Q: Dear 100 Hour Board,
What are your thoughts concerning the September Six (those that were excommunicated...) do you think the church was right in doing that? What some of them did doesn't seem all that bad. I feel a bit upset about it.
-Gospel Goodie
A:
Dear Gospel Goodie,
In the May of 1993, then-Elder Packer gave his famous talk in which he said that three particular dangers to the Church were the gay movement, the feminist movement, and the intellectual movement. The Church at that time was worried about the possible snares that people in that movement could place for faithful members of the Church. The fact that at least one of the September Six had his excommunication reversed and expunged* might suggest that local leaders or the Church at large was a little over-zealous during this time period.
- The Black Sheep
*Hebrew scholar Avraham Gileadi, who is currently an active member of the Church, was excommunicated on September 15, 1993. His excommunication was later reversed and all records of it were expunged from his record. (See sources.)
A:
Dear Gospel Goodie,
I don't want to address the entire issue, but I did read from one of the September Six that she was excommunicated for heresy, specifically teaching others that Heavenly Mother was the Holy Ghost. I think I read this in the special Mother's Day issue of Sunstone (the one with Heavenly Mother reaching out to Eve on the front).
As far as heretical beliefs go, I know plenty of members in our church believe weird things that aren't part of the Gospel. To me, it seems unfair that one type of person gets excommunicated for heresy when plenty of other people have said untrue things over the pulpit and never receive discipline. On the other hand, it does seem like our leaders and teachers should be consistent in what they teach. I just wish the church were more consistent in its discipline (or alternately, more consistent in ignoring heresies).
-Whistler
A:
Dear Gospel Goodie,
First of all, I have to apologize for how late this is. I've never held a question this long, but between finals, getting married, and having a lot of thoughts about this, it's taken awhile.
My husband and I have been discussing the subject of various prominent excommunications a lot recently, since it's been coming up in our D&C class, on the Board, and in other media. I'll warn you right now that I have a pretty conservative, orthodox view on most of this (especially compared to a lot of my other opinions), but since the liberal viewpoint is readily available all over the Internet, hopefully this can provide a balancing point. I'd invite you to consider all points of view, and then pray about it yourself. Neither my opinion or anyone else's opinion should influence you more than the whisperings of the Spirit. Furthermore, even if you continue to be troubled by this or any other controversy, I'd invite you to remember that this is not a central tenet of the Gospel. You can have whatever opinion on the September Six you want, but if you believe in the Atonement and the basic covenants and ordinances of the Gospel, that's what you need to focus on and be true to in this Church. If you look at the eternal perspective, this is a pretty peripheral event.
It's true that a lot of the really publicized excommunications we hear about usually involve individuals proposing or advocating doctrines or practices that are against what the Church currently teaches. This can make it easy to feel like the Church is prone to censorship, or that it's not open to people who have differing opinions or doubts about certain things. However, we came to the conclusion that there's a difference between holding a personal belief that contradicts Church policy or doctrine, and expressing those beliefs in a very public forum in such a way that it's designed to try to persuade or influence people to agree with your opinion instead of what the Prophet has said. I think it can sometimes even be okay to express a thought in a public forum such as, "You know what, I really struggle with _____ and sometimes wonder if _____ might be possible/an answer." But there's a big difference between that and, "I disagree with ______ and think that _______ is more correct, even though the Church doesn't teach that. I hope to someday see the Church accept and incorporate my idea." The first is a personal statement of the doubts and struggles we all have; the second sets yourself up as more of an authority on how Christ's church should be run than Christ's own personal representatives on the Earth.
This is especially serious when you present the information as though you are qualified to make such statements on Church doctrine or policy. Non-members don't really understand the concept of keys of revelation in the Church. I've seen prominent news organizations cite popular bloggers, who provide a dissenting or non-official opinion, as though their ideas are just as "official" or hold just as much weight in Mormonism as the words of the prophets. This is an issue because it can cause people to believe inaccurate things about the Church, weaken the testimony of other members, and obscure the plain and precious truths that God's authorized representatives are currently being directed to focus on or reveal.
