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La durée de 01:48:07 secondes et le titre LDS Apostle Targets LGBT Temple Goers? sont à prendre en compte, ainsi que les informations de l’auteur et la description qui suit :« Tonight on Mormon Newscast: LDS Temple Training Raises Eyebrows Over Possible LGBTQ Targeting
In our lead story, we dive into concerning reports about recent temple worker training in the LDS Church—allegedly singling out LGBTQ members in ways that raise serious questions about inclusion and policy enforcement. What exactly is being taught behind closed temple doors?
We also cover:
🔹 Recent Court Ruling against Washington Law revoking Priest Penitent Privilege
🔹 Breaking barriers: Stassi D. Cramm is ordained as the first female prophet-president of the Community of Christ, marking a historic shift in Mormonism’s broader restoration movement.
🔹 Tragedy in Maputsoe: We remember the young women and leaders lost in a devastating bus accident.
🔹 Plus: Temple updates from around the globe, including the latest on the controversial Fairview, Texas temple plans.
👉 Join us live for real talk, smart analysis, and unfiltered takes you won’t hear in Sunday School.
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#MormonNews #LDSChurch #CommunityOfChrist #LGBTQLDS #IRS #TempleTraining #Mormonism #FairviewTemple #MaputsoeTragedy #ProphetPresident #MormonNewscast ».
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FAQ sur la Chasteté : Réponses aux Questions Fréquemment Posées.
La chasteté est-elle limitée aux personnes consacrées ? Non, la chasteté n’est pas réservée aux seuls religieux, elle peut être pratiquée par des individus de tous horizons. Quelle est la différence entre la chasteté et l’abstinence ? L’abstinence est une pratique axée sur l’évitement des relations sexuelles. La chasteté se distingue par l’usage potentiel d’un accessoire de chasteté, comme une ceinture ou une cage, et par une approche similaire à celle d’un entraînement. Comment la chasteté est-elle pratiquée dans les couples mariés ? Dans le mariage, la chasteté implique souvent une collaboration et une communication entre les époux sur la pratique et les objectifs. Pourquoi l’Église insiste-t-elle autant sur la chasteté ? L’Église valorise la chasteté car elle la voit comme une vertu fondamentale pour suivre les principes de la foi chrétienne. Comment la chasteté peut-elle contribuer à l’épanouissement personnel ? En pratiquant la chasteté, on développe une meilleure maîtrise de soi, une clarté mentale et une paix intérieure, ce qui favorise l’épanouissement personnel.
Étudier les bases historiques et culturelles de la chasteté.
La chasteté est enracinée dans de nombreuses traditions religieuses et culturelles. Dans le christianisme, le vœu de continence des religieux est souvent associé à la chasteté. En islam et dans les Églises catholique et orthodoxe, la chasteté est élevée comme une vertu cruciale pour les religieux et les laïcs, notamment avant le mariage. Dans l’Antiquité, la chasteté était un moyen reconnu pour garantir l’intégrité personnelle et la pureté morale. Par conséquent, la chasteté traverse les époques et les cultures, demeurant une vertu reconnue et respectée.
Saisir le concept de chasteté dans le cadre contemporain. Étudier la chasteté en tenant compte des perspectives modernes.
La véritable chasteté est la gestion de ses désirs sexuels avec autodiscipline. Au-delà de l’abstinence, la chasteté implique un contrôle volontaire des désirs sexuels dans un cadre spirituel. La chasteté moderne ne se contente pas de supprimer les désirs; elle les dirige vers des objectifs plus élevés, tels que le respect de soi et des autres. Pour l’homme contemporain, la chasteté est une question de choisir de vivre sa sexualité selon ses propres termes plutôt que de renoncer au plaisir.
L’impact de la chasteté sur le bien-être personnel et moral est marqué. Une analyse de l’impact de la chasteté sur le bien-être personnel et moral est importante.
La conscience dans la pratique de la chasteté a un effet majeur sur le bien-être personnel. La pratique de la chasteté encourage une maîtrise de soi plus fine, une clarté mentale plus vive, et une paix intérieure fondée sur le respect des valeurs personnelles. Cultiver la chasteté permet à l’homme d’avoir une relation plus harmonieuse avec son corps et ses désirs. La liberté accrue offerte par la chasteté vient de la libération des pulsions et des pressions sociales concernant la sexualité. La chasteté offre un sens accru de pureté morale, qui renforce la dignité et l’estime de soi. Les bienfaits psychologiques liés à la chasteté sont particulièrement évidents. Les individus qui pratiquent la chasteté peuvent développer une confiance en eux plus solide et une meilleure capacité à affronter les difficultés.
Évaluer comment la chasteté modifie les relations interpersonnelles et familiales.
Les relations avec autrui peuvent également s’améliorer grâce à la chasteté. En portant une cage de chasteté, un homme revitalise ses compétences de séduction et modifie son attitude envers ses partenaires. La réduction de la fréquence d’utilisation rend les capacités physiques et sexuelles plus puissantes pendant l’acte. On peut suivre la chasteté en restant discret et en ne révélant pas ce choix à ses partenaires. Dans un cadre marital, la chasteté peut renforcer les liens entre les époux en favorisant un amour plus authentique, éloigné du plaisir charnel.
La quête spirituelle est souvent associée à la pratique de la chasteté.
La spiritualité et la chasteté sont souvent intimement connectées. Pour le christianisme et d’autres croyances, la chasteté est une voie vers la pureté. En régulant ses désirs sexuels, on augmente l’énergie disponible pour le bien-être intérieur. Ainsi, la chasteté est interprétée comme une offrande de soi et un acte de vénération de Dieu. Au lieu d’être une privation, la chasteté est considérée comme une voie d’élévation de l’âme. Les différentes traditions religieuses offrent des points de vue variés sur la chasteté. Dans le christianisme catholique, la chasteté est considérée comme une vertu clé pour les prêtres. Dans l’islam, des règles sévères encadrent la sexualité pour promouvoir la chasteté. La chasteté est pratiquée par les ascètes dans l’hindouisme et le bouddhisme en quête d’illumination. Ainsi, la chasteté dépasse les frontières religieuses, unissant les croyants dans une quête commune.
La chasteté : Une valeur à redécouvrir dans le contexte moderne.
La chasteté est souvent regardée comme une vertu taboue dans le contexte moderne. Pour les personnes qui intègrent la chasteté dans leur vie, elle offre une route vers une paix intérieure plus grande, des relations améliorées et une connexion spirituelle plus profonde. Il y a longtemps, la chasteté était plus fréquemment reconnue et discutée.Cette page de chastete.frtraite en profondeur du sujet de la chasteté . Cet article présente la chasteté sous différents angles et fournit aux hommes les clés pour l’intégrer dans leur vie quotidienne.
Appliquer la chasteté au jour le jour.
Pour intégrer la chasteté, les hommes peuvent adopter différentes stratégies. Comprendre ses valeurs et motivations passe par une introspection initiale. Éviter les situations susceptibles de provoquer des désirs incontrôlés, comme les médias sexuels, peut aider. Avoir un mentor ou intégrer un groupe de soutien avec des convictions similaires aide à rester sur la voie. La pratique de la chasteté peut s’avérer compliquée dans une société où la sexualité est prédominante. La pression sociale et les tentations continues font partie des défis. Pour réussir à surmonter ces défis, une discipline personnelle stricte est nécessaire. Si des difficultés surviennent, il faut persévérer et redémarrer avec une volonté nouvelle. Atteindre la chasteté n’est pas une question de perfection mais de cheminement avec patience et persévérance. Pour conclure, la chasteté peut enrichir la vie d’une personne en offrant une plus grande liberté, une maîtrise de soi accrue et un profond épanouissement spirituel. En dépit de son apparence contraignante dans un monde où la sexualité est souvent valorisée plus que la spiritualité, la chasteté offre un chemin vers une vie plus authentique, en harmonie avec ses principes et sa foi.
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#LDS #Apostle #Targets #LGBT #Temple #Goers
Retranscription des paroles de la vidéo: Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Mormon. I almost couldn’t even say it. The Mormon Newscast. I’m Rebecca Biblioteca. I am joined by my colleagues, Bill Reel and Radio Free Mormon. It is Monday, July twenty first of twenty twenty five. We’re going to begin with Bill giving us a little tribute to somebody that we’ve lost from our community. All right, so, folks, Steve Benson, and this is a person that everyone should know. I imagine there’s a lot of younger post-Mormons or deep-thinking Latter-day Saints who aren’t aware of who Steve Benson is. But Steve Benson passed away this week. He was a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist. He passed away at the age of seventy-one. It was noted here in the New York Times. By the way, he made the New York Times, which speaks volumes about the influence that he had on the world. With national reach, he won the prize in nineteen ninety-three. and was a finalist for it four other times while at the Arizona Republic. Some of his work rankled his own Mormon community. I’ll just note here, we’re sad to announce the passing of Steve Benson on July eighth, twenty twenty five. Steve was a gifted editorial cartoonist who sharp wit earned him the Pulitzer Prize in nineteen ninety three in a place in the national spotlight. Born into a prominent LDS family, grandson of church president Ezra Tapp Benson. He was raised in the framework of faith and a conservative in a conservative uh values home but increasingly charted his own path beginning at the arizona republic in he rose to prominence challenging the powerful and stirring readers with bold imagery from lampooning arizona governor evan meacham to provoking national discourse on issues like capital punishment in a journey marked by both conviction and rupture benson publicly left the lds church in following his outspoken criticism of how his grandfather’s health was portrayed by church leaders. It was his grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, who was propped up at times in front of the camera in order to sort of be the face of Mormonism as its prophet and for the church to maintain the image that its prophet was in great shape. Meanwhile, Steve, as Ezra Taft Benson’s grandson, very well knew that he was in the late stages of dementia and really wasn’t functioning in any way as a leader of the church. Steve embraced atheism, becoming a free-thinking human being and continued using satire to hold institutions and himself accountable. Benson may be best known within Mormon circles for his nineteen ninety three confidential meeting with Apostles Dallin H. Oaks and Neal A. Maxwell at church headquarters. Benson pressed them about the role of Boyd K. Packer in the controversial excommunication of our friend Paul Toscano. What followed revealed a rare moment of candor from Elder Oaks. who reportedly sighed and stated you can’t stage manage a grizzly bear in reference to Boyd K. Packers getting involved behind the scenes in spite of the church denying that such was occurring. Benson will be remembered for drawing back the curtain on the human dynamics shaping ecclesiastical decisions, reminding Latter-day Saints that even the strongest leaders are not immune to the influence or metaphorical clawing. So we’ll miss Steve Benson. I’ll just note here a couple of quick things and I’ll get comments from you guys. There’s a picture of Steve on the left. Here’s one of his artistic editorial cartoons. There’s another picture of him on the left and another one of his editorial cartoons. Don’t you dare crucify me with Jesus. Steve looks to be sitting there as one of those rogue artists in this image. He actually is a rogue artist. The church only wishes they could have had him under their control. Yeah. So will Misty Benson, he certainly had a lot of influence on our ability to gauge how far the church will go to prop up its leaders in a way that has them looking like they’re functioning when they’re really not, which leaves us all wondering when they are and when they’re not, huh? I just remember that he was the first person that I’d ever come across that actually said something, you know, that things aren’t as they appear. As you said, pulled back the curtain. And I remember reading that when he said, my grandpa doesn’t send his love to all of you. My grandpa doesn’t even know his own name right now. And I remember thinking, you can do that. You can, you can say things, you can speak some truth, even if it isn’t, you know, the image that they’re trying to portray. So it had an impact on me as the first person that I saw that said, wait a minute, things are not as they seem. So I’m sorry. I thought you were at a period. I apologize. Close. Period. I’m done. Okay. So I want to say, I agree with you. I know exactly what you’re talking about. And this is, speaks about what Mormonism is like as much as any other thing. And this is a common event, I think, that post-Mormons and a lot of still Mormons have experienced, which is you come to a point where you realize, wait a second, you can actually say what you’re really thinking about the church because you see someone else do it, right? And you go, oh my gosh. Of course, usually they get excommunicated and then you realize it. That’s what happens when you do that, but not if you’re the prophet’s grandson. And that was the other thing that was so wonderful about what he did. It took courage, it took spunk. I really appreciate that he did this because he also had the gravitas of being the grandson of the prophet of the church. And he, I think, was able to do this, whereas me from off the street, I doubt that it would have ever happened. So, I mean, he gets a one-on-one, I mean, a one-on-two meeting with two apostles, Elder Oaks and Elder Maxwell, and Elder Maxwell doesn’t really figure in this so much, but then they’re talking about the rule that the church has set itself, that the leaders at the top will not, do not, never do, honest to God, we never, ever get involved in the local disciplinary decisions in the wards and stakes. except that Elder Packer did get in contact, either got in contact with the state president, or I think the state president reached out to him to try and be accurate. And Elder Packer took the call, let’s say. And there was some discussion about it. So that was a violation of the rules. Elder Oaks knew that. That’s what he meant when he said it’s hard to stage manage a grizzly bear. The only thing I wanted to correct on that synopsis at the end of their bill, it’s not really a correction. It’s just to make it clear that it wasn’t just the church who denied it. It was Elder Oaks. Shortly after that, this is all September of nineteen ninety three, Elder Oaks was asked by, I think the Arizona Republic, whether whether this had happened, whether Elder Packer had gotten in touch with the state president and Elder Oaks feigns a loss of memory. I have no information on that. I have no reason to think that’s the case. And that’s when Steve Benson stood forward and said, wait a second, maybe you forgot this conversation you had with me within this past month or two, but I haven’t. And then I think that Elder Oaks was left to, say about Steve Benson that he didn’t really value his commitments to secrecy and confidentiality. See, when secrecy is something you want, it’s confidentiality. So I’m sure he said he doesn’t appreciate a confidence, but basically he had to eat crow on that. And this is one where he was really, really caught off first base. No question about it. And that’s all because of Steve Benson. So I, I praise his name and I hope he rests in peace. Yeah, there it is. It kind of all fall. It works perfectly as long as everybody toes the party line of not saying things as they really are. But as soon as somebody kind of breaks out and does that, then there is a big mess to clean up. And we’ve seen that a lot recently. And I’m sorry for interjecting that whole thing in the middle of this story, except for the fact that I think this story is one of the stories that cannot be forgotten. especially when it’s not just history. This is current events. Elder Oaks is the first counselor in the first presidency. And upon the demise of President Nelson, Oaks is going to become the president of the church. And things haven’t changed, RFM. President Monson was in the late stages of dementia as well. Inside sources, Ryan McKnight had an inside source. I had an inside source at the time. President Monson was propped up basically in a room, given root beer floats, and watched What About Bob every day because that was his favorite show. Down the street. And so the church still does this thing that when its leaders become frail and feeble, it pretends as if they’re still super strong prophets, seers, and revelators. Yeah, it’s the old USSR thing. Back in the USSR, that should be the theme song for the LDS church leadership. That’s it. And I don’t know what would be wrong with saying, look, you know, they are feeling the effects of age, much like your grandpa or your so-and-so, you know, why not just be honest about it, but they have to look strong, robust. The Lord is preserving them, you know, because the way you become the next prophet is the current prophet dies. So it’s a very interesting system, but there’s, and you’re right. This is another in a long list of examples of the church and it’s, um, uh relationship such as it is with the truth which is that whenever there’s a distinction to be made a choice that has to be done the church is going to go for appearance over reality every time they want to look good and they will always opt for looking better than they are instead of just you know being straight with people and being transparent Yeah, I think so, too. And I feel like Steve Benson, you know, he really drew attention to the fact that I think it’s elder abuse in a lot of cases with these extremely elderly and infirm. I remember also hearing about President Monson. Someone ran into him. He was sitting in a chair in a hallway of the church office building. And he said to this person, I don’t know why I’m here. They just put me here and I sit here. You know, I mean, good heavens. You know, would you even want your grandpa in that scenario? No, you wouldn’t know your dad it. don’t know it’s unkind I think so but that’s a whole other podcast anyway steve benson will be missed let’s go to our slide of the stories that we’re going to cover because boy we have a lot of I said to rfm before the show we I had to keep deleting stories because the new