CHAPTER 8
DEVOUT, THEN OUT

In August 1991, I had just graduated from the University of Utah with an honors B.A., cum laude. I was twenty-one and had had a temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead at the Salt Lake Temple and had been going faithfully every week for two years. At this point, I wanted to be endowed. I felt I was mature enough and ready to take the next step in my spiritual progression. I had just become engaged to my sweetheart, Thad, who, like me, had been doing baptisms for the dead for the past eight months or so.

Thad had not been endowed either; and we both decided to be endowed before our wedding as "celebration" of our engagement, which capped a three-year courtship. Our separate interviews with the bishop of our university singles’ ward went just fine. Bishop Sam Morrison told me how pleased he was with me and that he respected my maturity and dedication to temple work.

Neither Thad nor I had ever met our stake president. My interview was first. After the usual "get to know you" questions, President Jackson (a pseudonym) said he didn’t know if he could give me a recommend because of my youth. I told him about my two years of near perfect weekly attendance at the baptismal font, and my recent graduation, but he still hesitated.

I protested, "Look. I trust Bishop Morrison’s assessment of my character. If he thinks I’m ready, and I think I’m ready, I don’t see a problem."

He said that Bishop Morrison had sent a young woman over "just last week" who was my age and he’d sent her back without her recommend, because of "immaturity." He tried to persuade me to wait until the day of my marriage, so I could have the joy of my husband being the first to take me through the veil. I continued to insist that I felt ready and I’d prayed about all this beforehand.

Finally he agreed to interview me. But what an interview! He didn’t ask the questions from the list as Bishop Morrison had asked, He made them into essay questions. Instead of "Do you believe in God?" it was, "Tell me about your testimony." His voice was very intense and dramatic, and it made me feel I needed to impress him. I was already very confused and upset by his reluctance to interview me, and then his intensity was frightening. I was keenly aware that this man had the power to deny me my endowments. He was in tune with God. And if God wanted him to ask the questions like this, then there must be a reason.

Then he asked, or rather ordered, "Tell me about your morality problem." I just froze. I said I didn’t have one. He insisted, "No, tell me about your morality problem!" I didn’t know what to do. Guiltily I confessed that Thad and I had had a "morality problem" with light petting. It had stopped there, we had confessed to Bishop Morrison six months earlier, before our engagement, and had fully resolved the problem. Both Thad and I felt forgiven, and there had been no resumption of the problem after that point. I was humiliated to dredge it up again and confused. Hadn’t it already been taken care of?

But President Jackson refused to let it go and kept insisting on details. Had Thad touched my bare nipples? Had I let him touch me under my panties? The questions continued for what seemed like an endless time. Again I protested that I’d dealt with the situation with Bishop Morrison, who obviously felt that I was now worthy of a temple recommend. President Jackson said something like, "Let me be the judge of that." His next question was about "the last time you masturbated" (not if I did). Other prurient questions followed. I ended up telling him about every single activity and thought of a sexual nature that I had been remotely involved in back to about age twelve, because he kept asking, hammering away, communicating clearly that he "knew" I was holding something back. Finally, helpless and devastated, I ran out of things to tell. All these things had long ago been confessed to and "forgiven" by the different bishops of the many wards I’d lived in during the past nine years.

I was almost ready to cry. I was disgusted, sick inside, very violated and humiliated. I groped for an explanation. What could be his reason? Was he going to use my story to check Thad’s version during his interview? It didn’t make any sense.

Finally he moved on to the other questions, but he still phrased them as demands: "Tell me what groups you belong to that subvert the purpose of the Church." It was a very unsettling experience. At the end, he said, in essence, that he felt impressed to tell me that although I’d sinned, he would give me the recommend anyway since I was working on my repentance. He stressed "working on." It was clear to me that he didn’t feel I’d been forgiven yet of any of them. By then, I was starting to feel angry, but I repressed it and instead acted very grateful. I had to have that damn little piece of paper!

The anger really hit me later, when Thad came out of his interview. I had been in that man’s office for almost forty-five hideous, humiliating minutes. Thad was in and out in something like ten or fifteen. As we walked to the car, I hesitatingly asked him how the questions were presented to him. Surprise! President Jackson asked him the questions straight off the list, and had said nothing about our "sin" of six months earlier. Outrage and betrayal welled up inside me. I had trusted that man, trusted that God was behind him, trusted that there was a reason to rake up all that stuff in detail—and there wasn’t. Thad was as furious as I was when I told him the whole story.

