Skip to content
Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Reboot edition!

chanson, April 3, 2017

So, the first installment of my new rebooted version of SiOB is only a day late, so we’re off to a great start! you’d think that since the Pokémon Go servers have been rarely reachable this past weekend, I’d be more on the ball, but the thing is that I’ve really been on a roll with my comic book drawing. That and I found another one of those popular-book-deconstructions (this time it’s 50 Shades), and those things are like crack to me. Anyway, let’s get to the news!

Despite some progress, being gay is still a big problem for Mormons, given discrimination and rising suicide rates. Some, like Laura Root and Ben, are trying to make it work — despite the fact that the CoJCoL-dS has doubled-down on its gay marriage as “counterfeit” rhetoric. Dad’s Primal Scream has just launched a new resource website for gay dads (and he could use your help). He has a few of his own ideas on what makes an marriage counterfeit:

Counterfeit marriage…

Lie to a woman. Continue lying to yourself. Hide your feelings. Shield your thoughts. Do everything in your power to ignore the uncontrollable reactions that your body produces when particular men sit close, or casually touch your shoulder, or even make eye contact from across the room. Swallow the pain that you feel in isolation and fear. In fact…remain apart. Don’t associate too closely. Feelings might develop. Don’t touch another man. At least not in any way that could be meaningful. Dedicate all touch to your wife.

Pretend that it doesn’t hurt. Act as if you are excited and glad to be physical with her. The thoughts passing through your mind would hurt her immensely, so hide them completely. Don’t ever admit that you couldn’t function as a husband if you didn’t turn your thoughts to “dark and twisted fantasies.” If you encounter struggles in your physical relationship, and your sweet and trusting wife asks what is wrong, think through the panic and come up with something to say that might be believable as an explanation for your inability, on that particular night, to do those things that men are supposed to do spontaneously with the woman they love. Lie. Lie. Lie.

Then there was some entertainment in Mormon-online-discussion-land as John Dehlin posted a podcast which included some audio from a General Authority and a historian working for the CoJCoL-dS — but there was one little problem: they didn’t know they were being recorded nor did they consent to having their remarks published. Apparently this is legal, but JD ultimately decided it was not ethical, so he pulled the podcast from his website, which naturally made about ten times as many people want to hear it (like me! while drawing!) — and consequently the Infants on Thrones site crashed from all the people trying to download the still-available version there. Then Glen of the Infants cut the thing into three pieces which you can listen to here.

I found the above series a little more interesting than the Infants’ other recent leaked-info podcast, the one with the Mormon Leaks Guideline Responses to Common Questions. The most interesting thing about that leak (IMHO) is that it demonstrates that the maddeningly evasive/misleading responses you often hear from church leaders are in fact centrally-coordinated talking points — not just individuals choosing to “answer the question you should have asked” on their own. But actually listening to these official unofficial non-answers is kind of irritating. Just read Alex’s take on it (though the questions did apparently inspire Andrew S to write an interesting analysis of Mormonism’s relationship with the doctrine of trinity).

In other news, Denver Snuffer is now the prophet of a new schism in Mormonism!

In personal stories, Jana is celebrating her brand-new marriage, and Myrtlejoy is celebrating her mixed-faith marriage:

Really? I responded. None? You don’t regret marrying someone who started out Mormon, and ended up a happy agnostic atheist?

No, he said. I love the woman you have become as much as I loved the woman I married. More, even.

In life journeys, some Mormons brainstormed some ideas of what they’d take up as a replacement if they were to leave Mormonism and Froggie took some lovely photos of Fantasy Canyon, Utah!

Gina Colvin has some hesitations about teaching people that the Book of Mormon is historical:

Yet, holding on to the claim that the BOM is indeed an ancient record of Native American and Pasifika ancestry does violence to Indigenous knowledge. Contemporary scholarship is pointing to the impossibility of the culture described in The Book of Mormon and choosing to see yourself in Book of Mormon ancient identities is often done at the expense of the tribal and cultural identities offered up in the present.

