New YW Class Names and the Patriarchal Grip

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Feminism, Mormon Feminism, YouthLeave a comment

NO ONE ASKS THE GIRLS. Therein lies the problem.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced earlier this week that it will return to having class names for the female youth groups. The previous names–Beehives for ages 11-13; MIA Maids for 14-15; Laurels for 16-17–had become antiquated (plus teen girls seemed to universally hate them) and so they were retired in 2019. Still, the tradition of having class names was missed. The powers that be at Church HQ have restored the tradition but with the alternate names Builders of Faith (11-13 year olds), Messengers of Hope (14-15 year olds), and Gatherers of Light (16-17 year olds). Colliquial usage will surely shorten the class names to Builders, Messengers, and Gatherers. Sigh. Nothing antiquated here…

And there’s nothing that says, “We didn’t poll the teenager girls for preferences” quite like the names Builders, Messengers, and Gatherers.

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The Negative LGBTQ Message Hidden within Pres. Oaks’ First GC Address

On By lisatorcassodowningIn General Conference, homosexuality, Inclusion, LGBTQIA2 Comments

THE NEWLY SUSTAINED PRESIDENT of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Dallin H. Oaks, offered us an address this General Conference weekend that has received a great deal of praise, including  by those LDS on the political left. They breathed a sigh of relief because they perceived him as encouraging care for the immigrants rather than the projection of bigoted assumptions upon them, peace over war, and the end of the harsh rhetoric that divides people. The last seems to feel very personal to them as the current US president consistently slams the left as “evil” and “lunatics,” something Mormon MAGA and Trump-leaning LDS too often repeat. This, of course, travels the other way as well.

Yet, no one feels a sense of relief unless they have first felt stress. The placement of President Oaks in the position of prophet has created that stress. He’s a man known for his anti-LGBTQ attitudes, and those attitudes, as kindly spoken as they are, have resulted in political campaigns and legal wrangling that has harmed the LGBTQ community, both inside and outside the LDS church. Yet, in his first address, he seemingly avoided talk of religious freedom, which, for him is, at least in part, code for the pursuit of legal guarantees his church can continue to marginalize the LGBTQ community. But did he? A close reading of the speech affirms that the mantle of prophet will not broaden his ability to accept the full personhood of LGBTQ people. He can’t let it go.

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Whack-a-Doodle Timelines, the Death of a Prophet, and a Massacre or Two

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Abuse, Outreach, Politics, RaceLeave a comment

DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL STUCK on a timeline that is too confounding for words? Everything around me feels shoved into reverse as it stutters forward. Can a crab walk in two directions at the same time? Because it seems like anything can happen, especially if it makes no sense. And what does it signify when the people you’ve always known best are people you feel you don’t know at all? Is it only me? I doubt it. And that feels like the point. I need to slow down, start somewhere, so, because I’m the center of my own universe, let me start with Sunday morning, Sept. 28, 2025. I know what happened then. Not really. Oh, and it might be important to know (if you didn’t already) that I’m a Latter-day Saint. A Mormon. (Can I say that again?) Or it might not matter at all.

So here it is. On Sunday morning, a 40 year old man – a veteran who decorates his pick up truck with US flags and his home with a Trump sign – plowed into a Stake Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then rained terror in the form of gunfire and improvised explosive devises on a congregation that included scores of children. He killed four people and wounded eight. To his mind, each victim, whether killed, wounded or traumatized, is or was, an “antiChrist” (his word), a Mormon, someone like me. The word he used – “antiChrist” – is decidedly Christian, but the actions he committed are not. 