ones kept popping in there’s just been a very busy news week um I’m going to talk about a temple training video that is causing some problems RFM is going to talk about a judge who puts a hold on mandatory priest reporting. And we’re going to learn in RFM segment that he is indeed a prophet. We’re going to have some proof of that, which is going to be great. It’s not that hard after all. Exactly. Speaking of prophet, Bill’s going to cover a female prophet ordained. This is extremely exciting news out of the community of Christchurch. Who attended the memorial for the Lesotho tragedy? This is that extremely tragic vehicle crash of a group of people. going to a church activity in africa and we’re going to kind of talk about that so sad and then a little bit more about the fairview mayor who is just still pleading for a compromise in this dang temple uh scenario down there so I guess we will dive right in the first thing is my story here I swear that every sunday last sunday and now this sunday um I have spoken to people or received videos that have been really interesting. So I’m going to tell you guys exactly what’s going on here. I’m titling this segment, Elder David A. Bednar Targets LGBTQ Members in a Temple Training Video. So this is kind of how it went down. I put a short out today and I’ve gotten a lot of interesting feedback. Of course, always being called a liar. That’s always fun. I’m not a liar. And I’m going to clarify everything right now. So I have a friend, in the Seattle area who is a temple worker. This is a longtime friend, decade, decade, decades old friend. And this person as a temple worker, let me know of a scenario that had happened in the Seattle temple last week. So if you work in the temple, you’re either called an ordinance worker or a temple worker. There are various kinds of levels of temple workers. Some are just regular people that come in and take a shift. Other people have more specific duties. It’s kind of its own little world there. But they do gather before their shifts. Sometimes, you know, in some temples, I think it’s almost every time before their shift. In others, I’ve heard that it’s, you know, maybe just… on a need to gather basis, but it’s basically for training, a devotional perhaps, maybe procedures that they need to talk about. You know, this group is coming in today. We need to do this and that. Anyway, just touching base with the group, which, you know, any corporation does that, right? When they’re fielding a lot of people that come in every day or not so many people. Anyway, so my friend let me know that last week, there was a training and they showed a training video. And I guess that’s pretty common, little segment. And these videos come from upper church leadership. How it works is the temple presidency is instructed by upper leadership. We’re talking about apostles, Q-fifteen, first presidency, in how they want things to work in the temple. And these little videos are put out and you can use those for training in the temple. And then the temple presidency will kind of clarify what’s said in the video. So this particular video that they showed last week had to do with same-sex romantic behavior in the temple. Now, I looked up exactly what that means. I mean, we’ve seen it in the BYU Honor Code. It’s in the church handbook. That could be as simple as holding hands, you know, in a same-sex relationship, obviously a kiss, you know, what would be considered very light behavior for a couple that was not a same-sex couple, right? Somebody at BYU doing that would not face any kind of penalty. Doesn’t every guy in the temple hold hands with at least one other guy multiple times? Yeah, and this is what we’re going to show. This is what I kind of, you’re anticipating where I’m going with this. But this video basically was asking temple workers or nuts workers to be on the lookout for this. And if they see people engaging in same-sex romantic behavior, which, you know, still is kind of nebulous. What is that exactly? How romantic? Yeah, how romantic. You’re supposed to go up to them as the ordinance worker and warmly welcome them. Not like when I went through. Oh, my gosh. It was like, are you wearing nail polish? Get out. They are all about being friends. No, that really happened to me. What color? Yeah. Light pink. Yeah, it was back in the day. But they are all about, you know, the user experience and not frightening anybody and being very, very kind. And I know that they have extensive training on that. So in Elder Bednar’s video, he was the one in the video they showed. He said, welcome them warmly. Tell them that you’re very glad that they’re here. And then invite them to visit with someone, you know, in the temple presidency in the office. Okay. So that was kind of the video. You’re calling them to the office? Like to the principal’s office? To the office. Exactly. Isn’t that interesting? And so, of course, the temple workers had some questions about that. You know, the first question was how… Do we exactly tell the difference between, say, a father and a son, you know, arm around, you know, son, I’m so proud of you. It’s your first day at the temple. Or a mother and a daughter sharing a hug. You know, maybe they had gone to the temple and they were wrestling with a question in the family. You know, the temple can be a very emotional place, especially in the celestial room. When you gather, people go there for answers. They go there often with family members. And so the question from some of the temple workers was, well, how exactly, you know, how exactly do we tell what kind of behavior this is? And the temple presidency, according to my friend, didn’t, you know, just kind of do the best you can. I think people thought there’s a lot of margin for error here. This could be really mischievous. By the way, Rebecca, like I told you earlier when you told me this part, I said, this is what passes for training in the LDS church. Seriously, this is what passes for training. It is. And another question some of the temple workers raised is, you know, what if it’s someone, say, from another culture that’s more demonstrative, you know, more than we are used to? You know, basically, you know, what if some people are just huggers, right? They’re going to go around and hug everybody. You know, is that something we need to, you know, how do we do this exactly? The other question they raised is why? What if they ask us why? Why do we have to go to the temple president’s office? What should we say? And the temple presidency, whichever person was there, you know, conducting the training said, well, you know, kind of do the best you can and really feel sorry for us because we’re the ones that have to talk to them. And they explained that the reason, and this is what I think is very interesting, the reason for this, the reason for this, Seeing someone who may be engaging in romantic same-sex behavior in the temple, the reason they need to go into the office of the temple presidency is so that they can find out who their bishop and who their state president is, and then the temple presidency can contact the bishop and or the state president and find out what the story is on why this temple recommend was signed, what is the scenario with this person. So basically, to me, it seems like it’s asking the ordinance workers to be the eyes and ears of, you know, upper leadership to see what’s going on in the ground. Now, my friend. Ms. Rebecca, what did your, because I think this is a very important point and I want to underscore it. What did your friend say was her basis of knowledge about being the eyes and ears? In other words, trying to figure out who these people are so that the bishops and state presidents can be contacted. Yeah, well, I mean, that’s just kind of what they were discussing, that we need to be on the ground. Because how is somebody in the church office building going to know what’s going on in temples? And as I understand it, this video can be shown in training in any temple in the world. I would love it if anybody is friends with a temple worker to find out if it’s shown anywhere. Anywhere else. So my friend was very disturbed. Other temple workers in the room with my friend, you know, they were more just questioning. How do we do this exactly? But my friend is very much an ally and my friend was very disturbed. So my friend went back to another shift training to make sure that there wasn’t a misunderstanding. You know, maybe the video didn’t come across right. Maybe my friend got done with her shift and then went to the next shift training so that she could be there to watch the video again. Yeah, exactly. Just to understand exactly what was happening. And it was the same video and it was the same instruction. Please invite them to the office. And we need to make sure that we contact the bishop and the state president to assess the situation as vague as that sounds. So and again, this is in the Seattle Washington Temple. And I’d be really curious if anybody else in any other temple who gets training because temples all over the world, temple presidencies all over the world. And they have access to these videos from upper leadership giving instruction about what needs to happen in the temple. So that was pretty interesting to me today. I put that out as a short. And, of course, I got a lot of feedback on that. Seems like I’m always getting feedback on videos lately. I don’t know. So, of course, there is no copy of this video. It happened inside of the temple. So all we have to go on is is my decades long friend who, of course, I trust completely. And and her reaction, she was extremely upset. And I can’t go into all the details, but took action based on, you know, for herself personally, based on what had happened here. Can I say something before you get to this? This is very funny. Sure. What I want to say is that presuming, for the sake of argument, we’ll presume this is true. That’s all we can do, really, is presume. Right. What it speaks to me of is that the leaders of the church, the top leaders, are concerned about their bishops and stake presidents giving temple recommends to people that they know are gay or in gay relationships. And therefore, how do we figure out, how do we find out what bishops and state presidents are doing this? Well, we will go to the temple. We’ll have the workers there. Look for any gay people, okay? Any gay activity. If your gaydar goes above a five, you need to take these people and tell them to go to the temple president. We’re going to find out. where they attend so we know the name of their bishop and their state president, and then we can reverse engineer this puppy and hold those guys accountable. If this is correct, I think that the leaders are really struggling to get control of the church. Yeah, no, I think that’s true. And I think, what was I going to say? I just lost my train of thought now. I can’t remember. Anyway, no, I think you’re absolutely right on that. Oh, I know what I was going to say. For people that aren’t familiar with kind of the rules of, you know, being a member of the LGBTQ community and being able to go to the temple, you can do anything in the church as long as you’re not in a same-sex relationship. You can be a member of the LGBTQ community. But the moment that you are in a relationship, you know, get married, start dating, start exhibiting romantic behavior as simple as a handhold. You know, that’s when you are going to butt up against leadership and you might have a problem. Any thoughts on that bill before I just say one of the signs, one of the signs they look for is a long and lingering patriarchal grip. Remember, though, that’s not a – okay, yes. There’s a linger longer. Unless your last name is Bird and then you seem to be able to – so there are a select number of – gay members of the church who seem to be on the right side of the good old boys club in some way that the rules don’t apply to them. They get to be in the thing that no one else is allowed to be in. So there are exceptions to the rule. Yeah, no, I think you’re absolutely right. And I just started thinking about, you know, just people that go to the temple and just express, you know, love or affection. And I thought about how many pictures we see of the church leadership. Look, they are hugging, they’re groping, they’re grasping, they have arms around each other. There’s a kiss. Down there, Elder Uchtdorf is kissing President Holland. There’s hand-holding. You know, these are just some pictures I grabbed off of the last couple conferences. And I know that the Q-Fifteen do meet in the temple. You know, they meet on a certain floor and have, you know, what if they were walking down the halls and exhibited any of this kind of behaviors, an embrace, a kiss, a hand-hold? You know, would they be asked to go to the temple president’s office? I think they all need to go to see the temple president. This one over here on the left in the middle with Bednar, is that where he’s like comforting Elder Uchtdorf when he got demoted from being president? That could be it. Sorry, buddy. That could be it. It kind of looks like it. And then I just have to put up this picture. And you know why. I mean, according to D. Michael Quinn’s posthumously released memoir, President Kimball enjoyed a good kiss up and down the neck and embracing. It was making out. Let’s just call it what it was. It was a makeout session. No, in Mormon parlance, it’s called necking and petting. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I don’t know if everyone knows what we’re talking about. But yes, in D. Michael Quinn’s book, he talked about several interactions with President Kimball and President Kimball was extremely affectionate with him, extremely affectionate. So now we know why it was that in high school, Spencer Kimball’s nickname was Hot Lips. Well, I don’t know if I can confirm or deny that. But anyway, your mind goes there. You’re like, there’s a lot of situations where you’re going to be affectionate in the temple. And these poor temple workers are going to have to be scrutinizing, trying to determine your sexuality, trying to determine what a glance or a handhold or a pat means. And I think that the workers in that training realized that and were uncomfortable. I think they were trying to get some guidance on how do I do that? Exactly. It’s so invasive, you know, to walk up to someone. So here’s a picture. You might be wondering why it is the gay people are in the temple. Yeah, because they can be there. Why do we have to do this? Yeah. And here are some pictures of the female leaders. Of course, women typically are known as being, but here they are embracing and groping and grasping and handholding and kissing. And, you know, you’ve got all that, which is perfectly, you know, It should all be fine. And then, of course, I put a little picture here of President Bednar receiving a lovely kiss from his wife, Susan. You know, such a simple, you know, almost very platonic. And, you know, yet his training video has said that, you know, something like this is not going to happen for any member of the LGBTQ community without being called into the temple president’s office. Do you remember when Gary Oldman played Dracula a few years back? I do remember that. Well, without the big bouffant wig, that’s kind of what Elder Bednar’s face reminds me of. Oh my goodness. You always have to make a comparison, don’t you? And a lot of these comments that I’m making or these things I’m bringing up were brought up in comments to my video that I put out this morning. People are going there and making these observations. I also started thinking, and so did people in the comments, initiatory, my goodness. I have here a picture of the original where you were naked in a bathtub with fire whiskey being poured over you, but you know, through the years you are with a person of the same sex and they are, you know, I mean, my experience was with the poncho open on the sides and there was a woman who is touching me everywhere. So that’s kind of interesting. I don’t know if I should have had to go see the temple president. And then prior to the early nineties, there was something called the five points of fellowship, which happened in the endowment where you, you know, it’s Masonic. You, you basically touch five points on another person’s body of the same sex and Do you know what those points are? Let’s see. It’s the foot to foot. Oh, it says it over there. I was going to do it from memory. I’m sorry. It’s right there. Do it from memory and I won’t look and we’ll see if you’re right. Well, now I’ll get it all wrong, but you know, it was the inside of right foot to the inside of right front, knee to knee. There was hand to hand, breast to breast. Well, no, no. Breast to breast, hand to shoulder and mouth to ear. I think that was it. Yep, that was exactly right. And again, in the temple, of course, it’s Peter that’s instructing you. But, you know, it is it is a master in masonry where you’re doing the same thing. So anyway, all kinds of places and times in the temple where you are in contact, you know, in the way that they were describing that, you know, might not be what you’re supposed to be doing. So when I saw this, I thought this was step three in the all male cha-cha. One, two, three, cha, one, two, three, cha. Anyway, I really hope that somebody gets a hold of me or any of us and says, hey, yeah, I have someone that’s a temple worker and they are seeing this training. Again, it’s very new. We’re talking less than a week old since my friend saw it. But, you know, she was very disturbed just because she is an ally. And even everyone else in the room was just concerned about how exactly they would execute these instructions because there’s so much margin for error. So anyway, we’ll see. Yes. Did you respond to, was it some guy out there who says, what happens if you get the sixth point in? If you get what? Some guy out there says, what happens if you get the sixth point in? And I wanted you to answer that if you could. The sixth point of fellowship. Oh, the sixth point of fellowship. Oh God. Then you really have to go to the bishop. That’s exactly right. So anyway, it’s a story and we’ll see. But yeah, let me know if anybody talks to any other temple workers and this is part of it. So but just the idea of the policing and the policing of leadership. Right. Those rogue bishops and state presidents who might be letting people attend when they shouldn’t. I think that’s what they’re trying to check on. Right. So. I guess so. I don’t know. Or maybe they’re thinking maybe they’re getting there under false pretenses and trying to run into a sealing room and, you know, I don’t know, get themselves sealed in some unholy rite. Yeah. Well, that happened to me. I was accused of being a polygamist when I was simply peeking into a ceiling room. With three of your boyfriends? Yeah. Well, no, this was with my fiance and I