Mormons

8: The Mormon Proposition

brittany — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Following the passage of California’s Proposition 8, a bill that constitutionally outlaws gay couples from legally marrying, rage and frustration was concentrated towards the Mormon Church for their supposed role in passing the legislation. Many suspected that church leadership in Salt Lake City had played a large role in financing and coordinating the campaign, yet until 8: The Mormon Proposition, the exact involvement and intention of the Mormon Church in passing the bill has remained ambiguous at best.

8: The Mormon Proposition exposes the deep seeded anti-gay bias within the Mormon Church and provides answers to questions about the church’s actual political involvement, something that has raised suspicion for decades. The film reveals a well-oiled and infinitely wealthy political action force operating largely under anyone’s radar, until now.

What surprised me most about the Mormon involvement with the campaign was discovering that church officials actually required church members in California to attend a special satellite broadcast from Salt Lake City regarding the ballot initiative.

Aware of its negative public image, leaders instructed church members to maintain secrecy about the broadcast. M. Russell Ballard, a top church authority, told followers to consider the broadcast “to be as though we were sitting in my living room having a confidential talk about a serious concern.”

Despite this sentiment, full audio of the broadcast was leaked, and shows leaders commanding members to give as much time and money as possible to help pass the legislation.

8: The Mormon Proposition has many heroes: current and former Mormons who risked social banishment to take a stand against their religion’s involvement with Proposition 8 and the potent anti-gay attitude of the church.

Shining among such heroes is Linda Stay, an active Utah Mormon and mother to Tyler Barrick, a gay California man in a long-term relationship. Stay’s own “coming out,” as she refers to it, was publicly taking a stand against Proposition 8 in order to support her son’s happiness and right to marry.

As an example of parents who uphold the church’s position the film introduces Marilyn and Fred Matis, authors of the book In Quiet Desperation: Understanding The Challenge Of Same-Gender Attraction. The description of the book states it is written for those who have loved ones suffering in “quiet desperation” with “same-gender attraction,” and how to “reach out with love” to such people.

The parents wrote the book shortly after the death of their son Stuart, who had spent his entire life trying to overcome homosexual feelings. Stuart’s “quiet desperation” led him to shoot himself in the head inside a Mormon Church house at age thirty-two.

In their book the parents write: “Each of us had an indescribable sense of peace after Stuart’s death.” When asked about their position on Proposition 8, the couple stated their only position was the position of the church.

The film does an excellent job portraying the many consequences that such widespread bigotry has on a community. Utah leads the nation in teen suicide, and studies show that a large proportion of victims are gay Mormons. Thousands of homeless teens occupy Utah streets, most fleeing intolerance by their families. The film even exposes the former use of frontal lobotomies in Utah to attempt to treat men “charged” with homosexuality

While the documentary paints a bleak picture of shocking faith-based bigotry, it ends with images of passionate masses, refusing to give up on the battle for equality.

Similar passion was exhibited in the civil rights struggles of the last century. Then, too, the Mormon Church lagged behind the rest of the country, not allowing members of color receive full privileges until 1978. The passionate masses will convince all viewers that the fight for gay rights will eventually be won, and that history will record the Mormon Church once again being on the wrong side of this civil rights battle.

Written by: Janice Formichella, August 28th 2010

Sons of Perdition

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Tyler Measom, Jennilyn Merten

Left Turn Films

Exiled boys from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) have been making news and showing up on the pop culture radar for a while. From John Krakauer’s exposé Under the Banner of Heaven and HBO polygamist drama Big Love to the conviction of former FLDS sect leader Warren Jeffs for accomplice rape last year, extremist Mormon sects are becoming increasingly well known outside of the regions they dominate and beyond the realm of religious scholars and the excommunicated.

Sons of Perdition—named for a verse in the New Testament referring to traitor Judas Iscariot, as well as the LDS Church belief that anyone who leaves the church will be unable to receive the glory of God in the afterlife and suffer eternal punishment—follows, with unprecedented access, former FLDS youth from Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona as they navigate the larger world post-expulsion. In many cases, young people are desperate to leave the compounds—colloquially “the Crick”—where they grew up with multiple mothers and dozens of siblings. But knowing what you don’t want doesn’t mean you’ll be prepared for life beyond indoctrination.

The film profiles several religious refugees from the Crick in St. George, Utah, about thirty minutes from the compound, where many exiles live in group houses and tiny apartments as they try to navigate the bizarre world beyond their sheltered, faith-infused lives. In these extraordinary circumstances, it is possible to see just how great a distance thirty miles can be. St. George, where most of the youth set up camp, is where Warren Jeffs’ trial took place. For the exiles and allies living there, while they are often still connected to home, trying to help siblings and mothers escape their abusive lives, it is also a world totally removed from everything they have ever known.

