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1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

I found out recently my oldest son, who served a two year mission, resigned his membership. He did it quite easily, and more and more are going the route through a lawyer that has offered his services. I haven't told his dad yet, keeping it to myself, but even with my belief struggles, it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. Not sure what this will mean for him. But there are so many that are going this route. Recently the church has said that in order for them to resign, they now need a notarized letter or something sent from this lawyer, his website is QuitMormon.com. It use to be that there would be more flak if members quit by going to their bishops etc. So in this way, it's more private, therefore I'm thinking that the resignations have a lot to do with those numbers. 

The church said no such thing about requiring notarized letters from a specific lawyer.

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13 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The church said no such thing about requiring notarized letters from a specific lawyer.

I have been told this is a fairly new requirement.  Here's a discussion about it (hope it's ok to link to it here):

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/c8pr0n/counter_opinion_requiring_a_notarized_document_to/

As I say in the title, I think that the church's new requirement that, if you are using an attorney to resign, you provide a notarized document, is extremely reasonable.

Quote

 

Let's review how we got to this point, (and which steps are reasonable and unreasonable).

Many disaffected members found the current process to have one's name removed to be arduous, frustrating, inconsistent, and humiliating. (This is the critical problem, I believe. This is precisely what the church needs to fix, so that there is a simple process to have your name removed with reasonable privacy policies.)

Disaffected members then turned to quitmormon.com, a website offering free legal representation to assist them in removing their names from the records, promising to protect privacy. (Given #1, this seems very reasonable.)

Eventually, because the church was dealing with an attorney and legal representation, the church asked its own law firm, Kirton McConkie, to handle these requests. (This, again, seems very reasonable to me. Members wanting to resign engaged an attorney to act on their behalf. Therefore it is reasonable the church would do the same.)

Kirton McConkie has now asked that the legal team at quitmormon provide them with notarized documents from those they are representing. (This, again, seems very reasonable. You can imagine the sequence like this. QuitMormon: "We are attorneys at law representing infinityball, and he would like you to remove his name from your records." KM: "Ok, but first please prove to us that you are actually engaged by infinityball to represent him, and that he has made this request. We'd like a notarized document signed by him.")

 

 

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17 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The church said no such thing about requiring notarized letters from a specific lawyer.

I got my information from this article: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/1/18759587/mormon-church-quitmormon-exmormon-jesus-christ-internet-seo-lds

Here is an excerpt from the letter pertaining to the notary requirement:

"Late last year, the Church asked that all resignation requests from QuitMormon go directly through Kirton McConkie, the law firm that represents the Church. Previously, Naugle had sent requests to the Membership Records department. Now he emails resignation letters directly to Daniel McConkie, a shareholder in the firm. “They received over 6,000 emails in a six-week time period. I don’t think they realized that was what was going to happen,” Naugle says, not without amusement.

Last week he received a letter from Daniel McConkie. “We regret to inform you that our current arrangement with you for processing of requests to remove names from the membership records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not working and will therefore be discontinued,” the letter began. McConkie admonished Naugle for submitting duplicate requests, requests from people whose names have already been removed, requests from deceased or faithful members, and incomplete requests. “The problem is that your automated, largely impersonal system does not truly screen for fraudulent or erroneous submissions,” the letter continued. QuitMormon users will now have to upload notarized, written requests as well.

When we discuss the new requirement on the phone, Naugle sounds copacetic, if a little tired. This latest hurdle will necessitate an open call for notaries nationwide on r/exmormon. Naugle is not a notary, and even if he was, he would not be able to notarize requests for his own clients. Many people have volunteered to help him manage the site in the past: Evan Lloyd says he’s reached out and offered his services, and there are legions of Redditors ready to volunteer. But Naugle rarely deploys helpers."

ETA: I see ALarson has beaten me to the point on this. But the article of the link I share is very significant as well.

Edited by Tacenda
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9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

So you sharing your political views in Sunday School drove people out of the church? And I am sanctimonious for thinking that is an awful and terrible thing that should not happen?