To use a contemporary example, look at the Ordain Women movement. I know a lot of women who really do personally believe that women can or should hold the priesthood, who are active members in good standing and will probably never face Church discipline for their beliefs, even though they hold those beliefs publicly enough that a decent number of ward members know about it. This is completely different than publicly campaigning for it, trying to pressure the prophet to make a change that can only be made through revelation, causing crises of faith for thousands of members, and drawing negative media attention to the Church. Whether or not women should hold the priesthood, this is not the central purpose of the Church. The central purpose of the Church is to teach the Gospel of Christ and provide ordinances of salvation to the living and the dead. Anything that detracts from or inhibits the growth of these objectives is not God's way of resolving issues. For example, look at what caused the shift to blacks holding the priesthood and receiving temple ordinances. This didn't come about because of individuals setting themselves up in opposition to the prophets – it came about because of the growth of the Church in areas such as Ghana and Brazil, and the faithful members there, that caused the General Authorities to take the matter to the Lord in prayer.
I feel like I'm rambling, so hopefully this gives some helpful context before discussing the September Six. I also think it's important to keep in mind the reasons excommunications happen in our Church. From the LDS Topics page, we read:
Bishops and branch presidents and stake, mission, and district presidents have a responsibility to help members overcome transgression through repentance. [...] The purposes of disciplinary councils are to save the souls of transgressors, protect the innocent, and safeguard the purity, integrity, and good name of the Church.
I talked above about how certain forms of expressing dissenting opinions can cause innocent people to lose their testimonies and affect the good name of the Church. I think that those same forms of expressing dissent can also pose a threat to the souls of the transgressors. In both the baptismal and temple recommend interview, we are asked about whether or not we sustain the prophets, general authorities, and local leaders. These are part of our baptismal covenants. If someone is genuinely trying to convince others that they are more right than the prophet, then they are not living up to those covenants. In this situation, excommunication is not a punishment; it's releasing people from covenants they're not keeping anyways, until such a time that they are able to keep them.
Now, some of you may be thinking something along the lines of "But shouldn't it be okay to provide thought experiments or otherwise just intellectually consider alternative interpretations of current issues, without being subject to Church discipline"? Yes, it should be and it is. However, again, there is a difference between taking a hypothetical stance and taking a "hypothetical" stance. How many times have you heard someone say "Hey, I'm just saying..." or "No offense, but..." or "This is only hypothetical, but..." as an attempt to get around the consequences of saying something controversial? There is a difference between suggesting a hypothetical, dissenting opinion in a faith-promoting way, and suggesting something "hypothetically" in an attempt to convince people of a dissenting opinion while being able to either avoid the consequences of doing so or claiming that the opponents are being narrow-minded when they see through this. (Kind of like how people complain that you're "oversensitive" if you react negatively to a statement that starts with "No offense, but..." or "I'm not racist, but...").
Finally, I would also like to note that there are some matters that are so sacred that any discussion of them needs to be treated with the appropriate reverence. Significant examples of this include the Godhead and nature thereof, the reality of the Atonement, and temple ordinances. Certain opinions on these subjects may simply be blasphemous or heretical on a level that is inappropriate (and again, a violation of covenants) in ways that dissenting opinions on other topics is not. In those cases, the public expression about such beliefs is even more sensitive, due to their sacred nature.
With all this in mind, let's look at the circumstances surrounding each of the September Six, and evaluate their excommunication in terms of (1) What they were teaching and how they were expressing it and (2) whether or not their excommunication appeared to fill the objectives outlined in the quote I provided above.
Avraham Gileadi
As TBS said, this excommunication was redacted. I think looking at this situation lays out some significant principles to keep in mind while looking at the rest of the excommunications. Evidently, there was at least some anti-intellectual culture, and it did lead to some leaders wrongfully excommunicating someone. This shouldn't really be a surprise; our Church leaders aren't perfect. Mistakes have been made in the past, and they'll probably be made in the future. However, something really significant happened: the excommunication was redacted. He wasn't just rebaptized; in the eyes of the Church, it's completely expunged, as though it never even happened, because he didn't actually do anything to merit it. So while the Church makes mistakes, it also admits its mistakes and rectifies them as fully as possible. In light of this, I think it's fair to say that if any of the other excommunications had been mistakes, the Church would have redacted those as well. It didn't, so we can assume they were justified according to the Church's current criteria, as discussed above.
