Losing you [when you joined the church] was like a guillotine blade that beheaded the loving richness I had in my life. [After you joined the church] I saw you withdraw from life. The relationship between your withdrawal from life and your involvement in the church appeared to be proportionally…
Category: Marriage
Why Would Heavenly Father Do That?
This now-infamous question (slightly paraphrased) posed by President Boyd K. Packer at this past October Conference will, I think, reverberate in the minds of many church members for years to come and not just with respect to sexual orientation. I cant help thinking that Elder Packer may for many members…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Holy Matrimony, Batman!
Yep, everyone is talking about marriage this week! From those ever stare–worthy polygs, to Rock’s thoughtful history of the rise of the temple wedding, to the sacredness of jumping into marriage before it’s too late! The Segullah Book Club analyzes the innocence of the bride on the way in, Jana…
A noteworthy pair of serial answers to Dallin H. Oaks and Robert P. George
Alan Westermark @ Scrum Central: Oaks Rebutted, Chapter One: New Mexico photographer; Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Two: New Jersey pavilion; Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Three: Illinois and Wisconsin professors; Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Four: Georgia and Michigan grad students; Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Five: The Valiant Little Pastor; Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Six: Catholic Charities…
A Tale of Two Cities (DC and SLC): Marion Barry, H. David Burton and Harry Jackson
And three giants: Bishop H. David Burton, Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who recently co-signed a letter with Bishop Harry Jackson, Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church, expressing their shared commitment to protect marriage; Mayor Barry blesses their union with a memorable chant. A hypocritical…
Matthew 22:23-33
I stumbled upon this passage and found it quite interesting. Basically, a trick question is given to Jesus concerning marriage in the afterlife in order to discount resurrection. He is asked if a woman is widowed more than once and is married to multiple men over the course of her…
Judge Walker’s Prop 8 ruling: Evidence shows that a gender restriction on marriage is “nothing more than an artifact of a foregone notion that men and women fulfill different roles in civic life”
This is the first (of six) of Walker’s dismissals of Prop 8 supporters’ claims. The first claim was that “tradition” is enough to maintain marriage as between a man and woman. Walker states that previous court rulings indicate that an “ancient lineage of a classification” does not make a classification…
Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads
I’ve been active on this blog since chanson reviewed my gay, Mormon novel Ockham’s Razor last October. I will be presenting a paper about my novel at this year’s Sunstone Symposium titled “Two Paradigms for ‘Gay.’” (Half of my presentation will also concern Jonathan Langford’s novel No Going Back–also reviewed…
We each have our reasons for staying or leaving
I posted this elsewhere not too long ago, and it seemed to get positive feedback, so I thought I would share this experience here and get your thoughts about it. During a conversation with my wife in the car after meeting some fantastic believing/disaffected couples for dinner last week, I…
An Interesting Encounter
Earlier today a young man entered my office seeking my adviceThis is not unusual for someone in my line of business. But it is a rare day when someone comes to me, in my capacity as an apostate, seeking advice regarding of all subjectsreligionparticularly the Mormon religion. But it happened…