Halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, a set of buildings celebrate over-the-top kitsch. Alex and Phyllis Madonna opened their eponymous hotel in 1958. The architecture avoids straight lines. Pepto Bismol pink bathes the common rooms; gilded, oversized cherubs perch over bannisters. The hotel’s signature pink cloud cocktail features strawberry-flavored…
Author: @Monya_PostMo
![AIDS Quilt at Episcopal Church of Saint Johns the Evangelist](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Saint_John_Episcopal_Church-e1655140751675.png)
A broader way to be active in church
Growing up Mormon, I was always taught to be a good example. Now I’m trying to teach myself to find exemplars. Last month, I walked into the Episcopal Church of St. John’s the Evangelist in the San Francisco’s Mission district. I was attending a service, but not a worship service….
![](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Apology_Image.jpg)
The prophets say God’s love is conditional, but they can’t say ‘I’m sorry’
Kimberly Applewhite Teitter, a Black Latter-day Saint, says she doesn’t need anyone to apologize for policies that kept Black members from temple rituals or Black men from having authority to serve as leaders and baptize their own children. Her testimony is hers, and it doesn’t depend on anyone else, not…
![](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/LArbre_de_vie_British_Museum_132042294.jpg)
Miracle of Forgiveness: from harm to art
Inside the British Museum, there’s a tree made of guns and grenade launchers. It’s a sculpture by four artists from Mozambique in a country moving away from war and exploitation. Citizens could exchange something deadly for ploughs, bicycles, and sewing machines. Thousands of weapons were cut up and soldered into…
![David Archuleta from his Beast single](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/273086590_121555680394138_8784920599277036199_n-e1644684757141.jpg)
Gay Mormon Generations: Stuart Matis and David Archuleta
Twenty two years ago this month, Stuart Matis, a Latter-day Saint in his early 30s who was troubled by his attraction to men, pinned a note reading ‘do not resuscitate’ to his chest and shot himself on the steps of the Mormon stake center in Los Altos, California. Last month,…
![Jessica Frew](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Jessica_Frew.png)
Centering the straight spouse and the route to self
On their wedding night, Kylie’s husband came out to her as bisexual. (He now identifies as gay.) Six months later, as they were moving into a new apartment, he confessed he’d been cheating on her with men. So they did what many devout Mormon couples would do and called their…
![](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Bellhooks-e1640184218998.jpg)
what Mormons could learn about love from bell hooks
“A culture of domination is anti-love,” black feminist philosopher bell hooks wrote. Without love, she warned, those fighting one form of domination—imperialism, sexism, racism, classism—would find themselves in service to another. Too many Mormons go one further. They invoke love in the service of domination. Hooks died this month, and…
![Seeing the back of Angel Moroni](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Angel_Moroní_-_Bogotá_Colombia.jpg)
Should I stay or should I go – and why?
Research project on why people leave the Church should also explore reconciliation My mind began whirling when Jana Reiss announced she and her research partner Benjamin Knoll were launching an in-depth project to see why Mormons leave and have left the Church. (See here for the Kickstarter announcement). It’s an…
![](https://mainstreetplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Dallin_H._Oaks2.jpg)
Dallin H. Oaks & LGBTQ compromise: Mormon apostle shucks accountability
“It’s a study of power.” That’s how Taylor Petrey sums up his fascinating book on sexuality and gender in modern Mormonism, and that’s the phrase that kept going through my head as I listened to six hours of Mormon Stories podcasts about Dallin H. Oaks’s November 12 talk at the…
Peculiar Pod-O-Rama (mid-Nov): wise newlyweds, and a November policy from You-Know-Who
Mormonland is packed with podcasts. Here’s a random sampling of my (too limited) listens over the last fortnight. Cole & Kent make the cutest, wisest couple ever Latter Gay Stories (1:21) Gay men who come out well into adulthood (and often after marriage to a woman) often talk about going…