Mormon church threatens to excommunicate member who criticized Romney

09-22-2012 • http://www.rawstory.com, By David Edwards

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints says that church leadership is on a witch hunt against him after he criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

David Twede, a fifth-generation Mormon, told The Daily Beast that on Sunday his bishop and three other church leaders in Orlando ordered him to “Cease and desist, Brother Twede” after they found discussions about Romney at the blog MormonThink.com.

Twede said that he felt “attacked, cornered, and very anxious” as the church officials informed him that they had scheduled a Sept. 30 excommunication “for apostasy.”

The Encyclopedia of Mormonism defines an apostate as someone who has “seriously contravened or ignored cardinal Church teachings.”

Church leaders also chastised him for only using his first name on his blog, Twede recalled.

“I told them I hide my name precisely because of things like this,” he explained. “I said, ‘Look how fast you got to me.’ I know a lot of members don’t want their life disturbed. In the Mormon church, if you’re not part of the uniform group, you are ostracized.”