I’ve posted earlier about an email exchange I had with my children’s bishop regarding interviews with my children:I met again with the bishop a couple of weeks ago, and told him the two conditions to which he needed to agree in order to interview my children (see third link above). To my surprise, he said that he could probably accommodate my request—that he would look into it and get back to me.The next day, I sent him the following email (and cc’d all three members of the stake presidency):============================================Bishop,This is a follow-up email from our meeting yesterday. I appreciate your willingness to meet with me to discuss the interviewing of my children. I am also sending this email to the stake presidency in case they’re interested.Let me first reiterate that I think you are a good, kind, and wise man, and a caring bishop. I know you sacrifice a lot of your time to serve the members of [my family’s] Ward, and I believe your motives are pure and that you sincerely want to do what’s best for the members of your ward. I appreciate the love and concern you have shown me and my family.---Brief recap for the sake of the stake presidency: Bishop and I met several weeks ago and exchanged a few emails in which I asked Bishop not to ask my children questions related to sexuality. His response was as follows:“Let me briefly set forth my position on interviewing youth (which, I believe, is consistent with the Church's position). I realize you don't agree with some of what I am about to say, and I respect that. But I want to state it clearly. Sexual purity always will be a requirement for members of the Church and for priesthood holders in particular -- youth included. It is the Bishop's responsibility to address issues of sexual purity with the youth.”When I talked to Bishop on the phone regarding the above stated position, I told him that I believed the responsibility for defining sexual purity and addressing issues related to sexuality with our children rested solely with my wife and me as their parents. Bishop disagreed. He said that was true “to a degree,” but he reasserted his position that a bishop has responsibility to address issues of sexual purity with the youth.Bishop and I met yesterday, and I asked again for him to not ask any sexuality related questions of my children besides “Do you live the law of chastity?” I also said that I would like to be present during all interviews with my children. He said that he could probably honor my requests, but that he would get back to me.---Before yesterday’s meeting, I had decided to find out whether other Christian churches in the area have this same practice of asking youth about their sexual behavior. I sent an email to several local pastors. In that email, I was careful to use as much as possible your exact words, Bishop, from emails you’ve sent me and discussions we’ve had. Here is the email I sent (note that this email was based on our communications before yesterday; had I sent it after yesterday’s meeting, I would have used different wording, since you were more amenable to potentially agreeing to my requests):[I then included in this email to the bishop and stake presidency the email I sent to local Christian ministers, along with their responses. See http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,925430 .]It is clear to me that for nearly everyone outside of the LDS Church, the practice of asking youth about their sexual behavior is considered inappropriate. Other words I’ve heard used to describe the Mormon interviewing practice: appalling, abhorrent, disgusting, revolting.I am not trying to be difficult or obstinate. I am simply trying to protect my children from what I believe are inappropriate and potentially damaging interviewing practices of the Mormon Church. I love my children, and I sincerely believe that my wife and I are perfectly capable of teaching them about sexuality and helping them set proper boundaries. I believe the sexual purity of our children is the responsibility of my children, my wife, and me, not of the Mormon Church. As one of the pastors quoted above said, “The pastor’s job is to teach the Word of God, not be the behavioral police.”So here are the conditions you, or any other Church leader, must meet if you would like to interview our children:1. The only question relating to sexuality that you may ask them is “Do you live the law of chastity?” No follow-up questions, no questions about masturbation, no defining the law of chastity—nothing else.2. I will sit in on all interviews with our children. You, or any other Church leader, may not meet with any of our children without me present.If you are willing to agree to those two conditions, I will allow you to meet with my children. Otherwise, you may not. I’ll let you know if I change my mind about allowing you to ask my children “Do you live the law of chastity?” For now, I’m OK with it, but I may feel differently later.I know that you, Bishop and members of the Stake Presidency, along with nearly every other Church leader, are good men. I count all of you as my friends and appreciate the service you give to the ward, to the stake, and to my family. I am not criticizing you in this email; I am criticizing the practice of the Church of asking youth about their sexual behavior. I believe the practice is wrong. The Church has had practices in the past that were wrong and that have been discontinued. I hope the Church discontinues this interviewing practice in the near future. Until then, I cannot allow my children to be subjected to it.Thanks for your