My name is Sean Leavitt

I felt like I was playing a part. Because to deviate from the norm was… unthinkable. I remember having a mini-breakdown the night before I was to go into the MTC to begin my mission. A huge part of me was screaming inside that I didn’t want to go. But I never felt like there was a legitimate choice in the matter. Oh, I had a “choice”, to be sure. I could choose between following the formula, and becoming “That Guy”. The one that everyone whispers about. The one everyone’s just a little bit… afraid of. Because he thinks differently. I was a square peg fastidiously trying to fit myself into a round hole.

I could feel the splinters breaking off.

There ware too many problems. Too many things that I had to “take on faith”. Not just because logical explanations would be forthcoming, but because there were actual evidences against them. I couldn’t handle looking in the mirror and seeing a hypocrite all the time. Seeing someone just going through the motions in order to avoid the problems that would ensue if he tried to stop. Taking the easy way out. Don’t rock the boat.

I had actually talked with my wife periodically over the last few years about the things that I had problems with. (Inconsistencies in church history, the strangeness of garments, issues with the temple (Masonic stuff), etc.) And there was some mutual feeling there. We’d both expressed some feelings of “going through the motions”. But I didn’t know how far she’d come along that particular path, and frankly, I was petrified of bringing it up.

You are taught that if ever there is something that you find problematic in the church, if ever there is something that you have an issue with, or that you find… distasteful… “Put it on your ‘Shelf’ “. Table it. Don’t think about it. Maybe you’ll figure it out later. Maybe you won’t get an answer “until the next life”. The tacit suggestion being: There’s something wrong with YOU. You don’t get it. You’re the problem. You’re not faithful enough, not obedient enough. Read the scriptures more, pray more, pay more tithing, go to the temple more, do more Family Home Evening, etc, etc, etc. It can never be considered that the things you have a problem with might actually be real problems.

My shelf got very heavy. I found myself sitting in church, more and more detached from what was happening around me. One Sunday I expressed to my wife that I felt like “A stranger in a strange land”. I had a more and more difficult time reconciling my feelings and the things I knew with weekly attendance, and the things being taught in church. I was a faithful, weekly church attending, temple recommend worthy (and holding), calling holding member. I did all the right things. I prayed to know the truth. I read, I studied, I paid, I sacrificed, I taught, I learned. I was the poster boy for good, church-going Mormon Boy. But I never got those answers. At least not the ones I was supposed to be getting. I never felt the way I was supposed to feel. I struggled with the idea that was growing inside me: That I was the only one that could see that the Emperor was naked.

Then in the fall of 2008, I was confronted with something I simply could not “shelve”. The church began encouraging its members to contribute time, energy and most of all money, in an effort to take away the rights of their fellow Americans in California. Proposition 8. I knew, on a fundamental level, that what was happening was wrong. Whether you believe that homosexuality is a “sin” or not, this country was founded on freedom. Freedom of religion is part of that. But so is freedom FROM religion. To try to use the law to force people to adhere to a certain set of religious tenets is one of the things this country was founded to escape from. So my last emotional and spiritual tie to the church was severed at that point. I had always thought to myself that with all the things I had problems with, that the church still had some good to it.

But Prop 8 forced me to confront – finally – the harm that was actively being perpetrated. And in this case it is real harm. Not just to people who don’t even subscribe to the church’s tenets, but also to members of the church who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. The constant preaching from the pulpit that the way they were made is evil, and wrong. The constant reminders that simply because of who they are, they’re not good enough. They’re inherently “bad”. That in order to be good, they needed to forgo one of the most fundamental of human experiences: Love. A true, deep connection with another human being. I think about having to live a life without that, and it literally makes me weep. I think about the many, many people who were counseled to get married anyway, and it would “all work out”. And the shattered lives left in the wake when, a few years down the road they realize that they simply cannot continue to live a lie. That it didn’t “all work out” the way they were promised it would. I think about the many who simply couldn’t reconcile how they felt inside with what they were supposed to believe, who just could not live another day with the fundamental conflict, and chose to end their lives in order to end the conflict. I weep more for them. I just couldn’t continue to support that with my silence.

I had to face the idea that I had spent my whole life doing this because this is what you do. I did it because that’s what was expected of me. And to do otherwise is to rock the boat. And that was more complication than I could deal with. What will my wife do? What about my kids? And my family? My friends and neighbors? And what of me? Of my life? Will it fall apart? I’d been taught my whole life that to leave the church was to have one’s life turn to rack and ruin.

Well, the long and short of it is that my life didn’t turn to rack and ruin. My wife – the love of my life – had been having all the same issues that I had. She’d felt the same way, and kept quiet because of the same fears. When we told our children about our decision, they were nervous at first. My son’s first question was, “Will we still do stuff as a family?” Because we’ve taught him his whole life that family is what should always come first. And we explained to him that yes, we would still do stuff as a family. In fact, we have spent more time doing stuff as a family than we ever did or could do before. We have been able to experience so much more together than we possibly had time to do before. And we are closer as a couple, and as a family than ever before. Because that wedge of secrecy is no longer there. For the first time, we can be completely open and honest with each other about how we feel.

We told our children that they were old enough to decide for themselves whether they would continue to attend church, and that we would be fully supportive no matter what. They have also decided that they are better off and happier without the church in their lives. We have realized that people are more than capable of making moral, correct decisions without the threat of eternal punishment hanging over their heads. We learned to do the right thing – to make the world a better place, to ease the journey of those people around us, to make the world a better place than it was – simply because it’s the right thing to do, rather than in anticipation of some reward in the next life.

When I look back over my life, I see an undercurrent of fear running through much of it. Fear of discovery of the many doubts I had. Fear of exposure for the fraud I sometimes felt myself to be. Fear of being ostracized for not doing the right thing at the right time. For not going on a mission, not going to the right college, not marrying the right type of person, not marrying in the right way, in the right place. For not following the map. Fear of losing my family and friends if I exposed my true thoughts and feelings. Fear of “The Other”: Anyone or anything not like me. Not mormon.

I no longer live in fear.

It is the most wonderful thing in the universe. I am finally able to follow my integrity and say what I truly believe. I no longer fear “The Other”, worrying that somehow my testimony will be irreparably damaged if I read the wrong thing, talk to the wrong person, learn too much. Now I can’t learn enough. And the truth stands on its own merits, with or without any wish or hope on my part that it continue to do so. I don’t have to fear anyone or anything. I can experience them for myself, and decide what, if anything I will take from the experience. I no longer fear my wife will leave me if I profess to have a different spiritual belief than her, because I know – all the way down to my core – that she loves me for who I am, and I love her for who she is, rather than for what she believes. I love my kids with all my heart, and hope that they become all that they want to. I love my family for who they are. Not who I think they should become. All I want for them in life is to be truly happy, whatever that entails.

As for friends and family? We have learned who truly cares for us, and who was simply in our lives because they felt obliged to be. And that was hard in many cases. But it is so very rewarding. The people that choose to be in our lives have blessed our lives and done more for us than they can imagine or I can express.

My name is Sean Leavitt and I am an Ex Mormon.

“It is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need of philosophy complicated. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple the philosophy is kindness.” -His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” -Aung San Suu Kyi