In books, Nancy Ross wrote a new review of the Garden of Enid — in a nutshell she seems to think that Hales has some good ideas but that they’re maybe a bit too complex for the format of a series of one-page gags:

Hales talks about his purpose in the interview. He was interested in telling the story of the family who needs a lot of love and support from the ward as a way of showing the goodness of Mormonism. As someone who occupied that difficult space as a Young Woman, it looks a lot different from the way in which Hales portrayed it: full of guilt for being that-needy-family (there is a brief reference to this), full of remorse for not being able to fix unfixable problems with greater faith and obedience, full of experiencing other people’s well-intentioned ignorance about the limits of your situation, capped off with a healthy dose of Mormon rejection when you are unable to be loved out of your problems.

I hope you’ve found these discussion interesting! Next week — on to something new!

Sunday in Outer Blogness

Post navigation

Previous post
Next post

Related Posts

Sunday in Outer Blogness: in or out edition!

September 26, 2010July 5, 2011

This past week the blogworld spent a lot of time exploring that mysterious region we inhabit — not completely in the orbit of the CoJCoL-dS, but not totally outside the Mormon community either. Back before the Internet, it was so easy for members to divide the world into three neat-and-tidy…

Read More

Sunday in Outer Blogness: The Mormon Moment Edition!

April 3, 2011November 9, 2011

It’s not just a musical anymore, it’s in sci-fi films, books, and other interesting plays, even politics — everything is coming up Mormon!!! Meanwhile — rather than capitalizing on it with another shocker-conference — the CoJCoL-dS decided to go with their previous conference strategy of boring the pants off everyone…

Read More

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Podcasts edition!

May 13, 2018

There are so many amazing LDS-interest podcasts these days — I’m really looking forward to the day I can cut back my hours and listen to them all! This morning I took the time to listen to a couple of them: Radio Free Mormon has been doing a cloak-and-dagger series…

Read More

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Mormon Alumni Association Books

Latest Comments:

  1. termal kamerayla su kaçak tespiti on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesJune 21, 2025

    termal kamerayla su kaçak tespiti Ekip çok organize, kaça?? an?nda bulup çözdüler. https://bence.net/read-blog/25188

  2. Cara B. Klein on My conspiracy theory #2April 26, 2025

    Wow, I had never thought about it in that way before You have really opened my eyes to a new…

  3. chanson on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 16, 2025

    The haiku at the end is lovely. Sounds like a great book!

  4. Donna Banta on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    I imagine anyone who has tried to change the church from within will identify with Kitchen's story. I especially like…

  5. Johnny Townsend on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    This was a painful review to read. For many years, I held the same hope, that the LDS church would…

8: The Mormon Proposition Acceptance of Gays Add new tag Affirmation angry exmormon awards Book Reviews BYU comments Conformity Dallin H. Oaks DAMU disaffected mormon underground Dustin Lance Black Ex-Mormon Exclusion policy Excommunicated exmormon faith Family feminism Gay Gay Love Gay Marriage Gay Relationships General Conference Happiness Homosexual Homosexuality LDS LGBT LGBTQ Link Bomb missionaries Modesty Mormon Mormon Alumni Association Mormonism motherhood peace politics Polygamy priesthood ban Sunstone temple

Awards

William Law X-Mormon of the Year:

  • 2023: Adam Steed
  • 2022: David Archuleta
  • 2021: Jeff T. Green
  • 2020: Jacinda Ardern
  • 2019: David Nielsen
  • 2018: Sam Young
  • 2017: Savannah
  • 2016: Jeremy Runnells
  • 2015: John Dehlin
  • 2014: Kate Kelly
  • 2013: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson
  • 2012: David Tweede
  • 2011: Joanna Brooks
  • 2010: Monica Bielanko
  • 2009: Walter Kirn

Other Cool Sites!

WasMormon.org
©2025 Main Street Plaza | WordPress Theme by SuperbThemes