How my Father was excommunicated from the LDS Church

I have been told time and time again by members of the LDS Church that it is utterly impossible to be kicked out of the church. This usually follows my telling of this story. To this day I am very proud of my Father for getting kicked out of a church that has no policy of excommunication. That being said here is how it went down:

My family had just moved to Lawton, Oklahoma for our new assignment with the Army. I was a toddler and my little brother was a newborn. My father, who was out of the house on this day, was never Mormon and has never been involved in the LDS Church but somehow our entire family got into the church records. The Bishop/Deacon/elder or whatever the office is of the local ward/stake decided to dispatch two home teachers to our residence to educate us about our religion. Home teachers are not missionaries. Missionaries are the propagandists who get people in to the church, Home teachers make sure they stay there.

These two losers show up, one short and fat the other tall and thin (I'm not making this up). My mom answers the door and politely explains that this is not a good time, one of the kids is sick (my brother) and her husband is not home and to please call ahead to make an appointment next time.

Unfortunately the short, fat mouthpiece of the duo does not like this answer and my mother is forced to close and lock the door while he is trying to stick his foot in it.

Two weeks pass....

The duo return, this time my father is home. They ring the bell, when my mom answers the door the mouthpiece informs her that he will come in and will teach her about the one true church. He proceeds to push her out of the way and force his way into the living room (while she is holding her newborn son in one hand and had a two-year old in the other). At this point my father enters the room and sees what is happening. He comes from across the room and stiff-arms both back out onto the steps. My dad, who is 6'4" and at this time was a Major in the Army informs the two ass-holes that if they ever return they will do so at the risk of losing lots and lots of blood, because no one pushes his wife around and threatens his children.. especially in his own house. Also, they have exactly .5 seconds to beat feet outta sight before he really loses his temper.

Another two weeks...

A letter arrives informing my father that he will appear at a given time before a church board of inquiry. This paper served as an excellent fire-starter.

Another two weeks...

Yet another letter, this time informing my father that he has been excommunicated from the LDS Church. We were never happier. Unfortunately this letter was thrown away or lost. I wish I had it framed.

Note, I was under the impression that the LDS Church did not have a policy on excommunication, or at least I have been told they don't by many members. Thank you for the correction and I apologize for any problems that came from it. I have no problem with most members of the LDS Church, but it is no secret that I have a problem with the Dogma of the church its self. I don't keep this a secret, in fact it is common knowledge among my friends, many of whom are LDS. If I am to be called Anti-Mormon then I would like to specify that I am not Anti-Mormon, I am Anti-Mormon Church. More broadly I have a problem with any organization, religious or otherwise, that preaches hate and scorn towards our fellow man. If the LDS Church says that I am going to hell (or the Mormon equal to it) because I have homosexual friends, I don't believe in their god, I have not been baptized (that's ok, it's a service they provide for me after I die), I have not, nor will I get married (no, not even in their temple), I will not have kids, and I will not be "Sealed for Time and all Eternity" to my family then so be it, I guess I am goin' to hell. But I will go knowing that I have accepted more people into my life unconditionally than the LDS Church ever has.
Now that my rant is over, I hope that more Mormons, and anyone involved in organized religion, can look past the bigotry of their church and reach out to those who differ from themselves.

Actually, that's not entirely true, about the LDS Church not having an excommunication policy. They actually have a very aggressive excommunication policy. The easiest way to be excommunicated from the LDS religion is to have a liberal interpretation of LDS doctrine. Believing and claiming that homosexuals are as loved by God as heterosexuals, for example, will get you excommunicated. So will questioning any of the claims of the church, such as the very standard egyptian burial diagrams at the end of the Pearl of Great Price which are described in the book as depicting the sacrificing of Abraham's son. Several professors at Brigham Young University have been excommunicated recently for reasons such as these. You can also get excommunicated by consistently failing to repent for sins... Heck, many of the original members of the LDS church were excommunicated at one point or another, including three of the eleven witnesses who claimed to have seen the golden plates the Book of Mormon were "translated" from. Interestingly enough, of the eight remaining un-excommunicated witnesses, five of them eventually left the church.

