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Sometimes I'll be on social media and see someone say something like "What?!? Mormons are REAL? I thought they were just made up for South Park?!?" And then I almost die from second hand embarrassment.

Like, I, personally, would be ashamed to publicly admit to being so naive and sheltered. I can understand not knowing about every religion out there, but Mormons? We never shut up about our religion. We send people out to knock on your door specifically to tell you about us. Entire States wouldn't exist without us. And you just...dodged knowing any of that? For your entire life?

You're really going to go on Al Gore's own Internet and tell everyone with your full chest that you learned more from a cartoon than from highschool US history? Haven't you had an ounce of curiosity in your life? Have you touched grass? Do you know what real people look like?

I mean, sure, you do you, but I've met backwood hicks that have never in their whole lives worn a shirt and shoes at the same time who would be ashamed of being that ignorant.

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the church says not to pray to or worship Heavenly Mother but they never said i couldn't like. send her a fax

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You are a Child of God

Therefore, it is beneath your dignity to kiss the earthly rings of tyrants and shine the boots of oppressors.

Remember that your kingdom, like Christ's, is not of this world. When Jesus taught that we should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's he meant money. Not souls. Not the dignity and self-possession that is ours by birth.

It is against our religion to accept violence from the State—not for ourselves, and not for others. Read D&C 121-123 again. That's what they say. That's what they mean.

How can we hold any other position when the Prophet Joseph Smith was executed through vigilante justice? How can we choose false imprisonment for anyone when it was exercised against our own people so many times?

The God who told our prophet and our people "fear not what man can do" in the face of state violence will not forgive us if we side with jailers of the innocent. Not in this moment. Not in any moment.

Seeking redress against state violence is a sacred duty bestowed upon us by God. D&C 123:7 says "It is an imperative duty that we owe to God" not to allow such things to stand as long as there is anything we can do to stop it.

If you need the words to express to the Trump supporters in your life why supporting the current administration is immoral and unacceptable for us as a people, here they are. To love our neighbors as ourselves means we cannot tolerate their oppression because it (allegedly) benefits us in any way.

God has withdrawn protection and prosperity from our nation because our people have supported and allowed this evil to happen to our neighbors. It will continue until those who are responsible repent. And if they don't, the promised suffering that was promised to our own oppressors will come upon us:

13 Also because their hearts are corrupted, and the things which they are willing to bring upon others, and love to have others suffer, may come upon themselves to the very uttermost;

14 That they may be disappointed also, and their hopes may be cut off;

15 And not many years hence, that they and their posterity shall be swept from under heaven, saith God, that not one of them is left to stand by the wall

There is moral rot among the Saints in the United States. If we do not purge it from among ourselves through repentance and restitution to those we have harmed through this corrupt administration, we will be destroyed from the earth by that administration. We will fall into the pits we have dug for our neighbors. And we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

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How much you wanna bet they’ll be asking for a registry of queer people and other ‘undesirables’ next?

Uhhhhhhhh that seems bad

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God save me from well-meaning, Fox News-watching, ableist boomer relatives.

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Happy Easter! ☀️

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Here are paintings by the late deaf Korean artist Kim Ki-Chang, depicting Jesus in Korea in the Joseon era. Painted in 1953 while Kim was in anguish during the Korean War.

Shown: saving Peter, falsely accused woman, inviting Peter and Andrew, feeding the multitude, refugee flight, baptism of Jesus, the Nativity, the adoration of the Magi.

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Just remembering this morning that the first people at the tomb on Eater Sunday were women, and the first person to meet Jesus after his resurrection was a woman.

In a time when women could not offer witness in legal proceedings, the first witnesses chosen by the resurrected Lord were all women.

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Holy Week

I've been posting each day of Holy Week on my website. I did the same thing last year (with the exception of Palm Sunday because I started late), and I've been really proud of the work I've done.

But I have never been as proud of any scripture study that I've ever done as I am of the one I just finished. It's on the unjust trial of the Sanhedrin against Jesus Christ. I examine in depth the illegalities of the trial using the Mishna Sanhedrin. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's some of my best work I've ever done.

You can see it and all the others I've done so far by visiting my website and checking out the tag for Holy Week. The ones I've done for this year really focus on the violence and injustice in the stories of those who surrounded Jesus in his last week in mortality. With everything going on currently, it's simply what I feel drawn to. But if you don't read any of the others, you should definitely read this one.

Jewish law had so many fail-safes and protections against what happened to Jesus of Nazareth in that trial. And because of the corrupt and vindictive agenda of someone in leadership, they all failed.

When we say Jesus understands what we go through, it's not just because of the experience he had in Gethsemane. It's also because of the life he lived on earth. He knows what it means to be denied justice. And as someone who has gone without justice so many time in my life, I've never felt closer to my Savior or more understood by him than I do now because of this project.

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Finally have all 4 life stages let's gooo

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Above all else, crucifixion was a spectacle: The Roman Empire’s way of making a show of its brutality in order to terrorize dominated peoples into submission.

