If you decide to post this, please do not include my email address; I wish to remain anonymous.

I became a Baha'i in December of 1996 and sent off my resignation letter in November of 1999. I fell in love with the teachings over the summer of '96 (thanks to family acquaintances who introduced me to the faith) and thought I had found the path I was looking for in my life. (Hey, I was barely out of my teens. Give me a break here. ) I was twenty when I declared, in a very small community, and when they heard that my 21st birthday was in March (actually, it's on the 21st, which they liked too) they were VERY happy, so of course I turn 21 and am immediately voted onto the Assembly, having been involved with the faith for just over three months.

I had no clue what was going on at Assembly meetings. It seemed like everything we read or talked about had to do either with recruitment or money or both. Oddly, the same letters were read at feasts, which didn't seem very spiritual to me. Plus, a certain individual liked to dominate meetings and arguments over the community calendar would often go on for two hours! It didn't seem to have much at all to do with living a Baha'i life, or what I thought of as one. Frankly, since the nine of us were the total active community, there was no point to having an Assembly at all, since there was a larger community not ten minutes away that had more people; it would have been much easier to have one Assembly for both "communties". In everything else, we were one group, so why on Earth have two Assemblies functioning at half-speed where one might have done something worthwhile?

I must admit, though, that for a long time I was very happy. I had some serious doubts about issues like women on the UHJ and the apparent drive for a theocracy, but pushed them aside because I greatly liked the idea of working for world peace and unity. The catch is that we never seemed to do ANYTHING towards peace or unity. I was involved with a youth workshop (read: youth out to proselytize) and I enjoyed the company of the younger members enough to put aside my discomfort with our stated mission -- "teaching the Faith". They were, and I'm sure they still are, very nice kids. I never was comfortable with how much emphasis there was placed on "teaching" in the faith and never ever brought up the faith in conversation as I saw some of my "friends" do!

The last straw for me, though, was when I ran across a compilation on the internet concerning the faith and homosexuality. I had been faintly aware that it was considered a no-no but when I saw quotes referring to it as a mental illness, I was horrified. I have never had any prejudices against homosexuals, and I had no clue that Shoghi Effendi was so militantly opposed to them! For the record, I suppose, since this is such a touchy issue for some people, I'm heterosexual. Not that it matters to *me*. I went through several weeks of heavy soul-searching and prayer and finally I went to one of my favorite local Baha'is to talk to her about it.

Her suggestion, at the end of the conversation, was that I go inactive for a while. Feeling that if this was the kind of support I was going to get with difficult spiritual problems in this faith, I went home and composed a letter to the Assembly telling them that I wanted to become inactive, though not specifically why. I did say I didn't want to live as a hypocrite, which was true.

And not long after I did that, I composed a short letter to the NSA and sent it in. I didn't see a point to waiting any longer because I *knew* I didn't want to be a Baha'i anymore. The letter itself would have been longer had I been poking around the internet finding out all sorts of interesting things prior to sending it, but finally in February I got a letter back saying I had been removed from the rolls. I was sort of scared when I saw they had cc'd it to the Assembly, as their letter did contain the reason I had give for wanting out and I didn't want any confrontations with local people, but I had no reason to fear on that score.

I have not heard from even one of my "friends" since last November. Not even one phone call to ask, "How are you doing?" Now, that hurts. That hurts a lot. My number hasn't changed or anything! However, I have gotten on with my life and am very active in our local Unitarian Universalist church, which is the kind of group I thought the Baha'is would be in the first place. Still, I'm not sorry about that nearly three-year span. I learned a lot about myself, particularly that when faced with a difficult decision, I didn't back down. I feel good about that.