The Crazy Talk Gets Even Crazier

Mormons have always gone crazy in defense of their church and its teachings. It's never enough for a member to grudgingly go along with whatever the Brethren come up with next. She/he is expected to embrace each new policy or pronouncement with orgasmic excitement.

Yes, Brethren, YES! 

Although, in the wake of the recent new church policy regarding the children of same-sex couples, the quality of "faking it" has cheapened considerably. Uber-faithful Saints who used to carry on like Sally with Harry are now coming off more like Princess Leia with Jabba the Hutt. 

And the crazy-a**ed arguments they're making! For example, this popular post from (Gay) Mormon Guy that has been floating around social media for the past month. In it the openly gay, (I'm assuming) celibate, believing Mormon blogger argues that the Brethren are being totally fair. After all, the children of gay couples are not the only aspiring members who must face estrangement from their families. Among his examples are the daughter of fringe Mormon polygamists, and the son of radical Islamists who threatened to kill him for leaving their faith. 

I'll give the former extremist Muslim kid a pass for cutting ties with Mom and Dad. But I'm not even going to try to wrap my head around the (gay) blogger's logic of comparing married same-sex parents to homicidal fanatics. If any of my more intellectually grounded readers would like to take a pass at it, I welcome your insight.

As for the polygamy argument, I keep hearing it from seemingly thoughtful Mormons, even - and perhaps especially - from those who are gay.

How can an admittedly gay man equate his natural desire to be with another man to some creepy old pervert's desire to collect underaged girls? (Or to homicidal fanatics, for that matter?) How does one reduce himself to this level of self loathing? For the Brethren? Face it, they're a bunch of clueless old white men.

How clueless? Consider these remarks from apostle Dallin Oaks at a recent BYU Christmas address. Thanks to Heather! I saw this first on her blog, Four Monkeys.

"A few years ago, I analyzed the Christmas cards I received at my office and home. There were many, so this was not a small sample. Significantly, my sample was biased toward religious images and words by the fact that most of the cards were sent by fellow leaders or members of my faith.

I sorted the cards I received into three groups. In the first group I put the traditional cards—those with an overt mention of Christ and/or pictures evocative of the birth of the Savior. Only 24 percent of the cards I received were of this traditional character.

In the second group were those cards whose pictures and visuals were not at all religious, but they did have the words “Merry Christmas” to identify the religious origin of the holiday. This was the largest group—47 percent.

In the third group—comprising 29 percent of the cards I received—there was no mention of Christ or Christmas and no religious visuals at all. These cards had words like “Season’s Greetings,” “Happy Holidays,” “Peace in the New Year,” or “Peace and Beauty of the Season.” A few were so daring as to refer to “Peace on Earth” or “Faith, Hope, and Love,” but none had any pictures suggestive of religion.

For Latter-day Saints, Christmas should be a time to celebrate the birth of the Son of God and also to remember His teachings. In reality, His life has had greater impact on every part of this world and its history than any life ever lived. His gifts to us are the greatest gifts ever given—the assurance of immortality and the opportunity for eternal life. Those are the gifts we should celebrate at this and every Christmas." 

See what I mean Gentle Readers? Nobody should be lying down on her back for some creepy old man who spends his quality time dividing his holiday cards into groups and then running statistical analysis to determine the standard deviation of the appearance of the words "Christmas" and "Savior."

Nevertheless, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that since Oaks' talk, Utah Valley stationary stores have been booming with business from shamefaced customers who've dumped their "holiday" cards for a new set of "Christmas" cards. And heaven help the poor schlubs who had already put theirs in the mail! -Sigh- You really don't need to act like you're enjoying it!

In that spirit, I wish you all Happy Holidays and Peace in the New Year! Thanks, as always, for reading.

I also hope that my above reference to Princess Leia doesn't dampen your enjoyment of the new Star Wars movie.

Loving that Appearance of Evil

It's tricky being a Mormon. They have to obey all these rules - or at least look like they're obeying them. That's the key. Looking the part.

