sluggobear

Many Mormons are uncomfortable using certain language. Here are some Mormon euphemisms that I've encountered in the past, for your reference and enjoyment.

• Abuse yourself - Masturbate
• She lost her virtue - She lost her virginity
• Cover the feet - Cover the genitals
• He is struggling with same-sex attraction - He's gay
• He's dealing with "the issue" - He's gay

WOW.

This is so surreal for me.


Salt Lake City No on Prop 8 Rally from Reid on Vimeo.

(This is only tangentially related to Prop 8...)

Many of you know I used to be a member of the LDS church (commonly known as the Mormon church.)

For a period of time, I went through a program designed to help gay Mormons overcome "Same Sex Attraction," also known as SSA. We were told that if we had faith, worked very hard, and believed... that God would help us triumph over our desires and become straight. (Never mind the abysmal success rate of the program, but I digress.)

I just discovered this interesting little nugget on the church's website:
Aha! So let me see if I read this right. You can fight and fight all your life, pray, have faith, do all the right things, but you still might be gay until the day you die!?

I can't believe people actually believe this bullshit.

Dunno if anyone else saw this.

Kirby on gay marriage: It's official - I don't care
By Robert Kirby - Salt Lake Tribune Columnist - 10/23/2008

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column in which I announced my official position on gay marriage. Basically, I don't care.

Not only do I not care if gays get married, it is none of my business. As a flaming heterosexual, it's a full-time job for me just to keep my thoughts clean in church. I don't have the energy to fret about somebody else's libido.

The column must have resurfaced on the Internet. I'm getting mail again telling me what a failure I am as a Mormon because I'm not solidly behind Proposition 8. As I understand it, the California ballot item would prevent the domestication of homosexuals. Or something like that.

Here are just a few of the attempts to get me to see reason.

• "Are you a member or not? Do you want gays to get married in the temple? Please follow the brotheren's [sic] council [sic] on Proposition 8. This is a important gospel principal [sic]." G., e-mail.
• "No unclean thing can enter the house of the Lord. Gays are unclean because of the Scriptures. You have to be hot or cold about it or the Lord will spat you out." T., e-mail.
• "Were you listening in church when the letter was read from the First Presidency about supporting proposition eight?" R.Y., e-mail.
• "Get with Prop 8 or your [sic] a homo." Anonymous, letter.

Hard as it is to counter such brilliant logic, my position hasn't changed. The only serious concern I have about gays getting married is that they'll register someplace pricey.

The church is serious about the sanctity of marriage. I get that. But aren't more potentially "dangerous" marriages already being performed out there?

For example, I hear in church all the time about marriage being ordained of God. But I also hear about how the glory of God is intelligence.

Shouldn't it be against the law for stupid people to get married? What's more harmful to society - two well-dressed men getting married and settling down, or two idiots tying the knot and cranking out any number of additional idiots?

You should have to pass a harder test to get married than the one we currently have. Essentially, there are but two questions: "How old are you?" and "Is that your sister?" Hell, you could pass this test just by guessing.

There are drawbacks. Most people get married when hormones and youth make them about as dumb as they'll ever be. So, even a relatively easy test would by default raise the age limit to about 40.

With an increased marriage age limit, there would be fewer births. Genealogy would become easier to do. With fewer births, there would be fewer children born gay. Hey, isn't that what Heavenly Father would want?

OK, I was just kidding about that. But if you're really serious about putting a stop to gay sex, let them get married.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10798657

So I had a great birthday week. Many THANK YOU's for the well-wishes!

It's been awhile since I had a full-on, name-dropping, show-n-tell, what-I-did-this-week narrative, and since it's my birthday, I'm going to take that liberty now.

Here's pretty-much how the week went down:
( Behind the cut )

OK I'm done.

I grew-up Mormon, and the church was always a big part of my life.  But as a natural-born skeptic, I didn't really believe in it for most of my years.

Then, at age 18, I dove into it deep… accepted Jesus, and even gave-up two years of my life to preach it abroad.  Now I look back and wonder... how could I have been so fucking blind?