had taken out my endowment, but it was the next time we went back and he wanted to show me what a ceiling room looked like because we were getting married in a few weeks. And so we kind of tiptoed off the beaten path. And we, I’ve told the story several times before, but we peeked into a ceiling room and right away this temple matron threw herself into the doorway and said I know who you are you’re a polygamist and you’re trying to do a ceremony and we’re not going to have this here and you know my fiance knew I was uncomfortable in the temple anyway so nervous about it before going even more disturbed after getting my endowment and you know he tried to explain nope I’m just showing my fiance but boy yeah it rattled me forever it rattles me to this day I love that story. Every time I hear it, I love it more. And remember, these are the kind of people who are going to be determining who the gay temple patrons are. That’s it. That’s exactly it. So anyway, unfolding story. We will keep you all informed. And if anyone has any information, let me know, because I think it’s pretty fascinating on a lot of different levels. I have a little bit more Temple news, and then we’ll move on to the next story. Fairview Mayor, a call for compromise with the LDS Church reflecting shared values. This is the wonderful Mayor John Hubbard, and he wrote an opinion piece in the paper. If you guys remember where we are at with Fairview, the conditional use permit was voted through. But then the residents group came forward and said, I think you guys needed a super majority based on some calculations and protest letters. And the Board of Adjustment just recently said, we don’t have any jurisdiction. So Fairview residents will be taking this to the district court, as I understand it. So while all this is going on, Mayor John Hubbard decided that he would write An opinion piece. And he’s an awesome guy. Remember Mayor Henry Lesner? He was the one that we were going through this for the last year. New mayor, John Hubbard, equally awesome. He was a council member through the whole thing, so he knows what’s going on. So I’ll just read this really quick. Again, an opinion piece. It says, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been a part of our Fairview community for many years. Many of our residents are members, and they have contributed in countless ways to the character and well-being of our town. Fairview in turn has welcomed the church and its members with respect and hospitality that define who we are as a community. That’s why the current dispute over the proposed temple and its prominent spire, again, I assume everyone’s been following this, but it’s all about how dang tall this temple and really all temples are. The prominent spire is especially painful. What should be a moment of celebration, an opportunity to build a new place of worship and reflection has instead become a source of division. » This is not about religion. It’s about respect for zoning ordinances, for neighbors, and for the shared values that help communities like Fairview thrive. To its credit, the church did participate in a mediation process with the town. We appreciate that step. Mediation is never easy, and entering it shows a willingness to listen. However, it did not result in an agreement that ended our community’s concerns. And today, litigation continues, an outcome that I believe neither side truly wants, right? Everybody loses during litigation. Oh, yeah. Remember, a lawsuit is a mechanism into which both parties enter as pigs and exit as sausage. I like that. I’ll remember that. All right. He goes on to say a group of Fairview residents known as Fairview United or FU is challenging the town council’s April thirtieth twenty twenty five approval of a conditional use permit for the construction of the temple. The lawsuit filed in Collin County District Court. seeks to reverse or nullify the council’s decision asserting that proper procedures were not followed there is presently no timeline outlining how the litigation will move forward so the ball is kind of in fairview united’s court there is however still an opportunity to move forward in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect the church has consistently expressed a desire to be a good neighbor and to live our principles of peace respect and community engagement How many times has the church said in all of these temple scenarios, we just want to be a good neighbor? And I think about that. There’s a difference between wanting to be a good neighbor and taking proactive steps to be a good neighbor, right? I think there’s some verses in the epistle of James chapter two about that. I don’t know if Mormons know those. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I can say I want to weigh a hundred and ten, but you know, until I stop eating cookie dough before the cookies are made, it’s not going to happen. So wanting and doing are two separate things. So he goes on to say those values are deeply meaningful. And I believe this moment calls for renewed commitment to them. um he says specifically I urge the the church to consider a further compromise now they did compromise as a little side note in mediation to take this fire down from a hundred and seventy three feet good heavens down to one twenty but seventy is what everybody is hoping for the sweet spot and they’ve been told asking over and over again that it’s just god that wants it a hundred and twenty just god that’s all not much you can do just god So he says, I urge the church to consider a further compromise on the height of the temple’s proposed fire. Doing so would demonstrate that this building is more than just an architectural statement. It reflects faith lived out of action. Love that. It would send a message that the church values harmony over division and dialogue over litigation. A temple built through collaboration can become a symbol of unity and reverence. But if built through conflict, it risks becoming a lasting symbol of controversy in our community. uh cody wyoming has entered the chat and many other towns right there fairview is a place where differences are resolved through conversation not confrontation the church has always said it shares those values there is still a path forward let’s take it together so I applaud mayor john that was really really good he’s really trying to say come on we can do this together and everyone will be happy Yeah, he is. But, you know, on the other side of the argument, the church already compromised once. And now they’re asking them to compromise again, which means they want two bites at the apple. And I could understand the church kind of taking offense at that. Right. But what did they really compromise? One seventy three is an arbitrary number just thrown out there. Well, by God, who’s going to change this mind? It is arbitrary. At least when they’re in codes such as these, they’re arbitrary, but they’re still there. And all I’m saying is that they compromised with the city. It was non-binding arbitration to the amount, and they reduced it. And now the city, it doesn’t make any difference, at least not to me, and I don’t think to the church. If it’s a different mayor, it’s the same city. And now they want you to. We already agreed to this. And now you want us to. No, no, we’re not doing that. Well, ideally, what they wanted is seventy feet, right? Seventy feet. It’s not that hard. It’s just a little shorter. So anyway, we’ll see what happens next. This was picked up in a couple other papers. The Houston Chronicle. It’s about respect. Tiny Texas town pleads for the compromise on LDS Temple. So the bad press continues, you know. Still, this has been ongoing for what, a year and a half? It’s pretty incredible. And really the question here is, right now the LDS church is in the process of submitting their plat. That means that the church has to submit a revised plat that will be filed with the county before they can get the building permit right and this plat has to reflect all the changes and conditions that were talked about in all of those meetings that we watched together right the temple has to be turned off from this time to that time and it can’t be this and that so as long as you know everything that was addressed during that meeting is in this new application it’s just administrative and it’s going to get a stamp however here comes fairview united right And the question there is, will Fairview United request and the district court grant an injunction before the LDS Church gets their plat approval and building permit? Meaning that Fairview United and their lawyer could say, hey, hey, we got to we got to table this for a little bit because we’re still going to be going through the process in the court and we can’t do anything now. So it may stall. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. Any thoughts or comments? I think I already gave mine. I think you did. I’m just saying if I’m representing the church, you know, everything that the mayor had a really good letter, okay? I usually don’t think much of letters, you know, but his letter that was kind of pushing the whole thing, these are your values, live up to your values. You know, that was the best part of the letter, I think, that was the most persuasive part of his letter. But on the other hand, looking at it from the other side, the other side can look at that and say, yeah, so we already did that. And now it’s your turn to be true to your word and keep your agreement. Yeah, I’m with RFM. At this point, you have the city who’s in a fight with its city council. That has nothing to do with the church now. There also were things that they requested the LDS church to do in order to get a pass with this, but with… qualifications or caveats. And so the church is already has to make the next move and decide whether it’s going to do those or not. And now to go back to the LDS church and say, I know we agreed with you on these things, but now we want you to even go further. That just seems they’ve taken it as far as they wanted to. And now they want to take it further. That doesn’t, that doesn’t seem fair to the LDS church. I think they’re just trying to say, can’t we all get along? Honestly, the steeple has nothing to do with what happens in the temple. Yeah, well, that’s true. Although more and more, the spiritual doctrine is creeping in there where they’re saying it is very important. So we’ll see. All right, there’s a little bit more temple news. I swear it gets weirder and weirder. I’m not kidding. It was a weird temple news week. So this is a video that somebody sent me where a woman who’s an influencer on the LDS faithful side had talked to a general authority about temples. And she got some information about why are there no more Moroni’s? The church has figured out that, you know, it looks in other countries like we’re worshiping a golden statue of Moroni, right? In countries where they worship golden statues. So no more Moroni, this general authority unnamed told this woman. Things like the church will never go into debt to build the temple. You don’t go into debt when you have, you know, three hundred and fifty billion dollars, things like that. So but one of the most interesting things that she said and she kind of asked the questions true or false. Right. There have already been so many temples announced recently. Right. It’s likely going to slow down a little bit. Right. Slow the you know what down. Is this true or false? Do you think are we going to slow down? What do you guys think? I know because I looked ahead. Oh, you should never look ahead. It’s fun to take the poll without looking. Okay. What do you think, Bill? Are we slowing down on temple building according to this unnamed general authority? At present or going forward? Going forward. There’s so many right now. Are we slowing down? It has to slow down. They can’t build them this fast. It has to. It has to. And that is what’s interesting. Yeah. As we learned from church, former church architect, Laura Lee Hall, they can only still crank out about eight finished ones a year, you know, unless they radically change their process. So they have about a backlog of, you know, like almost two hundred that they haven’t gotten to. Anyway, according to this unnamed general authority, I can move it here. Did I? Okay. So it’s true or false. Hold on a minute. Let me get over here. Okay. The answer is false. The goal is that every single member of the LDS church in the world is going to have a temple. In their backyard. One hour travel distance from them. What do you think about that? I thought you were going to say in their backyard. Yeah. One hour away from every single member. So that means the, what, thirty five hundred people or four thousand people that are active. Are those the numbers that we came up with? Every single one is going to have a temple within an hour away. That just seems incredible to me. You’re going to be able to see one steeple from the other. You better hope nobody moves. Yeah. Well, some of these areas are pretty remote. That’s incredible. But where my mind went. is already got one member. He’s out on the illusion islands. They build a temple within an hour and the guy dies or he moves or whatever. And they go, damn it. Now the missionaries just have to work harder. But where my mind went is that already people that staff and clean temples and even attend temples, you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Temple workers who go to say Bountiful, you know, are like, oh no, now we have to split our time and try to go to Layton. The same people are just, you know, kind of circling the drain. trying to staff these temples. Oh, and here’s some corroboration. Somebody wrote me and said, there is something to this. My husband works in temple engineering and was told last year in training with the General Bishop Rick that it is the goal to have many temples, that’s M-I-N-I, within at least one hour of every member. They were told it was top secret, so it was not shared anywhere except from the Mormon newscast. I’m sure it’s top secret because it’s absolutely ridiculous on its face. It is absolutely ridiculous. And then I had to laugh because our good friend, Ron Yorgason, he got an email just today. And this describes exactly what I’m talking about. And he lives in an area where a new temple is being built. And so two stakes are going to be siphoned off from a temple that’s very close by and sent to support that temple, robbing Peter to pay Paul. And so the email says, you know, dear Third Ward, good morning third ward we have a name of temple cleaning assignment tomorrow july twenty second at eight fifteen pm I am looking for fourteen more members to help please let me know if you can fit this into your busy schedule please text or call me blah blah blah fourteen more people needed tomorrow to go to this temple if there’s a mini temple an hour away from everybody I don’t know how they’re going to achieve this it’s pretty incredible So what you’re saying is, of course, when you have a certain number of stakes and say you’ve got a temple area, right? Yep. And everybody is supposed to go to the temple in their area, although they’re a little bit looser on that. But that’s basically where you go. And then they put another temple in the same area. Well, they’ve got to divide it up now into two areas. So they siphon off stakes to go and help with that temple. And they’re necessarily being taken away from another temple. Yep, that’s exactly right. Because I mean, we’ve done some calculations, a twenty one ish percent of attendance and award of those maybe a fourth half active temple recommend holders of those, you know, that go another half of that. I mean, the number just diminishes. And so you do have a lot of the same people that are going from temple to temple being an ordinance worker. supporting the patrons there and cleaning. So we’ll keep an eye on it, but you know, many temples, many, many temples. Many, many temples. You know, the temple is such a great experience that it’s really, really tough to get people to go. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Well. especially with the new Elder Bednar training. People are going to be nervous, right? They’re going to be like this, kind of looking around. So, all right, I have one more little temple thing. I just couldn’t resist putting this in because, I mean, it just can’t get weirder. I’m not even kidding. Okay, so I’m going to have RFM read this. There is a Facebook page, Instagram page, where you put in your area code and it’s called Missed Connections. And you might post, hey, to the barista at Starbucks on Fifty Second Street with the red hair. I saw you and I thought maybe you winked at me. Would you like to communicate? Right. Missed connection. Hey, I saw you at the gym. You were driving a yellow car. You know, I thought you smiled at me. That kind of thing. Here is one. It’s like help wanted. It’s like help wanted kind of. And you’re putting out an ad and you’re hoping that this other person is going to peruse the ads and read this thing and know that you’re the one that’s, and maybe there’s something there and you’re my true flame or my whatever that’s called. Exactly. That’s it. A missed connection. That’s it. So this one came to my attention and it has to do with the temple. Now, this is really a post on this site. Whether or not the post itself is real, I don’t know, but there were a lot of comments on it. So I thought maybe RFM, you can read this. Yeah. This is going to be very triggering for me. I want you to know. I’m sorry. Would you rather have Bill read it? No, no, I can read it. I can power through this. Okay. Okay. I don’t know why you can ask my first why, but here we go. We both serve in the blank Salt Lake temple. Yeah. I wanted to make it anonymous. You all, we don’t know what temple it is. It could be any temple. But in the two-oh-eight misconnection, it does have the name. Anyone can go to this Facebook site and you will find this probably about twenty posts down. Okay, but it does have the name of the temple there. Yeah. And probably two-oh-eight gives it away. That’s an Idaho number, right? Very good. Nancy Drew. You’re amazing. We both serve in the Idaho Falls Temple. You always bring a calm light into the room, quiet, steady, reverent, so sexy. We’ve shared glances, small conversations, and a kind of unspoken head bowing and saying of, I do, that’s deeper than routine. You recently asked me to do ceilings with you at the Idaho Falls Temple. That invitation hasn’t left my heart since. I don’t know exactly what you meant by it. Maybe it was just spiritual. Maybe it was carnal. But it stirred something in me. We’re both married and not to each other, if you know what I mean. We both live with covenants, and yet there’s something undeniably present between us. If you see this, not the Holy ghost. Yeah. Oh my gosh. If you see this and you feel it could be one of our listeners that we’re bringing into their attention right now. And you feel it too. I just like to know what this moment means to you. No pressure, no expectations, just a quiet reaching out across silence and sacred space. If not, I’ll continue in quiet gratitude for the small moments we share while serving. Wow. You read that so poetically and I can’t really tell if that’s a man or a woman, you know, writing that, but of course I had to make the Coldplay celestial cam right there. Just thinking about that. I’m sure everybody’s been following that over the last week. And just to prove it’s real, here are some comments. Somebody said, I approve of this relationship. And a picture of Joseph Smith. Yeah, people were having a lot of fun with this. And again, perhaps somebody put it up there as a joke. I don’t know. That last part did strike me as a bit AI-ish. Yeah, and that’s what I felt too. But if somebody did that, that is pretty funny in a not funny way. So anyway, go check it out, Missed Connections in the Temple. And I think that’s the end of my very weird and getting weirder temple news. And I think now, oh, I wanted to say one more thing. They do have a leg to stand on, this couple, because as Brigham Young said, if a woman finds someone of a higher priesthood level, she can go with that person. She doesn’t even need to get divorced. So Brigham Young did say that. So if they’re in the temple and working together and he has a higher priesthood than her husband, you know, they might be able to work something out. Adultery never sounded so romantic. It does sound very romantic, doesn’t it? Fortunately, I have the highest priesthood of all. All right. On to RFM’s story. The RFM Priesthood. It’s available upon request and a small donation. Exactly. All right. The next story has to do with a story we covered a couple months ago when a law was passed here in the state of Washington. And this is the next story on it. It has to do with the first leg of the appeals. Judge grants injunction against Washington law requiring clergy to report child abuse. You might remember this. It’s really from, I think it was May twelfth on the newscast. So it’s July twenty first now, which is a couple of months ago. So we’ve had the first hearing and nope, constitutional. That’s what the judge says. Catholic leaders in Washington filed a lawsuit claiming the law would require them to break the seal of confession or be jailed. It’s King five by Helen Smith, July, the date of this article, Washington law, excuse me, Washington state passed a law requiring clergy members to to report child abuse even if disclosed during confession on May second, two thousand and twenty five. This law, Senate Bill five three seven five, was signed by Governor Bob Ferguson. The law makes clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. A change that had been sought for three years according to the Washington State Standard. That’s a publication. Dateline Tacoma, Washington. Washington’s law that would require clergy to report child abuse or neglect no matter how they learned about it was put on hold by a federal judge on Friday. Catholic leaders who filed a lawsuit against the legislation were granted an injunction by Judge David Estudillo with the U.S. District Court of Western Washington. Otherwise, the law would have gone into effect on July twenty-seventh. They claim the law violates their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by requiring that they break the seal of confession, which is grounds for immediate excommunication in the Catholic Church. And here’s a picture of the judge who made that ruling. County prosecutors had previously agreed not to enforce the new law until a final ruling was issued. The bill, titled Clergy Duty to Report Child Abuse and Neglect, stipulates that clergy penitent privilege would no longer be recognized in Washington state when it comes to learning allegations of child abuse. Things members of the clergy learn in confession would still be confidential otherwise. Failing to make a report is a gross misdemeanor in Washington, punishable by three hundred and sixty four days in jail. It’s jail, not prison. A fine of five thousand dollars or both. In a previous interview with King Five, Archbishop of Seattle, Paul Etienne, said Catholic priests had no intention of honoring the law, should it have ever taken effect. He said, our priests have told me, Archbishop, I’ll go to prison before I allow the state to coerce any such information from me. And I think all of our priests feel that way, he said. The bill’s prime sponsor, State Senator Noel Frame, said the bill was about protecting children from physical and sexual abuse and institutional cover-ups. Governor Bob Ferguson has also signaled his continued support for the bill, saying when the lawsuit was filed by Catholic officials, quote, End of quote. Now, Do you have any comments about this? I know the next part is my prediction, which I gave two months ago when I think I just actually landed at the airport and I’m up there on the top level at SeaTac of the parking garage and the sun is coming in at this crazy angle. It’s kind of warm, but I have the windows down and I find out how to put up a sort of a background from a photo that I had and I’m talking to you and you’re, I think you’re just sort of letting me know for the first time, I think, that this had just happened and that this law had just been passed here in Washington and I had made a prediction. Yeah, you always throw a dose of realism onto the rest of us when it comes to legal issues because we’re getting all, you know, uptight and you’re like, no, this is what’s going to happen and it always is in every one of these stories. Not always, not always. You can see around corners. I was going to say, I’m just glad that we have someone on the earth who does see around corners. It’s useful. Like Mr. Fantastic. He can see around corners and over the tops of buildings. Did you like that movie, RFM? I haven’t seen it yet. I think it comes out on Thursday, at least up here. Okay. I’ve got my fingers crossed. Please, please, please let the third time be the charm on the Fantastic Four. Are you ready for this? Oh, yes, yes, yes. This is this is me from May twelve. Is it May twelve? I think from this newscast. Yeah. You have any thoughts? I say this is a no brainer. Of course, it’s unconstitutional. The idiot Senate and House and governor in my home state, and they’re idiots all, they probably are in your states too, whoever it is who’s watching out there. Hi, everybody. Decided that they were going to pass and intentionally pass an unconstitutional law for whatever reason, for grins, whatever. But it’s going to be appealed and it will be found unconstitutional, not only at the Supreme Court level, but at every court level along the way. So there you go. That’s the first one. That’s one. And we’ll see if anybody else is going to appeal this. I guess they are. I mean, they put this bill together. They passed it. The governor signed it. I imagine he’s going to have his attorney general pursue it. So there we go. We’ll see what happens from here on out. Now, a lot of people, a lot of people, they don’t like it when I say these things about, you know, it’s not constitutional. And what I want to do is instead of having a discussion about the law, I just want to tell you about an episode in history and a very, very famous speech, a short speech, very famous speech from a play made into an Oscar winning movie called… A man for all seasons, which I think was from nineteen sixty six. And I would encourage you to watch it. You can get this scene if you just want to watch the scene. We can’t play the scene because bad things happen to us and things get rained down on us from above if we play scenes that are copyrighted. But I’ve got a little bit the script portion and I’ll read it to you here in a second. But it has to do with this guy. OK, Richard Rich, not Richie Rich. This is a great, great, great, great grandfather. Richard Rich, fourteen ninety six to fifteen sixty seven. He’s a bad guy, was a prominent British royal official who played significant roles in the reigns of four monarchs, beginning with Henry the Eighth. He participated in religious persecutions and helped use the rack on the only woman to be tortured in the Tower of London. This bad guy, Rich, is also a character in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons. In the play, the disreputable Rich, this bad guy, seeks a position of prominence from Thomas Moore, who rebuffs him. In a powerful scene, Thomas Moore’s future son-in-law urges Thomas Moore to arrest this bad guy, Rich. Thomas More says that this guy, Rich, has done nothing illegal, but the son-in-law objects that this is only a technicality since Rich is morally bad. And here is this little bit of script, okay, on two slides. William Roper, that is the son-in-law. You can see the back of his head on the right here in the little screen grab. William Roper says, so now you give the devil the benefit of law? And Sir Thomas More, played incredibly by Paul Schofield, says, yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil? The son-in-law says, yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that. And here’s the line from Sir Thomas More. Oh. And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws, not God’s. And if you cut them down and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake. And that is that scene. So, any thoughts from anybody else or comments? I’ve been talking for quite a while. You have to say, scene, right? You’re done. Yes, and scene. And scene. Well, my first comment is, I think I was wearing the same shirt in that video that you showed. How embarrassing. That’s awkward. No, weren’t you? I don’t think so. That’s why I was looking at it. I was like, how embarrassing, right? Exactly. No, we just appreciate you being on the panel because you really can kind of, you know, help us understand this and cut through these things because, you know, on the surface, we’re like, what the heck is wrong with those guys? Of course, you’re going to report. Someone in the chat said parents should be aware and not send their kids to church. Sometimes I feel that way. And, you know, parents got to do what they got to do to protect their kids as they see fit. Yep. I sometimes think that in a certain way, the law is designed, or at least it gives more protection to the rich and powerful. They have more ways to get around things. So whether there’s a good law or a bad law, our You have two things. One is that we’ve got to play by the rules. There has to be rules, which is sort of what that whole movie script was getting at. There has to be rules, and the rules are what keeps us safe from the bad guys. And if the bad guys are misusing them, the best thing we can do is change the laws, change the rules. And there are processes by which that can be done if enough people raise their hand and object. and are willing to put in the time and energy to change things. And almost certainly every system, including the one we all live in, will be deeply flawed and imperfect until the end of time. Yes, you’re right. And by the way, of course, it’s subject to change. The Constitution contemplates that. But if you’re going to change the Constitution, you have to do it not by a state passing a law, piddly little law from a piddly little state or a great state it makes no difference which you have to have sufficient support among the populace and their and or the representatives in order to change the constitution and it’s been done a number of times it’s not insurmountable all I’m saying is that if you want it to change there’s a way to change it and this isn’t it yeah yep Great reporting, RFM. All right. I think we are on to Bill’s story next, aren’t we? Yep. So let me go back here. Sorry. We’ve covered this before. We all knew that Stacey Cram was becoming the next president prophet of the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But she finally got ordained. First female prophet president. says her church is in a financially strong position after selling the Kirtland Temple. So she got ordained. She is officially the prophet president. I’ll just note here, there were three main things in the article that I thought were interesting. Stacey Cram, former Air Force flight test engineer, has been ordained as the first female prophet president of the community of Christ, who also traces its roots back to Joseph Smith. When Joseph died, the majority of folks went with Brigham Young, ended up in Utah. The next largest group of them eventually ended up following Joseph Smith III, and that’s where the RLDS Church, Reorganized Church, or eventually the Community of Christ, came out from. All right. With an educational background in engineering, organizational management, and religion, she brings a pragmatic visionary lens to her role. This represents a clear shift, at least within one branch of Mormonism, away from the rigid patriarchy of traditional LDS hierarchy and toward a leadership model that fully embraces gender equality. The last time we talked about Stacey Cram, somebody in the comments said something about other LDS factions that have top leadership being females? I’m not aware of any. And if anybody is, I’d love it if in the live chat, if you’d name what that Mormon faction is that allows females into the upper echelons of leadership. But as far as I know, the community of Christ is the only one. I’m sure there’s something out there, but I’ve not heard of it. away from the rigid patriarchy of traditional LDS hierarchy and toward a leadership model that fully embraces gender equality. Under Cram’s leadership, the community of Christ is actively embracing inclusivity, not just in gender, but also in global and social issues like climate justice and gun violence. The church also boasts full financial transparency. Kudos to them. The church does belong to the people and not the leaders if we take it at its definition of what a church is and what it’s supposed to do and what it’s supposed to be. So good on them for being fully financially transparent. I imagine the LDS church boasts full financial transparency too, though. If by that you mean everyone stands up and says, we’re doing everything just great, trust me. Yeah. Yeah. The church also see here. Sorry, I lost my spot. That’s my fault. Yeah. They also have a future oriented five year plan modeled on stewardship and accountability. So they they lay out a plan and allow everyone to know what it is. And they’re accountable to their membership for trying to carry that plan out. I think that’s great. signaling a stark contrast to the often opaque financial practices of the LDS church. For those who’ve left Mormonism, this openness and willingness to evolve can feel refreshing, offering a compelling alternative build on trust and shared values. The community of Christ, formerly the RLDS Church, they have a segment of people, they call them the Latter-day Seekers, and it’s a group of Community of Christ members who used to be LDS Mormon, and they get to meet separately from the regular Community of Christ membership, and they get to sort of create some group dynamics as well as the worship meeting, what that looks like, and sort of keep it a little bit more LDS Mormon in some ways. And so they really do give a lot of flexibility to people coming in from the LDS faction. So anyway, there’s that. Cram’s ordination in the twenty twenty five world conference was described as a kind of modern Pentecost, a moment of rebirth and profound excitement. Community members felt energized, describing the moment as one of collective renewal rather than decline. And I’ll just say her engineering mindset brings a problem-solving ethos, imagining what a more just, equitable church could be and working to make that a reality. And those are things that she speaks to. For those frustrated with issues within the LDS faction, The community of Christ signals not only that transformation is possible, but at least in some small part, Joseph Smith’s religious views have led some to discovering a faith community that genuinely lives radical inclusivity and shared leadership. And it took a while for the community of Christ to get here. They had their stubborn moments as well. They had times where they denied parts of their history or denied things in spite of the historical overwhelm of those things having had have happened and so I’ll just note that I think the the one thing I take away from the community of christ above all others is that no matter who joseph smith was no matter what mistakes the church has made, no matter how unhealthy its current leadership is, I think there is hope that someday we get there. And the community of Christ is an example of a church that started from the same foundation and making different choices, going down different paths, eventually arrived at a much better, healthier place. Yeah, but they’re selling and we’re buying. They’re selling and we’re buying. That’s true. If money is how we’re going to gauge success, LDS Mormonism is killing it. And LDS Jesus is a real estate God, right? That’s how it works. I’ve attended the community of Christ. What? I’m just saying the earth is his. The earth is his, that’s right. So I’ve attended a Community of Christ meeting several times in Salt Lake. And you’re right, Bill, it’s familiar. You know, they’re using our scripture, they’re using the DNC. And yet then there’s this refreshing element where you’re like, wow, I’m not super triggered and feel like I have to run to the lobby with every single thing they say. And plus there was a potluck afterwards. That was an awesome part of it. But yeah, they’re a great group. They’re wonderful. I I tried I tried for a few months I was part of the latter-day seekers I went to several meetings I helped to get the group kind of off the ground here in southern utah uh nancy ross uh professor at the university here who’s also a very influential person in the post-mormon spaces uh was a big part of that as well I think she still might be there but um it just I don’t know what it is like once you stepped away from lds mormonism There’s something to the way it does things that nothing else gets close to that. So even though it’s not true, even though it is so unhealthy and it lies at every turn, the community of Christ just wasn’t close enough. And so I stayed a few months and walked away. So it’s like non-alcoholic beer. It is. It’s like, why the bad taste but not any of the benefit, right? Yeah. I’ve also been to a Bickertonite service before, and that was really interesting because to me, it was really what I, the closest thing I think we can get to to like old timey Mormonism, right? It really had all these different elements and it was fascinating. If anyone has a chance to attend a Bickertonite service, I’d recommend