Citing a Feminist Mormon Housewives conversation, Mohohawaii recently wrote about how LDS women are made responsible for LDS mens sexuality. The Mormon woman is expected not to inflame male passions by underdressing or being overly flirtatious. Female modesty he writes, affirms the existence of male sexuality only. He quotes a…
Author: Alan
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…
Revisiting Dallin Oaks’ “Principles to Govern Possible Public Statement on Legislation Affecting Rights of Homosexuals”
The Church’s logic behind its policy concerning antidiscrimination laws for gays, as well as its steadfast opposition toward same-sex marriage, was spelled out in Dallin’s Oaks’ 1984 confidential memorandum “Principles to Govern Possible Public Statement on Legislation Affecting Rights of Homosexuals.” This document I believe got leaked a few years…
Understanding the “Closet” in Present-day Mormonism
This post is in response to John Gustav-Wrathall’s recent blog post titled “Flight from Self.” He starts by saying that the faithful gay Mormon who hasn’t yet “come out of the closet” can be under the impression that the rewards of Heaven are waiting for him or her. He writes:…
Racialized Domestic Servitude and the Perfect Mormon Housewife
One thing I’ve been reading about recently is the split in the 1970s of white feminism from feminisms of color. One of the main sources of the split comes from the topic of domestic servitude. While white women wanted to get out of the home by the 1970s, the gendered…
2010 LGBT issues in the Church: optimism or pessimism?
I’m taking this topic from Joanna Brooks and John-Charles Duffy at Religion Dispatches who are optimistic and pessimistic respectively about what 2010 said about LGBT issues in the Church. To summarize briefly, Duffy says that the Church’s movement toward accepting “sexual orientation” (a phrase it was not averse to using…
DADT: the Mormon versus Military milieu
So DADT is gone. Let’s take a roll call of the Mormon senators and their votes for the repeal: Reid (D-NV) -Yea Bennett (R-UT) – Nay Crapo (R-ID) – Nay Hatch (R-UT) – (Didn’t vote) (Did I forget anyone?) — Some have noted that before DADT, you couldn’t get kicked…
Mormonism, disability, same-gender attraction
From Alma 34: 40 And now my beloved brethren, I would exhort you to have patience, and that ye bear with all manner of afflictions; that ye do not revile against those who do cast you out because of your exceeding poverty, lest ye become sinners like unto them; 41…
What if Mormons ceased their anti-gay marriage political agenda?
I found Ms Jack’s recent question intriguing, mostly because I think it points to a possible future of Mormon discourse on the question of homosexuality. Ms Jack asked: Say that we have a Latter-day Saint who agrees with the churchs stance that homosexual relationships are wrong and never wants to…
The Future of the King Follett Discourse
Three months before his assassination in 1844, Joseph Smith gave a speech that is referred to today as the King Follett discourse (named after an Elder Follett). In that speech, Smith laid out the idea that God was once a man and that all human beings have the potential to…