Most of the youth have never attended proper school, only taught math and religion on the compound. At seventeen, Joe has never seen a comic book, can barely read, and so genuinely confused about world history, he mixes up the names of Bill Clinton and Adolph Hitler. Joe’s sister doesn’t know the name or location of the nation’s capitol. Bruce, who is fifteen, is genuinely amazed to discover that Catholics believe in Jesus. All of them believe that by leaving the Crick, they will go to hell when they die.

Young women, a commodity in polygamous sects, seemingly fare a bit better as they’re less likely to be exiled. But, that doesn’t mean their struggles are any less difficult in other ways. Many of the girls have been married off as early as thirteen and have children to bring along—or in the case of Joe’s twenty-four-year-old sister Sabrina, her four children were left behind. Trying to escape with too many young ones in tow simply isn’t feasible. At one point, after trying to help their mother run away several times, Sam calls his own father’s actions—continually impregnating his wives, forcing them to stay with him and their children on the compound—“modern day slavery.”

If the boys have coming-of-age rituals to emphasize their freedom—drinking, drug use, trying to get into public school to meet hot girls—the girls have their own rites of passage; namely, having their long hair cut and styled at the mall and casting off their floor-length skirts in favor of pants. A sympathetic couple that takes in many of the ex-FLDS youth frowns on delinquent behavior, ultimately forcing the young people to find their own way. This is the only part of the film that feels truly cruel on the other side of emancipation; it’s tough enough for Sam, Bruce, Joe, Sabrina, and their friends to cope with turning their backs on all they’ve ever known. To be doubly turned away from their second chance at a family and home life seems strangely intolerant and shameful.

For people unfamiliar with extremist sects and fervent religious believers—anyone, for example, who found Jesus Camp to be shocking rather than a bit obvious—Sons of Perdition will amaze and startle you. Whether or not you’re knowledgeable about the ways the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints enslave women and pit boys against men before casting them out forever, this educational film will break your heart.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 22nd 2010

Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:43:00 +0000

By Nicole Markotić

Arsenal Pulp Press

Previous portrayals of Mormonism in popular media have been widely negative, expressed primitively through cheap jokes about polygamy. Recently, with the emergence of the HBO show Big Love, a positive light has been shown on the teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints movement. We find ourselves rooting for the Mormon family in the show, which fights to keep together despite the banning of polygamy by the Church of Latter Day Saints over 100 years ago. Informative to some extent yet largely based on shock value, I wanted to learn more of the cultural elements of Mormonism than Big Love provides. Nicole Markotić’s new novel, Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot, offers the reader a closer look into the tenets of Mormonism through the fictional narrative of an adolescent girl.

Growing up in Western Canada, the anonymous female narrator navigates the reader through a non-linear story of her time as a member of the Mormon Church. The daughter of European immigrants, she struggles to maintain a relationship with her atheist Croatian mother while also coping with her ailing German father’s sudden conversion to parenting. At such an impressionable age in junior high school, she gravitates towards Mormonism through her best friend Vera. She uses Mormonism as a way to isolate herself from her stifling family and immerse herself in a uniquely North American culture. Starting with her wardrobe and trickling down into her daily diet, she adheres to a rigid following of the religion in order to create stability within her life.

The novel shifts back and forth between adolescence and adulthood, when she ultimately leaves the Mormon Church. As an adult, the narrator begins working with delinquent children, and becomes involved with a “Jack” Mormon named Darius who, like her, was once apart of the church and knows what it is like to leave. Their vapid relationship, due to Darius’s sexual guilt leftover from his involvement with the church, Vera’s return into her life, and the constant scrutiny she receives for once being involved with Mormonism, only furthers her self-discovery while also pushing her closer to her family.

Upon first hearing about Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot I was led to believe that it would be a nonfiction narrative of a young girl’s journey through joining the LDS church. While initially disappointed to learn that the book was fiction, I was quickly drawn into the relationships between characters and the use of Mormonism as a means to figure out ones adolescence. While it may not have been the most forthcoming writing on Mormonism, Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot is definitely an entertaining read for one looking to skim the surface of the controversial religion.

Written by: Cynthia Schemmer, April 30th 2009

Prostitution, Polygamy and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847-1918

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:28:00 +0000

By Jeffrey Nichols

University of Illinois Press

My first publication, in 1987, resulted from a grad school term paper. Jeffrey Nichols’ highly readable monograph resulted from taking a Western History seminar. Thank Goddess for grad school! Big Love fanatics: listen up!