Just about every Sunday Mormons are reminded to "avoid the appearance of evil." This gospel tenant is driven so deeply into their collective psyche that you'll find them rushing to explain even the slightest possible misperceptions.

Brother Benson, I know you saw me standing in front of the liquor store, but it was only because I was admiring an ad featuring a guy that looked like someone I used to play ball with. . . . Not that I'm gay or anything.

The problem is the emphasis on appearances doesn't stop at the chapel doors. During the week Mormons go out into the world, equally obsessed with how they look, especially when they're hanging with "the cool kids" - aka "nonmembers." This is why you'll see hipster-clad Mormons at Starbucks buying milk in cool looking cups or at LDS wedding receptions guzzling Martinelli's in cool looking champagne flutes. Say what you want about "evil." Bottom line, it looks really cool.

Speaking of Mormon wedding receptions, some years ago Mark and I attended one such cool looking affair in Dallas. The posh gathering featured a martini bar. Only, because it was a Mormon home, the caterers had to substitute mashed potatoes for the gin or vodka, gravy for the vermouth, sour cream for the twist of lemon, etc. Are you following me, Gentle Readers? They served mashed potatoes in martini glasses. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

As we were leaving this sophisticated soiree, Mark suavely turned to me and, in his coolest voice, said, "Make mine mashed, not baked." Then we went to a bar. I mean a real one.

In light of all this, the recent Utah Soda Wars should come as no surprise. (Read more here.)

Evidently there's been a rise of "dirty soda shops" staffed with "mixologists" who serve soft drinks laced with non-alcoholic flavor shots, offering Mormons the guilty pleasure of ordering what sounds like a cocktail. Competition is fierce, with 2 chains vying in court over the use of the term "dirty."

Care for an Extra-Dirty Second Wife? It's a combo of Mountain Dew, fruit syrups and half and half. Salud!

According to the article, these establishments have their share of regulars:

“They know me, they know my drinks, and they get excited when I walk in,” she (a regular) added. “It makes me feel good.”

And, no wonder. It's like . . . everybody knows her name.

Dare I boast that I saw this coming? In my 11/17/11 post, It's Ward Cocktail Hour!, Abbottsville Stake President Dennis Newsome suggested cocktail recipes featuring his own alcohol substitutes. For example:

Long Island Iced Tea

3/4 oz Windex

3/4 oz clam juice

3/4 oz root beer

3/4 oz Mountain Dew

3/4 oz Karo Syrup

3/4 oz Mr Bubble

dash of lemon juice

Rum and Coke

1 part root beer

2 parts root beer

Gee, maybe I should sue somebody.

Or, better yet, maybe Mark and I will just toast the Mormons again over our ritual Friday night cocktails - made with real booze - not Mountain Dew or mashed potatoes.

May the Saints continue to keep up appearances!

Brother Benson, I know you saw me with that drink in my hand, but it wasn't a real cocktail, it was just my favorite Extra Dirty Returned Missionary. . . . Not that I'm gay or anything.

Cheers!

Take This Church and Shove It

Last weekend over a thousand Mormons gathered near Salt Lake's Temple Square to submit their resignations from the LDS Church. It was the latest in a series of reactions to the LDS Church decision to refuse infant blessings and baptisms to the children of gay parents. Read more here.

For the benefit of my gentle readers who are not blessed to have been members of the one and only true church, a Mormon's decision between formally resigning vs. playing permanent hooky is a tricky one. Both options have their challenges.

LDS Inc. requires the resigning member to write the local bishop who may impose all kinds of pressure on the resignee before eventually passing his/her request on to the stake president who, in his own time, forwards the resignation to church headquarters. On the other hand, lapsed Mormons who remain on the church rolls may expect to be contacted once, twice, even multiple times a year by eager beavers hoping to reactivate them - and for the rest of their lives, no matter how many times they move.