I called my father and asked how leaders were supposed to present the interview questions. He told me they are supposed to ask the question as printed on the card ("Do you live the law of chastity?" — so he had even made up his own question!); and if you say "yes"—which Thad and I certainly could—they are to go on to the next one. I told him in very general and abbreviated terms about President Jackson’s way of conducting the interview, and, very troubled, he repeated over and over, "That’s not right. That’s just not right!"

But nothing was done. No one talked to President Jackson. I certainly didn’t have the guts to. I tried to avoid him; and when I encountered him at our next stake conference, I was repulsed when he grabbed my hand and heartily asked, "Oh Sister Uhlig! How’s the wedding coming?"

I tried not to let it ruin my endowment ceremony, but it bothered me so that I put off going for almost three weeks after he signed my recommend. That interview filled those three weeks with all kinds of guilt, anguish, self-doubt, and feelings of unworthiness. I had been anticipating my endowment as a way of being closer to God, of feeling his love more perfectly. I had always believed if you were sorry and promised not to repeat a wrongdoing—and then didn’t—that God’s forgiveness was total, that the sin was completely erased. But now I doubted that God could ever love me. I questioned whether I was, in fact, forgiven of any of my sins. It was a terrible thing to be told by that man, my priesthood leader, who supposedly had a direct line to God, that I was still stained by those sins and must be constantly working towards a forgiveness to be granted in the not-near future. My self-esteem simply melted away in the face of that bleak and accusing experience.

I no longer believe that I am unforgiven, but I guess I’m still working on forgiving President Jackson for that violation and humiliation. I still get terribly angry when I think of him behind his desk, leaning forward and probing for prurient details. I now know it was terribly wrong—even sick—of him to do it. I know he was sexually exploiting me for his personal satisfaction. No one should have to go through that kind of thing.

Thad and I were very happy with each other, but the sense of intrusiveness from the Church did not go away. In fact, it got worse. We moved into Nibley Park Ward in Granite Stake in Salt Lake City and were both very active. When Thad and I didn’t have a baby right away, the girls in my Young Women class wanted to know why, especially when a lesson in the Young Woman’s manual on the evils of the world listed "abortion, murder, birth control ... " I refused to teach this sentence of the manual. Calmly and without making a big deal about it, I told the girls that I took birth control pills, that I didn’t think it was wrong, and that it was a personal decision between my husband and me. At least two mothers, perhaps more, called the bishop, claiming that I had told the girls "not to have children" and that they (the mothers) were "wrong to have so many children." I think these ideas were in the backs of their own minds, because I had never said anything remotely similar in class.

These alarmed mothers told the bishop that I should be released. He assigned another woman to team-teach with me. She always attended class, even when I was teaching. I tried telling myself it was better for continuity in teaching, but it made me feel that I was being either chaperoned or spied on or both. Two weeks after she was called, she gushingly told the girls that she was pregnant, that previously she had been on the pill but knew "in her heart" that she was doing evil and that the Lord wanted her to "do right" (that is, get pregnant) since her husband lost his job. So she and her husband "repented," conceived her child, and lo! a miracle occurred. He got a job and it paid more than the one he had lost. She bore her testimony that being on the pill was wrong. Everyone looked at me. No one knew what to say.

When I encouraged the girls in my Young Women’s class to get a good education, I got "concerned" calls from parents and from the bishop. I then spent the next six months very systematically and diligently reading everything I could get my hands on that the Church had published about itself, including its history. I was looking for reasons to stay. Then I read as many as I could stand of works published by detractors. I then tried to make sense of the "pure white" picture presented by the Church and the "pure black" picture presented by detractors. I decided that the truth lay in the gray between—and I began to feel that I didn’t like aligning myself with an organization that preached one thing for the cameras, the media, and the general public but lived and practiced another.

I compared lessons in the Young Women’s and the Young Men’s manuals. Almost 70 percent of the Young Women lessons were about respecting men (priesthood, father, brothers, future husband, etc.); the purity of woman’s "role," and how special that role was took the other 30 percent. In contrast, the Young Men’s manual had only 5 percent lessons on respecting women. I thought how stifling such relationships would be, especially contrasted to the genuine equality that Thad and I worked hard to build into our marriage. I looked at the "good" Mormon marriages I could observe in our families and in the ward. I was willing to respect those marriages, but I saw in many of them the same assumptions of superiority and submission, the same hypocrisy, the same fear that I sensed in the manuals.

