About a year after I excised Mormonism from my life, I received a Facebook invitation from someone I hadn’t thought about in all that time. It was for an event called “Sit With Me Sunday,” organized by a group of self-proclaimed LDS allies to LGBTQ people as an attempt to…
The Brethren Want Us to Shut Up About Heavenly Mother Already, Again
Discussions are proliferating among liberal Mormons on social media about recent efforts by the Brethren to let the Saints know that they better stop talking about Heavenly Mother, ASAP. Here’s a good early summation of what’s going on, from Twitter. In 1985, when I was a missionary, a relative sent…
Testimony
Continue Reading
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…
Testimony
Continue Reading
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,…
Parents Who Believe in Sexual Purity Should Still Vaccinate Their Kids Against HPV
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…
The Priesthood Is Magic
In 2010, as part of a panel at Sunstone called “Men and the Priesthood: Taking on the Feminine,” I presented a paper called “The Priesthood Is Magic” that I have been reminded of because of the uproar over Brad Wilcox’s dreadful talk to youth. The panel was the idea of…
Brad Wilcox, Racism, Misogyny, and the Assertion of Authority
In case you haven’t heard, Bradley R. Wilcox, second counselor in the Young Men General Presidency and BYU professor, has been widely castigated for offensive remarks he made at a multi-stake youth fireside in Alpine, Utah, on February 6. The uproar over Wilcox’s talk is so severe that I actually…
Awards
Continue Reading
Congratulations 2020/2021 Brodie Award Winners!!!
The polls are now closed — you can see the final results and links to all of the nominees here. Best LDS-Interest Podcast or Video Channel 2020/2021: Mormonism Live with Bill Reel and RFM Best LDS-Interest Fiction 2020/2021: The Prodigal Daughter, by Mette Ivie Harrison Best LDS-Interest Analysis (Book) 2020/2021:…
Testimony
Continue Reading
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…
Awards
Continue Reading
Congratulations to Wm. Law X-Mormon of the year 2021: Jeff T. Green!!
Tech billionaire and richest dude in Utah Jeff T. Green made a very public break with the CoJCoL-dS when he resigned from the church in 2021 — while donating $600,000 to Equality Utah. In his resignation letter, he wrote that the Mormon Church “has strained and divided millions of families”…