It’s that time of year again! Time to find which X-Mormon had the biggest impact in 2012!
We have at least two really strong candidates this year:
First off, Kyrsten Sinema, who was just elected to the United States House of Representatives. She is an ex-Mormon, and I think she is the first openly bisexual person to get elected to the US Congress.
Then there’s David Twede, former editor of MormonThink. As you may recall, he almost faced a disciplinary court of the JoCJoL-dS, but in the end, he resigned from the church in front of an audience at the Ex-Mormon Foundation Conference.
If you know of any others who deserve to be in the running for the award, please nominate them in the comments below!!
In all past years, the “X†has been a variable that can stand for any type of non-traditional Mormon (eg. liberal-Mormon, New Order Mormon, etc.). However, we had some complaints about that last year, so if you feel that we should confine the award to actual ex-Mormons, please feel free to say so in the comments.
A non-traditional Mormon that had a big impact on lots of people this year? I’d say the one Mormon that had the greatest impact on people was Mitt Romney. Technically, he did something quite non-traditional: he almost won the U.S. presidency. There ain’t too many Mormons that can say they did that.
I second the nomination for David Twede, and would add Tom Phillips to the list. I don’t know much about Kyrsten Sinema, but David and Tom have had a profound effect on my life over the past year.
Those are all excellent suggestions – it’s been a good year for ex-Mormons.
I think most exmormons’ beef with Romney is that he was too traditional, honestly. He practically embodied the essence of what it means to be TBM LDS … white, male, powerful, abusive, and changing his beliefs in order to be popular without ever acknowledging he said or taught anything different.
David Twede for revealing the 2006 Mission President’s Handbook last week and showing potential tax evasion written in official LDS documents.
I think it should be All Enlisted.
I like Jon Huntsman Jr. He dropped out of the presidential race in January, but I heard quite a few Republicans lament that he didn’t get farther. He is still mormon, but a non-traditional mormon.
I also like Dustin Lance Black, his movie “8” about Prop. 8 came out in March.
What about the Mormons for Marriage Equality movement? I know we typically nominate people, and many of the protestors may still be mormon (i.e. not former mormons).
Thanks for the nominations!!
All are great and will be included except… I’m going to have to veto Romney. Not only is his Mormonism very traditional, but seeking political office isn’t even non-traditional.
The voting will begin on Wednesday, January 2 — you can continue to nominate people until then.
Tom Philips, David Twede, and Grant Palmer, I think he came out as exmo this year correct?
I nominate Tom Philips as exmormon of the year, for explaining in detail the second anointing ritual, as practiced in the modern LDS church. Philips recently became the new editor of Mormonthink and there is an unpublished audio interview with Dehlin about the ritual linked from that site.
http://mormonthink.com/tomphillips.htm
@10 Did he? I’ll look it up. If so, he definitely should be on the list.
@11 Good choice — his discussion of the ritual was really interesting!
Anytime the front page space on a Google search might land helpful and truthful information next to some popular LDS website, I feel it has been a good day.
This blog helped on my way out. It keeps the information concise and unbiased. It helped me when I was trying to find information that didn’t feel anti!
I would like to vote for Grant Palmer, especially his work on the story of William and Jane Law.