Then it seems you went on to talk about Proposition 8… While I was personally opposed to propostion 8, that did not happen until after the events discussed here happened.

You may be interested to watch the current episode of Utah Now with Doug Fabrizio… I believe I may have answered your question there.

the majority of people in the state voted that they did not want same sex marriage, a contriversial issue at best. while it is true the church’s members are a part of the sates voting population, is it so hard to believe that a christian religion opposes a “perversion” of gods intended family unit? i mean honestly, it just common sense these days. people have the ability and right to choose what they do with there lives, people also forget that the people in opposition to there desires also have the ability to choose what they want to do. the people decided no, and some people just cant accept being a part of a whole. everyone cannot conform to two opposing ideas…

im sorry if i came off a little strong or vague or just plain stupid, but it seems like a awefull lot of controversy for a issue that just shouldnt have happened…

I never saw myself as describing any LDS leaders as “intellectual tyrants” rather, I referred to specific actions taken by LDS church leadership. I had no intention of calling anyone names or denigrating anyone’s character. Obviously I also interpreted their call to support the federal marriage amendment via letters to my senator as asking me to do something I disagreed with. Thankfully they later clarified that they had asked no such thing and only wanted me to express my opinion to my senators. In hindsight, (particularly given their tremendous level of support for California’s Proposition I think a reasonable person could understand that I may have misinterpreted the letter read over the pulpit regarding the federal marriage amendment.

If I remember correctly, the Tribune published the letter Jeffrey Nielson was sent notifying him of the decision not to renew his contract. My memory is that the letter indicated involvement at the general authority level. It is possible I am mistaken, but it seemed rather painfully obvious from what I read that this had been the case (at least according to the BYU official who wrote the letter).

I was a little surprised at the headline myself, (not because I had not been disciplined… in fact, I was immediately suspended from my calling and repeatedly threatened with excommunication) but because it seemed to imply that I had been excommunicated when in actuality I had resigned.

Regarding the “anti-Mormon” blog on which my story was shared… I initially shared my account on the Post Mormon community forum. This should not be terribly startling to anyone as I had resigned my membership in the LDS church and was looking for some form of community support for what had become a very painful journey. I am not sure what other community would have been interested or helpful to me on such a journey. Interested parties asked if they could reprint what I had posted and I gave permission for this to anyone who asked. Certainly there was no intention on my part to specifically seek out an “anti-Mormon” host for the account.

I informed my LDS leaders and a family member informed the Church PR department of what was in the article about us before it was published. It was my understanding that Peggy Fletcher Stack did so as well. It seems unfortunate that they did not make any clarifications or raise any objections with any of us before the article was published, but only after it garnered unfavorable attention. I should clarify. My stake president indicated that my account was factual and did not ask for any corrections, but told me I would be excommunicated if I shared it outside of my immediate family.

Once the article was published, the LDS church reversed course and released the statement which you quoted here. While I do not agree with some of the specifics in their statement, I have long felt the LDS church has a right to tell their side of the story, and had attempted to include as much of that as possible (as well as indicate my own biases) in my own account.

I am happy to answer any questions you may have and appreciate your time and attention, as well as your willingness to grapple with issues such as this.

May God be with you,

Peter Danzig.

Headline writing is a skill, as gfe knows, and as all of us might guess if we think about it. Check the sports headlines and count how many ways there are to say “X beat Y.” Headlines have to be short, use words to attract readers, and be accurate — not easy when they abbreviate a 2,000-word argument down to a four-word headline. The people who make the arguments aren’t always the best ones to distil the gist.

I haven’t compared — don’t have the original text to compare — the first online article with the one that is currently posted. It is possible — but I don’t know this happened — that the story was updated during the day. As the Trib’s Reader Advocate frequently notes in her weekly column, the website is dynamic and major stories (even ones of major interest, like the Danzigs’, even if the story itself isn’t all that major) are often updated as new information comes in or as errors are corrected. That is sometimes signalled by a new headline — “new” story, new title, more apt to be noticed by a return visitor to the website.

But it is a fact that text writers seldom have input into headlines.

And if the Tribune’s online site is like many, the headline probably wasn’t reviewed by anyone else other than its writer before it became visible to the world.

The headline was blatantly wrong, although probably not written that way for sinister reasons. Sometimes people make mistakes out of incompetence or haste (I’ve written my share of bad headlines), so I wouldn’t attribute any particular motive to the error. Then as soon as the error was discovered, it was corrected, probably by a higher-up editor who alerted to the problem by someone aware of the firestorm (or perhaps the reporter herself).

But something we’ll never know is what the reaction to the story would have been had the headline been accurate from the beginning. Much of the non-LDS blogosphere reaction I’ve seen is based on the headline more than the details of the story. The focus of the story as written was on what Mr. Danzig did and felt than on what the church did, but the headline turned that around.

Like you I’m curious about the headline change. I’m not certain we’ll ever know who or why the decision was made–other than the obvious, the Church did not discipline the Danzigs.

As for your benefit of doubt, I see no reason to allow for a benefit of doubt. These folks publicly, deliberately supported Jeffrey Nielsen, who made even more inflammatory remarks about The Brethren, and their interpretation of doctrine. This is not about the Church cracking down on free speech. This is about so-called intellectuals who think they know more than The Brethren on matters of doctrine. This is about those who have a political agenda to enlighten all of the rest of us about “gay rights” and the like. The Church is not and has never been a democracy.

From the Equality blog I linked to in the story, it appears Mr. Danzig published his story at postmormon.org, another anti-Mormon website. And, while I’m sorry to see them leave the Church, it apparently was the decision that worked best for them. Now that they have left the Church, it does not seem, however, they intend to leave it alone, like so many who leave under similar circumstances.