Gay Mormons object to church decision

SALT LAKE CITY - Lester Leavitt has made a request of his family: oppose their church's opposition to gay marriage.
Leavitt, from Pompano Beach, Fla., is asking his siblings and children on the West Coast to choose family over a call from Mormon church leaders to support a November ballot initiative to define traditional marriage California's constitution.
A letter from Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was to be read from the pulpit in church congregations Sunday.
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Since the letter began circulating on the Web last weekend, hundreds of Mormon blog posts have expressed disbelief, disappointment and outrage at the church's decision to wade into politics.
Being gay and MormonA lifelong Mormon who came out as a gay man in 2004, Leavitt wants his California relatives to walk out when Monson's letter is read.
"I thought by asking my family to do this, I was simply asking them to send a strong message to Salt Lake City that they disagree with the idea that any church has the right to entrench clearly religious dogma into the constitution of a state or country," he wrote in a letter posted on an Internet discussion group called q-saints. "I was just asking them to defend my civil rights."
Leavitt has worked as an activist on behalf of gay Mormons and has weathered an excommunication attempt. He said Monson's letter was a disappointing last straw and sent a certified letter to the church's Salt Lake City headquarters asking to have his name removed from the rolls.
"I wanted to remain a cultural Mormon," Leavitt, 44, said Thursday. "I thought there was a way, an opening up, but then all of a sudden, the church decides this ... and I'm not going to wait around."
Officially, the Mormon church teaches that homosexual sex is a sin, although celibate gays can remain active in church callings and activities. Since the 1990s the church has been politically active in defeating same-sex marriage initiatives nationwide, including asking its members to vigorously help pass California's Proposition 22 in 2000, which prohibited California from legally recognizing gay marriages performed outside the state.