Sunday in Outer Blogness: Kristmas Kremlinology Edition!

The big news this past week is the new LDS website Mormons and gays. From what I gather, the most amazing part is that in the official church stance they admitted that some people are gay or lesbian (they even made reference to reality on this!) whereas before this site, the stance of the CoJCoL-dS was that acts could be homosexual, but not people. Personally, I think it’s kind of sad that such a small change in language is such a big deal — especially considering that the church policy statement was anonymous (so if they choose to delete the site tomorrow, we’d get called “anti-Mormons” for bringing it up again…). Alan opened the discussion and provided some relevant links. On the Bloggernacle, there was a lot of back-and–forth discussion. Some gay Mormons have posted about their experiences of not being welcomed (with one sweet tale about the family joy poured out for an gay engaged couple). But my favorites were the humorous takes!

The other big news is that awards season has opened!! This year, I think we have stronger candidates for the “William Law X-Mormon of the Year” than the other guys do for the faithful award — I can think of two obvious nominees who made a huge splash this year. Maybe you can guess mine and have ideas for others!! I’ll put up the nomination post sometime this week. As for the Brodies, I would like to start the nominations in January. This is partially because I’m moving this week, so December will be pretty crazy for me this year, but also to wait until all of the 2012 posts are posted before picking the best!!

Now for the updates on the “War on Christmas”!! In one skirmish, some Christian Warriors defeated a Hebrew. While I truly appreciate fMh’s serious treatment, I still think this video is the best take on the “war” ever!! (And for fun, some historical notes on the Jesus story.

There were a couple of interesting posts about Brigham Young University: A rumor that they’re not hiring non-Mormons anymore, and it’s not clear whether it’s OK for BYU to expel Mormons for deconverting:

For example, the policy at BYU is to kick out those who convert while at BYU. More narrowly, the burden falls on the religious freedom of the LDS majority: you can come Muslim and leave Catholic, or come Presbyterian and leave Mormon, but if you come Mormon and try to leave atheist or Rastafari, you lose the ability to (1) enroll, (2) graduate, and (3) receive an otherwise-earned diploma.

There was also a rumor that the CoJCoL-dS is trying out our suggestion of more service-based missions, as well as some political tidbits. And how much is that unpaid clergy making?

Then there were a lot of interesting isolate topics this week! Andrew S read a speculative fiction book that got a surprising number of predictions right. Maya has been posting an amazing series of photos from her visit to a WWII holocaust site. Jacob gave a fascinating discussion of how cliques operate in Mormon wards. (Did I really read this on a faithful blog?):

Recall the primary goal of shunning–that others know their place, that peace and tradition and the status quo are preserved, in order for you to achieve the long-lasting social ranking that is the entire point of living in a religious community.

In personal stories, Runtu became another statistic of the economy (don’t forget his book would make a good Christmas present!). Angela recounted a lovely object lesson. Ex-Mormons sometimes have a hard time finding each other even in their own families. Prairienymph is rediscovering the Bible Belt. Adele turned 3!! Unhappy memories of food storage. A divorced Mormon mom found her children are rewriting history to recast her as “never a very good Mormon mother”:

Contrary to what you have just read, I, just like E’s mother, have my own homemade stuffing recipe. It calls for sticks of butter, cloves of garlic, Jimmy Dean sausage, fresh mushrooms, onions, celery, chicken broth, and bags of herbed Pepperidge Farm bread crumbs. It is delicious and takes hours to make. I was so upset by the intimation that our family is used to the “boxed stuff” that I actually shed tears of frustration when I read this post. Why had I spent all of those early Thanksgiving morning hours while the rest of the family slept preparing that stuffing when they would end up remembering that it came from a box?

Now, because I’d like to try to encourage people to post more articles here at MSP, I’d like to do a theme post week starting next week (the 17th through the 21st). The theme will be how your holiday celebrations have changed over the years. Please post a comment here and like to claim a day! 😀

Happy Holidays, and take care of yourself!