time.Sincerely,copostmo============================================My wife was upset that I sent this email. She agreed with parts of it, but as a believing Mormon, she does not like to criticize Church leaders. She met with the bishop a few days later to apologize for my email. The bishop was very angry about my email. He said that I had done a horrible thing; that I had twisted his words and misrepresented his intention.He was angry that I had used his words without his permission. I find this quite ironic, since the stake president forwarded my email to Church headquarters without my permission.The next day, I sent the following email to the bishop and stake presidency:============================================Bishop,I wanted to send another email to explain my motive for my previous email and the associated research. I hope you don’t have any ill feelings towards me. I have none towards you. I know that you were doing what you thought was right and fulfilling your responsibilities as bishop. I hope you believe me that I was doing what I thought was right in protecting my children.When I first approached you to ask about the types of questions you ask during interviews, and I asked you to not ask my children about masturbation and other sexual behavior, I wish you would have honored my request as a parent. I felt, and still feel, that that decision is for a parent to make. I know that you were being consistent with Church policy in not agreeing to my request. I think you also would have been within Church policy if you would have agreed.A few email exchanges later, when you still hadn’t agreed to not ask my children those questions, I felt a little helpless. I felt like you were making choices for my children that should be made by Mrs. copostmo and me. I felt like I only had two options:1. Refuse to allow you to interview my children. This would mean that they would not be able to advance in the priesthood or attend the temple. This, of course, wouldn’t bother me personally, but I knew those things are important to Mrs. copostmo, and I figured my kids would resent me as well.2. Allow you to interview my children. I felt like you had made it clear that it was your intention to ask my children questions that I had made it clear I did not want you asking. I felt like that would be potentially damaging to my children.I did not like either of those options. As I thought more about it, I came up with a third option. I figured that this practice of the Church of asking youth about their sexual behavior would not be considered appropriate outside the Church. I decided that if I asked ministers of other churches their opinion, and if they agreed with me, that I could then send their responses to you, and you would see that I was not alone in my feelings regarding this practice.In writing my email to the other ministers, I don’t think that I misrepresented what you had told me regarding your position. I don’t think that I exaggerated or took your words out of context. Yes, I did not include your words about discussing things that are gender appropriate, age appropriate, and appropriate to the individual. But note that all of the responses categorically said that asking youth about their sexual behavior was inappropriate. No one said that as long as the questions are appropriate for the person’s age and gender then they’re OK. Please let me know if you feel I misrepresented your intentions in my email.I was aware that my email would create negative PR for the Church. That was not my primary objective—my primary objective was to protect my children. But it did not bother me that a side effect of the email was that negative PR. I felt like I was telling the truth about a practice of the LDS Church. If that caused others to have a negative perception of the Church, that doesn’t mean the truth should be hidden; it means the practice should be stopped. I do hope the Church discontinues the practice.When I met with you Sunday morning, I fully expected you to not agree with my two requests. I was pleasantly surprised that you not only didn’t reject them, but indicated that you could probably accommodate them. I still felt, as I had all along, that it shouldn’t have even been a question; that you should have respected my wishes as a parent. So since there was still some question as to whether you would agree to my conditions, I sent the email to you and the stake presidency that I had already mostly written and done the research for.I hope that we can have a good relationship. The words I said in my last email about you being good, kind, wise, and caring are things that I sincerely feel. I don’t agree with all of your decisions, just like you don’t agree with all of mine. But I still respect you and appreciate what you do for my family.Congrats on your son entering the MTC. You have a great family. I wish the best for all of you.Sincerely,copostmo============================================The bishop came to my house a few days later to meet with me. He said he understood why I did what I did, and that I had a right to do so. He agreed to let me sit in on all interviews with my children. He said that, going forward, if I used his words without his permission, he and I would have a personal problem (and here I am using his words without his permission, but he was referring to his words during interviews with my children). He said that in the future, our communication would be more careful. Overall, we’re definitely on good terms now.A few days later, I received this email from a counselor in the stake presidency:============================================Hi