The big news this week was when God miraculously made someone shoot someone else, but the guy who was target of the malevolent God thwarted the evil miracle by keeping his cell phone in his pocket. Whew, close one! Reported here: God shoots, rescues man. Then we have reports of some Christians Sharing the Good ...
You can add this to my earlier Mormon Conspiracy Theory and decide whether I should get out of the conspiracy theory business… People keep pointing out that it was so obvious that Proposition 8 would be a P.R. fiasco that the Mormons should have predicted it. Well, I contend that the brethren did predict it, ...
So, I’m wading through my inbox the other day when I get an email from a friend I haven’t heard from in quite a while. He knows I’m no longer LDS and that I have a sense of humor. So, he forwards me the following email: My co-worker, ******* (name changed to protect the innocent), ...
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Hollywood is rolling out Harvey Milk, a tribute to the first openly elected gay man to a major office in the United States. The reviews of Harvey Milk are excellent. Sean Penn is supposed to be magnificent and the movie captures humanity of the gay experience. People will get out ...
Here it is. So did I resign my church membership like I said I would? Not quite. yet. I set out to do it, and… I just couldn’t do it. Now, I know most people reading this will leap to the cynical interpretation that deep down I secretly still believe in God, or that I ...
So the visceral anger over Proposition 8 has mostly passed, and Outer Blogness has moved on to processing, analysis, and planning the next steps. On resigning from the CoJCoLDS: Kullervo’s doing it, and I’m still working on my letter. I’d have mine done already, but I’m not sure I can put it as eloquently as ...
Gary Lawrence, director of Proposition 8′s Mormon grassroots effort. The Brethren [the top echelon of Mormon leadership] have felt that the best way to organize and pass the Proposition is to have an Ecclesiastical arm and a Grassroots arm to the organization … The senior folks who run the grassroots are LDS at the coalition ...
Police negotiated with an armed student outside the Provo Temple yesterday as he threatened to kill himself. Turns out he had just been through a Mormon “court of love.” Oh to be subjected to such love… ...
Read Twilight. Seriously, do it if you haven’t. Because when it comes to entertainment on the Internet, there’s not much out there that can beat Mormon discussions of Twilight. That’s why I read it (explained in the comments here), and I don’t regret a single page. (And with the movie out, there are plenty of ...
If you are into Mormon stories, you might enjoy Jodi Mardesich’s essay in Salon. Growing up in a part member family, Jodi had to overcome the resistance of her father to get baptized. She relates how Mormonism made her feel special as a child, how her boy friend died on his mission and how she ...
What a beautiful Sunday morning! Actually it’s kind of cold and cloudy in Zürich, but I’m feeling warm rays of love coming in from all over Outer Blogness, as people post their personal photos and experiences from yesterday’s marches for equality. From Utah, from Seattle, from Hawaii, from Chicago. (Actually that last one isn’t a ...
Today is the day for (U.S.) nationwide demonstrations for equality (see Join the Impact). A number of our friends here in Outer Blogness have been covering the protests live, such as John R. at the Irvine protest, and many others I gathered up last Sunday in Outer Blogness. Chino has gathered up some more coverage ...
University of Phoenix to Pay $1,875,000 for Religious Bias Against Non-Mormons Oh, the courts do… Now I see it. Considering the zeitgeist here has been Prop. 8, I figured another news story detailing Mormon discrimination might be of interest. ...
A real one this time!! (It’s not just me pretending to be a primatologist, as in my primatologist looks at the mathematical community post.) I was reading along in the book Parenting for Primates (which I discussed here and here), and I found that the author (Harriet J. Smith) devoted four full pages to the ...
“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by ...
Intellectually, one can only sustain the orthodox position against marriage equality if one assumes that gays are not fully human or somehow defective. Unfortunately, biology contradicts that notion. The Church is correct in asserting the freedom for the organization and its members. However, our liberty ends where it begins to take away the liberty of ...
Yep, I promised I’d stop talking about the election once it was over. But — doggonit — the good people of Outer Blogness had posted a whole lot of follow-up commentary this past week, and I’m here to round it up for you. First, some favorite quotes: On Obama getting elected: “it’s like every not ...
If you’re new to this blog and my regular blog, you may not already know that I’m one of those “exmos” who has never been ex’d, or even resigned. I’ve explained why a few times (such as in my joke post about my excommunication), but in a nutshell: I don’t want to renounce my Mormon ...
In the wake of the reformation Europe was torn by religious wars for almost two centuries. France had the Huguenot wars, Britain the civil war between king and parliament, and in Germany, there was the 30 year war, which killed one third of the population. My home town was the seat of a Nassau principality. ...
If you sew the wind, you shall reap the storm. If you live by the sword, you shall die by the sword. It’s just sad. ...
Did you know that there are 45 million Pashtuns? I did not either until I saw Frontline’s documentary about the Taliban last week. Watch it here. The Pashtun tribes provide the ethnic base for the Taliban insurgency. Their demographics matter. According to Mao Zedong’s dictum, guerilla fighters move in the population like fish in the ...
I’ve decided I’d like to make this a regular feature if nobody objects. I’m not trying to compete with the Carnival of the Veil (which is more like a regular carnival where people can submit posts). It’s just that since I subscribe to all the many blogs of Outer Blogness, I might as well share ...
Thank you, Barbara Young. Mormons owe you: I am very passionate about this issue and Steve is completely supportive of me and my work for eqaulity,” Barbara Young said in a statement to the Mercury News after midnight. “We both love our Church and are grateful that our Church encourages us to vote our conscience. ...
Did you think my kiss was a promise of what you’ll have? No, my pompous one. It was to let you know what you will not have. The Mormons’ relationship with the Religious Right keeps reminding me of this crazy Ten Commandments quote. In kind of an opposite sort of way. After all of the ...