Yes and no.  I am certain that local church leadership (including my former Elder’s Quorum President and a close friend of his) have complained numerous times about me to my bishop, and that there are genuine concerns on the local level regarding my activity with Mormon Stories, along with my advocacy for LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, and Ordain Women.  That said, I have also been informed of training activities led by Elder L. Whitney Clayton that have been conducted in my stake, Kate Kelly’s stake, Denver Snuffer’s stake, and elsewhere — wherein local church leaders have possibly influenced the decision to initiate disciplinary councils for select bloggers, podcasters, etc.  Do I believe that top church leaders explicitly demanded that Kate Kelly, Denver Snuffer, and myself be excommunicated?   Not necessarily.  Do I believe that General Authorities such as Elder Clayton have directly influenced these decisions?  Yes, I believe that they have — but this is speculation on my part.

2 Comments

  1. Althea Southwick June 27, 2014 at 6:12 pm - Reply

    History repeats itself-
    Times, circumstances, technology etc. change- human nature is the same. It takes a long, long time to evolve- You already know all of this. What’s the future vision? We’re all hoping for the best.
    Religious desire- is the hunger quest for divine reality. Religious experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found GOD. And when a human being does find God, there is experienced within the SOUL of the being such an indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he/she is impelled to seek loving service-contact with his/her less illuminated fellows, not to disclose that he/she has found GOD, but rather to allow the over flow of the welling-up of eternal goodness within his/her SOUL to refresh and ennoble his/her fellows. REAL RELIGION LEADS TO INCREASED SOCIAL SERVICE.

  2. Bonny Lurth June 28, 2014 at 12:00 am - Reply

    Well, elder Clayton is the area leader in my stake. I live in Orem. As fas as I know, he is supposed to be in charge of the Salt Lake City area. This is the reason I don’t understand what he was doing training people over in Virginia. Who is the area leadership in that area?

    Anyway, he has not answered my e-mails for a few months now to address my family’s issue that involves bullying from church leadership. I suppose it is because this situation has kept him very busy. It is upsetting that he has no time to fix the problems in his own area and then has to be sent out to another state. This just doesn’t make any sense at all. Why they don’t use someone in their own area? I have to guess that the area leadership in Virginia did not want to be involved in the issue for some reason and they had to send elder Clayton. If someone knows how’s how this works, let me know because the church is not going to give me any answer.

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