The people in question were well on their way out in any case; I’m confident I played no major part in it. (I wasn’t the SS instructor, by the way.) Moreover, we had young married women who were getting offended in Relief Society along the same lines, so the generational divide was/is pretty systemic. I will say this: it’s pretty difficult to talk about church history, or even how the advent of the US contributed to the Restoration of the Gospel, without getting into politics on some level. I will also say this: people who make lots of noise about church history being the reason for their apostasy seem like so many Claude Raineses exclaiming, “I’m shocked—shocked!—to find inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the official accounts!” It’s usually a pretense for some other source of dissatisfaction, something to which I’m not unsympathetic. 

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3 hours ago, ALarson said:

The "2015...I believe?" was in reference to Elder Cook's talk where he stated the never stronger type comment (I remembered that's about when that talk was given).  I just didn't know if he specifically spoke of resignations or name removals more recently (in a different talk).

I'll try to find the talk myself....no worries :) 

I don’t know of more recent mentions, either by Elder Cook or others. But this was just four years ago, and I’m not persuaded name removal requests, which he said have always been relatively small in number, have increased that dramatically since.

I know there’s the guy who set himself up as a clearinghouse, so to speak, for such requests, but from Calm’s post, it sounds like he has been careless about vetting the authenticity of the requests that come through him and the Church is finally making him do a bit of leg work to verify them. 

And there is the occasional “mass resignation” rally, but I haven’t heard of any of these for a while. Maybe it’s because they don’t draw all that many people anyway and it seems like some of the same attendees show up time after time. 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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41 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I have been told this is a fairly new requirement.  Here's a discussion about it (hope it's ok to link to it here):

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/c8pr0n/counter_opinion_requiring_a_notarized_document_to/

As I say in the title, I think that the church's new requirement that, if you are using an attorney to resign, you provide a notarized document, is extremely reasonable.

 

Sounds like it’s going to be easier for people just to go through the name removal process on their own — something they ought to be doing for themselves anyway. 

Kudos to the Church and its attorneys for getting a handle on this thing after it became clear this attorney was not being responsible in vetting these requests. 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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27 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I have been told this is a fairly new requirement.  Here's a discussion about it (hope it's ok to link to it here):

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/c8pr0n/counter_opinion_requiring_a_notarized_document_to/

As I say in the title, I think that the church's new requirement that, if you are using an attorney to resign, you provide a notarized document, is extremely reasonable.

 

Yes, but they were not requiring it to be done through quitmormon as was stated. I think notarized letters in general are an excellent requirement if you are going thorough a lawyer or even if you are contacting Salt Lake directly on your own. If sent to a bishop or Stake President fraud is much less likely since they know their members a little. A fake letter sent for the resignation of the current Relief Society President is unlikely to be processed without someone giving her a call to verify.

28 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I got my information from this article: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/1/18759587/mormon-church-quitmormon-exmormon-jesus-christ-internet-seo-lds

Here is an excerpt from the letter pertaining to the notary requirement:

"Late last year, the Church asked that all resignation requests from QuitMormon go directly through Kirton McConkie, the law firm that represents the Church. Previously, Naugle had sent requests to the Membership Records department. Now he emails resignation letters directly to Daniel McConkie, a shareholder in the firm. “They received over 6,000 emails in a six-week time period. I don’t think they realized that was what was going to happen,” Naugle says, not without amusement.

Last week he received a letter from Daniel McConkie. “We regret to inform you that our current arrangement with you for processing of requests to remove names from the membership records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not working and will therefore be discontinued,” the letter began. McConkie admonished Naugle for submitting duplicate requests, requests from people whose names have already been removed, requests from deceased or faithful members, and incomplete requests. “The problem is that your automated, largely impersonal system does not truly screen for fraudulent or erroneous submissions,” the letter continued. QuitMormon users will now have to upload notarized, written requests as well.