The other really important principle I think we can draw from Avraham's experience is his reaction to it. His description of the experience is quoted in this article: "In my case — not a single charge was true or supported by evidence — and all mention of it was expunged from the church's records. I'm fully active in the church and gospel and have continued to publish books, including my last major work on Isaiah, the Apocalyptic Commentary of the Book of Isaiah, published at the end of August, exactly 40 years after coming to the U.S. I have been in Washington since April but may return to Utah. I hope for the day that zealous Mormons will no longer be treated as anti-Mormons."
So, understandably he hopes that the Church will not cause other members to undergo his same experience, and the Church has been less stringent in excommunicating people for these kinds of reasons. He also was able to forgive the Church for what happened, and is still fully active in the Church. If personally going through this event didn't cause him to doubt his testimony and leave the Church over it, I can only hope that the rest of us can react with the same understanding and grace.
Maxine Hanks
Her excommunication was tied to D. Michael Quinn's (discussed below) and had to do with feminism. As The Black Sheep points out above, both feminism and intellectualism were pretty sensitive issues in the Church at the time. Based on the summary I've read of the book, as well as several reviews, it seems to argue that Mormon women should be able to hold the priesthood, a position which is still controversial decades later (see Kate Kelly's excommunication). One thing I find interesting is this review by Lynn Tempest (editor of Network magazine), which states in part, "Authority, I have learned to question it. I now question my relationship to it after reading Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism." As I discussed above, there is a difference between a scholarly exploration of an idea and publishing it in such a way that it is widely disseminated and encourages members to start questioning the Church's official doctrine and positions. You can study something, you can have your own personal opinion on something, and you can be open about your personal opinion on something, but when you start trying to convince people to believe your personal opinion and not the prophet's, you are no longer sustaining the prophet as being authorized to hold the priesthood keys. This is contrary to baptismal and temple covenants and is grounds for excommunication.
In the case of Maxine Hanks, she was rebaptized into the Church. She says, "After my excommunication, I undertook a personal spiritual path exploring other faiths and ministries, to find deeper answers about myself and women's priesthood. I felt spiritually led back to the LDS Church as a necessary part of that journey to completion and wholeness. I found membership to be even more rewarding than I had expected." In other words, the excommunication (which was justified according to the criteria I provide above), accomplished its intended purpose. It released her from the covenants she had made, allowing her to make this personal exploration and figure out her beliefs and relationship with God without experiencing the spiritual consequences of continuing to break covenants while doing so. In the end, she was led back to the Church and rebaptized. She now finds membership in the Church more rewarding than she expected; in other words, the excommunication eventually improved her relationship with the Church and helped her progress spiritually. It didn't punish her. That's exactly the point.
Again, I think the example of Maxine Hanks is instructive for the rest of us. It's totally normal to be troubled over difficult issues like the September Six, but she actually went through it and still ended up faithful and active. To me, again, this shows that we can continue to be active members even if we have questions or concerns over these issues. I think it also shows that the excommunication itself isn't the core issue for those members who left the Church afterwards vs. those who stayed; it's how they chose to react to it. For instance, D. Michael Quinn's excommunication was closely linked to hers (they collaborated on the book she wrote), and Lynne Kanavel Whitesides' disfellowshipment was a result of her opinions on Heavenly Mother, a topic which was also discussed in Hanks' book. As you read about their stories, keep in mind that the base issue was very similar. However, all three of them took different paths in regards to the Church afterwards. To me, this shows that it was their choice, and not that the Church was inherently punishing them or being unfair in any way.
Lynne Kanavel Whitesides
As Whistler and I have both discussed above, Whitesides was disfellowshipped (not excommunicated) for controversial opinions on the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Mother. I agree with Whistler that lots of members believe weird things, and that the Church should be consistent about these issues. However, I would like to raise two points that indicate that Whitesides' treatment wasn't inconsistent.
