“It's Not About The Sex” My Ass
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New reviews from readers

12/29/2013

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New, positive reader reviews

Thank you, readers, for taking the time to post reviews on Amazon. Here are the three latest:

★★★★★ “Great fun read”—Myra

December 29, 2013
“Only the tip of the iceberg in introducing the problem of cults but a very approachable entertaining read. Highly recommended.”

★★★★★ “Loved this book!”—Tresninasmom
December 27, 2013
“Very well-written. If she lived nearby I would love to have her as a friend! I highly recommend this book.”

★★★★☆ “Very funny and engaging tale of enlightenment”—Artemisia
December 11, 2013
“A very funny and delightful read. You don't often get such a darkly sarcastic voice from a female author, which I really loved. It is also overtly atheistic, which is another thing that most other authors will try to avoid. Well worth the purchase.”
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Merry Christmas to our LGBTQ friends

12/22/2013

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U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby
strikes down Utah's (un)constitutional
same-sex marriage ban
(Be sure to check out the cartoon below)

The LGBTQ community in Utah received an early Christmas present on Friday, December 20, when U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby struck down the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. At 3 p.m., Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill called the ruling unambiguous and directed the county clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples immediately. A crush of applicants had already begun to form. For the rest of the day, courthouses were busy marrying same-sex couples.

Cheers went up statewide among the LGBTQ community and its supporters.
Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker worked late to perform as many marriages as possible.

Needless to say, not everyone in Utah was filled with glee.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert issued this statement: “I am very disappointed an activist federal judge is attempting to override the will of the people of Utah. I am working with my legal counsel and the acting Attorney General to determine the best course to defend traditional marriage within the borders of Utah.”

And the
Mormon Church issued this one: “We continue to believe that voters in Utah did the right thing by providing clear direction in the state constitution that marriage should be between a man and a woman and we are hopeful that this view will be validated by a higher court.”
In response to both, we urge you to click here or on the thumbnail image at right to see Pat Bagley’s new cartoon in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Moreover, we cannot help but wonder: aren’t Mormon officials and Governor Herbert violating Utah’s anti-sodomy laws by walking around with a stick up their butt?
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Click image to view
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Mormon history in the remaking

12/17/2013

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The LDS (Mormon) Church officially
ended polygamy in 1890.

Which just officially changed.


After years of claiming to have ended official polygamy with its 1890 “Manifesto,” the Mormon Church has admitted that, well, okay, no it didn’t. In a new, carefully worded statement issued last week, the new claim is that the Manifesto didn’t end but “led to” official polygamy’s end:
“In 1890, the Lord inspired Church President Wilford Woodruff to issue a statement that led to the end of the practice of plural marriage in the Church. In this statement, known as the Manifesto, President Woodruff declared his intention to abide by U.S. law forbidding plural marriage and to use his influence to convince members of the Church to do likewise.”
—Official LDS web page, Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah
Actually, Woodruff’s 1890 statement opened with a strongly-worded denial that polygamy had of late continued or would continue at all:
“We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.”
—LDS Church Official Declaration 1
Continuing with the church’s new 2013 statement:
“After the Manifesto, monogamy was advocated in the Church both over the pulpit and through the press. On an exceptional basis, some new plural marriages were performed between 1890 and 1904, especially in Mexico and Canada, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law; a small number of plural marriages were performed within the United States during those years.”
—Official LDS web page, Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah
Because everyone agrees that in “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased,” you can wink at polygamy when only a few people are doing it. Especially if it’s on an exceptional basis.

Told you told you told you
that the church didn’t quit polygamy in 1820. As a matter of fact, we told you in Chapter 2 of “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass, as highlighted in red in this excerpt:
The United States outlawed polygamy in 1862. Three years later, a few Mormon families would flee to Juarez, Mexico, where they could practice polygamy prosecution-free and remain in full fellowship with the mainstream Mormon Church. The polygamous emigrants’ leaders included Helaman Pratt, who surely never dreamed that half a century later his descendants would return to the United States, where eventually grandson George W. Romney and great-grandson Mitt Romney would become prominent politicians and Republican presidential candidates.

But the vast majority of Mormons remained in Utah Territory, where the Mormon Church ceased practicing polygamy in 1890—officially, anyway. In reality, the church looked the other way while phasing out polygamy over the next several decades. Ever since, rogue groups have been breaking away and reinstating it.

In 1993, my husband and I joined one of them ...
—“It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon, Ex-Polygamist, Ex-Wife, Chapter 2.
•     •     •
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Court allows the many, merry wives of Kody Brown

12/14/2013

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U.S. District Court judge rules Utah’s
anti-polgyamy law unconstitutional

Yesterday U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups issued a 91-page ruling in which he found key parts of Utah’s polygamy ban unconstitutional. Polygamist Kody Brown and wives of Sister Wives fame had brought the case before the court.

Specifically, Waddoups
ruled that the state cannot ban cohabitation, which includes “religious cohabitation.”

Waddoups also distinguished between marrying and purporting to marry, thus steering clear of opining as to whether or not a state must issue multiple marriage licenses.

Readers of this blog and of our book “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass are well aware of Utah’s historical, back-and-forth love-hate relationship with polygamy. Surely more back-and-forth is to come, so stay tuned. Click here and here and here to read The Salt Lake Tribune’s reports on the ruling.
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Kody Brown and wives aka “religious cohabitators”
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U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups
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Blaming Brigham: Nice try.

12/10/2013

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Mormon Church blames racist
policy on Brigham Young

PictureAll his fault? Hardly.
Until 1978, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) barred anyone of the “Negro Race” from its priesthood. Besides not being allowed to perform priesthood ordinances, this meant that blacks could not marry in a Mormon temple, a requirement for Eternal Life. In 1978, the church’s presiding body announced that God “... by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple.”

Last Friday, the Mormon Church added a page to its official website disclaiming the ban as having been doctrinal. Rather, the church argues, it was a practice started around 1850 by then-Mormon prophet Brigham Young, who acted not by revelation but as a product of the racist era in which he lived.

It is curious that God would let a harmful, heinous, discriminatory error persist for over 130 years rather than correct it immediately. It is curious that revoking a non-revelation required a revelation at all, let alone a “long-promised” one. It is curious that God would permit a mistake of this magnitude to take hold in the first place. Moreover, if God had nothing against blacks, what the hell took him so long to fix it? Why did he make the world await a “long promised day”?

Some celebrate the this new concession as the church “coming clean.” It is interesting that a church claiming to have and teach The Truth, and to be guided by divine revelation, would need to “come clean” in the first place. Meanwhile, statements that dark skin is a curse remain in Mormon scriptures such as the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price (see verse 22).

For a policy that enabled and promoted discrimination against innocent people for over 130 years, and that led church leaders to make myriad racially incendiary statements during that time (which the new web page conveniently omits), human decency cries out for an official, heartfelt, groveling, sackcloth-and-ashes apology.

•     •     •
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Featured by BookBusiness

12/3/2013

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BookBusiness features
“It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon 

Ex-Polygamist Ex-Wife

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Today respected publishing industry blog and enewsletter BookBusiness is featuring the story of writing and marketing “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon Ex-Polygamist Ex-Wife. This is something of an honor. Since you, dear readers, are a big part of the story, we wanted you to be among the first to know. Click here to read the story.

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