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Let’s Say the Other Hidden Thing Out Loud: A Reaction to Pres. Oaks’ “Heavenly Mother/s”

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Uncategorized2 Comments

IF YOU’RE A PART of the Mormon feminist community, there’s a high probability you’ve seen the recent footage of President Dallin Oaks admitting in an unscripted moment at a podium in Belgium that “[W]e know we have a heavenly mother or mothers.” (Watch it here.) His statement has piqued irritation among women who’ve long complained that the highest authorities of the church have been endorsing lesson materials that March young LDS women toward temple marriage without disclosing that, according to D&C 132, the temple’s “new and everlasting covenant” includes a commitment to live eternal polygamy. Mormon feminists viewed this clip of Pres. Oaks and, in something akin to unison, cried out, “He said the hidden part out loud! We told you the Church still says that heaven is polygamous!” However, as validating as the mother/mothers line is, I think it’s more important for Mormon feminists to concentrate on his next [audible] sentence because it, too, is hiding a truth that should be said out loud.

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What I Wish Neil A. Andersen Had Said to Women about Abortion

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Mormon Feminism, revelation2 Comments

This “talk” is a fantasy. I wrote it as a response (albeit imperfect) to Elder Anderson’s “Cherishing Life,” as delivered during his April 2025 General Conference address. I publish it as a means to opening conversation and do not claim all women will see things as I do, nor that I have written all that must be written. With that said, please imagine Elder Andersen standing at the podium and saying:

TO THE SISTERS OF THE CHURCH of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the one thing that the Brethren most want you (and your husbands) to understand today is how much we value you, the daughters of God, and how much we value your life. Each of us sitting in these plush chairs is thinking of you, whether you be in this great hall or in distant places. We appreciate all you have done, are doing, and may still do to bear the children of each new generation and to raise children to love the Lord. We acknowledge that many of you have suffered because those of us who stand here, pronouncing church doctrine from this historic pulpit, have repeatedly emphasized the idea that a woman’s value and her worth comes through child bearing and child rearing. We’ve done this even though we understand that many of our faithful sisters are unable to conceive and do not have the opportunity, including through adoption, to raise children during mortality. Our hearts are with you. We never should have equated a woman’s worth with her ability to conceive, bear children, and/or raise children.

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Fallible Men, Empathy, and the Podcasters’ Resignation

On By lisatorcassodowningIn ecclesiastical abuse, faith transition, faith crisis3 Comments

UNDER THREAT of excommunication, the high profile wife/husband team behind the Latter-day Struggles podcast, which caters to the mental health needs of LDS Church members, is resigning their membership in order to prevent their being “burned at the stake center.”  Valerie Hamaker (a licensed therapist) and her husband Nathan have received an official letter calling them to a proverbial “court of love.” We all know what that means. 

I’ve listened to the Latter-day Struggles podcast since its inception. Let’s be clear about who the Hamakers are. They are active members who are raising their children in the LDS Church and who have been wrestling with local leaders for 18 months, hoping to remain on the membership rolls. Therapist Valerie and Nathan, her sidekick, use the podcast to address “beliefs and issues within the LDS faith that are challenging to talk about but vital to discuss for those trying to navigate their relationship in or around the Church.” Unfortunately, however, the couple have lost in the game of leadership roulette. Listen to their episode 313 for the details, but the gist is that their local leaders are uninformed about spiritual development, misunderstand it, and would excommunicate the healer (and her husband) rather than learn from her, which leaves me wondering what they envision the mission of the Savior to have been.

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On Developing a Grassroots American Resistance

On By lisatorcassodowningIn PoliticsLeave a comment

WHEN I BEGAN this blog, I felt the need to build bridges. In one of my earliest posts, I spoke as a conservative about the need to rethink the common misconception that political progressives were evil. And here we are again. But at this moment in US political history, I don’t feel that old drive to build bridges between people with contrary perspectives, and, while I’ve shied away from politics on the blog, I’m less inclined to do that right now, even though this specific post won’t delve into policy conflicts. Lately my personal FB account is a long string of public political posts that center on my objections to the Trump administration’s efforts to enact Project 2025. To be clear, I formally left the Republican Party in 2016 to become an Independent. Why? Because I’d paid attention to Trump’s behavior the previous 40ish years and because I agree with the First Presidency’s advice to elect ethical (or principled) leaders. That year, the Republican party elevated a moral reprobate. 