Evidently the group who protested last Saturday had the help of an attorney who was able to bypass the local bishops and stake presidents and deliver the resignations directly to the LDS Church Office Building. I find this all very confusing, probably because I haven't invested the time to study the matter. But I was under the impression that it had finally been established that once a person submitted a resignation from the church, he/she was out, at least from a legal perspective.

Just like once a person resigns from his/her job, he/she may pack up and walk out. The primary difference being, when a person quits a job, he or she usually gives a couple weeks notice, in the spirit of professionalism and good will toward the employer.

When a person quits LDS Inc. it's usually in the spirit of, "Take this church and shove it."

It's been 15 years since Mark and I formally resigned our membership in the LDS Church. When we quit attending in the 1990's there was no formal resignation process. At least not to our knowledge. If you wanted off the rolls you had to be excommunicated, meaning you had to commit a grievous sin like murder or rape or child molestation. Or, even worse, have gay sex or write a factual book about Mormon history.

Later, when we became aware of the resignation process, we hesitated to make the step, simply because it seemed like too many hoops to jump through. And, lord knows, we'd already jumped though our share of hoops for the Mormons. Instead we asked to be "no contacts." "No contact" was supposed to mean that we stayed on the rolls but the ward members were respectfully advised not to contact us. What it actually meant was that we stayed on the rolls and the current ward leadership didn't contact us. Then the leadership changed and it was open season all over again.

Our last "contact" came from an Elders Quorum President who called after 10 p.m. on a weeknight to ask if we had a pickup truck.

The next morning we caved and composed our resignation letters. They were concise and professional, following a form we'd found on the Internet, and included no specific complaints or criticism, only our wish to be removed from the records of the church.

Our simple request set off a mind-numbingly frustrating back and forth that lasted a full 14 weeks until we were finally off the rolls. The highlight was a letter from our bishop that juxtaposed his slant on our opinions, character and family against that of his own.

Descriptives used when addressing us:

• ill-conceived
• most serious action
• sincere regret
• distorted, uneducated and subservient
• completely disagree
• numerous examples to the contrary
• cutting yourself off
• reap a whirlwind from this unfortunate action
• erroneously take umbrage
• matters of spiritual life and death
• a tragic mistake

Descriptives used in addressing his family (which we could be like if only we were righteous):

• strength of character
• poise
• worldly and educational accomplishment
• spiritual strength
• phenomenal successes
• unusual and continuing successes
• moral and ethical compasses

Tonight Mark and I will raise our Friday night cocktails to toast the over 1,000 brand new official Ex-Mormons who didn't have to endure all this s**t.

If we had it to do over again, I think our resignation letter might go something like this:

Time to Leave the Table

Yesterday the LDS Church changed its policy to exclude children of same-sex parents from membership until/unless they become legal adults, move out of the house, and disavow their gay parents' relationship.

Read more here.

Perhaps in the coming days I will find a way to satirize this astounding act of bigotry. But right now all I feel is sadness. My heart goes out to the loving LDS families and individuals who will suffer because of this. But here's the thing:

You don't need to. You CAN leave!

I'm sorry to say this to my believing readers, I know it's not what you want to hear. But, in my opinion, any organization, religious or otherwise, that requires its members to shun their parents is nothing more than a cult. 

Singer and civil rights activist, Nina Simone, said, "You've got to learn to leave the table when love's no longer being served."

To my liberal Mormon friends:
  With all due respect - and I do respect you - I think it's time you left the table.

The Kerfuffle Over a Cup of Coffee

This past Sunday a film student interviewed Mark and I for a documentary that he and an ex-Mormon classmate are making about people who've left the LDS Church. Since we've been out of the faith a couple of decades now, the return to the early steps in our exit process was an interesting emotional journey for us both. Suffice to say, we've come a long way since then.

One of the questions the young man asked was, "How did your Mormon friends react when you left the church?" As I wrote in my last post, most of my Mormon "friends" weren't actually friends but, rather, women I was assigned to work with.