The first, which I've discussed above repeatedly, is that the means by which members choose to disseminate their weird opinions absolutely makes a difference. I'm pretty sure every ward has a member who preaches false doctrine over the pulpit, or in their Sunday School class, or whatever. There were totally members in most of my area books as a missionary who had a note like "Don't take them to lessons, they will start going off about Kolob and other weird stuff." However, going off about your weird opinions during testimony meeting is only going to affect about 100-200 people, depending on what kind of attendance your ward gets. Most of these people also are able to tell the difference between your offbeat opinion and official doctrine. Publishing your unconventional opinions in a magazine that can be read by thousands, on the other hand, attempts to encourage significantly more people to believe your opinion over the words of the prophets. It also comes with the appearance of authority inherent to published works, which people will take more seriously than rambling in testimony meeting. While there are typically few non-members in a Sunday meeting, these works can also be read and cited by non-members much more easily. Some of these non-members simply can't tell the difference between these articles and official doctrine; other non-members deliberately seek out and republish these fringe articles in order to make the Church sound weirder and discourage people from joining. I had multiple investigators on my mission who had significant roadblocks to receiving a testimony of the Church as a result of both types of reactions to these kinds of articles. Anything that significantly hinders the conversion of non-members and encourages members to doubt the words of prophets is, again, against our covenants.
The second point I'd like to make is that heresy against the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Mother is probably a bigger deal than other kinds of heresy. People have all sorts of fringe beliefs in the Church – there's the Adam/God theory, a myriad of beliefs about the temple ceremony and Masons, ideas about progression between the three degrees of glory, weird racial theories that were popular in the past, etc. – that the Church officially disavows as doctrine, but that that one member in your home ward brings up in Gospel Doctrine, to everyone's discomfort. Many members have personal beliefs on women and the priesthood, gay marriage, and other current issues that they also don't get disfellowshipped or excommunicated for. But the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Mother are both special topics.
For example, we are taught that the unpardonable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. I find it interesting that out of the three members of the Godhead, we aren't taught that it's unpardonable to blaspheme against our Heavenly Father, who created us, or Jesus Christ, who redeemed us (although both are clearly serious sins). In Jesus the Christ, James E. Talmage points out that Jesus would forgive the Pharisee's words against him personally, but that he would not forgive denying the Holy Ghost. Now, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is typically spoken of in terms of people "coming out in open rebellion against God" and denying plain spiritual witnesses, not denying the personhood or qualities of the Holy Ghost himself. In this manner, Whitesides' opinions are in some ways closer to the Pharisee's personal pronouncements against Jesus than their denial of his authority. However, it's still clear that the Holy Ghost, and doctrines relating to him, have been given a very important and serious place in our theology. Denying the prophets' words on this is therefore going to be a bigger deal than other doctrinal issues, such as women and the priesthood, which people can still be excommunicated for.
Then there's the issue of Heavenly Mother. It's pretty common to hear in Sunday School or whatever that the reason we don't hear much about Heavenly Mother is that Heavenly Father wants to keep her sacred, etc. Now, this is probably folk doctrine, and the Church has taught enough about Heavenly Mother that we know she's a real part of our doctrine. There is probably room to explore the doctrines relating to Heavenly Mother, or at least compile them and make them more readily available to the membership. However, proposing a new and controversial theory on Heavenly Mother is undertaking to suggest doctrine in an area that even the prophets have been reticent about. Even culturally, we talk about other people's wives or mothers with respect; it's pretty reasonable to assume we'd need to do the same for God's wife or our own Heavenly Mother. I'd suggest that treating the topic with sacredness probably wouldn't include things such as Whitesides' essay. To me, her essay comes across a bit as an attempt to shoehorn female figures into a more prominent place in our theology, which both contradicts the words of the prophets (a common theme in this answer, as I'm sure you've noticed) and undervalues the sacred role Heavenly Mother already has. We don't know much about her role, but I do know that when people try to tell me, "What you're doing isn't worthwhile, you should be doing this," I find it offensive, particularly if what I'm already doing is important to me. Suggesting that we've gotten Heavenly Mother's role wrong is essentially suggesting that her role in our theology isn't good enough. She is an exalted being who has has received the highest privileges it is possible to receive. I'm sure that whatever she's doing, by definition of receiving a "fulness of joy," it's exactly what she wants to be doing, and we don't need to somehow create a doctrine in which her role is completely different in order to create more "value" for her in our theology. That's an attempt to impose short-sighted, worldly, traditional gender roles onto an exalted being, and that's not okay.
