As background, resigned LDS Church member Norman Hancock stood down Mormon Cnurch cultists and brought suit against their bullying outfit for ignoring his membership resignation.

(Lesson to be learned: When you talk money, that gets the attention of LD$, Inc.).

Hancock and I live in the same neck of the Phoenix-area woods. When he refused to allow the Mormon Cult to steamroll over him by excommunicating him after he had already quit his membership, I personally telephoned and congratulated him. He was gracious and low-key about the whole thing. A classy guy, in my opinion.

David Twede, by the way, has shown the same backbone in resigning his membership on his own terms, according to his own calendar--and doing so publicly. Bully for him!
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Here's a summation of the Hancock case:

"THE NORMAN HANCOCK LAWSUIT (Mesa AZ, 1985)

"In 1985 the Mormon Church 'excommunicated' Norman Hancock AFTER he submitted a letter of resignation to the Church. Hancock filed an $18 million lawsuit against the Church, saying a person has a right to voluntarily resign from a Church. The suit was settled out of court and the settlement was sealed.

"An account on line reports that Hancock filed the suit himself, without the aid of a lawyer. . . . The same account says that Church lawyers started discussing with Hancock just how much money he wanted, but he told them he didn't want their money, that what he wanted was to have his name cleared.

"Church representatives agreed to change the records such that there would no longer be any record of an 'excommunication': the records would show that he resigned (that he asked for 'name removal').

"The Hancock case shows that the Church is willing to settle out of court when someone sues because the Church 'excommunicates' them after they've resigned their membership. There were some defamation issues in the Hancock case that do not apply to most other cases, however.

"The . . . Hancock [case was] the end of the era when the Church told members that there was no way to stop being a member except by excommunication. The Church began having a process it calls 'name removal'.

"However, the Church still tells bishops and stake presidents that a member who is 'transgressing' should not be allowed to resign, that 'name removal should not be used as a substitute for Church discipline.' . . . [T]he Church is wrong about that and they can be sued for 'excommunicating' someone who already resigned. At Church headquarters they know this very well and they will usually put a quick halt to 'discipline' proceedings if they find out that the former members knows what his or her rights are."

("Legal Precedent: The Norman Hancock Case, Mesa AZ, 1985," at "Mormon No More--How to Resign from the Mormon Church," original emphasis, at http://www.mormonnomore.com/legal-precedent)

******


Another personal sidenote:

Even resigning one's membership doesn't keep TBMs from attempting to score Lying-for-the-Lord points in behalf of their Cult. When I voluntarily resigned my LDS membership in 1993, a rabid Mormon nutcase out in California announced that I had left the Mormon Cult because I was supposedly running from excommunication after allegedly impregnating a 15-year-old girl in Utah.

Huh?

When I was notifed that this wacko had made his spurious, defamatory and libelous claim through his email networking among the Mormon faithful, I contacted a local Arizona ex-Mormon lawyer (a personal friend of mine, who had also been a LDS bishop in the same stake in which we had both resided). The lawyer contacted this Goof for God and threatened legal action if he did not retract his totally false claim immdediately.

The TBM hemmed and hawed and reluctantly agreed--but not before telling me that he had not liked my cartoons critical of impeached, convicted and removed-from-office Arizona Mormon governor Ev Mecham. I informed him that that did not form any legitimate basis for defaming me with his false claim--and told him I meant business. He got the message.

Geezus.

(for a related RfM thread, see:http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,190197,190197#msg-190197)



Edited 23 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2012 05:41PM by steve benson.

When I left in l973 I understood excommunication to be the only option. Then when I found RFM a few years ago I found out people were resigning and I assumed that that had been a possibility all along and I had just not known about it.

What you are saying here though is that there was a time when you were not allowed to resign, right?

This changes a lot of things for me.

That's correct, blueorchid - the cult only began accepting resignations long after you and I ditched it (I'm sure someone here has an exact date). When we left, if you wanted out you had to submit to doing it their way.

After 23 years of doing it their way, I wanted no more part of doing anything their way, so when I left in 1983 or so I said "fuck it" and went and had a nice life.

Thanks xyz--and Steve. This really bothers me to know this. I am not sure why. Anyway it's good to know.

I think 23 is a very lucky number. That is how old I was. We are really lucky to have gotten out so young though without Google or anything.

I agree.

Also I think survival instinct had to play some part in it. I still recall thinking "I can either get out or blow my brains out but I can't go on living this hell much longer."

Only later did all those other entertaining "proofs" come out - Hofmann and his forgeries, all the stuff the internet has published for everyone to read. But my first reason for leaving remains my first response to those who ask why I left: irreconcilable differences in philosophy between myself and them.