Billionaire quits Mormon Church, donates $600K to LGBTQ+ advocacy group
BY VICTOR MELAMED
A billionaire, originally from Utah, said he was leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last month in a letter that specifically called out the church’s stances on LGBTQ+ rights and other human rights, reports The Advocate.
Jeff Green, 44, runs the advertising tech firm the Trade Desk and is reportedly one of the richest people from the state. He now lives in California.
Although he did not say what drove him to make a public exit from the church, Green wrote a letter to the Mormon Church’s president, Russell Nelson, about the church’s history, finance, and activism, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, which first reported it.
“While most members are good people trying to do right, I believe the church is actively and currently doing harm in the world,” he wrote in the letter, the paper reported.
“I believe the Mormon Church has hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights,” Green wrote.
Green asked in the letter that his records been removed from the organization and that he only be contacted again with the church’s acknowledgment that he was no longer a member. He said that one of his friends and 11 family members were leaving the church too.
“This money comes from people, often poor, who wholeheartedly believe you represent the will of Jesus,” Green wrote. “They give, expecting the blessings of heaven.”
He wrote that he would be donating $600,000 to the LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group Equality Utah, which will be the first major donation from his family foundation’s giving arm, Dataphilanthropy.