When we discuss the new requirement on the phone, Naugle sounds copacetic, if a little tired. This latest hurdle will necessitate an open call for notaries nationwide on r/exmormon. Naugle is not a notary, and even if he was, he would not be able to notarize requests for his own clients. Many people have volunteered to help him manage the site in the past: Evan Lloyd says he’s reached out and offered his services, and there are legions of Redditors ready to volunteer. But Naugle rarely deploys helpers."

ETA: I see ALarson has beaten me to the point on this. But the article of the link I share is very significant as well.

You stated that the church was requiring people to use a specific service:

“Recently the church has said that in order for them to resign, they now need a notarized letter or something sent from this lawyer, his website is QuitMormon.com.”

Which is not true. You can submit a letter to your bishop. I processed one a month ago. You can submit it to Salt Lake. This complaint was due to this law firm offering a ridiculously stupid service filled with obvious problems which they wanted to shift onto the Church to deal with. They would resign on your behalf with no safeguards to verify you are who you say you are. Of course the church was frustrated. Immature idiots would go to it and type in the names of active family members as a prank or the ignorant would submit their own name multiple times so naturally the church insisted on some safeguards.

You can still use the tried and true way.

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31 minutes ago, esodije said:

The people in question were well on their way out in any case; I’m confident I played no major part in it. (I wasn’t the SS instructor, by the way.) Moreover, we had young married women who were getting offended in Relief Society along the same lines, so the generational divide was/is pretty systemic. I will say this: it’s pretty difficult to talk about church history, or even how the advent of the US contributed to the Restoration of the Gospel, without getting into politics on some level. I will also say this: people who make lots of noise about church history being the reason for their apostasy seem like so many Claude Raineses exclaiming, “I’m shocked—shocked!—to find inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the official accounts!” It’s usually a pretense for some other source of dissatisfaction, something to which I’m not unsympathetic. 

It is actually amazingly easy. You can talk about Freedom of Religion and the Constitution and their importance without dragging in current events and partisan divides. I taught Gospel Doctrine for many years. It is like playing “Whack a Mole” with some people who always try to find a political angle on everything in the gospel but you just shut it down every time it pops up. Eventually they stop if you shut them down enough. The other thing is that this phenomenon is reportedly rare in the Church outside of the US and I have asked friends in a lot of countries.

 

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36 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It is actually amazingly easy. You can talk about Freedom of Religion and the Constitution and their importance without dragging in current events and partisan divides. I taught Gospel Doctrine for many years. It is like playing “Whack a Mole” with some people who always try to find a political angle on everything in the gospel but you just shut it down every time it pops up. Eventually they stop if you shut them down enough. The other thing is that this phenomenon is reportedly rare in the Church outside of the US and I have asked friends in a lot of countries.

 

I taught gospel doctrine for many years as well and have regularly attended the class in my ward before and since. We never have people trying to inject politics into the discussion. We have good, intelligent discussions, but people seem to know instinctively that Sabbath meetings and classes are no place for partisan politics. 

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1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Sounds like it’s going to be easier for people just to go through the name removal process on their own — something they ought to be doing for themselves anyway. 

 

Why should people be doing them on their own?  My understanding, which could be incorrect, is that people were using the lawyer because in many cases the church was insisting on some contact with local leaders prior to processing resignation requests even when people explicitly requested no future contact in their resignation request.

Edited by sjdawg
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1 minute ago, sjdawg said:

Do we have any indications that this took place?

Yes, the complaint of the church demanding notarized letters going forward gave as a reason the shoddiness of the process used and said that active and dead member names were being submitted and that names were getting submitted multiple times. It is in the article.

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1 minute ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, the complaint of the church demanding notarized letters going forward gave as a reason the shoddiness of the process used and said that active and dead member names were being submitted and that names were getting submitted multiple times. It is in the article.

Do we accept the law firm at their word?  

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1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

You can still use the tried and true way.

There are plenty of stories of resignation letters direct to the church not being processed for a variety of reasons (church wants one last contact, Bishop delays because he hopes they will change their mind).  I haven't been through the process so can't speak from experience but I can understand why some people don't want to deal with the resignation request directly

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2 minutes ago, sjdawg said:

How does the mormon church verify that I am who I say I am if I send a letter directly?

