Mormon Quotes

Shunning

Boyd K. Packer
Remember: when you see the bitter apostate, you do not see only an absence of light, you see also the presence of darkness. Do not spread disease germs.
Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," speech given August 1981 at BYU, Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1981
Daniel C. Peterson
There aren't many [reasons for excommunication], really. Flat out saying Joseph Smith was a liar, I think, yeah, there's no reason for you to be a Latter‑day Saint. ... It gets a little fuzzier after that. Advocating a nonhistorical Book of Mormon, for example, advocating it in the church, I'd probably say you can't do that. If you believe it privately, that's your business. ... If they're not talking about it, if they're not advocating it, then I would say leave them alone. Work with them, if nothing else, but leave them alone. So I don't see a really clear line there. Obviously there's no room in the church for, say, a vibrant Mormon atheist movement or something like that. ...
Daniel C. Peterson, PBS, The Mormons
Hosea Stout
I always feel that it is my duty to look to myself, for I am in as much danger of apostatizing as any in the Church. If I ever do get led astray and depart from the principles of the gospel of salvation, it will be because I led myself off from the path; it was not my brethren who led me away, it was my own doing.
Hosea Stout, General Conference, 1858
Mark A. Taylor
On Valentine's Day, February 14, Kip made another attempt to end his life by again drinking a mixture of iodine and alcohol. He was taken to the psychiatric unit of the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where he was diagnosed as suicidal. (The medical facility is a codefendant in the Eliason suit.) Eight days later Kip was released to his father. Eliason recalls picking his son up at the hospital. "He seemed happy to be going home. Before we left, he introduced me to a 16‑year‑old girl he had met there. She had told him she was there for the same reason he was. Kip seemed very taken by his new friend and, when they said goodbye, he took her into his arms and kissed her. I'll never forget it." On March 2, 1982, Kip was home alone while his father made an overnight business trip, About 9 p.m. Eliason called him from his hotel. "Kip seemed all right. I asked him if he'd taken his medicine, and he said he had. I told him I'd be home soon, and that was about it." Sometime after the call, Kip wrote a suicide note. He went to the closed garage, started the family car and went to sleep. Dead at 16, Kip Eliason had but two "vices," masturbation and telling the truth. He was unable to stop masturbating and too honorable to lie.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
Mark A. Taylor
On February 25, 2000, Stuart Matis drove to the LDS chapel in Los Altos, California, and took his life. He was frustrated by the efforts by the LDS Church to pass Proposition 22, and he felt that he could not reconcile his religion and his homosexuality. He was 32 years old.
Mark A. Taylor, Affirmation: Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter‑day Tragedy
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