Atheists protest for the right . . . not to be Mormons?

Maybe I'm missing something. I'm not a Mormon so those of you who are can feel free to chime in, but why would a group of atheists hold a demonstration demanding "the right to resign" from the LDS Church? If you don't want to be a part of a church, just stop going. But hold a demonstration they did:

About 75 atheists, most of them former Mormons, marched around Temple Square in Salt Lake City on Sunday during the faith's general conference. Many mailed resignations to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the end of the walk that was dubbed "the Mormon exodus and mass resignation event" by Atheists of Utah President Dan Ellis.

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"It's our right to resign from the LDS church and support others who would like to," he told the crowd.

If you don't want to be a Mormon, or a Christian of any kind (can we dispense for today with the debate about whether Mormons are "real" Christians?), who's stopping you? I'm not that familiar with the tenets of the LDS church so I suppose it's possible that they consider people to be once a Mormon, always a Mormon. This is not that unusual. The Catholic Church is the same. Even though I am in training to be an associate pastor in a Pentecostal church, the Vatican considers me to still be Catholic because that's how I was raised. Fine with me. That doesn't do me any harm. Or should I go to the Vatican and protest for my "right to resign"? (My wife has always wanted to see Italy, so, hey . . .) Most people who don't want to go to a church anymore simply stop going. In some cases there is formal membership that needs to be dissolved, but it's merely a matter of letting the church know you no longer consider yourself a member. But the truth is you don't even need to do that. Most churches, once someone has stopped showing up or communicating for a given period of time, get the hint and simply remove the person from the membership rolls. These atheists are not demonstrating because anyone is trying to deny them a right. They're demonstrating because they want to put on a show and get attention. And it sounds to me like another example of atheists who are working curiously hard at their unbelief. I explain over at my site today that atheists work so hard at this because they know God is real, and they're angry with Him, and the behavior of atheists on a day-to-day basis pretty much proves it. But if they want to keep holding protests demanding rights they already have, um . . . God bless them!