Married gay
Mormon threatened with excommunication

The Mormon Church is threatening to excommunicate a longtime member after he legally married his male partner in Canada. Buckley Jeppson, 57, married Mike Kessler in Toronto in 2004 but says he was recently informed by a senior church official that his life is incompatible with the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that a disciplinary council would address the matter. If Jeppson, who lives in Washington, D.C., is excommunicated, it would be the first time a Mormon in a legal, same-sex marriage was punished by the church, according to Olin Thomas, who heads an advocacy and education group for gay Mormons. Jeppson said that over the past five months he has been pressed by the senior leader of a group of Mormon congregations in the Washington area to resign his church membership--and avoid disciplinary action--something that Jeppson is unwilling to do. He told the Associated Press that it would not be his choice to deny his heritage and his faith. A church spokeswoman said that people in nonheterosexual marriages cannot be members of the church. (Sirius OutQ News)