Despite all of this, Whitesides was merely disfellowshipped, not excommunicated, which I think again speaks to the fact that the Church was not getting carried away, but was considering each case individually. Today, she says, "Being disfellowshipped from the LDS Church was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It opened up a world of spirituality I didn't even know was possible." Again, this is in keeping with the stated goals of excommunication or disfellowshipment: releasing members from covenants they don't want to keep. If Whitesides is happier this way, then disfellowshipment was in fact the right thing for her, spiritually speaking. I'm sure that God would be happiest if all of His children felt happy and fulfilled inside His church, keeping His commandments, and progressing to become like Him and return to Him. However, if they're not, God loves us completely unselfishly, and He gives us opportunities to be as happy as possible within the constraints of the choices we choose to make with our lives. That's why there are three kingdoms – some people would be happier in the Telestial kingdom than forced into the Celestial kingdom, even if an overall higher level of happiness is available celestially than telestially. (This statement isn't meant to make any kind of judgment or suggestion on Whitesides' eventual eternal destination, by any means – it's just an analogy, not a judgement. Neither I nor anybody else gets to decide who goes to which kingdom.)
Paul Toscano
I think the situation can be summed up from this quote from the Wikipedia article:
Paul Toscano is a Salt Lake City attorney who co-authored, with Margaret Merrill Toscano, a controversial book, Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology (1990), and, in 1992, co-founded The Mormon Alliance; he later wrote the book The Sanctity of Dissent (1994) and its sequel The Sacrament of Doubt (2007).
He was excommunicated from the church on September 19, 1993; the reasons for his excommunication, as reportedly given by church leaders, were apostasy and false teaching. According to Toscano, the actual reason was insubordination in refusing to curb his sharp criticism of LDS Church leaders' preference for legalism, ecclesiastical tyranny, white-washed Mormon history, and hierarchical authoritarianism that privilege the image of the corporate LDS Church above its commitment to its members, to the teachings and revelations of founder Joseph Smith, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In 2007, Toscano wrote that he lost his faith "like losing your eyesight after an accident"; he regrets that LDS Church leaders have disregarded his criticisms of what he considers the church's growing anti-intellectualism, homophobia, misogyny, and elitism.
To me, Toscano sounds really contentious. Just from the titles of his books, it looks like it follows the common theme of presenting personal views in such a way that it really encourages people to doubt. I would say there's a difference between asking hard questions – which is totally okay, and which the Church has been doing recently in its LDS Topics essays – and deliberately looking for ways to doubt. One is faith-promoting and encourages people to grow to a more mature place of testimony, whereas the other is something I often see in a type of intellectual elitism that tries to claim that one's testimony is better because they're full of doubts, which they are able to handle because they're "smarter." I had a mission companion describe this attitude as, "I'm so smart that I can't know anything!" Again, this is very different than being willing to research and look at tough issues. This is different than confronting your questions and having an honest search for truth. This is Satan's counterfeit for these good and honest endeavors, and it often manifests itself in a spirit of contention. An honest search for answers and truth is filled with faith and a spirit of good will.
On the other hand, Christ teaches in 3 Nephi 11:29-31:
29 For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.
30 Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away.
31 Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine.
In other words: willingness to ask hard questions, admit human weakness exists in the Church, and attempt increase one's faith through doing so is good. Encouraging other members to doubt and exhibiting a contentious and critical attitude is not good. You can see this attitude even in the Wikipedia paragraph – Toscano's statement that he was excommunicated for "insubordination in refusing to curb his sharp criticism of LDS Church leaders' preference for legalism, ecclesiastical tyranny, white-washed Mormon history, and hierarchical authoritarianism that privilege the image of the corporate LDS Church" is really just an angry, wordy, rhetorical way to say the same thing as "apostasy and false teaching," while trying to give people the false impression that those are somehow two different things and that the Church is for some reason lying or trying to cover up the "real" reasons behind his excommunication. It's a deliberate attempt to make himself look good and the Church look bad, an attitude I haven't encountered in any of the other September Six. Toscano is encouraging apostasy and false teachings, and is not repentant about it, and excommunication is meant to release him from the penalties his covenants would place him under for doing so.
