About a year before I was born my dad dreamed that there was a boy waiting in the preexistence that should come to him and my mom.  The dream contained two important details.  That boy would one day become a great leader and if my parents did not conceive a child soon, the child would go to a black family instead.  The latter is very important because at the time blacks could not hold the priesthood.  So I was “almost” born a black child.  I laughed hard at the opening scene of the film The Jerk and laughed again when Peter_Mary used that line to start his exit story but the dream itself was not funny.  My dad believes it was a vision.  I grew up believing that too.  Because of the "vision,” I often wondered what my life would be like if had been born black.  I related to blacks, albeit in a bizarre way.  I was born in Orem, Utah, didn’t know anybody that was black, and lived in a racist family.  My parents acted like they spared me huge indignities by saving me from being born black.  Even today, my mom hates Martin Luther King.  Because of my dad’s vision I also believed that there was some sort of greatness in my future yet I had no idea what that might be.  I still don’t.

This is an exit story and it goes without saying that I don’t still think that dream was a vision but it became important to my exit from the church because I believed it.   I was born in a large family in Orem, Utah and descended from pioneers that walked across the plains.  When I was seven years old we took our own pioneer journey and moved to northern British Columbia where we were part of the homesteading program.  We lived there for five years.  My dad baptized me a member of the church in the Peace River.  I loved the homesteading experience but it was indescribably difficult.  My experiences in BC crystallized my character like no other time. 

 My doubts for the church began as a kid in Canada.  The church evolved in a cultural atmospher that I no longer lived in.  The backwoods of BC are not even remotely like Utah.  They are not even like Calgary.   I had my first contact with non Mormons with a uniquely different perspective held by people that live closer to the land than anyone I had ever met or have met since. I understood at a young age that people's points of view (including my own) are littered with cultural biases.  As a result I always felt uncomfortable saying I KNOW the church is true.  However, I bore my testimony all the time, especially on my mission.

 At twelve years old we moved to Mesa, AZ.  It was a HUGE change and one that I welcomed.  There were girls galore in comparison.  An important step out of the church happened in high school. I had a good American history teacher.  He didn’t gloss over the nastier parts of US history like slaughter of Native Americans or slavery but he taught the class in a way that allowed me to continue to be proud to be American.  At the same time that we learned about slavery, we learned about the great American heroes that stood up to defeat it.  Abraham Lincoln knew he might be killed for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.  Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and as soon as she was free, she returned to help others north.  I was in awe.  In the back of my mind I was spiritually related to black Americans because I believed my dad’s vision.  Harriet Tubman was like Abinidi from the Book of Mormon. She did what was right even though she knew she could be killed. Blacks were routinely hanged for little reason back then and she was "stealing slaves."  I was in high school in 1978 and at the same time, Spencer Kimball announced that God had spoken and that blacks could now receive the priesthood.  Across the street from Mesa High School, my seminary teacher encouraged us all to pray and ask Heavenly Father whether President Kimball’s vision was from God.

 I didn’t get the answer that my seminary teacher did.  Even though I was glad the church had finally pulled itself out of the 19th century, I had the impression that the brethren were reacting to fear and not standing courageously.  President Kimball's revelation reminded me of kid that copies another kid’s homework assignment and turns it in late. Harriet Tubman had more courage in her little finger than all the twelve apostles combined.  Once again I pushed the doubts out of my mind.  If the brethren were not inspired, the foundation of my whole life would fall.  My father’s vision that said I would be a great leader would be meaningless because it would be a simple dream.  I would be a regular kid and perhaps not even a child of God and I wasn’t prepared for that thought.  I am comfortable with that thought now.  Ironically I think my father’s dream set up false expectations that held me back.

 A few years later I served a mission in eastern Canada.  While tracting, I met Nels Anderson an emeritus professor sociology at the University of New Brunswick. He was 96 years old in 1984.  He grew up in southern Utah and personally knew some of the people involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, including a few people with my last name.  My ancestors settled in southern Utah.  Nels wrote a thesis at BYU thesis on the Mountain Meadows Massacre and was sharply rebuked by Apostle LeGrand Richards and later excommunicated.  Richards never denied that the account was true.  His beef with Anderson was that the account didn’t make the church look good.  Anderson withdrew from BYU and graduated elsewhere.  As he explained his history in Utah, my comp wanted to cast the devils out Dr. Nels Anderson. He seemed like an intelligent and forgiving man to me.  I didn't agree with his opinion of the church but could not completely forgive the Church for casting him aside like bad rubbish.  I was also angry I was sent to the mission completely unprepared to confront the real history of the church. Nobody in my church education had mentioned the Mountain Meadows Massacre and I was yet to discover a whole bunch of other ugly facts.  Clearly. looking good was vastly more important to the church than teaching the truth.

When I returned from my mission I signed up for a philosophy class at Arizona State.  During the first week we discussed the allegory of Plato’s cave.  Part of Plato’s idea was there is no way to KNOW anything for sure.  This idea upset many of the students, including me.  Five students bore testimony they knew the church was true because the spirit of God had given them this knowledge.  Apparently, the spirit of God told a Pentecostal, a Baptist, a Catholic, and two Mormons that each of their respective churches was the one true church on the face of the earth. They all KNEW their church's were true. I was one of the Mormons.  Even as I bore my testimony, I felt ridiculous and afraid because I knew it was impossible for all of us to get the different answers to the same question from the same God.  By this time there were many doubts building in my head. .  I was so scared by that discussion that I dropped the class right away.

