New Rules Have Some Mormons Questioning Their Faith
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Turmoil for the Mormon Church as new rules have some members questioning their faith.
"It's really heartbreaking," Holly King Bennett tells Eyewitness News.
For some, this is a deep wound.
"I just stayed up crying. The ramifications for this will just be... horrendous," Bennett says.
Growing up in the Church of Latter-Day Saints, Philadelphia Ward Member Holly King Bennett knows she's taking a risk by speaking out.
But she says she so appalled -- she has to.
"Its mind-blowing that this can be held as an act of love, which they're phrasing it to be," she says.
As a new policy of the Mormon Church, outlined in a leadership guidebook: Members who enter into a same-sex marriage are considered "apostates" -- facing discipline as severe as excommunication. Their children are ineligible for the church's naming blessing or baptism.
Church member Stephen Brady says the policy is beyond flawed -- it's destructive.
"I am absolutely thinking about leaving the church," Brady told Eyewitness News.
Steve Patterson: "We did receive a statement front the national leadership of the church saying that this is not a change in the church's doctrine, it's a change to the policy book for leadership across the country and that it's out of love."
The statement also came with a ten-minute interview video with Apostle D. Todd Christopherson -- saying the change is to protect children from confusion.
"It doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't seem like being interested in protecting the child in anyway," Brady tells Eyewitness News.
A wound that for many, may be too deep to treat.