I grew up not knowing anything about The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-Day Saints. It wasn’t visible in our Midwestern state. The only reference was ex-Michigan governor George Romney. Even then, as a child “Mormon” meant nothing to me. We were Lutherans.

Fast forward to the US Navy. Every stereotype of a sailor is pretty much true and I lived the life. My shipmates and I worked hard and played hard. Two deployments overseas in four years. We had a lot of fun in port. Actually I was one of the few who took advantage of the travel and saw more than the inside of a bar.

A kid from Brigham City Utah came to our division. He started talking about his church. A lot. It was toward the end of a deployment, I was starting to burn out a little from the partying, so I listened. He took me to church meetings on the ship. I listened, but didn’t take any action.

Fast forward to civilian life. I was working in a town in California. I wasn’t making any money and started looking around. I found a job in a town down the coast. The owner was Mormon. There was no pressure to listen to missionaries. He talked about his church, but didn’t try to persuade me one way or another. Another employee and I talked about shared experiences in the Navy. He was also mormon and we talked a bit about that. Long story short, when he left the job, he sent the missionaries over to see me, I was ready to settle down, so I said okay.

By this time, after essentially investigating for two years, the missionary lessons were a formality and I said yes to baptism.

I met a girl at church, we got sealed in the temple and all was good.

Looking back 30 something years, I can see that while I tried to be a good mormon, accepting callings, going to the temple somewhat regularly, all those things were not something that I “needed” in my life. I could have been then, and still can now, be perfectly happy without church or organized religion in my life. As a result, I was a lukewarm mormon. I went through the motions and played the game, but didn’t put in the effort.

Now that I am on the way out mentally if not physically I can look back and see that even as a child, I didn’t “need” religion. I can do just fine without it. Someone described it as not having the “Religion Gene.”

So what caused me to reevaluate my life and decide to put aside the church? CA Prop 8.
As I sat in that meeting, I thought “Who am I to tell someone else how to live their life?”
“Would I want someone telling me?”

A general boredom with church and Prop 8 were the last straw. But how to tell DW? She could tell that I was drifting. I hadn’t had a temple recommend for years, tithing was sketchy. But she didn’t nag me about it. We love each other and have a solid relationship completely independent of the church.

She asked me one day about going to the temple. I replied honestly that I thought the temple was founded in polygamy, that polygamy might be required in the celestial kingdom and that I loved her and didn’t want to share. For that reason, I didn’t go to the temple. She never brought it up again.

To reinforce my case against polygamy, I started reading up on it. That led me to the dubious beginnings of the Nauvoo endowment. After that the dominoes; Book of Mormon, temple, priesthood and the last domino, Joseph Smith fell fast.

Like many, I still attend church. I don’t want anything to bring up the bright lights on DW.

Unlike many, I haven’t been wronged by the church. I don’t feel I’ve been lied to. I haven’t had a jerk for a bishop. That makes it a little easier for me to continue to go and support DW.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints left me. I’ve been embarrassed by the church on many occasions and for many reasons. Its history and politics caused me to seriously question its underpinnings. Correlation, dumbed-down lessons and white-washed history combined with my lack of a “Religion Gene” and I’m done.