 

Unless it was discussed previous to the letter being sent the bishop or a counselor will contact the person to verify the request. This can be done in person or by phone or any other reasonable means. It is not foolproof but it is better control then this guy had where you just put in the information and call it done. The lawyer also insisted on no contact with their “client” so the church could not contact them to verify. It was a horrible system.

I wish it was easier. I wish you could submit the request through the church website with your login. I would probably have a week long delay before it takes effect in which you could log in and reverse it for the less emotionally stable members. Doubt it will happen though.

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9 minutes ago, sjdawg said:

Do we accept the law firm at their word?  

They have no reason to lie. The letter from the church makes them look bad so I doubt they fabricated it and, if they did, the church could humiliate with the original.

6 minutes ago, sjdawg said:

There are plenty of stories of resignation letters direct to the church not being processed for a variety of reasons (church wants one last contact, Bishop delays because he hopes they will change their mind).  I haven't been through the process so can't speak from experience but I can understand why some people don't want to deal with the resignation request directly

I know. I am involved in one. A guy submitted the request and verbally told a member in good standing he wanted to be removed. It got stuck in limbo because the previous clerk did not upload a digital copy. I could not find it. I got an affidavit written out by a member of the ward who had dealt with it but it got rejected. I am still not sure how to proceed. It seems discourteous to go back and ask for another letter but I have not been able to get the Stake President’s approval without it.

I like my digital resignation done only by the member idea.

Edited by The Nehor
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Just now, The Nehor said:

I know. I am involved in one. A guy submitted the request and verbally told a member in good standing he wanted to be removed. It got stuck in limbo because the previous clerk did not upload a digital copy. I could not find it. I got an affidavit written out by a member of the ward who had dealt with it but it got rejected. I am still not sure how to proceed. It seems discourteous to go back and ask for another letter but I have not been able to get the Stake President’s approval without it.

It is a complicated process.  I'm with you. I wish it could be simplified for everyone's sake. You shouldn't have to spin your wheels on non-productive work either.

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16 minutes ago, sjdawg said:

It is a complicated process.  I'm with you. I wish it could be simplified for everyone's sake. You shouldn't have to spin your wheels on non-productive work either.

I just realized where it might have been filed. I will have to look around the Bishop’s office when I get back (it was done under a previous bishop). I might also contact the previous bishop to see if he knows.

Edited by The Nehor
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3 hours ago, esodije said:

Oh, don’t be so sanctimonious. 

If the result of a political conversation in church is that members stop attending, seems to me that is a red flag right there and a good reason why we shouldn’t get into politics at church no matter what stance a person holds. 

Quote

The people in question were well on their way out in any case; I’m confident I played no major part in it. 

Then best not to frame it as if that is what happened. 

Edited by Calm
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On 7/10/2019 at 5:16 PM, changed said:

Do you have health issues where you need someone to care for you?

Nope. Aside from being morbidly obese I'm in pretty good health.  I take no meds, my BP is fine, as is cholesterol, and no blood sugar issues.  Surprising, I guess, because of the obesity thing.  I was my wife's caretaker in her last months of life.  My new wife needed some caretaking due to her knee replacement surgery last year and this year.  I can and will take care of whom I love.

I think my late wife was worried about my keeping focus on the important things.  I do "suffer" from Attention Deficit Disorder, although it is mild.  She probably felt that if I had a wife to ride herd on me she was more likely to get her eternal spouse back in the resurrection.  

On 7/10/2019 at 5:16 PM, changed said:

My grandmother spent so much time with grampy - 75 years - that she never had time for herself.  Her time alone allowed her to define and find herself as an individual.

Perhaps my brief time as a widower allowed me to define and find myself as an individual?  🙂 

I am not your grandfather, to so dominate my wife that she has to wait for me to die before she can find out who she is.  What a repulsive concept!  I want my wife to know who she is and be an individual -- in no way would I ever try to constrain her in such a way that she would seem to have no life outside of me.  I also prefer an intelligent and assertive woman for a life partner; such a woman already knows who she is.