copostmo,Thank you for copying me on your recent emails to Bishop [XXXX].I definitely respect your opinions.I certainly agree that parents should primarily be responsible for teaching their children about all moral issues including sexuality.I also feel that parents definitely have the right to choose whether or not to ask ecclesiastical leaders to meet with their children.My perspective as a parent of older children is that I am deeply grateful to the priesthood leaders that have interviewed my children over the years for the way that they have helped to reinforce my teachings. They have also been mentors and advocates for my children and have encouraged them to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The concept of regular bishopric interviews is obviously unique to our faith, but for my family it has been very helpful.To me, the opinion of local sectarian ministers is interesting, but on these issues, I stand with living prophets and apostles who I believe are authorized representatives of the Savior Jesus Christ rather than the varying opinions of sincere yet unauthorized ministers of various other churches. Here are a few teachings from the apostles in our last general conference that I feel are helpful in considering the issues you addressed in your letters:[He then included several excerpts from talks from the last general conference on chastity.]I again invite you to read “Learning to Love the Book of Mormon” which was written by Dr. Michael Preece, a cardiologist, and a former mission president and LDS Humanitarian Services volunteer for many years. (This is one of the documents I sent you this last November. I'll resend it separately to your gmail address since it is a large file.)I know that if you could regain your testimony of the Book of Mormon, it would change your life for the better.We have been reading this as a family. There are so many evidences of the Book of Mormon that are explained, it has really been enlightening and inspiring for us.I hope you will read this book.Best wishes to you. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you or your family.Sincerely,[Pres. XXXX]============================================President [XXXX],Thanks for your email. You are truly a generous man. I know you are very busy with family, work, and church responsibilities. I am humbled that you would take so much of your time, not just for this email, but emails you’ve sent in the past and the time you and I met together. I feel of your love and concern for me and for my family, and I am grateful.Thank you for respecting my opinions, even if some of them differ from your own. I felt the same respect from you when we met several months ago. I, too, respect your beliefs and opinions, including regarding the effect that priesthood leaders have had in the lives of your children.Thanks also for the quotes from the last general conference. I guess I should clarify, in case it wasn’t apparent from my earlier emails, that I believe in the importance of chastity. I believe that our children should live chaste lives; that they should be taught to have a proper attitude towards and respect of their sexuality, and that boundaries should be set to help them avoid making decisions that would potentially have negative long term consequences. I simply think that it is a parent’s responsibility to have such discussions with their children.I agree with what you implied in your email—that if I had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, this wouldn’t be an issue. I read much of “Learning to Love the Book of Mormon” when you sent it previously. I compared the evidences discussed in that book that support the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon with the many evidences against its divine authenticity. For me, there is no comparison. The evidences that the Book of Mormon is true are, for me, easily explained away, whereas, for me, there is no way around the evidences against the Book of Mormon.But let’s just say that somehow I was able to regain my testimony of the Book of Mormon. You said that it would change my life for the better. I don’t think it would. If I regained my testimony of the Book of Mormon, and by extension Joseph Smith and the Church, it would cause all kinds of problems that had disappeared when I came to the conclusion that the Church was not true. I would have to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by questions such as:• Why would God answer my prayer that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, but then answer prayers of other people, in the same manner that He answered my prayer, that their churches are true? After I lost my belief in the Church, why would God answer my prayer that the Church is not true in the same manner in which He had previously answered me that it was true?• Why would God lead a group of people to the Americas, interact with them, give them scripture, but then remove all archeological, historical, linguistic, genetic, and other scientific evidence that such a people ever existed? Why is there so much evidence of other civilizations around the world during the same time period? Why would God only erase evidence of the Nephites and Lamanites and not the other civilizations that lived at the same time?• Why would God create a worldwide flood, but then remove all evidence that such a flood ever occurred? Am I to simply dismiss all of the scientific advances made by humans because many of them conflict with Mormon Doctrine?