Recently in Mormonism Category

Remember when i wrote about how your average hardcore Mormon has a shitty spiritual immune system? Well, here's proof: a letter to Ask Mormon Girl from a poor guy whose family FREAKED OUT when he drank a cup of coffee:

Recently, while traveling with my brother I was waiting for a very early morning flight. I stopped to get breakfast and without thinking bought coffee. My brother was deeply offended. Several days later, my parents called requesting that I do not drink coffee in front of them because of its offensive nature.

Seriously: can you imagine someone being that upset by a simple cup of coffee? It beggars belief, which is why people try to insist that Mormons aren't really that fragile. Thank the FSM that some aren't. But unfortunately, too many others are.

The Q&A was also posted at Mormon Matters, where it provoked a variety of responses. While most commenters agreed that the parents had over-reacted and were out of line, several defended the parents' mindset and tried to justify it, pointing out, for instance, that when you're a visitor, you might refrain from activities that make your hosts uncomfortable.

OK, sure: we all moderate our behavior in others' homes. But the guy ordered a cup of coffee in a freakin' airport, and his family took offense. He didn't snort cocaine of his parents' dining table; he ordered a cup of coffee in a freakin' airport.

And one guy talked about how he tells his friends, when they apologize in their own homes for drinking, that there's no need to apologize.

I liked what a subsequent commenter had to say in response: "the fact that this friend would feel that he OUGHT to apologize to a guest for doing just as he pleases in his own home, tells you a lot about how judgmental and disapproving Mormons are often perceived as--and in fact really are."

Mormons really have a lot of work to do to make themselves less offensive to the rest of the world. And developing stronger spiritual immune systems would really, really help.

At Sunstone (which was amazing! The best symposium EVER!) I got into a discussion about whether the leaders of the Mormon church were wielders of power or servants. The model at the Community of Christ are that the people who hold leadership positions are supposed to serve through those positions. They minister. They're not just authority figures.

The argument was then made that the same is true of the leaders of the COJCOLDS.

But it's not true.

What's the name for the men in the positions of power in the church? They're general AUTHORITIES. I'll believe they're servants when they change their names to general SERVANTS.

They don't serve. They authorize. They impose policy. They are the prime shapers and beneficiaries of the power structure, and WE are THEIR servants. And that's the way they want it.

I am so damn sick of the unbearable fragility of Mormons. EVERYTHING THREATENS THEM. Just off the top of my head, I've come up with a substantial list of commonplace stuff that threatens your average hardcore Mormon, at least until they get a decent exposure to it:

• gay marriage
• actual gay people
• the f word
• profanity in general
• the phrase "Oh my god!"
• R-rated movies
• porn
• sex before marriage
• dating before you're 16
• getting married anywhere but in the temple
• the Equal Rights Amendment
• uppity women
• the idea that global warming might actually be real
• single-payer healthcare
• people who choose not to reproduce
• the existence of atheists
• dildos and other sex toys
• explicit depictions of sex, whether on the page, stage or screen
• face cards (not so much any more, thank the powers that be. But when I was young, it was SO EVIL to play with face cards, though the same game could be completely innocent if you played it with rook or uno cards)
• tarot cards
• Sunstone magazine
• bikinis
• Coca-cola
• alcohol
• coffee
• Starbucks cups (I know, it's crazy, but it's true: I've seen Mormons get upset that someone dared to enter their home with a cup from Starbucks. Hey, it could be a hot chocolate, you know? But it's that "avoid the very appearance of evil" thing)
• the very appearance of evil, which means not only something like simply walking into a bar oneself, but the dress and personal grooming of others,including
• exposed female shoulders, midriffs, or thighs
• sandals on men
• jewelry on men
• long hair on men
• brightly colored shirts on men
• multiple earrings on women
• tattoos

the list goes on and on. But most threatening of all is

I shouldn't be blogging right now--I have a million things to do, and at the top of the list is "Finish three papers for Sunstone," the first of which I have to deliver in twelve days. But something is really occupying my mind right now, and I have to address it while it's an issue.

I wrote about Mormonism for a Mormon audience for a long time--like, two decades. And the non-mo forums I published in were mostly literary magazines, because that's where people with MFA's in creative writing and PhD's in English lit are supposed to get printed to have a respectable cv and get academic jobs. OK, it's respectable, but it means that your stuff gets read by, like, four people.

Last year I started thinking, "I want to get PAID for my writing, at least a little bit, and I want to write for bigger audiences." So I started trying for bigger venues. Since then, my writings on Mormonism have appeared in the New York Times, Bitch, Religion Dispatches, and the Huffington Post.

Four years ago I posted a link to this great video from John Safran, about how annoyed he is when the Mormons bash on his door before noon at a Saturday, 'cause he might have been out dancing to "Yaz and the Plastic Population" the night before. It was a great video, and I laughed really hard, especially when he got on a plane and came to Salt Lake City so he could go proselytizing with a copy of Origin of Species. But apparently it violated some copyright, so Youtube took it down. Mercifully, however, someone just posted a link to another video site on my facebook page, so I can post a new link too! But just in case this is a rogue uploading as well, you better watch it FAST.