Finally, I resigned as Young Women teacher. I’m sure my leaders were relieved. So was I. Thad and I stopped attending church at the end of 1993. Thad recalls that the final straw for him came during a Sunday School class in which the teacher was announcing that parimutuel gambling was wrong. I raised my hand and said I thought people should think for themselves and pray about what’s right and what’s wrong. Bishop Jay Thornton interrupted, "I can’t let that stand. You should go with what the leaders tell you is right." Thad said nothing but he told me afterward, "I just sat there and thought deeply about the implications of that statement on all areas of my life in the Church. I didn’t like any of them."

On 22 January 1994, I wrote a letter to President Hinckley, then first counselor in the First Presidency, requesting that our names be removed from Church records:

Dear Mr. Hinckley:

Although I know you will not see this letter (only your secretary will), I address it to you since I am aware of the Church’s protocols to bishops on this matter, and I know it is useless to send this request to my bishop. He will ignore it "for my own good" because he "knows better" than I what I want. I know this because I have sat in the Sunday bishop’s councils and listened as he said those very phrases concerning other people in my ward.

My husband and I want our names removed from the rolls of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as an administrative action initiated at these members’ request. As of the date of this letter, we are no longer members of this church and expected your secretary to forward this letter to the appropriate office. We expect written notification when this action has been completed.

There are many reasons behind this request; but at most basic, we feel that we cannot in good conscience remain members of this church while its leaders continue to deny Mother Goddess and hurt and oppress women and men, all in the name of Father God. We are simply not interested in choking down the Church’s pablum anymore, Mr. Hinckley.

Thank you for your secretary’s prompt attention to this administrative action.

Thad and I both signed this letter; my signature was first. On 31 January, F. Michael Watson, secretary to the First Presidency, wrote back a form letter, reversing in the address and greeting the order of our names as we had sent our letter. We considered the name order to be a small test of institutional sensitivity and respect for our preference, which the institution had just failed.

The enclosed "statement" was a one-page "Invitation to Come Back" headed by a small reproduction of a Harry Anderson painting of Christ with partially open arms. The statement, undated,¹ is signed by Ezra Taft Benson, Gordon B. Hinckley, and Thomas S. Monson:

We realize that it is difficult to write a form letter that covers everyone, but for us, the invitation in the statement was marred by the assumption that we were "bitter" and guilty of sin or had had our feelings hurt. In fact, the attempt to deal with us through "forms" became as trying for us as we left as it had been while we stayed.

A week later, on 11 February, Thad’s mother, Kay, called me. "What’s going on, Becky?" she asked, sounding bewildered and confused. "Jay Thornton wants to talk to us, wants to know what to do about Thad? Is something wrong with Thad?" Now understand that Thornton was our bishop; he and Thad’s father, Brent, had both been counselors in a stake presidency a long time ago, but they hadn’t really been friends since then.

Thad and I had an excellent relationship with his parents. They loved us, respected us, cared for us, and were always supportive of us. We felt exactly the same about them, so I had no hesitation in explaining to Kay that we were having our names removed from the Church records. "I’m sorry you had to find out this way," I said. "We wanted to tell our families on our own terms and in our own time." I didn’t tell her that we had both speculated on the possibility that our request would become public knowledge before we announced it.

Kay was supportive of our decisions and said something like "All we want is for you to be happy," but she seemed baffled by the whole thing—our wanting to leave and Bishop Thornton’s intervention.

The next day, Kay called back after their meeting with Bishop Thornton. He had wanted to keep the meeting a secret from us, but Kay promptly informed him, "I already called Becky and told her about this meeting." He showed them our letter of request and asked, "What should we do? We can either process the request quickly or sit on it for a little bit if you think there’s a way to get them to change their minds." Either Kay or Brent asked why Bishop Thornton wanted to meet with them. He said it was "because of the love and respect" he felt for them. "I wanted you to know what was happening with one of your children. I want the right thing to happen, but what is the right thing in this case?" Brent and Kay naturally weren’t thrilled about our decision, but they felt uncomfortable with the position that the bishop was putting them in. They assured him that "sending people to change their minds won’t work." Bishop Thornton said he planned to make an appointment with us and talk about the letter.

I was so angry that I couldn’t even find words to express my feelings. It outraged me that Thad was being treated like a little boy. And where did that leave me in the patriarchal chain of command—perhaps on the level of the family dog?

Thad is normally very mild-mannered and easy-going. He has deep convictions and nobody can talk him into doing anything that he thinks is wrong, and he doesn’t usually get angry at people. But now he was furious, He jotted down some notes of what he wanted to say so that he could communicate without getting flustered, and then called the bishop. He also took notes on the conversation so that he could be sure he understood what was happening. The conversation went like this:

On 12 February 1994, I drafted a stiff letter to Bishop Jay Thornton that Thad and I both signed.

