John Doyle Lee

35 years of prayer couldn't get rid of my homosexuality. My name ...

As I watched two buildings explode and crush into pieces on September 11th, 2001, my life began to fall apart. It was the event that shook my soul and began my exit from the Mormon Church. As I sat speechless and terrified watching thousands of innocent people die, I wondered if they had lived genuinely. They were in a situation they couldn’t control, meeting the ends of their lives with no choice. Up until that very moment, I also felt that I had no choice. This event shook my brain into a thinking mode as no other event had done. They were in a situation they couldn’t control, meeting the ends of their lives with no choice. But I DID have a choice in the direction I would go.

A sixth generation Mormon, named after Jacob Hamblin and John Doyle Lee, I was a select member with a shining lineage. I was destined to received all the temple blessings bestowed upon me throughout my life! But I was just fooling myself. I was a gay Mormon, hiding my true desires in an “eternal marriage” that was soon to come to an end. The thought of it all was overwhelming me. Leaving the Church was certainly the end of my being, my soul. My family would abandon me without question. What would I become? I would surely lose everything. Satan already had a death grip on my ankles pulling me to his side. Leaving the Church meant death of my body and my soul.

But the day arrived when I was so terribly unhappy I actually said it aloud. I would have rather died than live one more day feeling that disastrous inside. And many men in my situation simply end it, Blood Atonement to save themselves from the endless mental prison. But somewhere inside me I knew I could make it through even this trial. Could THIS be my real test from Heavenly Father? Escaping with my life, hoping to create a better life for my wife, my kids and myself? None of it made sense any more. I woke up on my last Sunday as a believing Mormon, my wife took my kids to Church with her, and over the next three hours as they were bored out of their minds, I began researching the Church online.

Without moving from that chair, every single question I had was answered, all my doubts about the strangeness of the Mormon Church became clear, a switch literally flipped in my head so loudly that I almost heard the click. From OFF to ON.

I’m not a stupid person, but I am a person who is controlled by fear. And my rational brain was able to conquer my fear of the future and I knew that I would never believe again. In three hours I knew that the Book of Mormon was absolute fiction and completely impossible. I knew that the Pearl of Great Price was also absolute fiction and it was almost laughable. The First Vision? What version of the First Vision? Patriarchal blessings, testimonies, seminary, BYU, my mission in Spain, all my callings, my tithing money, all my temple visits, my eternal marriage, my geneology, the General Authorities, the…the…the… It ALL came crashing down into a huge pile of rubble at my feet.

Mormonism unveiled, or, The life and confessions of the late Mormon bishop, John D. Lee

John Doyle Lee, zealot, pioneer builder, scapegoat

Writings of John D. Lee

Mormonism Unveiled, The Life and Confession of John D. Lee and the Complete Life of Brigham Young

The Mormon menace