Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart’s father—who became an advocate for missing kids—announced on social media Thursday that he is gay and getting divorced, the Deseret News reported. Ed Smart, 64, also said in the Facebook post that he is leaving the Mormon church. “As an openly gay man, the church is not a place where I find solace any longer,” the father of five wrote. His daughter, who was kidnapped from her Utah home in 2002 and held captive for nine months, said she was “deeply saddened” by her parents’ separation but “nothing could change my love and admiration for them both.”
