The other day, I was having a discussion with a new straight friend, Darren. He is an active Mormon, a husband and father, who within the past year has discovered that two of his closest friends in the world, other members of the Church whom he has known for years, are gay. Darren did not ...
I love this video — it’s great to see that sometimes random strangers will stick up for someone who is being mistreated. Sadly, some states are still voting to keep legal protections away from some families. And, sadly, some LGBs want to jettison the T from LGBT, and let the Ts fend for themselves — ...
Originally published at the USU SHAFT site. I’ve enjoyed several of the videos produced by The Thinking Atheist. This video, however, should make them reconsider their (already rather smarmy) name. In the video, several atheists relate their Christian upbringing, which they now not-so-fondly remember as ‘brainwashing’. Dawkins has sometimes gone so far as to claim ...
In May 1984, a closeted gay man in a small town in southeastern North Carolina went to see the pastor of his United Methodist congregation. The man – “Adam” – was upset and announced that he was leaving the church. When the pastor asked why, Adam replied that he could no longer be part of ...
Spending too much time on Facebook, as usual, and a friend shared this link from the page LDS General Conference, a quote from M. Russell Ballard from October 1995 General Conference: We do not need more members who question every detail; we need members who have felt with their hearts, who live close to the ...
Reposting from my blog: http://www.lifeaftermormonism.net/profiles/blogs/preserving-mixed-faith Introduction When you first arrive to the other side of faith, or at least to an opposing side to one or more of your family, friends or acquaintances, there are a few pitfalls in which one could accidentally sabotage an otherwise desirable relationship and fellowship with them. Hopefully by identifying those pitfalls and ...
Joseph Smith famously declared that “The Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth,” which was not to say that it was without error, but simply that “a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” The Book of Mormon musical is not ...
“Celestial glory shall be mine if I can but endure.” One of the very first songs a Mormon child learns to sing is “I Am a Child of God,” a very sweet little song that contains within its simple melody and honeyed phrases the essence of Mormon theology. At a tender age, children learn that ...
At first I tried not to gather up all the posts about the rapture — partially because it’s too easy to make fun of these folks (and point out the similarities with respectable religion), but also because we’re talking about people who were conned and ripped-off. But I eventually gave in. I hope you all ...
Parents invest more time and money in their kids than ever, but the shocking lesson of twin and adoption research is that upbringing is much less important than genetics in the long run. There are so many things wrong with Bryan Caplan’s reasoning outlined in this article. I think the first and obvious is that ...
This post features a Mormon lesbian’s “struggle to be free” and a discussion of Orson Scott Card’s comments on homosexuality. Both accounts originated in comments left on a MetaFilter post. For the last couple of days, I have written about how pleased I was to discover that some of my blog posts about mixed orientation ...
Mormons are sometimes accused of being insular. Even when we Mormons disagree with or among each other about a policy or practice or doctrine of the LDS Church, we tend to think of these policies, practices and doctrines in uniquely “Mormon” ways. This is one reason I was delighted to discover that some of my ...
“The use of “Mormon Beard” or “beard” perpetuates a second class status to ALL straight wives married to gay men, and denotes an ugliness.” So wrote a commenter to a post I published last Friday, which was the fifth in a series of posts whose titles began with the words, “Mormon Beards – Exploring the ...
This post is a companion piece to Monday’s essay, “To Young Men Only: The Gay Version”. I had intended to write this back in January, but it never happened. I think it is appropriate to insert it here in this series of posts as a follow-on to last Friday’s post about Mormon doctrine concerning homosexuality. ...
The answer is yes. If I could have been a liberal, non traditional mormon, I might have continued to be mormon. There is no space for openly liberal mormon in the Utah LDS church. There certainly wasn’t when I left. I did not see then (over fifteen years ago) anyway to be a liberal, feminist ...