A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.
With all the talk about COVID vaccinations, we forget that there are other useful vaccinations out there, too. “My children don’t need to be vaccinated against HPV,” I’ve heard some of my Mormon friends and family say. “They’ll still be virgins when they get married. They’ll never have to worry about an STD.” Apart from […]
Continue Reading“Why are you so mean all the time?” I asked one of the religious conservatives in my life, this one Mormon. “When am I ever mean?” This particular family member had just posted on social media urging everyone to be Christlike. Immediately afterward, he posted his view that the very concept of institutional racism was […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend Many Mormons in Utah see Mitt Romney as a traitor, a lefty radical, because he won’t support Trump’s most egregious acts of oppression. Mormons need to start separating their religious convictions from the Republican party line. “Valeria” was one my favorite missionaries when I served in the Italy Rome Mission. She was […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend Mormons have a long, troubled history of racism, well documented in Joanna Brooks’ Mormonism and White Supremacy. Feeble attempts at addressing the problem consisted mostly of changing the wording in a few Book of Mormon passages from “white and delightsome” to “pure and delightsome.” Numerous systemic problems must be addressed for the […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend The religious right is ramping up for a modern-day crusade. That’s not a metaphor. Racially motivated killings are in the news every day. Homophobic and transphobic murders are committed regularly. Poor men and women are forced to work in conditions that will kill a significant portion of them. When the first few […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend I work in an adult video store, a job that’s given me unexpected insight into the motivations of good, religious people willing to continue accelerating global warming no matter how much personal suffering they experience as a result. Granted, I have other experiences—four years at a Baptist high school, two years as […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend “Man is, that he might be miserable.” Mormons are moral ascetics, demanding secular bans on alleviating misery whenever possible. Could the state of Utah or the U.S. federal government afford to provide healthcare to its citizens? Yes, but that would improve everyone’s quality of life. Could the government afford to provide a […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend A former missionary colleague told me President Trump “has our back” in regard to tariffs, climate, and pretty much everything else. He said I was being manipulated to believe the “Angry Swedish Girl” over Trump, who is looking out for us by abandoning the Paris Agreement, which “many people believe” is “an […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend On the surface, Mormons are generous. They give a full ten percent of their income to their church. They donate countless hours every week to various “callings,” as Sunday School teachers, Nursery leaders, temple workers, and janitors. The bishop of every congregation may volunteer 20 hours each week tending to the members […]
Continue Readingby Johnny Townsend I am baffled that so many Mormons support Donald Trump. At one point, the percentage of Mormon Trump supporters was the highest of any religion (61% according to a 2017 Gallup poll). While some Mormon opposition has existed from the start, the vast majority of Mormons heartily endorsed a man who admitted […]
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