I agree that jwhendy should be proud of himself, but "You deserve to achieve your goals" and "You will achieve your goals" are probably not related. Don't assume that this will turn out great with everyone receiving the document crying and hugging and saying how they'll always love you no matter what. The world doesn't work that way, and being prepared for that is more important than praising the (admitted) inspiration and beauty of this piece.
Well, of course things may not work out exactly like an Oprah special. But I think that even if there is anger/bitterness/backlash at first, things will, in time, work out and his family will accept him, provided he handles the situation with care (which I predict he will) and provided that his family is composed of people who are somewhere in the vicinity of reasonableness. They may not be. But permanent disownment by a family for purely religious reasons is rare, in my experience. Don't get me wrong: it happens. But as someone who grew up and lives in the bible belt, it is not common.
Edited 3/4/2012: I shortened up the summary a bit and add the following update:
Thanks for the lively comments. As a preliminary summary of things I've found quite useful/helpful:
It's almost one year later, and I've finally made tangible progress on some of the input suggested in my post about being non-religious in a primarily religious environment. That is, I have a near-final draft of a "coming out" statement I plan to share with a majority of those who know me.
I was involved in two religious communities for about six years of my life (SPO and CCR). Two years post-deconversion from Catholicism, many of them still do not know I no longer believe in god. This can make for awkward interactions for myself, as well as for my wife, who's still a believer. She thought it would be helpful if everyone was on the same page, as did I.