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September 19, 2005
Mormon Links
In case you want some background information on Mormonism, including its beliefs about gender and sexuality within the family, here are some links.
First of all, you should check out the Proclamation on the Family, which all good LDS are expected to display prominently in their homes--it's one of the first things you see when you walk in the door of my parents' house. It warns that "the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets." That's right--uppity working women and gay marriage, not global warming or rampant capitalism or immoral wars, will bring about the end of the earth.
And here is a bit of snotty satire of that idea I wrote when I was a writer for The Sugar Beet, a website of Mormon satire based on The Onion and another story satirizing "tolerance".
You'll also want to read Boyd K. Packer's Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council, delivered May 18, 1993. It has become infamous for this statement:
The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals. Our local leaders must deal with all three of them with ever-increasing frequency.
which is often paraphrased as something to the effect that "the church's three main enemies are feminists, homosexuals and 'so-called' intellectuals."
I offer a critique of how stupid his statement is in an entry entitled Answering My Own Question.
You might also enjoy Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which contains "the revelation on the new and everlasting covenant of marriage," or polygamy. See especially verse 52, where God tells Joseph Smith's first wife, Emma, that she better shape up and learn to like sharing her husband with other women, OR ELSE:
And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.
If you have never been inside a Mormon temple, or if you received your endowments after 1990, you might be interested in this discussion of the temple ceremony and various changes made to it--I'll be discussing this in future posts. The website is good because it manages to avoid being particularly obscene or offensive. Unfortunately, the temple ceremony itself used to be extremely offensive and obscene: among other things, initiates had to swear a blood oath that they would never reveal certain signs and tokens they were taught in the temple. To underscore the point, we had to enact several gruesome ways we could be executed. If you were lucky enough to miss that version, you might want to learn a few details about the penalties, which were discontinued in 1990.
Happy linking!
Posted by holly at September 19, 2005 9:44 PM