Sunday in Outer Blogness: More Equal Edition!

Now that Mormon presidential aspirations are a distant memory, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has rediscovered the fun of anti-gay-marriage political activism — this time in one of their old haunts: Hawaii! (see this timeline.) In other unsurprising news, criticism of their lame arguments is persecution — and should never be directed at church leaders even when the critics are right.

The fun part about the church never listening to criticism is not learning from the consequences of past errors:

After church I mentioned to my spouse how troubled I was by the letter. She, too, was upset and agreed [Proposition 8] was definitely not something she would like to support. What she said following this, however, has haunted me ever since. She said that even though we disagreed, we should make a financial contribution to the Prop 8 campaign. It was a test of our faith, she explained, and by doing what is asked of us, even when we disagreed — especially when we disagreed — we would be showing our trust in the Lord and His prophets. In many ways that was the beginning of the end of my Mormonism and our happy marriage.

On a related note, LDS Inc. is buying even more of Florida and faces a new ethical dilemma about it.

LDS women, on the other hand, seem to have made some progress towards equality, Mormon style: more meetings!

Speaking directly to the women, now…I know that some of you may feel tempted at times to wear pants to church. And I know some of you feel that it is within your rights to try to get into certain priesthood meetings to which you were not invited. And I know some of you feel the urge to point out the disparity in leadership between men and women. And I know some of you may even start to think that women should be given the priesthood. But to those of you who may struggle with Gender Inequality Dissent Addiction, or GIDA, I exhort you prayerfully consider the pattern the Brethren have laid out for us with their meeting schedules. They’ve designed independent but equivalent special meetings for the men as well as the women in which each sex can receive divine counsel–and, hopefully, personal revelation–concerning their stewardships as mothers or priesthood holders.

And this point about Saudi women who don’t want the right to drive seems somehow relevant:

And even if every one of those 134 women was telling the truth, so what? That they have internalized their own oppression is not a rational argument for why other women should be denied even this tiny step toward equality. I’m sure there were slaves who were okay with slavery, who had grown so accustomed to their lot in life and so fearful of change that they had accepted it. That doesn’t make slavery okay.

In life journeys, Jami Baayd learned about racism the hard way. For Seth Bryant, joining the CoC after having left the CoJCoL-dS is like coming home. In addition to her tasty soups Heather has started sharing her Mormon journey — I look forward to reading the rest! Leia described what she used to believe about atheists, and Jen answered another exmo-athiest FAQ. The results of a survey on leaving religion (source) are in, and William Kempton has written some advice for communicating with Mormon loved ones. And here’s how you can help promote Life After Mormonism.net.

There was a lot of Mormony fun this past week! I love these pioneer women — talk about making lemonade from lemons of your heritage! Finally, more mishie costumes, plus a costume that is much better!! What could be more fun than a church history road-trip? A Mormon-life board game, perhaps? But this hilarious piece on how artists invent historically-accurate Nephite costumes was probably my favorite.

In more serious Mormony topics, Brad Carmack explained how religious freedom should work at BYU (but doesn’t). Rumor has it that the CoJCoL-dS is planning a major new damage-control campaign — but no matter how they spin it, it’s not clear that Mormon claims can be reconciled with evidence.

In random stuff, did Facebook kill class reunions? I was willing to believe Roger Hansen back when he said his brother won a Nobel Prize, but now he himself has discovered a long-lost Epistle of Paul? — this is starting to stretch credibility… PostMormonGirl advocates learning from failure.

Well, that about wraps it up for another week in Mormondom. I hope you’ll have as much fun reading these pieces as I did!