It’s a lazy, sunny Sunday, and since I just got back from a long nature-walk with my family, it’s time for some relaxing fun. Let’s analyze the good and bad advice in this latest doozy from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints: Sister Oaks’s Experience Dating an Apostle…
Category: Marriage
Mormon Erotica, Mormon Romance
Mormon Erotica, the new novel from Donna Banta, is a joyous page-turner that, despite the title, is far more concerned with love and romance than sex. While the book contains plenty of reflection on Mormon attitudes toward sex and marriage, the action depicted is strictly PG. As with so many…
Polygyny and Democracy
In my reading for the latest Sunday in Outer Blogness, I came across an interesting article about the differences between gay marriage and polygamy. It’s interesting because of the stuff the author gets right: Here’s the problem with it: when a high-status man takes two wives (and one man taking…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Love Wins edition!
Probably a lot of you had this experience the other day: I know I did. Yes, the SCOTUS has ruled that the United States of America has joined the list of countries where marriage equality is the law of the land. And there was much rejoicing!! Also on social media,…
Knowing Emma and Joseph’s History: A Response to the Speculative Essay on Early Polygamy– Alison Udall
It was really enjoyable to work my way through this. This is the first response I’ve done with these new church essays since I had read enough to be able to notice things that I recognized were missing, or implications that were being made that felt incomplete or inaccurate. As…
Congratulations to 2013 X-Mormons of the Year: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson!!!
It’s an inspiring and exciting story! Couples in California right around Proposition 8 learned that if you don’t get married in the window of time when it’s legal, you might have a long wait before your next opportunity. Failure to block same-sex-marriages legally was apparently an error on the part…
Risky Rescue
I don’t read The Ensign, but I do read Zelophehad’s Daughters. It was “To the Rescue,” an entry on ZD from last week, that clued me in to an essay by Thomas Monson from the October Ensign called “Our Responsibility to Rescue.” You can pretty much figure out the whole…
Because They Couldn’t Very Well Say “Sorry We Insisted You Waste All that Time and Money”
As pretty much everyone already knows, today the Supreme Court declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and ruled that the private sponsors of Proposition 8 in California didn’t have the legal right to step in and appeal the ruling by a federal court that Prop 8 was unconstitutional when…
Earthly father, invisible mother, sort of like our Heavenly Parents?
There’s a new video on the YouTube Mormon Channel comparing earthly fatherhood to Heavenly Fatherhood, and I generally agree with the sentiments about the importance of fathers, but a few things really bother me. First, there’s the implication that fatherhood is primarily about providing materially. Second, the wife of the father…
A GAY PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD FAMILY
The Proclamation of Robin Lee Johnson and his own life experience. I believe that all gay people are valid human beings who have the God given right to marry the person who they love and as long as they are monogamous and keep the law of chastity which they are…