I told him that my old LDS friends - people from high school and college with whom I'd cultivated genuine friendships - continued, for the most part, to be my friends. But the people I had been currently attending church with broke ties with me. Only not at first. At first, these assigned friends claimed they'd stick by my side "no matter what." Then, when reality seeped in and they finally acknowledged that I was never coming back to church, they unceremoniously dumped me.

This conjured a memory, one I hadn't thought of in years. Not long after I'd quit the church, I was in my local McDonald's buying coffee before work. One of my Mormon "friends" spied me from somewhere inside the restaurant, chased me out to my car, and then breathlessly confronted me with:

"I can accept that you no longer go to church. But I never thought you'd drink COFFEE!" 

For a few long seconds she leered at me in absolute revulsion, as if she'd just caught me exposing myself to a child or torturing a puppy with a lit cigar. Then she stormed off, never to see or speak to me again.

While amusing now, at the time this encounter was painful. It's tough to lose your friends, even tougher to acknowledge that they were never your friends in the first place. Since when does a friend dump you over a cup of coffee?

One of my favorite quotes comes from Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden:

"Grief is a most peculiar thing; we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it."

From where I sit today, the window is securely shut. I can laugh and roll my eyes over the absurd recollections from my Mormon past. But I will never forget the pain I felt back then.

When I meet people who've recently left Mormonism and are struggling to make peace with the believers in their lives, I can truly empathize. I can't reassure them that their LDS loved ones will support their new life choices, because, in all honesty, I know that's probably not going to happen.

But I can tell them about the bat-sh@#t crazy woman who flipped out when she saw me with a cup of coffee - and otherwise do my best to make them laugh. I can tell them that the cold wind will abate, the window will gradually close, and that, before long, they'll be laughing about a lot of things.

I also tell them that writing a funny blog really helps. Or producing a documentary. I hope those kids get an A+ on their assignment.

Real Friends in the Real World

As a Mormon I was taught to avoid The Real World. It was an evil, cold, miserable place. The Church, by contrast, was loving and gentle and good - a haven of camaraderie and friendship, the only destination where men and women could find true happiness.

Only, I wasn't happy. A lot of the things I heard in church weren't loving, gentle, or good. As for friendship, all those church assignments left little time for socializing. My only friends were a couple of women who were assigned to come around and "teach" me every month. Half the time they were women I had little in common with. On the occasions I was given somebody that might grow into a friend, she was shifted to a new assignment before anything developed. With the LDS Church arranging my social life, I felt as though I was constantly following a script. Like an actress in a cheesy sitcom or creepy promotional film.


For me, there was no happiness in that Fake World.

Thank heavens I'm now a member of the Real World!

I like to say that the best thing about being a Mormon is becoming an ExMormon. It's a great community of accepting free thinkers - a place where I've found lots of real friends, not fake ones. And we've plenty of time to socialize! Take the past few weeks, for example.

First Eric and Ali flew down from Oregon. We met them, along with Steve and Sarah, at the Barrel to Bottle event in Half Moon Bay.

BYOB - and they fill it!

Then back to our house for another mythic cooking session!

Food is serious business

Eric whipping eggs into a frenzy

Blackjack supervising

Caesar Salad!

Chocolate Souffle - yum!

Then last week Bill and Dana/Insana Dee dropped by our house as part of their West Coast road trip. How lucky are we?!

Dana and I at the Moraga Steps in SF

Of course Dana had to go to the Mission District and buy a Donald Trump piñata!

Dana's just mad about The Donald!

Of course Bill posed with him!

As did Don and Scott!

Then we hooked up with Jerry and Cheryl after the ExMormon gathering at the SF Ferry Building on Sunday. Sadly, our long time watering hole, Sinbad's, is closing down so the city can build another ferry landing.

Jerry and Cheryl with Sinbad

Owner Tom Stinson in a final duel

But we'll find a new watering hole. Because there are still plenty of fun times with good friends ahead. Life is good - when you don't have to fake it.