Awards
Lists of Brodie award winners:
X-Mormon of the Year 2012: David Twede
X-Mormon of the Year 2011: Joanna Brooks
X-Mormon of the Year 2010: Monica Bielanko
X-Mormon of the Year 2009: Walter Kirn
A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.
Pride parades this summer: Will MBB march again, and if so, will they allow signs that advocate equality?
Summertime is upon us, which means it’s time for planning for the annual Pride parades. Last year was the first time Mormons marched in Pride in large numbers. The contingent in Salt Lake City was the largest, marching behind a banner titled Mormons Building Bridges (MBB). MBB garnered nearly all the media attention, despite the fact that smaller contingents (such as Mormons for Marriage Equality) organized in far more cities across the country with messages advocating equality (e.g., marriage Read more [...]
Posted in Uncategorized
The Social Psychology of Mormon Heteropatriarchy
Sometimes my own life corresponds to the current news cycle. There’s been a spat of conversations regarding how GOP in Congress are slowing coming out in support of gay marriage because they have gay children themselves. But then Mormon congresspeople are holding out with the idea: “Of course I love my gay child, but I also don’t support gay marriage.” And then the media analyzes whether this is possible. I very much agree with the following stance on the matter (taken from the opinion Read more [...]
Posted in Homosexuality, Women
“Imagine a Church where your beloved grandmother is your stake president.”
Great interview by Joanna Brooks of Kate Kelly who launched ordainwomen.org. I REALLY hope momentum builds on this issue. On Tuesday, I ran into a female missionary on my campus. Since I just left a course on “feminist international political economy,” I couldn’t help but give her an earful. She was only 5 days into her mission, and looked rather homesick…age 19, chose to go on a mission before going to college, given that the Church recently lowered the age requirement for missionaries. Read more [...]
Posted in Women
The Curious Case of Mormons and LGBT Rights
If you haven’t already, check out my article published yesterday on Religion Dispatches! Views: 637
Posted in Uncategorized
Why not legalize polygamy, too?
One of the common arguments against same-sex marriage is that if you legalize it, you’ll have to eventually legalize polygamy. This SLT columnist who has been writing on polygamy for two decades asks, “Why not?” Often when people think about polygamy, they think about polygyny: one man marrying multiple women. We think of the Mormon past when women had fewer political rights and less financial independence. We think about the FLDS present: when Warren Jeffs “married” a 12-year-old girl. Read more [...]
Posted in Polygamy
Utah State Legislature drafting Nondiscrimination Bill
The Utah State Legislature is currently drafting a bill for housing and employment nondiscrimination for LGBTs statewide after months of closed door discussions. Good, right? Well, here’s the scary part: one of the sticking points is whether churches as institutions should be exempt from the discrimination ban, or if adherents to faiths should be, as well. If that’s a sticking point, that does not bode well. Has such a thing ever been done before, where individual adherents of faiths Read more [...]
Posted in Homosexuality, Utah
Bishop’s Guide to Same-sex Attraction posted, and then removed
Check out this cache of a Bishop’s Guide to Same-Sex Attraction that the Church posted and then took down. (Note: Link is no longer functional.) Such documents are useful because they give a snapshot of everyday policy and counseling advice that affects millions of lives. One can also get a sense of how the Church currently frames the issue of “same-sex attraction.” The site says, “seek to remove shame and combat stereotypes and myths” with the exception, of course, of the myth that “same-sex Read more [...]
Posted in Homosexuality
Church files Amicus Brief against Marriage Equality
So, we’re in the final phase of the Prop 8 battle: the arguments before the Supreme Court. This thing should be decided sometime this summer. The CoJCoL-dS, along with a coalition of other churches (though I suspect the Church put most of the work into the document), have filed their amicus brief. Looking back at the previous arguments made by Prop 8 supporters, this brief is shorter, the arguments more polished. The main set of arguments can be summarized thusly: The 14th Amendment Read more [...]
Posted in Proposition 8
mormonsandgays.org — a Sign of Movement toward Dialogue?
The Church recently launched a site titled Love One Another: A Discussion on Same-Sex Attraction (at the URL: www.mormonsandgays.org). Here is a useful link that centralizes many responses to the new site. John Gustav-Wrathall writes at D&S that “Now is the Time” for dialogue, because this new site demonstrates that They do not want to censor the dialog. They’ve made space for this by saying, in essence, ‘We don’t claim responsibility for nor do we necessarily agree with everything Read more [...]
Posted in Homosexuality
a couple articles I noted this week…
Some good pieces out this week focusing on gender in the Church. Why Mormon Men Love “Church Ball” and Are Scared of Homosexuality by Kristine Haglund. (For a classic lengthy article on Mormon masculinity, check out this old Sunstone article from 1992.) This piece is neat: Joanna Brooks interviews Judy Dushku: “Mitt Romneys Best-Known Mormon Critic Tells it All. One Last Time. ” A couple passages from the interview stuck out for me — My gut told me differently: [...] if I kept Read more [...]
Posted in Gender
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