We sent this letter to Bishop Thornton’s home address and he should have received it the next day, but he did not respond until close to the limit of the ten days. On 20 February 1994, he wrote to "Brother and Sister Eagar":

It seemed pompous to have him warn us of the "consequences" that we had already explained to him we understood, but at least he had finally taken the action we desired. We felt quite encouraged.

On 27 February, our former bishop, Jerry Wells, now a counselor in the stake presidency, stopped by the house to ask us to call the stake president, Everett Cannon Peck. "He wants to talk with you but doesn’t have a phone number for you. Will you please call him?" Refusing to commit us, I said, "It’s a possibility. I’ll talk with Thad."

When Thad got home from work, we discussed this request. We knew that talking to the stake president wasn’t required by the General Handbook of Instructions. All he had to do was process the report as sent on by the bishop. Had Bishop Thornton really sent the request on? We weren’t sure.

Four days later on 3 March, President Peck came to our house at 9:45 PM. and asked if he could talk to us. We invited him in and asked him to sit down. During the entire conversation, Thad and I felt at ease and calm, functioning as a real team in the conversation with both of us answering questions, commenting, and explaining. At no point did we feel on the defensive, and this fact alone is some measure of how completely detached from the Church we felt already.

He said he wanted to talk to us about our request to remove our names from the Church’s records. We responded, "There’s nothing in the manual that requires you to talk to us and nothing anyone says will change our minds, so there’s really nothing to discuss." He admitted that the manual didn’t require an interview "but I feel concerned for you." We thanked him but said it wasn’t necessary.

He wanted to discuss our reasons for making the request. We said, "We’ll be glad to discuss our reasons with you after you’ve taken action on our request." He tried several different ways to find out what we believed. "Do you still believe in the Book of Mormon?" "Do you have a testimony that Christ is your Savior?" "Do you feel that there is a God?" Each time we responded with, "We’ll be happy to talk it over with you after we have received notification that our names have been removed."

He was getting increasingly uncomfortable, but we were feeling fine. It was our first experience with being assertive in any degree with a Church leader, and it astonished me to realize that most members of the Church really do hand over their privacy unquestioningly, answering any question the leader thinks of.

"I’ve read and reread your letters," he tried again. "I’ve thought about it quite a bit. I admit I’m curious about your reasons."

"The letters express our reasons just fine," we answered.

He persisted. Finally, Thad said in his gentle way, "We don’t want to say anything that might influence the way you handle our request to remove our names.

President Peck gave up at that point and asked if we would read a few scriptures after he left.

"Perhaps," we answered.

He gave us the references to 2 Nephi 32:9 and 3 Nephi 18:15, and we jotted them down.² He bore his testimony that the gospel was true and that Jesus was our Savior.

We listened politely as he continued saying that we had to follow the plan. "Remember the Donner Party. They deviated from the plan and you know what happened to them." I became irritated with the moralizing, but we continued to listen as he developed this warning theme further: "Satan is the incurable insomniac," a phrase he borrowed from Elder Neal A. Maxwell. "He’s never slept and he never needs to."

We didn’t argue, but he could probably tell that the threat of being deceived by Satan was not having its desired effect. He shifted to a warm, fatherly tone and said, "I’ve gotten to know you as your stake president." This statement also failed in its desired effect, since we had met him only a few times and never for more than a handshake and a perfunctory greeting. Someone else had always conducted our temple recommend interviews. "I feel that you’re marching to a different drum," he said. "I just want to help you sort through all of the confusing voices you’re hearing."

We answered, "The best way you can help us is to process our request."

He shifted tactics once more. Without admitting that Bishop Thornton had been out of line in calling in Thad’s parents, he said, "I’m sorry you were offended by Bishop Thornton. I think you just didn’t understand his motives. He feels great love and concern for you and I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing. I hope you can forgive him."

We answered that we certainly didn’t appreciate the way he had handled it, regardless of his motives; but it didn’t really matter since the incident was over and done with.

He tried once more to discover our "problem": "Are you having difficulties with a doctrine? Are there institutional matters you don’t understand? Has someone hurt your feelings?" It was interesting to both of us that, even though my letter to President Hinckley had specifically mentioned our distress over the Mother Goddess and the oppression of women and men, President Peck asked no direct questions about either topic.

