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A Story in Which the Gay Mormon Does Not Die

By Joanna Brooks

…e and family Thanks to her local GSA, Alex was able to connect with a Salt Lake City lawyer named Paul Burke, and through him to a national network of LGBT civil rights advocates and experts. Many experts warned Burke that given what she’d been through, including a suicide attempt, the best thing for Alex might in fact be to get her on the next bus out of her Utah Mormon contexts and into a safer environment with a foster family. But Burke listene…

Remembering Arnold Friberg of Ten Commandments Fame

By Joanna Brooks

…of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died Wednesday in Salt Lake City at the age of 96. Friberg produced the famous “Prayer at Valley Forge” (1975) depicting George Washington kneeling in the snow, a painting owned by Presidents Bush and Reagan. Legend has it the painter stood on the banks of the Schuylkill River in winter, gloves removed to feel the cold. Friberg also did scene and costume design for Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten…

Gay Pride Weekend Draws Mormon Allies and Equality Supporters

By Joanna Brooks

…S LGBT history that began with the Mormons Building Bridges Parade in Salt Lake City on June 3. In Seattle, the Mormons for Marriage Equality contingent counted 55 marchers at the beginning of the Pride parade. As the group made its way down the parade path, an additional 20 Mormons left the sidelines to join, repeating scenes witnessed in Washington, DC, when the parade route became a site for reunions between active Mormons and gay Mormons long…

How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck

By Joanna Brooks

…e rise of Glenn Beck suggests that those who would understand American conservatism might also look West, toward Salt Lake City….

Why Do Southerners Call Mormonism a Cult?

By Joanna Brooks

…1980s, Ed Decker produces a book and a video titled The Godmakers. In Salt Lake City, Jerald and Sandra Tanner in establish Lighthouse Ministries and produce sophisticated anti-Mormon literature based in historical research. Interestingly, it parallels the rise of the new Mormon history and new historical consciousness among Mormons, giving a historical gravitas to the anti-Mormon movement. People like the Tanners go back and look at nineteenth-ce…

The Book of Mormon, Dark Skin, and Racist Theology

By Joanna Brooks

…a contemporary LDS decertification (from the top of the food chain in Salt Lake City!) of the arcane folk belief that dark skin signifies accursedness. I found that significant when I wrote about it last week, and I still do. Baby steps? Absolutely. Will the Church change the text of the Book of Mormon? Probably not. Just as progressive Jews have not expunged from the Torah verses like Leviticus 20:13 used by bigots to sanction anti-gay prejudice….

What Does God Tweet?, AFA Cites Hitler on Gays…

By Christopher Marchsteiner

…ng squad last month amidst questions about the peculiar decision. The Salt Lake Tribune recently speculated that the choice was predicated upon the Mormon belief that for a murderer to be forgiven by God he must shed his own blood (literally). In Britain, Roger Bolton suggested that BBC features less religious broadcasting and coverage because much of the BBC staff finds it a “rather tiresome obligation.” A BBC spokeswoman denied the idea that rel…

Mormon Church Buildings To Go Green

By Joanna Brooks

…hem identical down to their industrial carpeting and the art on their Salt Lake City-certified cinder block walls—the Mormon Church has a mighty architectural footprint. If the pilot proves successful, LDS officials promise to implement the green building program for both new construction and chapel retrofitting. Features of the silver-level LEED certified construction include solar panels, high tech insulation, low-water landscaping, and enviro…

Mormon “Martin Luther” Causes Stir by Uploading LDS Church Handbook of Instructions to Internet

By Joanna Brooks

…cial Saturday meeting satellite-broadcast from Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Before last week, in a whole lifetime of Mormonism, I can only remember seeing the CHI once, when I was a teenager, in the home where I grew up. Because my dad had served a few terms as a bishop—a lay minister in charge of a Mormon congregation—we had a copy in the house. The memory is fuzzy, but I believe it was my mom who brought it out so we could check out th…

LDS Church Disavows “Mormon”-ism

By Holly Welker

…might want to refer to the church headquartered at 50 North Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, what’s approved for subsequent references? The abbreviation LDS is out, so “LDS church” is now verboten. Instead, “‘The Church’ or the ‘Church of Jesus Christ’ are encouraged. The ‘restored Church of Jesus Christ’ is also accurate and encouraged.” Mormon, however, is “a nickname… not an authorized title” and is unacceptable for anything but proper names, li…