Kelly’s Probation Letter

According to the ny times article
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/us/two-activists-within-mormon-church-threatened-with-excommunication.html

John Dehlin got one too.

Hat tip to Zen for the link, which he posted on another thread.

Unless the stake president is an idiot — and I’ve yet to meet one who is — he must have written that knowing there was a good chance it would appear on the front page of the New York Times.

I laud his courage in doing the right thing anyway. Birkenhead Drill, indeed.

The junior partner in yesterday’s news event, John Dehlin, wrote a response at his Mormon Stories site. The response is to hide behind the wife and children he has led out of the Church. “Don’t pity me, but please, leave a message here to let my family know how wonderful you think I am.”

I’m with Vader. The Church can’t publicize details of disciplinary proceedings, but they can put as many details in the letters as possible knowing full well that the subjects of the discipline will probably release the letters themselves–details and all. Knowing that Kelly has been on probation for over a month (I don’t remember Kate disclosing that one publicly), and that Dehlin effectively resigned his membership in everything but name last January, certainly puts these proceedings in a very different light.

JimD, are you someone I knew in New Mexico?

JimD, I was focusing on the courage required to write an honest letter to Kelly, knowing it could well be published and bring vilification on the writer, but your take (strew the letter with Trojan horses) is also interesting.