Nichols’ original paper sniffed at the documentary trailhead he explores by way of newspaper stories, photographs, court cases, church records and other forms of documentary evidence from mid-late nineteenth century Utah about prostitution. He tells of the exploits and exploitations of Mormon businessmen, their gentile partners and antagonists, the latter’s outraged wives, the Anglo female brothel owners, and the Anglo, African American, Japanese, and Chinese women who toiled sexually in different labor forms of prostitution. Nichols traces many decades’ worth of “fight over polygamy and the struggle for political, social, and economic power in [Salt Lake City].” He thus deepens considerably our understanding of the social history of sex and gender in the American West and of Mormon-Gentile relations. This text will go over poorly in Utah households and classrooms. (I can imagine a Quorum of the Twelve Apostles being convened in nothing but apoplexy.) Nevertheless, those who pursue the comparative study of sex industries will not be disappointed, although it represents the accounts of judges and politicians more than clients and purveyors of sexual services.

Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power is comprised of five chapters that, combining the usual marks of good scholarship with black-and-white photographs and maps and notes, bring this Frontier West sex industry to life. The title of Chapter 1, “'Celestial Marriage’ vs. ‘Polygamic Lascivious Cohabitation,’” suggests just how far apart were Mormon and gentile viewpoints about polygamy. Those who have read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven will appreciate Nichols’ marshaling of documentary evidence not presented there.

Nichols lays out the structure and function and racial politics of Salt Lake City’s sex industry, examining in close detail not just the political-economy of prostitution during this time, but the madams, brothels, cribs, piano players, landlords, and politicians. He shows that the growing secularization of Salt Lake City was shaped less by Mormon theology than by the question of prostitution. Prostitution was “good” for business, both Mormon and gentile, which is to say, the judges, courts, landlords and policemen who profited so handsomely from it. Eventually, even the federal government joined forces with proto-feminist organizations to clamp down upon prostitution.

The absence of perspective on female sexuality is glaring. I wanted to learn about the sexual desire (or lack thereof) of monogamous housewives versus that of those sharing a husband with co-wives and “sister-wives.” Trading the search for meaning, feeling, and relational outcome for emphasis upon frequency, price and location doesn’t advance our understanding of what should also be an intimate social history. Nevertheless, Nichols has woven together archival and documentary evidence to write a compelling account of a little known period of American history. Neither capitalism, the Frontier West, the Latter Day Saints Church, nor prostitution itself, of course, are gender neutral, and on this contradiction is balanced a fascinating story.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., February 18th 2009

When Push Came to Shove: Mormon Martyrs in an Unrelenting Bible Belt 1821-1923

admin — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 23:21:00 +0000

By William Whitridge Hatch

Inkwater Press

William Whitridge Hatch originally started writing on Mormon relations in the South as a graduate student, and his work has become a life-long quest. In When Push Came to Shove, he studies the uneasy relationship and culture clash that Mormon missionaries working in the Southern states had with the local Southern “Gentiles” (the word used for any non-Mormons, including Jews).

Briefly, the book tells us that Mormons (particularly their pastors/leaders) were persecuted in the South after the Civil War. The author links this persecution to the “Mountain Meadows Massacre” – an attack by Native Americans led by Mormons on a wagon train from Arkansas headed to California where all men, women and children that could speak were killed. Part of the “Mountain Meadows Massacre” incident that was highlighted as particularly horrific was the killing of the women and children. It was the men who were at the front carrying the weapons and organizing the attack/defense, so the women and children were most likely unarmed.

The Church of Latter-Days Saints does not substantiate the claim that Mormons - including, most notably, Brigham Young - were involved is in the massacre. The author finds this denial suspect and points out other cases of violence. The largest incident involving a woman has to do with Parley P. Pratt. Pratt was a charismatic Mormon leader. A woman fell in love with him, left her husband and followed Pratt to the South. Her husband tracked her down and murdered her.

The book is thoroughly researched, and the author does a decent job in being unbiased since he places the massacre in a historical context where Mormons and “Gentiles” were by turn the persecutor and persecuted. While informative, the book is not particularly entertaining. It’s a bit of a dry read, and it was the first-person accounts that are occasionally used that were the most enjoyable. Women are given a backseat in most of the events that took place, as they likely were from 1821 to 1923. I would recommend it to scholars or historians, but few others.

Written by: Kristin Conard, September 6th 2007