If you dared dissent, you knew what end awaited you: You would be stripped of your autonomy, stripped of your dignity, and finally literally stripped bare before a crowd, your naked, wounded flesh a warning to others to comply, or die.

Today, transgender and intersex persons are likewise made into a spectacle.

Our bodies and private medical histories are put on display for others to gawk at, pity, or judge. New laws attempt to strip us of our God-given free will, denying us the autonomy to respond to God’s invitation to participate in the ongoing creative act that is embodied life.

In school and at work, at home and in church, we face every manner of violence. And when these evils wound us to the point of suicide, or when we are murdered, our deaths are lifted up as a warning: “See what happens when you refuse to comply?”

But through the cross, Jesus transformed shame and death into new life. Though he was the one who was stripped, his execution exposed both the evil of Empire, and its ultimate fallibility.

When we dare to be who God made us to be, society’s spotlight may make us feel like one raw wound, exposed and vulnerable. We may even be subjected to social death.

But we refuse to be ashamed any longer for being the beautiful embodied spirits, inspirited bodies that God calls beloved.

Even when others try to strip us of dignity, status, or autonomy, Christ brings us into joyous, abundant life. The cross is not the end of the story.

From "A Queer Easter Vigil: resurrection after religious trauma" on the Blessed Are the Binary Breakers podcast

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women’s erasure by the church

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I'd tell you to quit biting your tongue and let loose, but I too have given up on asking my family to turn off Fox News.

Visiting family for Easter, and have had a great time… until someone mentioned quarantine during a story, and everyone started talking about Covid.

Now they’re all talking about how Covid was blown way out of proportion, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and just proves that Americans are a bunch of sheep happy to sign away their rights on the slightest word.

Lord give me strength to keep biting my tongue so I don’t ruin my relationships.

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Thoughts from Gather Conference

The first speaker at the Gather Conference was Dr. Greg Peterson, president of Salt Lake Community College. He described the model of a community college, which has a 100% acceptance rate, low tuition costs, and recognizes that not all students will get a degree but may be there just for a few classes or taking one class at a time as that's all their life can handle. A university, especially an elite one, has a low acceptance rate and a prescribed ways for how students should progress through school and earn a degree. It is designed for elite students who are likely to succeed in this model.

Gathering Zion should be more like a community college. It feels like Jesus runs a community college while our church runs an elite university as it caters to those who are likely to complete the covenant path without much to offer those whose life doesn't fit its model. As a queer person, I absolutely know what it feels like to not feel like I'm wanted or welcome at church because I'm don't fit the model and not likely (according to the leaders) to reach the highest heaven.

Jenn Blosil, who was a contestant on American Idol, is quite humorous and she performed a beautiful arrangement of the song "All Are Alike unto God." I hope her version gets released, otherwise I'm gonna have to rip an mp3 when the video is released.

In her presentation, Liv Mendoza Haynes commented "You can't parent a child who is gone" as part of talking about how parents need to be loving and affirming of their LGBTQ children because the consequences of rejecting this part of them has serious consequences. She also said when Jesus was suffering in the Garden, He didn't suffer for people simply because they're LGBT because that's not something to repent of, it isn't wrong.

I believe it was David Butler who said that being an LGBTQ Latter-day Saint is making communion out of contradiction. Many people think the two are incompatible yet we exist.

When we feel safe with others, we let down our guard and enter healing.

These next few quotes are something an individual (I can't remember her name) said to me.

"What do we know of God? One who creates and mentors. When we engage in acts of creativity and creation, when we engage in encouraging and including and loving others, that's when we're likely to feel the Divine."

"When we hide in the closet, when we hide who we are, we are hiding our light. Once there's a crack and we let someone know our secret that we're queer, the bright light comes flooding out of that crack. In a way, it is a birth. As we learn not to hid ourselves, we learn to see and be ourselves, to introduce ourselves to the world."

Someone asked, "Who is the protagonist of the Restoration? Is it Joseph Smith? Moroni? Neither, WE are!"

Dr. Lisa Diamond from the University of Utah shared some information from her research. Being a minority can feel like being threatened, we spend our time being on guard and feeling stressed. This causes our bodies to produce inflammation because that's useful if we might be wounded. But if there's not a physical wound, inflammation causes damage. As a result, minorities often suffer chronic health problems at high rates, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, and many other problems.

A panelist said that there's not a faith stronger than people who come despite knowing they aren't wanted. If there is a parable to exemplify this type of faith exhibited by queer people, it is the woman touching the fringe of Jesus' clothes.

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Tamu Smith speaking at the 2019 North Star Conference

This is an incredible talk. She gets vulnerable about her journey in coming to understand LGBTQIA+ people and embracing intersectionality.

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i need feminism because when jesus does a magic trick it’s a goddamn miracle but when a woman does a magic trick she gets burned at the stake