x-posted from Main Street Plaza
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Midweek Mormon Reddit Gazette 2010-W17
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Religious refugees in mainstream America ... (r/movies)
r/exmormon: Mormon Times: J. W. "Bill" Marriott, Jr., CEO & Chairman of Marriott Int'l, attends dinner honoring anti-gay crank Orson Scott Card.
J. Willard "Bill" Marriott. Jr., and his wife attended the dinner hosted by the largest chapter of the BYU Management Society, which has more than 6,000 members in 40 cities and 20 countries. Bill gave the evening a thumbs up. The Human Rights Campaign gives Marriott a perfect score.
The text of OSC's keynote remarks to BYUMS-DC: Orson Scott Card on the Dismantling of America
In other news, if you need a vacation, you might want to check out Marriott's new LGBT travel site!
r/politics: 'No one is thinking about the children' - A Mormon Republican Appeal from Arizona
I am the branch president of one of the Spanish language congregations in Mesa, Arizona ... We clearly still have some knuckle dragging closet racists in the Church.
r/politics: Mormons for Racial Profiling?
What’s up with the Mormons? Orem, Utah legislator Stephen Eric Sandstrom last week pledged to follow the lead of "my friend" Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce and expand the number of states with show-me-your-papers bills aiming to criminalize, jail, and deport irregular migrants. Rep. Sandstrom, who is a graduate of Brigham Young University and a former Mormon missionary to Venezuela, takes credit for co-founding a state’s rights organization called the Patrick Henry Caucus.
Sandstrom’s "friend" Sen. Pearce of Arizona, sponsor of the recently signed SB-1070, hails from the Mormon stronghold of Mesa and claims to be the mastermind behind Maricopa County’s infamous Tent City Jail.
r/politics: Justice Scalia: "Democracy requires a certain amount of civic courage."
Antonin Scalia schools James Bopp: For the first century of our existence, even voting was public—you either did it raising your hand or by voice, or later, you had a ballot that was very visibly red or blue so that people knew which party you were voting for. The fact is that running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage. And the First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate, or to take part in the legislative process. You are asking us to enter into a whole new field where we have never gone before.
r/lds: Mormon Church unveils new green chapel designs, with solar panels, drought-resistant landscaping, and designated electric car parking
Instead of horizontal rows, the pews will be arrayed in a fan to create a more "intimate" connection between the pulpit and congregation.
r/mormon: Mormon May Day: Will you help us make the Mormon Church hospitable for all of God’s Children? Even Liberals and Radicals?
In light of the recent Gallop Poll which calculates that 60% of active Mormons self-identify as Conservative or Republican and that over 60% of inactive Mormons who still consider themselves Mormons are self-identified "Liberals or Moderates" suggesting that the more liberal you are the more likely you are to go inactive; in light of Glenn Beck’s recent public comments where the prominent Mormon declared that social justice was a code word for Communism and Nazism; and in light of the recent invitation by a Nevada Stake to Democratic Senator Harry Reid to speak at a fireside which was met by threats of violence and canceled.
As moderate, liberal or radical Mormons, it is time to make our voices heard WITHIN Mormonism.
r/freethought: A revealing, highly entertaining, and rather damning look at the corporate headquarters of the Mormon Church. Exposes all the utterly irreligious banalities, policies, and practices that together constitute the formerly hidden Mormon Corporation.
A religion ran as a corporation... say it ain't so. Seriously, the reason that corporations and religions exist is because they get things (good and bad) done and people love being bundled up into groups; it gives them a team to cheer for and enemies to boo.
r/lds: Mormon Menace ... Averted!
If Mormons truly regard the rest of us as Christians, they must restrict their evangelism to non-Christians.
r/atheism: What Happened When I Went Undercover at a Christian Gay-to-Straight Conversion Camp
My motivation for undertaking this wild project stems from several factors. First, I was raised in the Mormon church, which has taken the lead against equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. It’s been ten years since I left Mormonism, and I feel a particular need to stand up against the church’s well-funded opposition to marriage equality (I wonder what Mormonism’s polygamous founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., and his successor, Brigham Young, would say about the "Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman" bumper stickers slapped on so many Mormon minivans).
I use the same cover story since I began attending ex-gay programs: From a young age, I was attracted to other guys (false); I was raised in the Mormon church (true), and served a mission (true); I married in my early 20s (true), but the marriage fell apart (true) after I fell in love with my best friend, Brian (false). After my younger brother’s suicide in 2003 (true), I reevaluated my life (true) and had a religious reconversion (false). I recently joined ex-gay ministries in 2007 (true), even though I still haven’t found a new faith (false).
r/lgbt: Sapphocrat: Letter To A Mormon
I wish you all the best of success with your Mormon-gay meetings, and with what tiny, dying, ragged shred of hope there is left in me, I wish your meetings would effect real change — the kind of change that would dismantle the anti-gay Mormon monolith and make equality a reality rather than an evil to be feared — and prove me dead wrong about everything.
r/books: The latest ungenerous LDS reviewer takes on Elna Baker's "The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance."
"... I'm sure there are many members of our church who would judge her much more harshly for some of the decisions and choices she makes ..."
Maybe. Maybe not. Your review is pretty friggin' harsh (not to mention, incoherent).
r/videos: The Internet: Where religions come to die
I find it interesting that we Mormons can cause such a ruckus over such a trivial thing [The Book of Mormon/Youtube Challenge]. Are you really worried that having our video on the Youtube homepage will help us with our plan to take over the world? (insert evil laughter)
Can I ask a question though? How is it that our Cult can be so successful for all these years with fine upstanding people like you doing all you can to expose our slanderous message? (insert more evil laughter)
r/geography: Seth Perry: The Geography of the Book of Mormon
Whatever else it is, the Heartland movement looks like a ripple of nativism, a twitch of insecurity among Americans in a globalizing faith. Mormons are increasingly identified with conservative politics, and in its very name the "Heartland Model" conjures the right’s renewed rhetoric of American exceptionalism. Glenn Beck – piercingly conservative but rather quietly Mormon – shilled for an April conference put on by Porter’s company, founded to promote (and monetize) the Heartland Model.
r/exmormon: Larry King, his LDS wife Shawn, and Hector, her lover, partying on the Los Angeles Mormon Temple grounds.
PortlandMom1: "If you check google earth, you will see that the party was clearly held on a field near the temple that may be part of the LDS church grounds located there. For Mormons, there is a big difference between temple grounds and church grounds."
Yeah, it's no doubt a HUGE difference. Kinda like the difference between rich Mormons (who screw around with no consequences) and ordinary members (who get excommunicated for the same behavior).
r/funny: Mormon Times wins this week's Unintentionally Hilarious Headline award
Leave Glenn Beck alone!
r/film: Yours Is Not a God of Love - TK reviews "8: The Mormon Proposition"
8: The Mormon Proposition is a stirring, tragically depressing documentary about the Mormon Church’s massive efforts to support and pass California’s Proposition 8 ballot initiative ... Depending on which side of the debate you stand on, you will find it either silly and pointless, or obscenely infuriating and find yourself filled with a sense of righteous fury.
Watch the new trailer here.
Pre-order the DVD here.
Subscribe to MMORG's Youtube channel.
First upload: Local Utah Station Announces Release of 8: The Mormon Proposition:
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