BTW, for the curious, the historical excommunication info presented here is church history, taught to LDS children.

Response to karrenlouise-
Ok, on the first point, I may have been a little short on my explanation. I know people who were excommunicated for preaching that homosexuality was NOT a sin. That they were excommunicated is fact. I realize I was vague in my original statement, however, and for that I apologize. I know people who believe very much in the LDS religion, and also believe that god accepts that they are gay, and that it isn't a sin. They are extremely distressed at their excommunication and constantly talk about changing views in the LDS church, hoping that they will be allowed back in. I think another friend said it best when she snapped and yelled at them "You don't understand, they don't want you!"
As for the second point, I never claimed that they denied their testimonies. You are correct, there is no documentation of them denying their testimonies that they had seen gold plates.

The LDS religion is an often unjustly maligned religion. I'm not anti-LDS any more than I am anti-organized religion. See mormon girls for an example of my neutrality on the matter.

Eos noded a few ambiguous statements that I will endeavor to clarify:

• Most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe that God loves all of His children equally, regardless of what they do or say, including those who participate in homosexual activities (see unconditional love). Under no circumstances will a member of the Church be excommunicated for believing what is, in itself, Church doctrine. The Church, however, like many other Christian religions, does believe that homosexual acts are a sin, just as sex outside the bond of marriage is. As a result, there are Mormons who are homophobic, just as other members of other religions are, but this is an individual problem these members are dealing with and does not reflect Church doctrine.



• The witnesses who claimed to have seen the original plates never denied their testimonies, however they were extremely vehement in their dislike of the president of the LDS church, Joseph Smith, who they could not support in his position as a latter-day prophet.

The Church has some strict rules on excommunication, but many members of the Church "fall away" from the church, or stop attending, without being excommunicated. Generally, those who aggressively work against the Church, its policies, and/or doctrine are excommunicated and are no longer associated with the Church. (But then why would they want to be a part of an organization they disagree with?)

Now, I must argue that not all "home teachers" are as violent as the two that SkiBum5 had his experience with. I am not a member of the LDS church, but my SO is. Every so often, about once every 1.5 months, her "friends" come by. At first, I couldn't figure out who they were (In California, from what I understand, they are not really home teachers, but rather they just check up on you). They were really nice and cordial. However, they did scare me once or twice. I got mean looks from them because I answered the door, while my SO was in her shower (and I was napping). Probably had to do with the beliefs against premarital relations. Moral: Missionaries and Home Teachers not all bad, though most of the time scary.

This was intriguing, someone excommunicated from the LDS church who wasn't a member! As a church member myself, who has some responsibility over membership records in our Ward, I can tell you that there is no way a person can get into LDS church membership records without either (1) being baptized and confirmed, or (2) being the child of someone who was baptized and confirmed.

This being said, it is certainly possible that someone who is baptized at age 8 (the minimum age) and subsequently never attends church (because their family never does afterwards), might forget ever having been associated with the church. I was baptized at age 15 (I'm a convert), so I definitely remember that event, but I cannot tell you anything at all for certain about events that occurred when I was 8, or around that age, unless they were fairly memorable. Someone whose family is basically inactive in church, though believing enough to want to have their children baptized, might grow up knowing virtually nothing about their church membership. But since church records are maintained scrupulously, someone might forget the Church, but the Church never forgets them, and in the programs set up for the purpose of ministering to members' needs they may be visited from time to time to check on their welfare. In my experience, most members know that they are members, even those that want to keep their association with the Church very tenuous, but there have been a very few who seemed to be completely clueless about it (although I could have told them the dates they were baptized and confirmed if they had asked).

In the excommunication written of here, I am saddened by the behavior of the home teachers, and of the authorities in this case. In a perfect world, it never would have happened, but I've noticed we don't live in such a place, mores the pity. We have a few members of our Ward who get very obnoxious if someone from the church contacts them, even if it only happens once a year. The weird thing is, even though they can ask to have their names removed from church records -- without prejudice, such as through excommunication -- they blow that off, too, if it is offered. It's like they're saying, "We want nothing to do with you, but we refuse to leave!"