 Soon after that, I met a woman and fell in love. We were already engaged to be married when we committed the supposedly evil crime of premarital sex. Neither my wife nor I have ever been promiscuous but that is not the church’s opinion. Fornication, even with a person you love, is the worst sin next to murder according the Spencer W. Kimball.  I felt this teaching was false and I couldn’t deny it.  I didn't feel a shred guilty even though I felt guilty about not feeling guilty.  We went on to get married in the temple and yes, we lied to the Bishop. 

A devout Mormon could say I lost the spirit because of my sins but let me back up in my story a bit.  Before my fiancé and I had sex we had oral sex.  We went from first base to second base yadayadayada.  We wanted to start our marriage right so we confessed to the Bishop who promptly told us that he did not even know what oral sex was and made us describe it in detail.  This was before Bill Clinton.  I figured it was simply not possible that a bishop who hears hundreds of confessions did not know about oral sex.  I still think the bishop simply wanted to hear lurid sexual details from a young couple.  From that point forward we started to doubt the bishop and within weeks we were rolling in the hay and enjoying doing so with very little guilt. We only lied to the Bishop after he denied knowing of the existence of oral sex.

I can't count the number of times I was confronted by the fact that the brethren were not inspired but I don't think I would have left if the church were not sexist and homophobic.  My wife has many Mormon relatives and a bunch of Fundamentalist relatives as well.  She passionately hates polygamy. Like most of the church I usually ignored it because it happened so long ago.  Her grandfather left his ten kids and his wife to get a new set of wives with the FLDS in Colorado City.  He wanted to follow the teachings of Joseph Smith.  It became clear to me that my wife’s grandpa was following the teachings of Joseph and that the church was inherently sexist. I knew the church was sexist before but ignored it as best as I could.  The church remains sexist 120 years after the Manifesto. I have had dozens of doubts through the years but that was the card that broke the house.  I have always liked feminists (perhaps it’s a fetish) and my wife is a strong willed person.

The church is full of good people but the organization itself encourages sexism, racism, and homophobia.  It also creates guilt and fear in anyone that recognizes those traits because to speak ill of the church is immoral, even if deep down you know you are right. I am so glad to be rid of the guilt I felt guilty for the silliest things.  For not hating gays, or for wanting to marry a woman that was my equal. The church tried to make me feel guilty for believing that earth was older than than the story of Genesis suggests.  The church teaches that the gospel as revealed to Joseph Smith is the only true path to God.  Talk about an elitist philosophy.  The church tried to make me feel guilty for not wanting to change or convert my non member friends.  A Sunday School teacher once told me I should feel guilt for not having a desire to be perfect like the church teaches we should strive to be.  

I am not perfect and I never will be.  I like imperfect people. If I ever met a perfect person I would probably run away. Humans are not wired perfect and our flaws are part of our character.  That said, I strive to be a good person.  I love my family, act honorably, and give thanks to all the people and the land that help support me.   I count my many blessings.  Sometimes I name them one by one.  

Through my exit, I never read any negative Mormon literature unless you consider the stories of Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln or Plato’s philosophy to be against the church.  I have since read about Joseph Smith marrying many wives, including several fourteen years old and of the church's attempts to hide it.  I have heard the church deny they ever taught that Native Americans are Lamanites and have discovered numerous inconsistencies in the Book of Mormon.  Anybody that is willing to look will find that the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon are clearly complete fabrications but I didn’t know those things before I left.  I simply understood that the brethren are not remotely close to being the kind of men they claim to be.  One afternoon my brother asked, “You don’t think the church is actually true do you?”  I answered no and in saying it out loud I felt lighter than air.  For the next few days I couldn’t stop myself from going outside and literally leaping with joy.  I would run down the street in rapid bursts. It felt hugely great to be free.  It still does.

 At first I didn't feel bad that I had been lied to.  Lying requires intent and my parents and teachers believed what they taught.  They taught me the way they thought best.  What bothers me is that even to this day, my wife and I are second class citizens. My siblings feel free to discuss the church, bless the food, talk about general conference etc. in front of my children but they don’t want me to discuss my beliefs in front of my nephews and nieces because I might pollute their minds.  Humans have a fundamental desire to be accepted and respected by their families.  My family does love me but their love is infused with disrespect and they manifest their love by preaching that I am morally corrupt and they pray for my hell bound soul.

My wife and I left the church together a few years after we got married.   I no longer believe that I will ever be a great leader and no longer think I need to live up to my father’s dream. My wife’s thinking processes and exit story are somewhat different than mine.  It took her longer to ditch the notion that the church might be true.  Perhaps she will post her exit story separately.

 We have been married now for 23 years. I feel more free and more spiritual than I ever felt as a Mormon even though I no longer have a sure knowledge of the existence of God.  If God exists, He isn’t standing behind a veil waiting for people to give the correct handshake and special name.  He cares about the goodness in our hearts and not at all for specific faiths.  I suspect that God does not exist in any form similar to that described by Christians, Muslims, and Jews but I am perfectly happy to not know for sure. I am free and I am happy.  I resigned last summer.

Words cannot express how glad I am that my children did not grow up manipulated by the church. We have two daughters that are 15 and 21.  The church will never be a wedge dividing my wife and I from our children. They will never feel shame for thinking thoughts that disagree with the whims of old men in Utah.  My children's minds are truly free of oppression.

I logged on to postmormon.org about a year ago because I figured some of you would be able to help me work through some of the bitterness I have over being a second rate citizen in my own family. What I found is something different. I found a group of people that think deeply about important issues and I was not even aware that I needed that kind of connection.  My parents will never forgive me for leaving the church but perhaps my job is to forgive them.  My bitterness has largely disappeared but not because they changed.  My attitude toward my family changed. They are who they are and I can't change that.  My hope is for each of us to learn to respect each other without allowing religion to divide us.