Part of the endowment script (post 1990) had the charge to avoid loud laughter, light-mindedness and speaking ill of the leaders.

So was this part of the endowment ceremony with the pantomimes and death oaths-penalties or was it added as a way to scare members to refrain from being critical of church leaders' stupidity?

I did a quick G search of this topic and the top of the list is a talk titled "Criticism" by Oaks from 1986. I'm not surprised because the church was embroiled in the Hoffman scandal at the time and I'm sure the average member was wondering about this special priesthood power of discernment that FAILED!

Two interesting things from his talk. First, he expanded on B Packer's quote about the truth. “The fact that something is true is not always a justification for communicating it.” Secondly, 90% of his quotes were from extremely ancient church leaders from the 1930s and 40s. This suggests that this topic had rarely been addressed until the his talk in 1986. (Speaking ill has been a HUGE topic of church talks in the 2000s).

One last question: What is a student association fireside?

That was his target audience.

Around the same time frame I came across hard proof that a high ranking church official was falsifying financial re ords for a church construction project.

I took the two sets of books, copies of duplicate billing etc and presented it to the stake president overseeing the project.

His reaction was "people of his standing in the church don't steal from the church. You need to write him a letter of apology."

Similar experience at Ricks (now BYU-I). Many knew a high ranking administrator had embezzled but "that sort of thing does not happen at the Lord's college" so we all had to look the other way and pretend we knew nothing.

You should have sent him a letter thanking him for handing you a ticket out of the cult when you resigned.

LORD'S ANNOINTED?
A joke or what?

Holland, mumps
Nelson, influenza
Ballard, common cold
Uchtdorf, shingles
Hinckley, chicken pox
Packer, swine flu
Kimball, malaria

Is this what "speaking ill" means?

Lol.

Joseph Smith, chlamydia.

touche!

The so-called Lord didn't anoint them. They anointed themselves.

And their followers are so gullible that is all it takes.

If you can't speak the truth about your leaders then North Korea may be for you.

by the lack of respect shown to the leaders AND THEN I realized who I could be angry at for what happened to my life. It was life changing. I have to admit that I hated gays. I told my husband that eventually I wanted him and all gays to be only a blip on my radar after what he had put me through. I just bunched them all together.

I think that finally being able to put blame where it belonged had the biggest impact on my healing from all I had been through.

I finally even wrote the bishop a letter (finally found his new address and he is 84 years old) after his wife stuck her nose in our business and told him what I thought of what he did to us, TO ME. I have saved a copy for my dear TBM daughter to read some day.

You EARN respect. It isn't just handed to you. My husband's sister told me, just after my husband left, that it was up to me to teach my kids to respect their dad. I told her, "No, it is not. He has to earn it." They love him now, but for what he put them through, he is lucky they do. They test him all the time to make sure he really does love them and he won't abandon them again. It wasn't going to get this long.

I have so much respect to those gays like Done & Done who did not marry a woman. They rightfully have earned it. Let's not respect those 15 clowns in SLC--or all the ones on down from them.

D&D is a fine man in every way.

I do, however, have sympathy for at least some of the gay people who married straight; for a significant subset of them, including non-Mormons, hadn't figured out their sexuality at the time while others were misled by the church and society to believe that their homosexuality was problematic and surmountable. For a lot of people, particularly in decades past, those decisions were extremely difficult.

Did I mention that D&D is a fine person?

I agree cl2 I was shocked at first too.

I soon began to realize that if these men were in anyway pretending to be something they were not (which there is plenty of evidence by their deeds and statements) and having people believe that the harmful instructions to their mental, emotional, romantic, financial and physical health was from God. They deserved to be called on the carpet for it as plain and as forcefully needed.

They created the inescapable, unsolvable double bind by their words and they alone were complicit in going along with the con once they discovered it. After that point, there is should be no respect for them. They are no longer following the orders of their masters but have become masters themselves.

Would mormons not consider a televangelist who they see clearly as having no power from God as an abomination, a false prophet? Of course, they would. And this is what exmormons have discovered - their eyes have been opened to see clearly for what these men are.

As far as what exmormons say about someone who has abused their good natures and ruined their lives for so long, well it can be looked at as therapy in itself to finally confront their abusers.
To vocally proclaim you no longer have power over me. I know who thou are!

"So was this part of the endowment ceremony with the pantomimes and death oaths-penalties or was it added as a way to scare members to refrain from being critical of church leaders' stupidity?"

Avoid loud laughter, light-mindedness and speaking ill of the leaders was in the pre-1990 ceremony.

From the FWiW file: the wording from the pre-1990 endowment is "evil-speaking of the Lord's anointed."

What about evil speaking by the lurid's anointed?

I went through in 1977 and both the blood oaths and the no loud laughter crap was in there.

Most Universities with fairly sizeable LDS student populations would have an organization called LDSSA, or Latter Day Saints Student Association. There would be a building either on campus or right on the edge of campus that housed them. And it was kind of like Seminary for college kids. The U of U has (had) one located on S Campus Drive just down from the Huntsman Center. There is the building and also a chapel. I remember that USU, Weber State, SDSU, ASU, and others had same.

I assume they still exist? I am now 42 years past college graduation.

Regarding the LDSSA (Latter-day Saints Student Association), it was under the direction of the Church Education System through the Director of the Institute of Religion. The Institutes ran their own program seperate from local priesthood leaders and had their own hierarchy and pipeline to SLC.

The Institute taught college-level religion classes (very orthodox), and I guess you could consider the Directors much like the Jesuits in the Catholic Church.

There was also Delta Phi Kappa (ΔΦΚ) (previously The Friars Club and Delta Phi), a fraternity for male returned missionaries at colleges in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. It existed from 1920 to 1978.

Next there was Sigma Gamma Chi (ΣΓΧ), another LDS fraternity. It once was a national organization, it later only operated at the University of Utah. It was open to all male university student, not just return missionaries. Sigma Gamma Chi stands for "Service to God and Country."

Packer's rise in the hierarchy came through the Church Education System and it's strict adherence to orthodoxy and obedience (Jesuit, again).

Hope that's insigtful.

I make a point of it whenever I can. Especially if I know TBM'S are in earshot