases the deaths were tragic and the widows especially requested Paul to speak because he is a gifted speaker and close to the family. His exclusion was painful for all involved. Fortunately, I was allowed to speak at my mother's funeral; but this was only because the bishop was an old family friend with some compassion. Unfortunately, I did not feel this same kind of compassion when my younger sister died of breast cancer.
In Mormonism there is a ritual dressing of the dead in their temple clothing. It didn't occur to me that I wouldn't be allowed to participate in dressing my sister's body until I got a call from my older sister Ellen, who told me that my dead sister's husband felt it was not appropriate for my sister Janice and me to participate since we were both excommunicated and therefore "unworthy." Though Ellen is a very active member, she didn't feel his decision was right. As a stake relief society president, she had access to the Church handbook and looked up the official instructions about dressing the dead. There was no mention that those doing the dressing had to have temple recommends, only that an endowed person had to make sure it was done properly. So Ellen used the strict letter of the law to convince my brother-in-law to let my sister and me participate (after he checked with his own priesthood leaders of course). However, he added one stipulation: we had to agree not to touch the temple clothing but to letthe worthy female relatives do that part, while Janice and I could put on her non-ritual clothing, only the slip and dress. We agreed because we just wanted to have this last chance to do something for our dead sister whom we loved. When we got to the funeral home, however, my brother-in-law took charge of the whole ceremony by standing over my dead sister's body and giving orders. After Janice and I did our part, he asked us to move back so that the other