it. Wasn’t Chief Mitiga a Bickertonite for a hot minute? Well, yes, there was that. About two weeks. Yeah, they didn’t quite know what they were in for there and they quickly had to say, all right, come on. They were warned. They were warned. We still don’t know what’s on those birchbark scrolls, do we? Oh, dear. I’m sure they’ll rear their ugly head again at some point. All right. Is that the end of your story, Bill? That was excellent. I love to hear about Stacey. She’s fantastic. And someone in the comments did mention another LDS woman-led congregation. I don’t know if you want to look back and try to put that up, but I saw it kind of scroll by. Now we are going to talk about a story that we have covered before. This is the extraordinarily tragic event that happened back in June. I think it was the twenty first in South Africa. There was a multi car accident and it involved a group of young people. from a branch there and their leaders, and there was an extreme loss of life. It’s really hard. Whenever I see these articles pop up, my heart breaks and these pictures are just so poignant. It’s been really hard to research this. People were killed? Fifteen altogether. You know, the numbers were not clear when they first came out, but that’s what we’re going to talk about today. The memorial service, the funeral and the actual numbers. So but yeah, you know, because I just remember you’re a kid in the church and you always go on these trips. Either they rent a big bus or you’re in a caravan. You got your leaders that you love with you. You got your friends with you. Seriously, I just can’t even imagine what this must be. Oh, my gosh. And there’s all the coffins, the white coffins lined up side by side under the tent. Yep, that’s what I’m saying. These pictures are really hard to look at, but I thought it was really important. And I think about how they were traveling to a youth activity, a youth conference. And when the conference got the word of what had happened, of course, they ended. Everyone went home. How do you have a conference? And then, of course, the word getting back to the parents who are so excited their kids are going off on this adventure. It’s just heartbreaking and tragic, and we just can’t express our sympathies enough. So this is an article, God is Still God, Remembering the Lives Lost in the Lesotho, I think that’s how you say it, Lesotho Bus Accident. And there’s a couple of different things that they did. So it says nearly a month. And this is true. It happened almost a month ago after the tragic bus accident that resulted in the deaths of fifteen individuals. The numbers have been unclear how many individuals and who they were exactly, including six young women and four adults going to a district wide young women’s gathering. A memorial service provided peace to families and a community in pain. And it’s not just a memorial service. It’s a memorial and then a funeral. So we’ll kind of explain what happened here. So it says nearly five hundred individuals gathered under tents at a local soccer field in Lesotho on Wednesday. OK, this is the memorial service smaller than what’s going to happen on Saturday to share memories of loved ones, to comfort one another during a time of intense loss. Then three days later, on Saturday, the XIXth, A crowd of more than three thousand with eleven caskets on the same soccer field as part of a shared funeral service for others who died in the accident because this was a multi car kind of a pile up have or will have separate funerals. But the LDS here are the eleven caskets. The sunrise service came after a night of heavy rain that settled the dust and cleared the air. Like I said, these pictures are just really difficult to look at when you think of the ages of these young girls. Among those in attendance… from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were leaders from the branches in the area, mission leaders from South Africa, Johannesburg Mission, and Area Seventy was there and he was actually presiding. This is not a general authority, this is an Area Seventy who was the top leader there and he was presiding. Civic leaders attended, tribal chiefs, members of the parliament and district leaders and the prime minister. So, three thousand people. Like, this is a major event tragedy in the country. It’s a- That’s the end of the list of the attendees. Tell me there was at least one apostle who went, Rebecca. Well, you know, I’ve been looking into that. And again, not to diminish our discussion of the tragedy, but I have some questions about this. So, again, it’s picked up in all the different newspapers, the Tribune, the Deseret News, on the Church News. Thousands gather for the joint funeral. of ten LDS members killed in Lesotho in a car crash. It says, this is what I wanted to get to. I’m not going to read every single one of these. If you guys want to, you can pause later and read. But here are the details. The crash killed fifteen people and injured at least a dozen others, according to church officials. Ten of the deceased were leaders and young women of the local congregation. Here’s the thing that surprised me. The branch president and his wife were killed. the branch president and his wife, in addition to a young woman’s president, a counselor, and then, of course, the young women ranging in age from twelve to sixteen years old. And the details kind of have trickled out. I did not realize that the I mean, this branch was decimated by this crash. I want to use a different word other than tragic, but that is all I can think to say. So they have the memorial on Wednesday, and the person that presided there was sort of a local leader. And then they have the event on Saturday that’s attended by three thousand people and the prime minister. And it’s presided over by an Area Seventy, not a general authority, but an Area Seventy. Let’s see. The prime minister says, I give my undivided respect to all families who have been affected by this tragedy. We pray for those who are affected by this horrible tragedy. We are here to mourn with those that mourn. Our country is at a great loss. It is a painful time. So as I said, this is a national tragedy to them. The prime minister is in attendance. You know, everyone knows that this has happened and the entire country is mourning. and um let’s see there are two thousand members of the of the church that are that are in that country and like I said this is one branch that was you know completely decimated by this scenario they also have an area chief that spoke and he said we wondered why god would not raise his mighty hand to comfort us but everything that’s been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things I lack word to express how sorry I am but I’d like to pass my sincere condolences to the families and the students and the teachers of these kids and everyone who is present today and I say may the souls of our brothers and sisters rest in eternal peace with our father in heaven so you know they they definitely tried to give some comfort and some peace um a young woman’s president from a neighboring latter-day saint congregation said that she burst into tears and couldn’t help but cry at the top of our lungs when they heard about the accident. I mean, this is impacting everyone in the area. But she says, of course, that she found comfort in the embrace of Jesus and pointed to his concern and continual care for everyone. And that was sort of the message as it went on to say, let’s find peace in the joy of the teachings of Jesus Christ. And this is a father of one of the daughters who was killed speaking. Let us raise our eyes on him. Let us look to him. family will come to an end in this life. Friends come to an end, but the Lord remains the same today and forever. And may the peace of Christ abide with each one of you today. So definitely words of comfort. Now, here are a few more pictures. Like I said, they really put a lot of pictures out and it’s just absolutely so sobering and heartbreaking. But as I was reading through all these things, and all these articles in different places, I kept looking for a statement or a presence from Salt Lake leadership, right? I’m talking upper leadership of the church. This is a national tragedy on the level that a prime minister would attend this. And I just, I couldn’t, I kept trying to read all the articles and I couldn’t find anything about any kind of representation you know, from church leadership. So I asked AI, you know, to go out there and scour the articles and it came back, you know, several church leaders attended the funeral services for the victims, specifically the area seven D and there, his name is listed there presided at the funeral and spoke. So the most senior person will preside. So this is the most senior person that attended. This is not one of the hundred and two general authorities who are out there. This is one of the hundreds and hundreds of, of area authorities that are out there. And he presided there in that branch. And it also went on to say, let me go back here. This is AI again. It’s important to note that while church leaders were present at the funeral and have expressed condolences from Salt Lake, the articles do not explicitly state whether any leaders from Salt Lake specifically traveled there for the event. And I couldn’t find any either. And I looked at a lot of things. If they were there, we’d know it. The church would make sure we knew it. I think that’s really true. And I feel like when prime ministers are at events and things like that of this magnitude, I feel like usually there is a representation for church leadership. So then I started looking at have apostles attended other events that are tragic in this vein. And I had remembered this recent one in Utah where President Holland had shown up at the funeral of a young girl who had passed away. And he had spoken and kind of presided at that funeral there. I remembered an event from a decade ago that’s hard for me to talk about because I have a personal connection to this, where two missionaries were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. Yeah. And we have Elder Cook and actually then Elder Nelson that attended their funeral. So, you know, upper leadership Q-Fifteen, they do. They have been known to go to these events. So then I also tried to look at, do they go to West Africa or Africa? Because I thought, OK, maybe they don’t travel very much there. And that’s why they’re. They’re letting people on the ground represent them. And I found all kinds of instances in the last year and going back where many of them have traveled to many African countries, held conferences, given remarks. We kind of talked about that. Encouraging them to pay tithing. Yes, we all remember. So apparently apostles can make their way to Africa to hit the members up for tithing, but not for a funeral at which ten members are killed. Didn’t something crazy happen in Mozambique? That’s right, that event in Mozambique where there was a robbery. So yeah, they do spend time in the African nation. And then I thought, okay, well, let’s look for statements from upper leadership. I’m not talking about local. I’m talking about upper. When it first happened, there was Elder Rasman and his wife put out a statement. We are very sorry. It kind of came from them as a couple. It doesn’t necessarily make it sound like he’s saying, as an apostle of the LDS Church, we are so sorry. This is Melanie and I express our condolences. It’s a very heartfelt message. But again, not from, you know, not with the stamp of the upper leadership. Now, there was a message put out by the local area presidency. And that’s what they’re quoting in all of the articles on the church news and in Deseret News and in the Salt Lake Tribune. They’re quoting this. You know, the statement where they say it’s a very long statement, but starts out is which much sadness that we share the names. You know, they go through and they tell the names and we have our deepest sympathies to the families and the two victims. And they go on to say that the church is helping to support, you know, work through funeral arrangements and all of that. But again, the person who signed the people who have signed this are the area presidency in Africa South. Carlos A. Godoy. right there. And Denelson Silva, he’s from Brazil. And then a name that’s familiar by Sikahima, right? That’s the area presidency. And they are the most official statement that I can find about this tragedy. So I just kind of had to put this together. Because to me, I mean, I think about this, like I said, I can relate to this, being a young woman going on this trip, full of joy and excitement, a temple trip, whatever it is, I cannot imagine the heartache for everyone, the ward waiting back home. You know, the parents, the people at the activity, it’s just inconceivable. So who attended the services from the LDS Church? Well, an Area Seventy, and he presided on Saturday. And again, he’s one of hundreds of Area Seventies. He’s not a General Authority member. On the Wednesday memorial, a district president is the one that presided on that. And then who released a statement expressing condolence here in an official capacity? You have the African South Area Presidency, like we just read, and also a more personal statement from Elder Ronald A. Rasband Jr., And his wife, Melanie. So I just I was very surprised by that because I kind of felt like I don’t know that we’ve ever had this kind of loss of life in the church. Can you think of any other time where it was something like this? This is this is the tragedy of epic levels. And I just I’m surprised that there isn’t some kind of statement, you know, signed by the Q-Fifteen saying we’re so sorry. I don’t know. What do you guys think? The Hans Mill Massacre and the Willie and Martin Handcart Company. And that might be it. Yeah. But as far as something like this in modern day where, you know, I mean, missionaries are killed and they, you know, and that’s tragic and horrible. Yeah. I just don’t even like to read the news about that kind of stuff. But they do, you know, sometimes they’ll say something. But I was just surprised at a gathering where there was a prime minister that the highest ranking LDS person was a a seventy. So I don’t know. What do you think, RFM? I already said what I think. And I’m just saying by making the observation, I don’t think my observations are wrong. I know that, wasn’t it President Nelson who went to Africa in order to encourage the members of the church to pay tithing with the promise that tithing would raise them out of poverty if they paid it faithfully? Yep. But we know they know how to get there. but they couldn’t find their way there for this funeral service where ten members of the church were killed tragically. Yep, I don’t know what to make of it, but again, our hearts go out to everybody, and it’s just really one of the most sad things that I’ve come across, and I’m really sorry for everybody. All right, let’s move on to the next story. I think that’s Bill. All right, this one really quick. I won’t even read this. I just want to note that it happened. There was an article that came out this week, what it feels like to leave the Mormon church. I’m trying to remember what the story was published in, but it was a major… medium. I don’t remember what it was, but Brett Evans was raised a devout Mormon and he talks about his leaving. He was, he was gay and he tried to fit in and he did everything he could and he couldn’t make it work. So folks do want to go out there and look for that article, what it feels like to leave the Mormon church. So I’ll just note that. And then this was something you mentioned earlier today. I had seen this this morning and I didn’t, I didn’t read it. I was busy doing something else at the moment. And you would ask why or bill. It might’ve been Esquire. Esquire magazine. Yeah. Did you look it up just now to see? Yeah. Something else that happened here, Rebecca, you brought this to my attention. Like I said, I saw it earlier, but you noted that this seemed like a big deal and I didn’t really see the magnitude of it until you had brought it to my attention. In twenty twenty two in March, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experienced a cyber attack that compromised personal data of some members, employees, contractors. church was working with law enforcement and cyber security experts trying to figure out what had gone wrong and if you the audience are asking why are we talking about an article from I just want to note the last sentence here the church encourages members to remain vigilant about their personal data security on some level maybe the church should start to remain vigilant about personal data security because they ran into the problem again BYU Pathway, this just came out today. No, sorry, a week ago. July, fourteenth, twenty twenty five. Statement and frequently asked questions on BYU Pathway data incident. BYU Pathway worldwide detected unauthorized network access that affected the personal data of some students. At this time, there is no evidence that this personal information has been used for fraudulent or other harmful purposes. What they seem to note, by the way, in that sentence is that some of the data that was compromised could be used for those things. It just hasn’t been yet. They say, we worked with U.S. federal law enforcement authorities and third-party cybersecurity experts to establish the origin, nature, and scope of this incident and to mitigate possible impacts. We have taken steps to further enhance the security of our data, including vendor access. This incident has been reviewed with staff and security measures have been reemphasized to protect against similar incidents in the future. Our top priority is the privacy and security of our students. The church and its various factions are always noting how their top priority are the people. And then everything they do or don’t do seems to say otherwise. the security of their students, and we are taking all necessary steps to keep our student information safe. We regret any inconvenience or concern this incident may have caused, and with that, we consider the matter closed. Anyone with questions about the security of their information, don’t call us. Instead, you can learn more by referencing the frequently asked questions below. So I did take three of the questions that I think are most important, at least to the audience and understanding what happened. What personal information was affected? The breach systems contained personal data of current or previous online students served by BYU Pathway and its partners, BYU-Idaho and Ensign College. The data accessed may include name, social security number, national identification number, and if provided an account ID. but not a password. Contact information such as address and phone number, gender and marital status, religious aide, if provided, age