Lavina Fielding Anderson
To be honest, I understand this one less. The only information the Wikipedia page gives is that she wrote on Mormon feminist issues, and the Salt Lake Tribune article says she was excommunicated for publishing a list of attacks against intellectuals by LDS Church leaders. I guess if she was speaking out against other excommunications or Church disciplinary actions, that is siding with apostate opinions over Church leaders, and would therefore not be sustaining Church leaders. Again, vocal and prominent support for doctrines or opinions contrary to the Church is a bigger deal than privately agreeing with those opinions. I wouldn't really be able to give a good opinion on this one without looking a little more, and in the interests of getting this answer out sometime this year, I'm not going to be able to look this up.
According to the Tribune article, Anderson continues to attend the same ward she was excommunicated from. She says, "Being excommunicated is something I think of or am reminded about every single day. It's like a death; I haven't gotten 'over' it. It hasn't become irrelevant. But it has turned my heart even more to the plain and precious part of Christ's love, grace and atonement. My LDS ward, by accepting me, allowing me to serve where I can, and respecting what I can offer has, in significant ways, canceled the exclusion that usually accompanies excommunication. They've helped me stay Mormon."
From this quote, the excommunication has obviously been really hard for her. However, she also appears to have an unusually accepting, non-judgmental, and progressive ward, based on their reaction and reception of her. To me, this does make it more probable that her excommunication was justified, despite the fact that we don't know a lot about it. I just find it improbable that in such an overall loving and accepting ward, the only people called as bishops for the last 20 years are somehow completely different from the rest of the ward, and are the type to overreact to feminism or intellectualism and unjustly excommunicate or refuse to re-baptize her. That just doesn't make sense. If the overall climate of her ward was judgmental and hyperconservative, I could see it, but if her ward is overall supportive and tolerant, I just don't think you'd consistently see bishops getting called who would be exercising unrighteous dominion like that. That being said, I think it's great that her ward is so supportive, and doing everything they can to help her "stay Mormon," as she says.
Given the fact that she's consistently attended a supportive ward for 20 years without being re-baptized, like Hanks, or having the excommunication rescinded, like Gileadi, I see two main possibilities:
(A) Her excommunication was justified. She has demonstrated that she didn't change her behavior in regards to the issue over 20 years, so excommunication did what it was supposed to do and released her from covenants that she didn't want to keep. By her own admission, in these years, she has been able to grow closer to Christ and apply the Atonement in her life. Therefore, the excommunication did help her grow spiritually and did what it was supposed to do.
(B) Her excommunication was an overreaction or a human mistake by a leader. However, the rest of her ward was supportive, and she has continued to demonstrate faithfulness. This is a situation where one person suffers because of another's agency, but we can trust that God will appreciate her efforts and that she's not going to suffer forever because of someone's mistake.
In either case, Anderson is a great example of someone who hasn't allowed the excommunication to pull her away from the Church, and we shouldn't let her excommunication pull us away from the Church either. Whether she was actually in the wrong, and her spiritual standing before God now, isn't really something that's our place to judge. Again, as I said, I do find it unlikely that a progressive ward would consistently keep someone wrongfully excommunicated for over 20 years. Individual leaders may make mistakes, but making the same mistakes over 20 years in a progressive atmosphere just doesn't happen, especially since we've seen that the Church is willing to admit mistakes, as in the case of Gileadi.
D. Michael Quinn
This FAIR Mormon article does a much better job of summarizing D. Michael Quinn's excommunication that I can. I would highly recommend it. Basically, while his writings about Church history were a part of it, Church leaders were unable to even agree on whether that needed to be part of his excommunication. However, his Stake President repeatedly asked him to work with Church leaders on issues surrounding his sexual orientation, and he refused to meet with or cooperate with them. When a member is breaking the law of chastity and refusing to work with priesthood leaders on the issue, excommunication is usually the result. He wouldn't have been unaware of this, and it was his choice to refuse to attend any of his disciplinary council hearings. The Church gave him multiple chances, first placing him on probation, and he still didn't meet with anyone to try to resolve the issue. This isn't an instance of the Church blindsiding a scholar with a charge of apostasy; it's the case of someone deliberately pursuing a path that leads to excommunication, and then trying to accuse the Church leaders of trying to silence him through "a process which was designed to punish me for being the messenger of unwanted historical evidence and to intimidate me from further work in Mormon history," even though that's not what he was excommunicated for. He has succeeded to some degree in framing the excommunication as anti-intellectual; for instance, the Salt Lake Tribune article I've been citing states that he was excommunicated for intellectual rather than personal reasons.
