Just walk away

Even though I have many Mormon and ex-Mormon friends, I’ve never been able to get my head around ex-Mormon syndrome. If you’ve lived in Utah more than 10 minutes, you’ve heard about someone who “resigned” from the church followed by a compulsion to get their name “off the rolls.”

Transplants to Utah soon learn that the only thing more annoying than zealous Mormons are zealous ex-Mormons.  (Point of Etiquette: Joking that resigning from the LDS Church is equivalent to writing a letter to Santa Claus to tell Mr. Kringle you don’t believe in him anymore seldom gets a laugh from these folks.)

On the other hand, it must be liberating to blame one’s fucked-up personal life solely on one’s former religion.

Still, breaking with the Mormon Church is apparently a gargantuan deal, at least for the 150 ex-Mormons who climbed Ensign Peak Saturday to “declare their independance” from the church.

If nothing else, it probably annoyed Mitt Romney by dragging his quirky religion into the national spotlight again. Could you imagine a headline: “150 Cranky ex-Episcopalians Resign”?

I thought it was an odd call by The Trib not to send a photographer for what could have been a spectacular photo that probably would have bumped the story onto the Yahoo News rotator. Usually, The Trib jumps on any opportunity to exploit the national fascination with Mormons for online hits.

Why can’t ex-Mormons just followed the lead of potential Mitt running mate and ex-Mormon Marco Rubio? Just walk away..