Once again, we repeated that we had no intention of discussing our reasons until he had acted on our request but explained that we had not had bitter or angry feelings until Bishop Thornton had seen fit to talk to Thad’s parents instead of to us. Still, we weren’t holding any grudges against Bishop Thornton.

He had run out of ideas. He counseled us to pray about our decision and said, "You have thirty days"—meaning that we could change our minds. I corrected him, "You have thirty days, President Peck. We expect you to follow the procedure outlined in the handbook."

He told us that he would not act until the thirty days was up, hoped he would hear from us, and thanked us for letting him in our house.

After he left, Thad said that even a year ago he would probably have felt intimidated by President Peck’s position and power. He was amazed at how calm and in control of the situation he had felt during the conversation. I wished, in retrospect, that I had pointed out a couple of errors: the Donner Party hadn’t deviated from any special plan; they had just delayed their crossing of the mountains to a dangerous point. And what was he suggesting—that Thad and I were going to turn into spiritual cannibals if we left the Church? Honestly!

We waited the thirty days and, on 31 March, I wrote to President Peck asking for written verification that he had forwarded his administrative report since the thirty-day period had expired the day before. Ten days later, on 9 April, I received a handwritten letter written the day before on Granite Stake letterhead and again addressing us as "Brother and Sister Eagar." It said he had sent his report to the Office of the First Presidency (right where we’d started three months ago), and added:

I wrote to President Peck on 11 April reminding him:

Almost a month later, on 4 May, we received a handwritten letter from President Peck dated 1 May on Granite Stake letterhead. He again called us "Brother and Sister Eagar.

Thad and I were both irritated. Bishop Thornton had received the notification almost three weeks earlier, Why had there been a delay in informing us? And even more important, why had our request for personal notification still not been granted? Suppressing our irritation, I wrote back the same day, courteously but firmly saying:

On 25 May 1994, President Peck signed a lengthy, typewritten letter with a copy to the First Presidency, once again addressing us as "Brother and Sister Eagar":

It was disheartening that President Peck still didn’t get it. All along, we had been asking that our clearly expressed needs be acknowledged and respected. He seemed puzzled and aggrieved because we still weren’t satisfied, yet all he could do was repeat that he had followed correct procedures. His office had communicated with the First Presidency’s office. What more could we want? The fact that there was no communication with us, except what we had forced out of him, still did not seem to register with him as either desirable or necessary.

We decided enough was enough. Another meeting obviously wouldn’t make us feel any better and it probably wouldn’t make him feel any better either. Even for the sake of courtesy, we could not summon the emotional energy for another futile encounter. We never called him back.

In the four years that have passed since we left the Church, Thad and I have felt a sweetness and lightening of our burdens that I had never imagined possible on the day when I knew it was time to leave. Thad returned to school, earned a master’s degree, and now has a wonderful fulfilling job teaching in special education. In turn, I also returned to school in preparation for a career as an optometrist. This move required much faith on my part, since my undergraduate degree was in English literature, but I have learned that I can do whatever I put my mind to. I am wildly successful at science, as it turns out.

I’m sure it would comfort the tongue-clickers in our former neighborhood to learn that we were unhappy, unsuccessful, or had lapsed into drinking or another kind of addiction. We have done no such thing, and much of our life-style is still that of conservative and orthodox Mormons. It is still shocking to some members of my pioneer Mormon family that I think for myself, speak my mind, am educated in the sciences and the arts, cook and fix cars, and have become a professional belly dancer as a way of celebrating my body and cultural diversity. To my family, this pattern adds up to "questionable moral judgement," especially since I am neither defiant nor apologetic and guilty about these decisions.

I am very happy with my life and its path. Mother Goddess has blessed me. I know she’s happy with me. I always knew Father God was there, waiting for me to reject the false "angry God" I was taught to placate and fear throughout my childhood, waiting for me to find the strength to believe in myself. Thad still searches for his "truth," and I respect him for the authenticity of his quest. Thad and I love and support each other fully through both the ups and downs of our lives. We are a multifaceted team; together we are much more than the sum of whatever would have been left of us after we had lopped off whatever didn’t fit inside the tiny boxes of rigid gender roles.

We find ways to serve others in our community regardless of their religion. We live meaningful, fulfilling, and ethical lives. We treat others with respect and dignity. Ironically, it is only since we have stepped outside our childhood religious tradition that we are at last being treated with that same respect and dignity.

¹This statement had been published a decade earlier as "An Invitation to Come Back," Church News, 22 December 1985, 3.