On 7/10/2019 at 5:16 PM, changed said:

I would hope that marriage is not a dependent relationship - where one or the other is not ok on their own, not able to take care of themselves, not able to be single... we should be able to take care of not only ourselves, but take care of children and others who legitimately need help.  

I would hope so, too.  

You know, I think it is a horrifying idea that a person who has lost a spouse to death should show "loyalty" by staying lonely for the rest of their lives.  If a widow(er) wants to stay alone, have at it, but if not, then feel free.  No judgement!  I could have done it -- but it would not have been a very happy existence.  In fact, after all the stress of taking care of her 24/7 in her last couple of months, my body reacted to the removal of stress rather negatively.  Came down with the worst cold (or flu) I had had in decades, started getting heart palpitations, and so on.  For a time I actually looked forward to leaving this earth, too.  Once that settled itself out, with some disappointment at not dying, I started to feel very glum that I was going to spending a lot of time all wrapped up in myself.  All my kids were grown, and nobody depended on me for anything.  Finding new love so quickly was surprising -- and put new love for life into me.  I now have a reason to live, and I am grateful for that.  One of the things I have learned is that it is possible love two women with all my heart: she who is with me now; and she who waits for me above.

If a person had a happy marriage, then why would they not wish to have another?  My new wife and her late husband considered that question some time before he contracted cancer, and decided together that if they ever lost one another by death, they should feel free to remarry.  

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10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, but they were not requiring it to be done through quitmormon as was stated. I think notarized letters in general are an excellent requirement if you are going thorough a lawyer or even if you are contacting Salt Lake directly on your own. If sent to a bishop or Stake President fraud is much less likely since they know their members a little. A fake letter sent for the resignation of the current Relief Society President is unlikely to be processed without someone giving her a call to verify.

You stated that the church was requiring people to use a specific service:

“Recently the church has said that in order for them to resign, they now need a notarized letter or something sent from this lawyer, his website is QuitMormon.com.”

Which is not true. You can submit a letter to your bishop. I processed one a month ago. You can submit it to Salt Lake. This complaint was due to this law firm offering a ridiculously stupid service filled with obvious problems which they wanted to shift onto the Church to deal with. They would resign on your behalf with no safeguards to verify you are who you say you are. Of course the church was frustrated. Immature idiots would go to it and type in the names of active family members as a prank or the ignorant would submit their own name multiple times so naturally the church insisted on some safeguards.

You can still use the tried and true way.

 

9 hours ago, sjdawg said:

Why should people be doing them on their own?  My understanding, which could be incorrect, is that people were using the lawyer because in many cases the church was insisting on some contact with local leaders prior to processing resignation requests even when people explicitly requested no future contact in their resignation request.

 

9 hours ago, sjdawg said:

How does the mormon church verify that I am who I say I am if I send a letter directly?

 

Maybe that’s why they want you to go through your local leader. Cuts down the risk of fraud and pranks. If this guy is going to take these people on as “clients,” he should assume the burden of certifying through notarized document or affidavit or whatever legal means that they are who they say they are. The Church is right to require it. 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 

 

Maybe that’s why they want you to go through your local leader. Cuts down the risk of fraud and pranks. If this guy is going to take these people in as “clients,” he should assume the burden of certifying through notarized document or affidavit or whatever legal means that they are who they say they are. The Church is right to require it. 

Do you have to show ID or prove your identity in order to be baptized?  I honestly dont remember

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4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Sounds like it’s going to be easier for people just to go through the name removal process on their own — something they ought to be doing for themselves anyway. 

Kudos to the Church and its attorneys for getting a handle on this thing after it became clear this attorney was not being responsible in vetting these requests. 

I don't know enough about this change yet to come to this conclusion.  As far as I can tell, many will still find it easier to use quitmormon.com (even with the notarization involved).

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