What do you mean by “free thinkers” those say like want to be called Catholic but disagree over “gay right to marry” and those who believe in “pro choice” but still want to be thought of as Catholics?
A true Catholic made covenants just the true LDS Makes covenants.
Those who strive to honor their covenants are true to the faith or Lord.
When one always keep and use prayer and the scriptures as their benchmark can be all the free thinker they want.
Those who try to get the Lord’s ways to conform with the worlds ways are really not of the Lord!
Eph. 4: 5
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
John 17: 21 (21-23).
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
1 Cor. 1: 10.
10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
D&C 38
27 Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine
“free thinker” someone who thinks or speaks outside the party line of the LDS. Sunstone symposium caught a lot of flack back in the day because the admitted to doctrines that many modern LDS deny.
The “september six” - 5 excommunications and one disfellowship because they wrote things that the Church had problems with:
Lynne Kanavel Whitesides - Lynne Kanavel Whitesides is a feminist noted for speaking on the Mother in Heaven.
Avraham Gileadi - Hebrew scholar. He has been re-baptized, though.
Paul Toscano - Co - author of “Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology”. Ex’d for “false teaching”
According to Toscano, the actual reason was insubordination in refusing to curb his sharp criticism of LDS Church leaders’ preference for legalism, ecclesiastical tyranny, white-washed Mormon history, and hierarchical authoritarianism that privilege the image of the corporate LDS Church above its commitment to its members, to the teachings and revelations of Joseph Smith its founding Prophet, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
His wife Margaret was also excommunicated for her doctrinal and feminist.
Maxine Hanks - another feminist
Lavina Fielding Anderson - Former editor of the Ensign yet excommunicated for being a “feminist”
D. Michael Quinn - Mormon historian, and perhaps his excommunication is the most justified since he came out of the closet as a gay man. But he is nevertheless a solid historian who wrote things (like about polygamy) that the LDS church did not like.
The LDS church reserves the right to excommunicate whomever they wish, but calling intellectuals “apostates” encourages the propagation of “faith promoting history” only. The LDS does not approve of any form of criticism and dialogue.
The anti-intellectual attitude of the LDS can best be seen by the admonition to not “think yourself out of the church.”
And FWIW, most Catholics who profess “gay marriage” and “pro-abortion” are “Catholic in name only” and not observant. Kinda like “Jack Mormons”. There are also Protestants who fit this category.