And This is Why I Left The Mormon Church

Blameless torture

An article from the Salt Lake Tribune

Public Forum Letter

Updated: 05/07/2009 02:03:52 PM MDT
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Imagine I was a Mormon in good standing, and that I was also an assistant U.S. attorney general with tremendous power. Then imagine that I sat at my desk and wrote two treatises that became public.

One advocated giving full marriage rights to any committed and loving couple, regardless of sexual orientation. The other justified torture of suspected criminals, laying out in great detail the number of times they could be slapped, doused in cold water, the length of time they could be kept naked, standing, bent over, hung by the arms, kept in the dark or kept in the light and kept without sleep. It even justified putting them into a tiny box into which insects would be introduced.

Which of those two memos could get you excommunicated from the church?

Federal Judge Jay S. Bybee of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals actually wrote that second memo. He is an active Mormon and a Cub Scout leader. Thank goodness what he advocated was torture and not same-sex marriage, or he might be in real trouble with his church.

Doug Hofeling

Salt Lake City