• Why would there be a book called “View of the Hebrews” that was written shortly before the Book of Mormon was published and has so many similarities with the Book of Mormon? Did God inspire that book as well?• Why did God command so many prophets to make such a great effort to make metal plates, write on them, and hide them in the earth to be discovered by Joseph Smith over a thousand years later, when those plates were never used in the translation of the Book of Mormon? If Joseph didn’t need the plates, and only needed to look at a stone in a hat, what was the purpose of the plates in the first place?• Why did God command His prophet to send one of his apostles on a mission and then marry the apostle’s wife while he was gone?• Why did God command His prophet to try this with the wives of other Church leaders, only to deny everything when their wives rejected Joseph’s offer?• Why did God command His prophet to convince a 14-year-old girl to marry him by promising salvation to her and her entire family?• Why did God command His prophet to threaten another teenage girl with a loss of salvation if she didn’t marry him?• Why did God reveal D&C 132 to His prophet, but then allow His prophet to completely disregard it in his implementation of plural marriage (e.g., marrying non-virgins, not asking for consent of his first wife, etc.)?• Why did God send an angel with a flaming sword to command his prophet to marry a woman who had recently married someone else and was pregnant with his child?• Why are there so many inconsistencies between Joseph’s different accounts of the First Vision? If this is such a momentous event (one of the most important in the history of the world according to Pres. Hinckley), why could Joseph not remember such significant details as how many personages appeared?• Why did God’s prophet claim to translate papyri as an account written by the hand of Abraham when Egyptologists around the world say that the papyri have nothing to do with Abraham? Are all the Egyptologists in the world wrong?• Why did God reveal to His prophet that He was actually Adam, but then reveal to a later prophet that the first prophet was wrong?• Why would God reveal to His prophet that if a black person marries a white person, the only way for them to be forgiven of such a sin is for both of them to be killed, along with all of their children?• Why would God reveal through one prophet that “the only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy,” but then allow one of His later prophets to say, “I condemn [polygamy] as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal.”?• Why did God ban blacks from receiving the priesthood and from the saving ordinances of the temple for 130 years?• Why would God command Joseph to change the wording of earlier revelations, adding verses about the appearances of John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John as if those appearances were mentioned in the earlier revelations, which they weren’t?• Why would God need His children to learn secret oaths and handshakes in order to get into heaven?• Why did God create humans 6000 years ago, but then allow the scientific evidence to indicate that humans have been on earth for over 100,000 years? If I can’t trust that scientific evidence, how can I trust other scientific advances and discoveries?• Why did God inspire His prophet to say that masturbation leads to homosexuality? Why did He inspire another prophet to say that masturbation leads to insanity and premature death? Is the consensus of the professional mental health and medical communities wrong?• Why would God inspire His prophet to say that it’s better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle?The issues addressed by these questions caused me all kinds of inner turmoil and mental anguish when I was trying to reconcile these issues while still holding onto my testimony of the Church. The moment I came to the realization that the Church is not true, all of that turmoil and anguish and dissonance vanished. I am so much more at peace with my current belief in God. The God I believe in did not command his people to commit genocide or kill homosexuals or rape women. The God I believe in did not command Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to marry other men’s wives or discriminate against blacks. I am so much happier with my current belief in God. If I were to regain my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Church, all the problems noted above would return.When my heart tells me that denying homosexuals the right to marry is wrong, I don’t have to go against my conscience because that thinking isn’t in line with what the leaders of the Church say. I don’t have to tell my daughter that if someone tries to rape her, she should fight to the death. And I don’t have to allow a bishop to ask my children whether or not they are masturbating or to describe in detail their sexual transgressions.I realize that the Church brings you and your family much happiness. I don’t doubt that, and I respect your beliefs. I hope you believe me that I am so much happier outside of the Church, and I would be miserable if I were to start believing again that the Church is true.Thank you again for your email. I realize that you could have simply dismissed me as a disgruntled apostate. The fact that you took the time to write your email shows that you still care about me, which means a lot. I am an apostate, but I don’t feel disgruntled. I’m just trying to navigate the tricky waters of living with my new belief system with a wife and children who believe something very different. Leaders like you make it easier to do so.copostmo