It took me years to leave the Mormon church. It was a long, slow process that I made official after members of the church were urged to support Proposition 8. I was seven months pregnant with my first child when Prop 8 passed. Although I hadn’t been to church for…
The Toll: Inside a Mormon Mixed-Orientation Marriage
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…
Why the Curse of Cain remains in the Mormon imaginary
Have any of you read Black and Mormon? The authors explain why even though present-day Church leaders have said “NO, NO, NO!” about the curse of Cain folklore, why Mormons like Jason and even his stake president continue to believe and espouse it. It’s not just racism and/or residual notions…
Link bomb #5
Wikileaks is back in the news with revelations about the detention of Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old soldier accused of divulging classified information to the group. Ive been critical of Wikileaks, but I nonetheless disapprove of Mannings treatment. In a Virginia military brig, he has been kept in intensive solitary confinement…
Wednesday in Outer Blogness: Pi Day Edition!
OK, so I missed Sunday (and I actually missed Pi Day, too), but — since I was busy last Sunday and I’ll be busy next Sunday — I figured I’d try to shoot for a round-up somewhere in the middle. Sorry for any inconvenience. Anyway, as you know, the big…
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Coming Out of the Conservative Closet
I have chosen to write about coming out of a closet the closet that hid part of who I really am, a part of me that I always knew was there but never wanted to acknowledge or accept. I guess part of the reason I never came out is that…
The Book of Mormon Musical
I applied for a summer writing grant in the Fall and promised myself I would use some of the money to go see the new Book of Mormon musical if I got it. Well, I haven’t heard about the grant yet, but I was planning a trip to Connecticut to…
Mormon Social Responsibility: Marshaling the Business Community in Defending Religious Freedoms.
Update: Keynote speaker (and University of Utah president) Michael Young brought this surprising bit of advice: Mormons ought to be “among the most passionate civil libertarians in the world” to preserve religious freedoms. “We all ought to be members of the ACLU,” Young said Monday in a question-and-answer session after…
Here’s to hoping we’re likeable enough to earn your Facebook support.
I noticed this recent post over at TPM and it got me to thinking about Facebook and what we do here. Like our friend Micah over at Life After Mormonism, I’ve been playing around with Facebook ads, trying to get a feel for how much bang they deliver for the…
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…