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Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Three)

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Guest Post2 Comments

Note: This is a three-part series that explores the unique ramifications polygamy culture has upon queer Latter-day Saints written exclusively by Nathan Kitchen for Life Outside the Book of Mormon Belt. To learn more about the experiences in the queer/Latter-day Saint intersection, be sure to pick up his memoir: The Boughs of Love–Navigating the Queer Latter-day Sain Experience During an Ongoing Restoration, published by BCC Press.

GUEST POST: In the clash of the queer marriages, the ghost of polygamy significantly harms LGBTQ Latter-day Saints because the Church practices both post-manifesto and pre-manifesto polygamy strategies on its LGBTQ population.

The Post-Manifesto Template

At the D. Michael Quinn Symposium at the University of Utah in 2022, Dr. Neil Young argued that the rising visibility of sexual and gender minorities in the 1950s and 60s caused religious groups, including Latter-day Saints, “to articulate and develop a theology that for most of them wasn’t there or certainly wasn’t developed.”[1] The Church’s own development leaned heavily on the prevailing prejudice and discrimination of the day—readily found in government, the medical profession, and society—to underpin its anti-queer theology. The need to consider the theology of another form of queer marriage besides polygamy wasn’t on the Church’s radar until the early 1990s when, in 1993, the Supreme Court of Hawaii cracked open the door to its possibility, ruling that denying a marriage license to same-sex couples was discrimination. Over the next decade, with the Family Proclamation in hand touting one-man/one-woman marriage, the Church chased the marriage equality fight from state to state.

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Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Two)

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Guest Post, Uncategorized3 Comments

Note: This is a three-part blog series that explores the unique ramifications polygamy culture has upon queer Latter-day Saints written by Nathan Kitchen exclusively for Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt. To learn more about the experiences in the queer/Latter-day Saint intersection, be sure to pick up his memoir: The Boughs of Love—Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration published by BCC Press.

GUEST POST: The 19th-century, patriarchal form of Mormon polygamy has died an Earthly death. Consequentially, its implementation in heaven was frozen in the same configuration. No one in power today seems to have the appetite to flesh out, let alone update, the theology of how polygamy is practiced in the heavens for several reasons. First, because the social and sexual ethics of 19th century polygamy are so incredibly upsetting to most 21st-century Latter-day Saint women (and men) who find its practice foreign and utterly stomach-churning.

Continue reading “Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Two)” →

Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part One)

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Guest Post2 Comments

Note: This is a three-part blog series that explores the unique ramifications polygamy culture has upon queer Latter-day Saints written exclusively by Nathan Kitchen for Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt. To learn more about the experiences in the queer/Latter-day Saint intersection, be sure to pick up his memoir: The Boughs of Love—Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration published by BCC Press.

GUEST POST: In the fall of 2022, I ran into Carol Lynn Pearson in the Salt Palace. She recognized me and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. We were both late for speaking engagements. “Walk with me so we can visit for a moment,” she invited. Carol Lynn is a fierce advocate for LGBTQ Mormons, knowing many of us by name—even those who have long passed from this life. I shared that I was intrigued by her book, The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts and Heaven of Mormon Women and Men. “You know, Mormon polygamy haunts LGBTQ Mormons as well,” I observed. With an inquisitive smile, she replied, “I would like to know why you would conclude such a thing!” Unfortunately, our paths diverged before I could adequately finish the elevator pitch of my thesis.

Polygamy is always uncomfortably simmering just below the surface of Latter-day Saint consciousness. Occasionally, an event happens that causes it to boil over, causing this “specter in the shadows” to become visible. Polygamy’s latest jump scare appeared in a children’s storybook produced by the Church, explaining, on an elementary level, its existence for decades, God’s approval of the practice, and the reasons why the faith continued to participate in it even though it was against the law. It is important to note that no discussion on polygamy is complete without acknowledging the intriguing premise that Mormon polygamy also haunts LGBTQ Mormons. It is time for me to finish my conversation with Carol Lynn.

Continue reading “Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part One)” →