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Should Romney be Asked about Mormon Women’s Issues at the Debates?

By Joanna Brooks

…le calls the past decades in Mormon women’s history the “Great Disappearance” for Mormon women. When one recalls that Mormon women in the late 19th century were national suffrage activists and in the early 20th century were building hospitals and other major social service instutitions in Utah, it is very striking to reflect that the most visible Mormon women of the last three decades have been Marie Osmond and Anne Romney. That’s three decades, a…

Huntsman not a Factor in 2012?

By Joanna Brooks

…iable source in the Mormon Republican world that Jon Huntsman, Jr., former Utah governor, Obama-appointed Ambassador to China, and rumored 2012 presidential candidate has a secret liability that would put him out of the running right quick. It’s definitely something from his past, but I’m gathering that it’s not so salacious. Employing an undocumented worker, perhaps? The fact that he dropped out of high school to join a rock band? His unseemly af…

‘Murder Among the Mormons’ Ep 2 Recap: A Family Man With a Wild Side

By Benjamin E. Park

…me, and power. He spent more than he brought in, accumulated an increasing number of toys, and made frequent trips to the East Coast to both initiate more sales as well as party hard while away from his traditional home life. Some of the documentary’s tricks to capture this escalation and duplicity work well, like the home-footage of a smiling, and obviously proud, Hofmann watching news footage of himself. Others come up short, like the comedic re…

Mormon a Mormon,
Mano a Mano

By Joanna Brooks

…school diploma. He went on a boxing scholarship to the College of Southern Utah, where he and his future wife Landra Gould (who was raised Jewish) joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Harry Reid almost came to blows with his Jewish father-in-law to win the hand of his wife. He faced the mafia head-on in his four years as head of the Nevada Gaming Comission. Once, he reportedly choked a mobster who tried to bribe him, and his fam…

“We Want Everyone to Come to the Family Reunion”

By Joanna Brooks

…me night in public libraries along the Wasatch front, from Logan to Provo, Utah. We want people from all sides of an issue to come talk. Recently, our subject was, “Can I support my LGBT child and feel connected to my faith?” We had a Mormon mom whose son came out to her about four years ago and she is not able to attend church right now. There’s still a ton of anger, and it’s very difficult for her. We had another mom whose son came out five week…

Why We’ve Opened Our Doors for Polygamy USA

By Claude Cawley

…the LDS Church, which renounced polygamy at the end of the 19th century, a number of independent groups have since broken from the Church over various doctrinal differences—including plural marriage. Polygamy, USA, which debuted on the National Geographic Channel earlier this month [Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT], follows the fundamentalist Mormons of Centennial Park, Arizona, population 1,500. The following commentary from Centennial Park spiritual le…

Obama Reverses Bush Stem Cell Restrictions, Time to Step Up

By Frances Kissling

…omises. This is the conclusion pro-life on abortion Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) reached when he became the leading advocate of this research in the Senate and incurred the wrath of anti-stem cell religionists. A positive result of the President’s decision to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research will be greater government oversight of the research; ethical guidelines will be developed. Will we permit embryos to be created exclusiv…

Op-Ed: Bashing Back: Queer Thugs?

By Ariana Childs Graham

…-eight churches of the Church of Jesus Christ were attacked in California, Utah, Washington State, and Colorado, and specific incidents included the burning of a “Mormon Bible” on the steps of the Church and windows shattered with a BB gun. While it remains unclear whether Bash Back! members perpetrated these attacks, they applaud those who did. The author of the post “[hopes] that these events inspire each and every disenfranchised trans/queer pe…

How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck

By Joanna Brooks

…ration of Independence appeared to him in the Mormon Temple in St. George, Utah in 1877, and requested that he perform Mormon temple ordinances on their behalf. Many Mormons also believe that Joseph Smith prophesied in 1843 that the US Constitution would one day “hang by a thread” and be saved by faithful Mormons; this idea was given new life in the 1960s by former US Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who cited Smith’s 1843 prophecy from…

Mormon Leaks: Boring Meetings with Interesting Implications

By Mary Barker

…services. My Mormon uncle opened a chain of Marie Callender restaurants in Utah and procured ecclesiastical approval to serve the public coffee and tea, in clear violation of the Word of Wisdom, and the Marriotts remain in good Mormon standing despite the alcohol in their hotels. Likewise, there was no sense in the videos of another possible scriptural interpretation of the situation, no re-framing of the issue as one of Christ-like love overcomin…