For the last few weeks I have been helping out at Sunstone, preparing for the August symposium. I couldn't help but be impressed by the name Reverend Dr. C.Welton Gaddy, but it wasn't until I had to track down his contact info and realized that he had a secretary and a bunch of assistants, that I started to figure out that this guy is kind of a big deal.

And then I did some asking, and I realized that I already knew about this guy, and thought he was pretty awesome. He has made many appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show, which is where I heard about him. He says things like this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

or this

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Gaddy is the president of the Interfaith Alliance. He has a national reputation of the stature that makes him an appropriate candidate for being the symposium's keynote speaker, and being feted and honored and all sorts of things. But this guy is so decent and dedicated that he is paying to attend the symposium, so that he can present a paper on this topic, which is ever so relevant to Mormonism, politics and human rights:

SAME-GENDER MARRIAGE & RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: A CALL TO QUIET CONVERSATIONS AND PUBLIC DEBATES

While many faith traditions, including Mormonism, have grappled with issues of equality, such as same-gender marriage, much of that work has been viewed through a traditional or scriptural lens. Our goal is to shift the perspective of LGBT equality from a place of "problem" to "solution," from a scriptural argument to a religious liberty agreement, and to address the issue of equality as informed by the US Constitution.

There are lots of great sessions at the upcoming symposium--you can check out the preliminary program here (and hey, if you're planning to attend, please register sooner rather than later!)--but this one is, in my opinion, one you cannot miss. (Though I just might miss it anyway since it's up against a presentation by a really good friend. Oh well. At least Sunstone records the programs and lets you download them to listen to at your leisure, for a small fee.)

Huh. I learned stuff from this. I never knew what the various markings meant.

8: The Mormon Proposition was one of the hotter draws at the 2010 Sunstone film festival this past January. I should know: I showed up at Sundance's Salt Lake City box office well before dawn one morning in the hopes of getting my hands on a day-of-show ticket, and, when that didn't work, queued for over three hours outside the Tower Theatre in the wait-list line. All I got for my efforts was extremely cold feet and a new Facebook friend.

I finally managed to see it, this past Friday, when it opened in theaters across the country. I was at the very first general admission showing in SLC.

There wasn't much about the general contours of the movie that surprised me, largely because I've been paying attention to Mormon anti-gay sentiment since the late 1970s. As a teenager I fell in love with the poetry of Frank O'Hara, and discovered to my surprise that no matter how I worked at it, I really couldn't bring myself to care who he slept with. That was when I started to think that homophobia was just plain weird, and found myself puzzled when others expressed it.

Some of the details of the movie, however, were shocking, and much of it was upsetting--I admit I cried a lot. (I wasn't the only one crying, though.) But the most shocking thing about the whole story is, I think, something the movie misses.

I've got a piece up at Religion Dispatches discussing this shocking omission. I'm not going to link to it, because as I've said, my blog is semi-anonymous, meaning I don't link to my last name. But I hope you'll head on over to RD and check out my essay. It should be easy to find: it's currently the lead story. (Go me!)

You remember back in April when I wrote about an online forum devoted to helping people deal with the challenges of living their lives in a closet? One discussion in this group involved people remarking with wonder and astonishment that when they finally "came out" to their spouses, even though it was really, really hard, especially in the immediate aftermath, eventually it brought a new level of closeness to the marriage--sometimes it even improved their sex lives! (This at least in the cases where incompatible sexual orientations weren't an issue.)

I didn't comment, but I wanted to shout, "You mean that when you finally began to be emotionally intimate with your partner, the intimacy in your marriage increased? You mean that when you finally stopped lying and withholding, both of you felt more trust and were better able to share what really mattered? You mean that when you became a more authentic person, your relationships were more authentic as well?"

I couldn't see how these people couldn't see that refusing to be intimate with one's partner would damage the intimacy of the partnership. But over the weekend I happened to pick up Fascinating Womanhood again, and read this:

When you see the sensitivity of a man's nature, you know how careful you must be in conversation. You cannot permit yourself to have an unbridled tongue and say anything you please. You cannot pour out your heart to him as you would to a a mentor. you must withhold feelings and confessions which would wound his sensitive pride. (183)

Remember a month or so ago when I wrote about awful, horrible kitschy Mormon art? Well, via Salt Lake City Weekly, I discovered a type of Mormon, erm, visual image (I dare not call it art) that makes all that stuff look downright classy.

That's right: a painting of YOU with your own personal Jesus.

I hardly know where to start.

On Facebook I posted a link to the City Weekly piece, but I didn't bother to click on the link to Kay Paintings, the studio responsible for these images--some impulse of self-preservation stopped me, I guess. But a friend clicked through, and pointed out that the studio had certainly figured out something important about making money in Utah: the more children you want in the picture, the more it costs. (I love the line at the bottom about "For 11+ children please call for a quote.")

I figured if my friend checked out the website and could still produce coherent prose afterward, I should be OK, so I screwed up my courage and clicked through to the gallery. At which point I began a low, pained chant of "oh my god, oh my god" as my horror mounted.