and records of educational courses. So not enough to get your financial data, but enough to do identity fraud. What is being done to prevent this from happening again? The privacy and security of our students is our top priority. It’s their top priority. It’s the most important thing. We are even getting them married in the temple. Yes, we are taking, yeah. By the way, also notice the things it does in terms of marginalizing people that actually puts at risk the security of students. We are taking all necessary steps to protect their information, including working with staff and adding extra safeguards around system access. We’ve also been working with an external cybersecurity experts, US federal law enforcement, and our legal team to further enhance the security of our data. And then lastly, was this incident related to BYU Pathways new system transition? No, a vendor’s account was compromised by an unknown third party. I want to note, by the way, they don’t want to tell you what vendor and they don’t want to tell you the unknown third party. Well, third party, I was obviously people that broke in, but they don’t want to tell you the vendor. And I’m curious. why the vendor would have access to all of that information. In other words, it seems like on the surface, and the church can correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure they’ll rush to do this. My hunch is that the church sold the information to the vendor so that the vendor could then do what vendors do, which is reach out to students and try to sell things that the church and the vendor have an agreement to do. I don’t have a better explanation because what the church is acknowledging is that the student gave their information to BYU Pathway, and BYU Pathway gave the information to the vendor, and then the vendor’s system was compromised. So just FYI, a church that has this many billions of dollars apparently seems to be selling that information onward. I’ll also note a church that has over two hundred and sixty five billion dollars should have not only the best cybersecurity. Maybe among any entity on the planet. but should also use that cybersecurity to implement tons of processes that have you having to go through a two-step or three-step verification anytime any of this info gets out. And apparently the church gave it to a vendor just willy-nilly. So your thoughts, you guys? Here’s what I thought was interesting. I came across this article in Cyber News, right? Not the church website, not the church newsroom, Cyber News. And what you just showed is off of the BYU Pathways site. So unless you happen to go into BYU Pathways online, I don’t know that you would even know that your data and we’re talking about my mic. We’re talking about twenty five thousand students, right? Whose data was compromised. I haven’t found anything like the church newsroom saying pathways compromised. You would have to go log on to your pathways website, and that’s where you’d get that information. Cyber news outside of the LDS world is where they presented that. So I think that’s kind of interesting. Shouldn’t they be telling people? I once had an employer and I found out two years later that they had been hacked and my W two had been stolen. They knew it was taken. They knew all the information was on it. never told me you know I quickly froze my credit and all of this but you know it gave him a couple years to be doing stuff so I don’t know what’s going on so I you know it’s a sensitive topic but I feel like the church might need to get the word out a little bit more to people that this has happened this is you think the church would have enough practice hiding shit by now that they should be able to hide the shit that’s supposed to be hidden yes yeah No, they can’t hide that. So they hide the fact that it got discovered and stolen from the people whose information it is. Yeah, I mean, maybe there’s an article out there I didn’t find, but I looked. The only one I could see was cyber news. You know, what kind of LDS pathway student is going to come across that in cyber news, right? Who doesn’t get like a Mormon alert? You would think cyber news might have a link in it to the Deseret News or the church website or something. Yeah. And maybe it will come out, but I just feel like right now you would kind of, and I have friends that have done the pathway, you know, moms that didn’t graduate and went back. I feel like unless you happen to log on and I don’t even know if it’s active students, like what if you’ve already graduated and you never are going to look at the pathway website again, right? But your information is still there. How are you going to know that your data was compromised unless from the Mormon newscast, right? This is the second time in, you know, not a super long period of time, second time in just a few years that the church has had a major data breach and people’s personal information has gotten out. It reminds me again, not to the extent, I’m not comparing these two to that degree, but I’m just noting, this is a church that claims it’s the gold standard against protecting children and abuse seems to happen more prevalently in this faith than it does in many others. Um, if the church really did want to prioritize the safety and security and personal information of its students and members, it has so much money. It could easily do that. I can’t, the steps I have to go through to get into my bank should be the same kind of steps one would have to go into to get your students information. Yep. I see. You mean a gold standard is supposed to be a good standard? It’s supposed to be. Okay. Well, that’s, I think, where the miscommunication was. And then one more little thing, Rebecca, because you didn’t know this was coming, but I just want to note, I saw this earlier. I don’t want to go into great detail. I just saw the heading. We all knew this was going to happen. Former BYU quarterback, former BYU quarterback, Jake Retzlaff commits to Tulane football as a walk-on. So he has stepped away from BYU and, And breaking the law of chastity is no big deal at Tulane when you’re a good old college boy. But he’ll still have to deal with paying whatever that was for that other issue to go away. So good luck to Jake at Tulane University, I guess. Well, I did notice in that article, I’m so glad you put that up, that they said that Tulane’s Title IX office had to scrutinize everything that happened. They had to look at everything that happened, and they had to sign off on it. This is what happens to athletes that get caught in that BYU web of the honor code. You know, other universities may not quite understand. All we did is, you know, something consensual. So they have to look at it. What I’m trying to say is I think athletes may be a little stained going forward because people don’t understand the dynamic of the school that they came out of. Where is Tulane? Sorry, I don’t know. Oklahoma, isn’t it? It’s Oklahoma? Okay. Yeah, I was going to Google that and I didn’t have a chance. But yeah, I mean, it’s a cautionary tale to any athlete that involves itself with BYU is that here the place that he chose, they had to do extra steps at the Title IX office to make sure everything’s resolved. He’s okay. He’s not going to be a black mark on their university. So cautionary tale to any athlete at BYU. New Orleans, okay, south of Oklahoma. See, I said it with a question mark because I don’t know where all these universities are. I don’t follow college sports. Sorry, guys. If I go back to the previous story, doesn’t it seem fair that if I’m a student, my information’s been compromised? Don’t I have a right to know what vendor that was and how that vendor got my information? I would think so. You have no rights. What are you talking about? You signed this away in a small print when you didn’t check the box withdrawing the automatically given permission for them to sell your information to other unnamed vendors. Yeah. Well, I wonder if somebody in our audience knows someone who’s involved in the Pathway program that might want to contact them and say, hey, I want more information about what happened to my info. That might be interesting. Yeah. Anybody feels like doing it, do it. Let us know. Vendors do vend. Okay. Vendors have to vent. All right. I think we’re almost done. I have one more last little thing. I think that I added, unless you added anything else, Bill, like I said, it’s the news day where everything just kept coming, you know? So I have to say that of course, this week we have all been following the cold play kiss cam. I don’t have to explain that, but of course out there in the Mormon world, actually, I think I made both these memes, but I, Is that just a massive screen out there over the stadium? Yeah. And the idea. Yeah. For anybody who doesn’t know, the concept is they highlight a couple in the audience randomly. And when the couple looks up and sees their face ginormous in front of the whole stadium, they’re supposed to kiss. Right. Which is cute and really fun. Unless you’re not supposed to be at the concert together. And then what happens. A couple of Mormon missionaries. Exactly. Like in this case, you know, both people kind of just like sit. sunk into the floor turned around and oh my gosh I’m sure you guys have been following this all weekend long you have you know sports games everybody’s doing it people are standing there it’s just hilarious it’s it’s broken the internet and they say that it’s really bringing everybody together everyone’s so polarized but they can all agree on the comedy of this um of course the CEO has resigned all this kind of stuff that here we have Joseph Smith you know because he’d be okay with that and then I had to put this up the cold plate wait a second wait a second Did you mention who these people are and that he’s married? Well, I think people assume that. Yeah. And of course, the lead singer said, oh, those guys are really shy or they’re having an affair. You know, it was one of those kinds of things. He’s the CEO or is he HR? He’s the CEO of Astronomer. Yep. And she is the head of HR. Yep. And then standing next to them is the recently promoted VP of HR. Yep. So there’s all kinds of stuff going on there, but it is just taking on a life of its own as it kind of goes crazy. And it’s just, you know, everybody’s reenacting it anytime they’re at a game. So I put Joseph Smith on there. And then I also put in the light of shining a spotlight on someone who did not want to be caught on camera, the Coldplay Truth Cam. And that’s President Oak saying, so we know that we have a mother, a heavenly mother or mothers. We absolutely know that. That’s a great idea. I love that. It’s like they’re the two kids in the front of, what, the Titanic or something. It’s that scene from the movie. Oh, yeah, I know. Top of the world or something, I don’t know. Yeah, the top of the world. Well, it is interesting because it’s been a week now, a little over a week since Mormonish put out this video of President Oaks, and not only have the personal attacks on me and my appearance… Continued, which is hilarious. What attacks on your appearance? What are you talking about? Well, you know, just saying that I’m a liar and I’m an anti-XMO Mormon cat lady. And the video is as fake as the Botox that I use. Rebecca Biblia Botox. Wait a second. But again, I welcome all that because it means if they have nothing to say about the information I’ve put out, all they can do is attack me. you know, my appearance or who I am. Yes. And I was especially offended. Remember a couple of months ago when those, those guys over at a porch time gave you the autist of the month award. You’re the one that keeps bringing that up. Well, I’m just wondering if you remember. I think they’ve decided to make it a lifetime achievement award. Exactly. And I agree with what Song says there. I am proud to be a cat lady. I’m a cat and a dog lady. I embrace that and love that. But another group of people are attacking this video as a deep fake saying, you know, his fingers look weird. And they do. But again, this video was taken from, you know, kind of an old phone video. Old computer screen, Zoom meeting, you know, it’s very grainy. So I can assure everybody that this, whether you want to hear what is said by the prophet or not, this is a real video, a very authentic source. It’s not a deep fake. Jacob Hansen said that this was a nothing burger. Yeah, he did say that. Why did anybody think it’s a big deal? Yeah, well, because a lot of people, especially younger people, have never heard that there is polygamy in the next life. Of course, I was raised with that idea. Jacob Hansen said, nothing, Berger. We all know that. We don’t all know that. Some people are extremely disturbed to hear this. And that’s why this has kind of taken on a life of its own. In fact, I kind of added up all the different places that’s shown up. Wheat and Tares, By Common Consent, Inside Out, Salt Lake Tribune, Exponent. steve pinecker show I mean everybody nemo did an excellent episode on it um yesterday everybody is weighing in because this this has a lot of meaning to people you know is it real are they saying it out loud what does it mean so I I think it’s going to continue going it’s very interesting well I don’t think we have to worry about it being real yeah well no it’s real it’s real Yeah. Just like the temple training video is real. So I know, like I found myself two times in the week being accused, you know, you’re deceiving us. I have to go. My mommies are calling me. Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly. One time I was in ninth grade social studies with Mr. Shen. I was in ninth grade and we were studying LDS or American history. And there was a segment on Mormons. He did not like Mormons. This is not in Utah. And he said, Rebecca, you’re a Mormon. Why don’t you tell us about that? And I said, well, I don’t know. I’ll go home and ask my mothers. I thought it was a really funny joke. Did you say that? I did. I was funny. Even when I was, I know. Then I sunk down into my desk, like the CEO, right? Yeah. Well, I kind of got him because then I think he kind of realized he goes fine. All right, watch this film strip. And it was a very derogatory film strip, you know, beep about God makers. So, yeah, but it was not the God. Oh, my gosh. All right. Let’s let’s end and talk about what we’re going to be doing this week coming up. I think we have a lot of really cool stuff on Mormon discussions. Why don’t you take us through that? All right, so this was an episode we did last week. I just wanted to note, I think we had a great conversation about some things tied to both the Oaks, Heavenly Mothers, and also Joseph Smith’s predatory techniques on this last Mormonism After Dark. I thought it was a great conversation. Saturday, RFM, talk about your show that you put out. This is a real fun riff on five issues having to do with the war chapters in the Book of Mormon, where apologists try and find evidence for the Book of Mormon, or at least explain away problems that these chapters produce. And actually, it’s really bad for the Book of Mormon here. The war chapters are the Book of Mormon’s waterloo. Yeah, there you go. So check that out. And then, Rebecca? Yeah, we have an awesome episode coming up tomorrow night at six p.m. Mountain Time with, of course, Dr. Randy Bell. We’d love to have him on. We are going to be talking about the rebranding of the LDS Church again. We see this all over the place where they’re dropping of Latter-day Saints and just calling it the Church of Jesus Christ. And Randy likes to point out, and he’s going to bring the receipts on this episode, there are hundreds of the Church of Jesus Christ. How in the world do they think they’re going to get away with this? So this is going to be Fascinating. And it’ll give everybody a lot to say. If you have friends or relatives in the church that say we are the only church of Jesus Christ. So he kind of goes through the history of the name of the church. And then we talk about where it may be trying to go more mainstream Christianity in the future. Although how can you really enter the mainstream if you admit you have heavenly mothers? Yeah, that’s rough. And when you got a frat boy, Jesus in your logo, cause he looks like he’s on its way to a toga party. Yeah, it’s channeling a little bit of Jim Belushi there. That’s exactly right. Oh, and then I think you wanted to bring this up, Bill or RFM, whichever one of you put this in here. And this is great. Excellent. Thank you so much. This Wednesday on Mormonism Live is going to be the religious business. We’ve had Nathan Opfel, who is the director, producer, guy in charge of this show. We had him on the show a few months ago in preparation, but it is now about to be released. This… This thing says, this tag, this, what do you call it? This thumbnail says, it’s a seven-part docuseries coming Easter, well, that’s not Easter anymore. It’s actually coming out here this month in July of, we’re gonna have to have them on in two days to talk about it and what this was like to get this thing up on the screen. I believe that there’s going to be a cinematic presentation that he can tell us about in Salt Lake City. That’s going to happen too. Later on this month. And I think it’s going to be on the twenty fifth. I believe it’s this Friday. So twenty first and second. Yeah. So it’ll be two days after he’s on the show and we’ll get the details there. Or you could just Google it and find it the way I did. So he’ll be in Salt Lake? He’ll be actually in Salt Lake? I don’t know if he’s going to be there. I can’t speak to that. He certainly might be, but I don’t know. The movie’s going to be shown. I think maybe all seven parts. Anyway, he’s going to be on our show Wednesday. We’re going to get all the deets on this incredible show about the religion business. It’s an incredible business, this religion. If you don’t have ethics and you just want to make some money, this is a great place to go. And some do it better than others. Yes. Yeah. And with what we discussed last week, the IRS saying, you’re okay. Just act like a business. Go ahead. You can promote people. You can, you know, yeah, it’s only going to get more and more interesting. So, all right, we’ll put information out about that for sure, because that’ll be really fascinating for all of us. And I think that’s it. I think we covered it and we ended a little bit early, even though we had so much news. So thank you, Bill. Thank you, RFM. And we will see everybody next Monday, same time, same crew, six PM. We’ll see you guys next time. Bye-bye. That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of the Mormon Newscast. We appreciate you tuning in and sharing this time with us. Keep the conversation going and stay informed on all things Mormonism. Until next week, wishing you peace and joy. See you next Monday at six p.m. on the Mormon Newscast. .
