His latest post:

"Hi, John. I saw your Instagram post.

I heard something similar (disagreements among GAs) just this week over two issues:

LGBQT issues - Vast disagreement on this issue. Multiple wards dealing with teens and adults who are transitioning - wanting to go to Relief Society or EQ, causing challenges with Girls Camp and Youth Conferences etc etc

Big disagreements on how to handle it all

-Temples- Feeling growing that money is being spent foolishly in areas that don't need temples by any common sense metric"

Kinda nice to "know" that common sense and ghawd's sense are always going to be the same!

OMG, you mean there are still some rational people among the ranks of the GAs?!

Re the Highland Park 4th of July shooter - his photo looked like he had large black sideburns, but I think it was long "feminine" hairstyle. He did his shooting dressed as a woman, and there have been unconfirmed claims that his mother may be LDS.

What if he/she had gender identity issues, and the shooting was a way of acting out hostility about Mormonism? There are plenty of teens with serious anger issues about the LDS church, evidenced by the amount of church vandalism that happens in Utah, not to mention the occasional suicide on church grounds.


As for wasteful, unneeded temples - duh.

I have a feeling I'm missing a real freak show. Being exmo is like knowing all the magic tricks. The illusionist is boring, so why go to the show?

While doing baptisms for the dead as a youth the young women would sit and one side and the young men on the other side. What if boys and girls could choose where to sit? What? Yes, I am talking about what if a boy could sit next to a girl in the temple? Women don't vail their faces anymore. Maybe there is more temple revelation coming?

Women can now act as witnesses to proxy temple baptisms. I wonder if they can be witnesses to regular baptisms?

In any case, the metaphorical wall between men and women in Mormondom seems to be getting lowered, though at a glacial pace.

As one who always found the temple Endowment just plain weird, I am simply puzzled at the amount of money and effort LDS Inc is putting into temples these days. I guess they think it is working for them. It all seems so 19th century, like an offshoot of the Fraternal Order of the Elk, or the Masonic Order, which I guess it really is an offshoot of. It just seems so totally WTF in the 21st century.

I keep waiting for some Mormon to point out that the temple emperor has no clothes. I know, in reality it has clothes, and they are hideous.

When did the women get to stop veiling their faces? This was the worst part of the whole she-bang for me. I almost fainted in the prayer circle once because of the heat from that stupid veil. I'd like to know what "revelation" or justification was made for making this go away!

IIRC, the church surveyed members about their temple experiences, and made adjustments accordingly. That's when the throat slashing, naked groping, etc. went away.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/01/29/heels-temple-changes/

There have been changes made. Remember a woman even said a prayer at a general conference?

https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=56116507&itype=CMSID

Last general conference they spoke about suicide. I was not expecting a topic like suicide at general conference. The lds church got rid of the Scouting program. Young men have a different program now that they are doing. So there have been quite a few changes over the years to Mormonism.

Sounds like unsubstantiated wishful gossip.

In other words, business as usual.

Oh, I don't know. If you have two people who don't know each other, who are saying pretty much the same thing, you can normally take that to the bank. I could see a lot of discussion and debate happening at the GA level.

The people who are in a great position to learn things usually go unnoticed by higher ups -- receptionists, administrative assistants, caterers, etc.

Not that reliable. In my time the sky is falling crowd ebbs and flows but is always around. I wishfully hope for the end of corporate Mormonism. I know some vein of it will exist long after I've gone to the Telestial Kingdom.

I can dream, can't I? The thought of the church collapsing gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Nothing new. The Quorum of the Twelve have always had their differences. They had big debates over how much money the church should spend on BYU and other things. Boyd K Packer even said some of the disagreements could become quite heated.

The reality is the church is really ran by the first presidency. They handle the money. The Quorum of the Twelve are employees and it’s basically a grooming operation to be in the first presidency.

The church is about survival. It’s claim to fame is it has survived and it has amassed enough money to throw money at it’s problems or even misuse it to a certain degree. Yeah the church is going to deal with some fads and issues now it hasn’t in the past but these issues seem to be dividing society as a whole.

The church will still be around a long time. It’s not going to implode any time soon. John Dehlin makes six figures running his Mormon Stories operation. Looks like he has found more juicy stories to sell. I kind of enjoy them but like the church, Mormon Stories is a business.

Don't think that much has changed in the last two years...

https://www.advocate.com/religion/2020/2/19/mormon-church-formalizes-punishments-trans-members

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known informally as the Mormon Church, has never been supportive of transgender identity, but now it has fully spelled out its anti-trans positions in a new handbook, available online.

“Gender is an essential characteristic of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness,” says the General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, released Wednesday. “The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth.”

“Church leaders counsel against elective medical or surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex (‘sex reassignment’),” the handbook continues. “Leaders advise that taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.”

The book also takes a stand against social transition — changes in dress, grooming, names, or pronouns intended to reflect a gender identity different from the one assigned at birth. That will result in restrictions “for the duration of this transition,” the document reads.

Those restrictions could include limits on temple attendance, although trans people are welcome to be baptized or receive communion, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. And the Mormon priesthood, which is reserved for men, will not admit trans men, the book makes clear. It builds on a statement by a top church leader last fall that gender assigned at birth is eternal.

The book replaces two earlier ones and reflects the views of the church’s two highest governing bodies, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The earlier, printed books were available only to faith leaders, while the new one, published online, is accessible to all.

“There are a number of moral policies that we've now put on paper of where the First Presidency and the [Quorum of the] Twelve stand,” Elder Anthony D. Perkins, executive director of the church’s Correlation Department, which oversees the creation of the handbook, said in a press release. “One of those moral policies that is new is around persons who identify as transgender. The reason that policy has been added is we've had an increase in questions coming from bishops and stake presidents saying, ‘What can a transgender person do? What are the guidelines?’ The transgender policy states that everyone is welcome to attend our meetings and that we should create a warm, welcoming environment for all — including persons who identify as transgender. At the same time, the policy clarifies that some of things in the church are gender-specific.”

It may be that the "increase in questions coming from bishops and stake presidents" is driving a discussion among the GAs. The Q15 may take the traditional position, but the GAs are a bit closer to the fray.

But they are good at channeling Q12+FP. That is why they are GAs.

That I was blocked. I don't know why it has been happening. Need to not use 2 different computers?

My aunt, the one who wrote me the e-mail about my daughter's wedding, is extreme mormon. Her whole family is. Her SIL and daughter just arrived home from being a mission president.

She has a son who is gay and he married a woman for the third time recently. He is in his late 50s.

SO now one of her grandsons has come out as transgender. She is taking it better than I thought. She is calling "her" by her chosen name What is interesting is one of her granddaughters by another child has the same female name. And it isn't a regular name. This has been interesting. I'm not sure how my "uncle" is taking it. He's a real ass when it comes to anything.

My 19 year old niece got engaged to a 35 year old woman they have the wedding scheduled for September this year. My mom to TBM did not take the news well.

No doubt a troll problem. Email me and I may be able to help you.

The gay son is playing the game.

Sorry, not sorry.


He’s too afraid of falling into disfavor with people who don’t and won’t like him. That’s regrettable.