After 20 years of saying that I am not a mormon, I decided I wanted to take the appropriate steps to make it official. After reading some of the websites talking about resigning your memebership I have a question.
The websites say that sometimes the church will threaten to ex-communicate you for your request. They also mention that some people get lawyers to help them fight the excommunication. Why? What possible impact would excommunication have on my life?

Well in the past when someone was excommunicated it would be announced from the pulpit, along with the reason why. That doesn't happen anymore, but that's the only reason I can really think of that someone would try to fight it so much.

Though I think it's pretty lame that the church does that. Kind of like firing someone before they quit, or vice versa, if you ask me.

The church rarely tries any more to excommunicate someone who has been inactive for twenty years and turns in a resignation. They used to do that, especially if the bishop was a power-freak. But no more.

For up-to-date instrucations, see "Leaving the Mormon Church: How To Get Out" at http://packham.n4m.org/leaving.htm

If you resign they should no longer threaten excommunication. The reason for resigning is so you have control rather than abdicating control to them. The courts have determined that your resignation is valid and in place from the time you send it to them, so they really can't excommunicate you after that point. The Mormon Church fought the member's right to resign, wanting to retain their control through excommunication. The courts saw it differently. I resigned as a statement that I, not they had control. I guess it was one last opportunity to poke my finger in their eye. Childish, I guess so, but still satisfying.

If people are going to resign, perhaps it would be a good idea to put the following phrase in their letter?

YOU HAVE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO PROCESS MY RESIGNATION FROM THE TIME I RECEIVE NOTIFICATION THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED MY RESIGNATION LETTER. IF I DON'T HAVE CONFIRMATION OF IT WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF YOUR RECEIPT OF THIS LETTER, YOU WILL HEAR FROM MY ATTORNEY AND I WILL BE GOING TO THE MEDIA.

There is no way you could get a judge to enforce a demand like that. Not to mention what it would cost you for the privilege of being laughed out of court. They are allowed a reasonable amount of time to process a resignation. I guarantee they can make the case that 30 days is reasonable, and they can almost certainly make the case that 60 days is reasonable. No way that you can make the case that 24 hours is reasonable

As for going to the media and telling them you resigned from your church, and they took more than a day to process your resignation - not exactly a front-page-above-the-fold type of story. Not even a section D, page 5 at the bottom story.

Oh, and all caps won't help either.

When I left the LDS Church almost thirty years ago, the only a pparent way back then to have my name removed was to submit to an excommunication court. Since I knew what a court was all about I went well prepared to take as much control as I could, even prefacing my well prepared statement with the charge that "...you are not excommunicating me but I requested this hearing in order to excommunicate the church from my life." I took an aggressive approach and at no time did I feel I had surrendered control.