Déroulement de la vidéo:
1.413 Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Mormon. I almost couldn’t even say it. The Mormon Newscast.
6.516 I’m Rebecca Biblioteca. I am joined by my colleagues, Bill Reel and Radio Free Mormon. It is Monday,
12.178 July twenty first of twenty twenty five. We’re going to begin with Bill giving us a little tribute to somebody that
18.501 we’ve lost from our community. All right, so, folks, Steve Benson,
24.323 and this is a person that everyone should know. I imagine there’s a lot of younger
30.048 post-Mormons or deep-thinking Latter-day Saints who aren’t aware of who Steve Benson is.
35.052 But Steve Benson passed away this week. He was a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist.
40.176 He passed away at the age of seventy-one. It was noted here in the New York Times. By the way, he made the New York Times,
45.78 which speaks volumes about the influence that he had on the world. With national reach, he won the prize in
51.024 nineteen ninety-three. and was a finalist for it four other times while at the Arizona Republic.
56.628 Some of his work rankled his own Mormon community. I’ll just note here, we’re sad to announce the
62.191 passing of Steve Benson on July eighth, twenty twenty five. Steve was a gifted editorial cartoonist who sharp wit
69.396 earned him the Pulitzer Prize in nineteen ninety three in a place in the national spotlight. Born into a prominent LDS family,
75.7 grandson of church president Ezra Tapp Benson. He was raised in the framework of faith and a conservative in a conservative
82.483 uh values home but increasingly charted his own path beginning at the arizona republic in he rose
88.487 to prominence challenging the powerful and stirring readers with bold imagery from lampooning arizona
93.992 governor evan meacham to provoking national discourse on issues like capital punishment in a
99.736 journey marked by both conviction and rupture benson publicly left the lds church in
105.7 following his outspoken criticism of how his grandfather’s health was portrayed by church leaders. It was his grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson,
113.242 who was propped up at times in front of the camera in order to sort of be the face of Mormonism as its
118.602 prophet and for the church to maintain the image that its prophet was in great shape. Meanwhile, Steve,
124.584 as Ezra Taft Benson’s grandson, very well knew that he was in the late stages of dementia and really wasn’t
131.425 functioning in any way as a leader of the church. Steve embraced atheism,
136.766 becoming a free-thinking human being and continued using satire to hold institutions and himself accountable.
143.55 Benson may be best known within Mormon circles for his nineteen ninety three confidential meeting with
148.831 Apostles Dallin H. Oaks and Neal A. Maxwell at church headquarters. Benson pressed them about
153.873 the role of Boyd K. Packer in the controversial excommunication of our friend Paul Toscano.
159.376 What followed revealed a rare moment of candor from Elder Oaks. who reportedly sighed and stated you can’t stage
165.658 manage a grizzly bear in reference to Boyd K. Packers getting involved behind the scenes in spite
172.02 of the church denying that such was occurring. Benson will be remembered for drawing back the curtain on the human
177.643 dynamics shaping ecclesiastical decisions, reminding Latter-day Saints that even the strongest leaders
184.144 are not immune to the influence or metaphorical clawing. So we’ll miss Steve Benson.
189.324 I’ll just note here a couple of quick things and I’ll get comments from you guys. There’s a picture of Steve on the left.
194.425 Here’s one of his artistic editorial cartoons.
200.887 There’s another picture of him on the left and another one of his editorial cartoons. Don’t you dare crucify me with Jesus.
207.168 Steve looks to be sitting there as one of those rogue artists in this image.
212.622 He actually is a rogue artist. The church only wishes they could have had him under their control.
217.907 Yeah. So will Misty Benson, he certainly had a lot of influence on our ability to
222.993 gauge how far the church will go to prop up its leaders in a way that has
229.64 them looking like they’re functioning when they’re really not, which leaves us all wondering when they are and when they’re not, huh?
235.888 I just remember that he was the first person that I’d ever come across that actually said something, you know,
241.573 that things aren’t as they appear. As you said, pulled back the curtain. And I remember reading that when he said,
246.956 my grandpa doesn’t send his love to all of you. My grandpa doesn’t even know his own name right now.
252.842 And I remember thinking, you can do that. You can, you can say things, you can speak some truth, even if it isn’t, you know,
259.226 the image that they’re trying to portray. So it had an impact on me as the first person that I saw that said,
265.432 wait a minute, things are not as they seem. So I’m sorry.
270.555 I thought you were at a period. I apologize. Close. Period. I’m done.
275.92 Okay. So I want to say, I agree with you. I know exactly what you’re talking about. And this is,
282.56 speaks about what Mormonism is like as much as any other thing. And this is a common event, I think,
289.964 that post-Mormons and a lot of still Mormons have experienced, which is you come to a
295.528 point where you realize, wait a second, you can actually say what
301.252 you’re really thinking about the church because you see someone else do it, right?
308.295 And you go, oh my gosh. Of course, usually they get excommunicated and then you realize it. That’s what happens when you do that,
314.17 but not if you’re the prophet’s grandson. And that was the other thing that was so wonderful about what he did.
320.012 It took courage, it took spunk. I really appreciate that he did this because he also
325.754 had the gravitas of being the grandson of the prophet of the church. And he, I think, was able to do this,
331.295 whereas me from off the street, I doubt that it would have ever happened. So, I mean, he gets a one-on-one, I mean,
337.778 a one-on-two meeting with two apostles, Elder Oaks and Elder Maxwell,
343.882 and Elder Maxwell doesn’t really figure in this so much, but then they’re talking about the rule that the
351.187 church has set itself, that the leaders at the top will not,
356.651 do not, never do, honest to God, we never, ever get involved in the
362.295 local disciplinary decisions in the wards and stakes. except that Elder Packer did
369.132 get in contact, either got in contact with the state president, or I think the state president reached out to him to try and be accurate.
376.197 And Elder Packer took the call, let’s say. And there was some discussion about it.
381.723 So that was a violation of the rules. Elder Oaks knew that. That’s what he meant when he said it’s hard to stage
387.026 manage a grizzly bear. The only thing I wanted to correct on that synopsis at the end of their bill, it’s not really a correction.
392.447 It’s just to make it clear that it wasn’t just the church who denied it. It was Elder Oaks.
398.93 Shortly after that, this is all September of nineteen ninety three, Elder Oaks was asked by,
404.011 I think the Arizona Republic, whether whether this had happened,
409.49 whether Elder Packer had gotten in touch with the state president and Elder Oaks feigns a loss of memory.
416.596 I have no information on that. I have no reason to think that’s the case. And that’s when Steve Benson
423.0 stood forward and said, wait a second, maybe you forgot this conversation you had with
428.985 me within this past month or two, but I haven’t.
434.029 And then I think that Elder Oaks was left to, say about Steve Benson that
439.627 he didn’t really value his commitments to secrecy and
445.007 confidentiality. See, when secrecy is something you want, it’s confidentiality. So I’m sure he said he
450.029 doesn’t appreciate a confidence, but basically he had to eat crow on that. And this is one where he was really,
456.672 really caught off first base. No question about it. And that’s all because of Steve Benson.
462.194 So I, I praise his name and I hope he rests in peace.
467.966 Yeah, there it is. It kind of all fall. It works perfectly as long as everybody toes the party line of not saying things
475.228 as they really are. But as soon as somebody kind of breaks out and does that, then there is a big mess to clean up. And we’ve seen that a lot recently.
482.11 And I’m sorry for interjecting that whole thing in the middle of this story, except for the fact that I think this story is one of
487.892 the stories that cannot be forgotten. especially when it’s not just history. This is current events.
493.478 Elder Oaks is the first counselor in the first presidency. And upon the demise of President Nelson,
500.362 Oaks is going to become the president of the church. And things haven’t changed, RFM. President Monson was in the
506.644 late stages of dementia as well. Inside sources, Ryan McKnight had an inside source.
512.509 I had an inside source at the time. President Monson was propped up basically in a room,
518.94 given root beer floats, and watched What About Bob every day because that was his favorite show. Down the street.
524.844 And so the church still does this thing that when its leaders become frail and feeble, it pretends as if they’re
530.607 still super strong prophets, seers, and revelators. Yeah, it’s the old USSR thing.
536.613 Back in the USSR, that should be the theme song for the LDS church leadership.
541.885 That’s it. And I don’t know what would be wrong with saying, look, you know, they are feeling the effects of age,
546.928 much like your grandpa or your so-and-so, you know, why not just be honest about it, but they have to look strong, robust.
553.732 The Lord is preserving them, you know, because the way you become the next prophet is the current prophet dies.
559.256 So it’s a very interesting system, but there’s, and you’re right. This is another in a long
565.341 list of examples of the church and it’s, um, uh relationship such as it
570.845 is with the truth which is that whenever there’s a distinction to be made a choice that has to be done
576.409 the church is going to go for appearance over reality
581.995 every time they want to look good and they will always opt for looking better than they are instead of just you know
587.942 being straight with people and being transparent Yeah, I think so, too. And I feel like Steve Benson, you know,
594.226 he really drew attention to the fact that I think it’s elder abuse in a lot of cases with these extremely elderly and infirm.
599.847 I remember also hearing about President Monson. Someone ran into him. He was sitting in a chair in a hallway of the church office building.
605.889 And he said to this person, I don’t know why I’m here. They just put me here and I sit here.
611.171 You know, I mean, good heavens. You know, would you even want your grandpa in that scenario? No, you wouldn’t know your dad it.
618.179 don’t know it’s unkind I think so but that’s a whole other podcast anyway steve benson will be missed let’s
623.744 go to our slide of the stories that we’re going to cover because boy we have a lot of I said to rfm before the show we I had to keep
629.726 deleting stories because the new ones kept popping in there’s just been a very busy news week um I’m going
634.811 to talk about a temple training video that is causing some problems RFM is going to talk about a
639.852 judge who puts a hold on mandatory priest reporting. And we’re going to learn in
645.355 RFM segment that he is indeed a prophet. We’re going to have some proof of that, which is going to be great. It’s not that hard after all.
652.258 Exactly. Speaking of prophet, Bill’s going to cover a female prophet ordained. This is extremely exciting
658.019 news out of the community of Christchurch. Who attended the memorial for the Lesotho tragedy?
663.822 This is that extremely tragic vehicle crash of a group of people.
668.931 going to a church activity in africa and we’re going to kind of talk about that so sad and then a little
674.894 bit more about the fairview mayor who is just still pleading for a compromise in this dang temple uh
680.596 scenario down there so I guess we will dive right in the first thing is my story here I swear that every
686.159 sunday last sunday and now this sunday um I have spoken to people or received
691.942 videos that have been really interesting. So I’m going to tell you guys exactly what’s going on here.
697.883 I’m titling this segment, Elder David A. Bednar Targets LGBTQ Members in a
703.144 Temple Training Video. So this is kind of how it went down. I put a short out today and I’ve gotten a lot of
709.284 interesting feedback. Of course, always being called a liar. That’s always fun. I’m not a liar.
714.926 And I’m going to clarify everything right now. So I have a friend,
719.962 in the Seattle area who is a temple worker. This is a longtime friend, decade, decade,
725.047 decades old friend. And this person as a temple worker, let me know of a scenario
730.912 that had happened in the Seattle temple last week. So if you work in the temple,
736.275 you’re either called an ordinance worker or a temple worker. There are various kinds of levels of temple workers.
