DiscussMormonism.com

Since the spring of 1988, Michael has been an independent scholar. Job searches at other universities have been thwarted by a tight academic market and ironically by a résumé so strong in Mormon publications. The very contributions for which his church damned him are also those that tend to chill interest in him as a teacher and scholar. He moved out of state, first to California in June 1988, then to New Orleans in 1989 where he lived in the French Quarter.

Those years were spent in introspection and exploration, trying to process what it meant that his mission and his dream since mid-teens had apparently ended. He was also trying to come to terms with his gay identity, including intensive work with a therapist. They were years spent in hiding, trying to heal from an emotional battering. He was careful to use a drop-box address, never attended church, and had an unlisted phone number. He knew that Church Security was trying to track him down. His mother, still an active Mormon, received a telephone call saying that he had left town without paying a bill. She passed the phone number on to Michael. When he checked, the number was for the LDS Membership Department. Two agents from Church Security appeared on his attorney's doorstep, demanded Michael's address, and told his lawyer that he was obligated by his temple covenants to give them the information. The attorney pleasantly wished them a good evening and closed the door in their faces. The Midwest office of a credit card company offered Michael an interest-free gold card by sending it to Jan's address (Jan was then living in Montana). When he accepted, a woman phoned and insisted on having his street address, rather than his post office box. When he asked how she knew that his address was a post office box (it was a regular house number), she stammered that either address would be acceptable. He got a follow-up letter asking for his residence address rather than his mail-drop address. This time the letter came from the Salt Lake City office of the credit card company. Michael may have initially taken these precautions with an ironic bow toward his own "paranoia," but repetition convinced him that once the church knew where to find him, the next communication would be a letter informing him of his church court.

asbestosman wrote:As a missionary, I seem to recall that if an inactive had moved that we would ask the neighbors about the new address.

I could be wrong, but will the post office supply this information? Can you mark mail as "retern address requested" or something like that? How about using a telephone book, or doing a reverse phone-number lookup (many people retain their phone numbers when moving)? I'm sure there are all kinds of tricks.

By the way, I already know that if I ever left the church (which I won't) that my relatives and friends would rat me out in heartbeat.

Bond...James Bond wrote:I'm a bit suprised that the LDS secret service type guys couldn't even find his address. I mean seriously...that's pretty bush league in my opinion.

skippy the dead wrote:Although I'm not all that excited about the church's dedication to keeping track of its "members", I understand that they do it. Given that, using conventional methods to obtain an address (I.e., return address requests and phone books) are all fine and dandy. I may be annoyed that SLC calls my mom every now and then to get my address (and that she gives it to them), but that's still a voluntary act on my mom's part - they explicitly identify themselves as the membership records department.

But if those actions alleged by Anderson are true (even just one of them), that goes beyond reasonable, and into creepy and intimidating.

Mister Scratch wrote:
I find this all highly disquieting---especially the bit about Church Security appearing at the door. I know that Steve Benson believed for a time that his phone had been tapped by the Church. Further, I've heard numerous accounts from various people about the Church mysteriously "tracking them down"--I.e., they'd moved, and then, out of nowhere, some bit of mail from the LDS Church turns up in their mailboxes, or the missionaries drop by, etc. I wonder: how does this mechanism work, exactly? Is it a matter of Church "agents" doing surveillance work on members? Or do family members "rat out" these wayward folks to the Church? Or (and I can't recall having ever heard of this happening), has anyone here ever gotten a call from the Church requesting the contact information for somebody?