My D&C professor last semester spoke reasonably highly of Quinn's pre-excommunication Church history research. He is a good historian, and unfortunately is using his status to try to make the Church look more anti-intellectual than it is.
I have a lot of sympathy for Quinn, because working through one's sexual orientation with the Church is a struggle for anyone. I can imagine that it would have been significantly more difficult in a less tolerant time, and would have been compounded by the fact that he did do controversial research and was seeing his friends get excommunicated for research he had collaborated on. However, the fact remains that he did, knowingly, engage in behavior that usually leads to excommunication. Furthermore, he was been contentious about the issue, comparing BYU to Auchwitz and the First Presidency to Stalin. As I wrote above about contention, it is not the mark of someone who is unbiasedly and honestly trying to find answers to questions; it's the mark of someone who wants their own answers to be accepted over the truth.
My Overall Take on the Matter
I promise I'm not anti-intellectual. I read with interest controversial Discourse magazine articles and consider their points. I like finding answers about the difficult questions in Church history; I was never afraid of hearing "anti-Mormon" material on my mission and have done personal research on a lot of controversial topics. I also usually end up disagreeing with them. My honest search for answers to hard questions has only strengthened my faith in the Church and its basic teachings.
I think we need to remember that the Church is more about everybody being able to develop faith in the Doctrine of Christ than it is about hammering out specific points of doctrine or Church history. Therefore, when some of the members require milk and not meat, we should have the humility and sensitivity to not offend our weaker members. This isn't anti-intellectual; it's being in harmony with the Spirit and considering which mysteries of God are meant to be revealed at which time. For instance, I typically didn't bring up Joseph Smith's multiple wives when teaching the Restoration to an investigator for the first time. Not because I was uncomfortable with the subject or wanted to hide it, but because it's not what should be taught first any more than quantum mechanics should be taught before basic physics and math. So when we're researching the hard questions, and publishing our research on the Internet or through any other medium, we should be following the Spirit and making sure we're publishing our research in a faith-promoting way. Even research that requires readers to re-evaluate aspects of Church history and doctrine can be published in a faith-promoting way, rather than in a way that encourages the reader to doubt the words, teachings, or authority of prophets and prophets.
I have never felt like the Church was anti-intellectual. I have always had a testimony that this is the true Church, and truth is harmonious with truth. Therefore, the pursuit of truth is never contrary to the teachings of the Church. Pridefully pursuing the truth that fits best with your own personal opinions or agenda, and getting caught up in your own expertise over the promptings of the Spirit, is not only contrary to the Church, but will also ultimately inhibit your search for truth.
In closing, I'll leave you with this verse from Jacob in 2 Nephi 9:28-29 to ponder:
O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.
But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.
The Church is not anti-intellectual. The Book of Mormon, which is the keystone of our religion and the earliest pronouncement of doctrine, teaches that to be learned (or intellectual) is good if you hearken to God's counsels. In other words, follow the Spirit in your intellectual studies, and you're not going to find yourself blindsided by an excommunication. If you allow contention, pride, or a personal agenda to enter your studies, then you may find yourself setting God's counsels aside. When this happens to such an extent that covenants are violated or the good name of the Church is at stake, excommunication may happen. This is not meant as a punishment, but as a way to help people to begin to hearken again to God's counsels. Whether they are able to follow the Spirit and improve their relationship with God, or whether they choose to become contentious and fight against the Church is their own personal decision. For each of us, we make a similar decision on a smaller scale when we choose whether to focus on the principles and faith-promoting aspects of difficult questions such as this, or whether to take offense.
-Zedability
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