I'm straight a VERY straight male but would love to try an experiment in Temple Square (but dammit I no longer live in Utah). Would I be kicked out of Temple Square by Security if I was cuddling or holding hands with another man?

Has anyone ever tried this before?

PS: Sorry, women don't count ;)

I believe that men engaged in kissing or holding hands would be asked to leave. The place is heavily monitored for possible potential distractions. I believe that they have church security watching via CCTV and teams walking around at all times.

Not what you specifically inquired about, but I share this observation about temple square. About 30 years ago, my family visited SLC with a family friend that lived two blocks away. This was summer and it was not very busy. We were approached by teams of sister missionaries about every 5 minutes. Each time, they were told that we were already members. They were very intrusive about interrupting our personal conversations.

Now this friend of my family had already served 3 or 4 missions for the church since her husband had passed on. She was extremely blunt and unafraid of speaking her mind. So when the 4th set of sisters walked over to us, she raised her voice and told them off ~ to leave us alone. This was all within a 20 minute period of walking around to observe the well tended flower beds. The family friend was so annoyed that she claimed that from now on, she was going to wear her former missionary name tag when visiting temple square.

Unbeknown to us, the unpleasant interaction was reported. So after going through the church visitor center we received a surprise when we were about to leave temple square. Two men in dark suits walked up to us (there were 4 of us) and had a brief word with us. They said that we were unkind and rude while interacting with "representatives of the Lord." We were told that we should have known better as members of the church. We were then told that we had brought a spirit of contention and disharmony. We were told that we were uninvited to return to temple square until we changed our attitudes.

The family friend held her tongue, but she remained very sore about the incident. She claimed that she was going to report it to her ward leaders, whom were big wheels at the church administration building. I never heard another word about it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2019 05:05AM by messygoop.

messygoop Wrote:
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> ...spirit of contention and disharmony.

Translation: failing to let their crap go unchallenged. And if you try to defend yourself you're just adding to the contention and disharmony.

missionaries should just not bother people so much, geeze crossing boundries like that is socially unacceptable, I mean you're just walking around outside minding your business

How about walking along, talking and laughing, with one guy having the other guy's arm draped over his shoulders?

I bet security would get frazzled, trying to get a read on what was going on!

Ex-CultMember Wrote:
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> PS: Sorry, women don't count ;)

“Women don’t count” is the very essence of Mormonism.

But some of the men DO keep count.

If I were to ever visit SLC again, boy would I have some fun winding up the mormon gestapo. I don’t see there’s much they can really do either as long as you aren’t breaking the law. Surely it’s not actually illegal in Utah to be openly gay or displaying homosexual affection? Or is it SLC that bad? I would be determined to ignore them and just carry on. Of course I can’t test this as I’m not a man, but would they actually physically remove two gay men? That would surely result in an assault charge against them? That would be fun too. Of course,
I won’t go there again, twice was two times too many already.

This is literally the only reason to visit. One can dream.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2019 10:35AM by LJ12.

I believe that the arrangements made between the church and its pet government are that Temple Square is private property, and the owners of said private property can ask visitors to leave for whatever reason they make up, and if you disobey the order to leave, it becomes a trespass, and they citizen's arrest your butt and off you go, arrested for criminal trespass. Wheeeee!

“pet government” indeed. Of course, they saw us coming. I’d forgotten all this stuff. Well, that’s a damn shame.

Does this line of thinking work also for the missionaries that come on to your property and you tell them to leave?

Can you make a citizens arrest and haul their butts off to jail?

Absolutely, as long as you make arrangements with your very pet government agency. Which is exactly what Cheryl did. Turns out a pet government beats a pet ghawd, unless you have the 'dust your heels' ritual down pat.

those who show affection in a "gay" manner--whatever they determine it to be. They are very quick to throw them off the property. I wish I knew where I have seen it, but I've seen it about 3 times.

My guess: two older guys in suits embracing, no prob. Two young guys not in suits, the men in black would go on high alert. Two women would probably have to actually make out to get a rise out of security. LDS Inc is much more worried about male homosexuality. Even there, women are at best second class.

so I guess having sex outdoors there is Verbotten (?)

So while I was serving a mission in Texas, my parents took the train to visit the same family friend. The main attraction was to come see the lights and snow around x-mas. So my parents went and my Dad documented the trip by using the bulky VHS camera.

So what happened about 3 minutes into his video at Temple Square of my Mom and her friend waving at the video camera?

A couple of men in dark suits approached them and told my Dad to stop recording. They told him that video recording was not permitted on church property. According to my Dad, he argued with them that his video was not for commercial purposes nor was he using a tripod (which can impede pedestrian flow or create a tripping hazard.) He was asked to leave voluntarily or to be cited for trespass.

So he left, but he wanted to shoot the outside street scene just outside the temple wall. So he pointed the video camera toward the Union Pacific depot with it's sign lit up. And those two goons walked off church property and onto the sidewalk and harassed him one more time about shooting video.

***Today, this would have been a big story because you can't stop a person from taking pictures from the side of a public street. However, he stopped because that's what good members were taught.

I know it would be impossible now, but do they still TRY to stop people from recording videos at Temple Square?

CrispingPin Wrote:
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> I know it would be impossible now, but do they
> still TRY to stop people from recording videos at
> Temple Square?

I think that the church lost control once people started using their phones to record videos. It was easier for them to flex their security might when video recorders were humongous. Funny thing was that they had no objections to people taking regular photos from cameras.

A bit off topic, but I remember being asked when entering the temple if you were in possession of cameras, video recorders and tape recording devices. They were very concerned about people sneaking in to film their silly rituals. One time I was at the Provo temple (at the MTC) a missionary had brought his 35mm camera. He promptly surrendered it and boy was he surprised. After finishing the roll, he turned it to be processed. The entire film had been wrecked!

Somebody had opened up the back of the camera and exposed the undeveloped film to light. He strongly suspected that it had been done on purpose to remind people not to bring a camera to the temple.

They'll get on your case for all sorts of petty things.

I drove past Temple Square yesterday about 4pm and the traffic on the road was really crowded and I could see lots of people coming out of and going into the gate. IIRC, the Temple itself is closed for new paint both inside and out. Which means, that the painters inside had to have a recommend and 20 years from now, when they're a grandpa, they will be telling their grandkids all about their "Faith Promoting incident" in August 2019.

I was actually headed up City Creek canyon to see this display left there by Salt Lake City. It had lots of stickers representing all over the world....and some F**ing visitor had written graffiti on it. Not sure how long it will be there.

https://imgur.com/a/fN8blqW

If you wanted to have sex, either hetero or homo, this also probably wouldn't be a place, although there's no guards on duty



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2019 03:46PM by memikeyounot.

near TS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpwAXXF5FIo



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2019 08:28PM by cl2.

The top dogs simply cannot conceive of any affectionate displays that are non-sexual. To them, everything relates to sex.

Ex-CultMember Wrote:
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>... Would I be kicked out of Temple Square by Security if I was cuddling or holding hands with another man?
>
> Has anyone ever tried this before?

No. You should try it. There's another "not-straight" guy got to be likewise curious... Sure, it's happened. Must be videos at least.

> PS: Sorry, women don't count ;)

The ones I know do.
Some higher than me.

Even a straight couple would get in 'trouble'. A lost animal would get captured. A traveler would get acosted or aborted. No one is safe, but Mormons, on Mormon's Tempted Squares.

couples holding hands, etc., and one couple kissing good-bye. And nobody bothered them.