SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An advertising-technology billionaire has formally resigned his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and rebuked the faith over social issues and LGBTQ rights in an unusual public move.
Jeff T. Green has pledged to donate 90% of his estimated $5 billion fortune, starting with a $600,000 donation to the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Utah, per reports.
Green said in a Monday resignation letter to church President Russell M. Nelson that he hasn’t been active in the Salt Lake City-based faith for more than a decade but wanted to make his departure official and remove his name from membership records.
“I believe the Mormon church has hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights,” he wrote. Eleven family members and a friend formally resigned along with him.
The church didn’t immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment Tuesday, but in recent years has shown a willingness to engage on LGBTQ rights. It maintains its doctrinal opposition to same-sex marriage and intimacy, but the faith didn’t block a 2019 ban on so-called conversion therapy in Utah and in November high-ranking leader Pres. Dallin H. Oaks of the Church’s First Presidency called for a recognition of both religious rights and LGBTQ rights.
Still, the church has taken positions over the years that have been deeply painful for many in the LGBTQ community. Green, for his part, said most church members “are good people trying to do right,” but he also worries about the faith’s transparency around its history and finances.
Green, 44, now lives in Southern California. He is the CEO and chairman of The Trade Desk, an advertising-technology firm he founded in 2009.
He also mentioned concerns about a $100 billion investment portfolio held by the faith. It was the subject of an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower complaint in 2019, from a former employee who charged the church had improperly built it up using member donations that are supposed to go to charitable causes.
Leaders have defended how the church uses and invests member donations, saying most is used for operational and humanitarian needs, but a portion is safeguarded to build a reserve for the future. The faith annually spends about $1 billion on humanitarian and welfare aid, leaders have said.
In recent years, though, the faith has worked with the NAACP and donated nearly $10 million for initiatives to help Black Americans. It has also worked with Equality Utah to pass a state LGBTQ nondiscrimination law, with religious exemptions.
Another prominent onetime Latter-day Saint sued the faith this year, accusing it of fraud and seeking to recover millions of dollars in contributions. James Huntsman is a member of one of Utah’s most well-known families and brother of a former governor. The suit was later tossed out.