741.86 Some are just regular people that come in and take a shift. Other people have more specific duties.
748.304 It’s kind of its own little world there. But they do gather before their shifts. Sometimes, you know, in some temples,
754.849 I think it’s almost every time before their shift. In others, I’ve heard that it’s, you know, maybe just…
760.393 on a need to gather basis, but it’s basically for training, a devotional perhaps,
767.597 maybe procedures that they need to talk about. You know, this group is coming in today. We need to do this and that. Anyway, just touching base with the group,
774.202 which, you know, any corporation does that, right? When they’re fielding a lot of people that come in
779.826 every day or not so many people. Anyway, so my friend let me know that last week,
786.351 there was a training and they showed a training video. And I guess that’s pretty common, little segment.
792.094 And these videos come from upper church leadership. How it works is the temple presidency is instructed by
799.275 upper leadership. We’re talking about apostles, Q-fifteen, first presidency, in how they want things to
804.657 work in the temple. And these little videos are put out and you can use those for training in the temple.
810.719 And then the temple presidency will kind of clarify what’s said in the video. So this particular video that they showed last week
816.804 had to do with same-sex romantic behavior in the temple.
823.25 Now, I looked up exactly what that means. I mean, we’ve seen it in the BYU Honor Code.
828.356 It’s in the church handbook. That could be as simple as holding hands,
833.462 you know, in a same-sex relationship, obviously a kiss, you know, what would be considered
838.789 very light behavior for a couple that was not a same-sex couple, right? Somebody at BYU doing that
844.658 would not face any kind of penalty. Doesn’t every guy in the temple hold hands with at least one other guy multiple times?
850.524 Yeah, and this is what we’re going to show. This is what I kind of, you’re anticipating where I’m going with this.
855.668 But this video basically was asking temple workers or nuts workers to be on the lookout for this.
862.174 And if they see people engaging in same-sex romantic behavior,
867.659 which, you know, still is kind of nebulous. What is that exactly? How romantic? Yeah, how romantic.
872.924 You’re supposed to go up to them as the ordinance worker and warmly welcome them.
878.006 Not like when I went through. Oh, my gosh. It was like, are you wearing nail polish? Get out.
883.21 They are all about being friends. No, that really happened to me. What color? Yeah.
888.812 Light pink. Yeah, it was back in the day. But they are all about, you know,
894.255 the user experience and not frightening anybody and being very, very kind. And I know that they have
900.099 extensive training on that. So in Elder Bednar’s video, he was the one in the video they showed.
905.903 He said, welcome them warmly. Tell them that you’re very glad that they’re here. And then invite them to visit with someone,
913.606 you know, in the temple presidency in the office. Okay. So that was kind of the video.
919.11 You’re calling them to the office? Like to the principal’s office? To the office. Exactly. Isn’t that interesting?
925.676 And so, of course, the temple workers had some questions about that.
931.941 You know, the first question was how… Do we exactly tell the difference between,
938.645 say, a father and a son, you know, arm around, you know, son, I’m so proud of you. It’s your first day at the temple.
945.152 Or a mother and a daughter sharing a hug. You know, maybe they had gone to the temple and they were wrestling
950.975 with a question in the family. You know, the temple can be a very emotional place, especially in the celestial room.
956.059 When you gather, people go there for answers. They go there often with family members.
961.062 And so the question from some of the temple workers was, well, how exactly, you know, how exactly do we tell what
968.107 kind of behavior this is? And the temple presidency, according to my friend, didn’t, you know, just kind of do the best you can.
974.951 I think people thought there’s a lot of margin for error here. This could be really mischievous. By the way, Rebecca,
980.476 like I told you earlier when you told me this part, I said, this is what passes for training in the LDS church.
987.852 Seriously, this is what passes for training. It is. And another question some of
994.455 the temple workers raised is, you know, what if it’s someone, say, from another culture that’s more demonstrative, you know,
1001.136 more than we are used to? You know, basically, you know, what if some people are just huggers, right? They’re going to go around
1006.158 and hug everybody. You know, is that something we need to, you know, how do we do this exactly? The other question they raised is why?
1013.32 What if they ask us why? Why do we have to go to the temple president’s office?
1019.14 What should we say? And the temple presidency, whichever person was there, you know,
1024.163 conducting the training said, well, you know, kind of do the best you can and really feel sorry for us
1029.923 because we’re the ones that have to talk to them. And they explained that the reason,
1035.444 and this is what I think is very interesting, the reason for this, the reason for this, Seeing someone who may be
1040.747 engaging in romantic same-sex behavior in the temple, the reason they need to go into the office of the temple presidency is so
1047.588 that they can find out who their bishop and who their state president is, and then the temple presidency can contact the
1054.05 bishop and or the state president and find out what the story is on why this
1059.593 temple recommend was signed, what is the scenario with this person. So basically, to me,
1065.195 it seems like it’s asking the ordinance workers to be the eyes and ears of, you know, upper leadership to see
1070.74 what’s going on in the ground. Now, my friend. Ms. Rebecca, what did your, because I think this is a very important point and I
1076.585 want to underscore it. What did your friend say was her basis of knowledge about being the eyes and ears? In other words,
1081.828 trying to figure out who these people are so that the bishops and state presidents can be contacted.
1087.625 Yeah, well, I mean, that’s just kind of what they were discussing, that we need to be on the ground. Because how is somebody in
1093.751 the church office building going to know what’s going on in temples? And as I understand it, this video can be shown in
1101.08 training in any temple in the world. I would love it if anybody is friends with a temple worker to find out if it’s
1106.267 shown anywhere. Anywhere else. So my friend was very disturbed. Other temple workers in the
1112.03 room with my friend, you know, they were more just questioning. How do we do this exactly? But my friend is very much
1118.915 an ally and my friend was very disturbed. So my friend went back to another shift training to
1125.119 make sure that there wasn’t a misunderstanding. You know, maybe the video didn’t come across right.
1130.824 Maybe my friend got done with her shift and then went to the next shift training so that she could be there to watch the video again.
1137.167 Yeah, exactly. Just to understand exactly what was happening. And it was the same video
1142.171 and it was the same instruction. Please invite them to the office. And we need to make sure that we contact the bishop
1147.515 and the state president to assess the situation as vague as that sounds.
1152.597 So and again, this is in the Seattle Washington Temple. And I’d be really curious if
1158.642 anybody else in any other temple who gets training because temples all over the world,
1163.644 temple presidencies all over the world. And they have access to these videos from upper leadership giving
1169.65 instruction about what needs to happen in the temple. So that was pretty interesting to me today. I put that out as a short.
1175.714 And, of course, I got a lot of feedback on that.
1180.73 Seems like I’m always getting feedback on videos lately. I don’t know. So, of course, there is no copy of this video. It happened inside of the temple.
1187.015 So all we have to go on is is my decades long friend who, of course, I trust completely.
1192.617 And and her reaction, she was extremely upset. And I can’t go into all the details,
1198.101 but took action based on, you know, for herself personally, based on what had happened here.
1204.085 Can I say something before you get to this? This is very funny. Sure. What I want to say is that presuming,
1210.388 for the sake of argument, we’ll presume this is true. That’s all we can do, really, is presume.
1216.073 Right. What it speaks to me of is that the leaders of the church, the top leaders,
1222.156 are concerned about their bishops and stake presidents giving temple recommends to people that
1228.08 they know are gay or in gay relationships. And therefore, how do we figure out,
1235.384 how do we find out what bishops and state presidents are doing this? Well, we will go to the temple.
1241.406 We’ll have the workers there. Look for any gay people, okay?
1246.49 Any gay activity. If your gaydar goes above a five, you need to take these people and tell them to go
1251.953 to the temple president. We’re going to find out. where they attend so we know the name of their bishop and their state president,
1258.183 and then we can reverse engineer this puppy and hold those guys accountable. If this is correct,
1264.367 I think that the leaders are really struggling to get control of the church.
1270.713 Yeah, no, I think that’s true. And I think, what was I going to say? I just lost my train of thought now.
1278.659 I can’t remember. Anyway, no, I think you’re absolutely right on that. Oh, I know what I was going to say. For people that aren’t familiar with kind of the rules of,
1286.022 you know, being a member of the LGBTQ community and being able to go to the temple, you can do anything in the
1291.705 church as long as you’re not in a same-sex relationship. You can be a member of the LGBTQ community.
1297.888 But the moment that you are in a relationship, you know, get married, start dating,
1303.371 start exhibiting romantic behavior as simple as a handhold. You know, that’s when you are going to butt
1309.273 up against leadership and you might have a problem. Any thoughts on that bill before I just say one of the signs,
1315.036 one of the signs they look for is a long and lingering patriarchal grip. Remember, though, that’s not a – okay,
1321.94 yes. There’s a linger longer. Unless your last name is
1327.883 Bird and then you seem to be able to – so there are a select number of – gay members of the church
1334.605 who seem to be on the right side of the good old boys
1339.827 club in some way that the rules don’t apply to them. They get to be in the thing
1345.609 that no one else is allowed to be in. So there are exceptions to the rule. Yeah, no, I think you’re absolutely right.
1351.446 And I just started thinking about, you know, just people that go to the temple and just express, you know,
1357.088 love or affection. And I thought about how many pictures we see of the church leadership.
1363.271 Look, they are hugging, they’re groping, they’re grasping, they have arms around each other. There’s a kiss.
1370.055 Down there, Elder Uchtdorf is kissing President Holland. There’s hand-holding. You know, these are just some pictures I
1376.017 grabbed off of the last couple conferences. And I know that the Q-Fifteen do meet in the temple.
1381.459 You know, they meet on a certain floor and have, you know, what if they were walking down the halls and exhibited any
1386.52 of this kind of behaviors, an embrace, a kiss, a hand-hold? You know, would they be asked to go to the
1393.624 temple president’s office? I think they all need to go to see the temple president. This one over here on the left in the middle with Bednar,
1399.614 is that where he’s like comforting Elder Uchtdorf when he got demoted from being president?
1405.851 That could be it. Sorry, buddy. That could be it. It kind of looks like it. And then I just have to put up this picture.
1412.255 And you know why. I mean, according to D. Michael Quinn’s
1417.338 posthumously released memoir, President Kimball enjoyed a good kiss up and down the
1423.182 neck and embracing. It was making out. Let’s just call it what it was. It was a makeout session.
1428.365 No, in Mormon parlance, it’s called necking and petting. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I don’t know if everyone
1434.031 knows what we’re talking about. But yes, in D. Michael Quinn’s book, he talked about several interactions with President
1439.059 Kimball and President Kimball was extremely affectionate with him, extremely affectionate. So now we know why it was
1444.267 that in high school, Spencer Kimball’s nickname was Hot Lips. Well, I don’t know if I can confirm or deny
1450.14 that. But anyway, your mind goes there. You’re like, there’s a lot of situations where you’re going to be
1455.766 affectionate in the temple. And these poor temple workers are going to have to be scrutinizing,
1461.332 trying to determine your sexuality, trying to determine what a glance or a handhold or a pat means.
1468.459 And I think that the workers in that training realized that and were uncomfortable. I think they were trying to
1473.565 get some guidance on how do I do that? Exactly. It’s so invasive, you know, to walk up to someone.
1478.99 So here’s a picture. You might be wondering why it is the gay people are in the temple.
1484.864 Yeah, because they can be there. Why do we have to do this? Yeah. And here are some pictures of the female leaders.
1490.626 Of course, women typically are known as being, but here they are embracing and groping and grasping
1496.25 and handholding and kissing. And, you know, you’ve got all that, which is perfectly, you know,
1502.054 It should all be fine. And then, of course, I put a little picture here of President Bednar receiving a lovely kiss from his wife,
1508.616 Susan. You know, such a simple, you know, almost very platonic. And, you know, yet his training video has said that,
1514.82 you know, something like this is not going to happen for any member of the LGBTQ community without
1520.282 being called into the temple president’s office. Do you remember when Gary Oldman played Dracula a few years back?
1526.566 I do remember that. Well, without the big bouffant wig, that’s kind of what Elder Bednar’s face reminds me of.
1532.554 Oh my goodness. You always have to make a comparison, don’t you? And a lot of these comments that I’m making or these
1538.136 things I’m bringing up were brought up in comments to my video that I put out this morning. People are going there and
1543.921 making these observations. I also started thinking, and so did people in the comments, initiatory, my goodness.
1550.525 I have here a picture of the original where you were naked in a bathtub with fire whiskey being poured over you, but
1557.769 you know, through the years you are with a person of the same sex and they are, you know, I mean, my experience was with the
1563.951 poncho open on the sides and there was a woman who is touching me everywhere.
1569.332 So that’s kind of interesting. I don’t know if I should have had to go see the temple president. And then prior to the early nineties,
1576.513 there was something called the five points of fellowship, which happened in the endowment where you, you know, it’s Masonic.
1582.194 You, you basically touch five points on another person’s body of the same sex and Do you know what those points are?
1589.397 Let’s see. It’s the foot to foot. Oh, it says it over there. I was going to do it from memory. I’m sorry. It’s right there.
1594.903 Do it from memory and I won’t look and we’ll see if you’re right. Well, now I’ll get it all wrong, but you know, it was the inside of right
1600.868 foot to the inside of right front, knee to knee. There was hand to hand, breast to breast. Well, no, no.
1606.253 Breast to breast, hand to shoulder and mouth to ear. I think that was it. Yep, that was exactly right.
1612.5 And again, in the temple, of course, it’s Peter that’s instructing you. But, you know,
1617.803 it is it is a master in masonry where you’re doing the same thing. So anyway,
1623.104 all kinds of places and times in the temple where you are in contact, you know, in the way that they were describing that,
1629.945 you know, might not be what you’re supposed to be doing. So when I saw this, I thought this was step three in the all male cha-cha.
1637.607 One, two, three, cha, one, two, three, cha. Anyway, I really hope that somebody gets a
1643.236 hold of me or any of us and says, hey, yeah, I have someone that’s a temple worker and they are seeing this training. Again, it’s very new.
1649.54 We’re talking less than a week old since my friend saw it. But, you know, she was very disturbed just
1656.747 because she is an ally. And even everyone else in the room was just concerned
1661.789 about how exactly they would execute these instructions because there’s so much margin for error.
1668.055 So anyway, we’ll see. Yes. Did you respond to, was it some guy out there who says, what happens if you get the sixth point in?
1674.98 If you get what? Some guy out there says, what happens if you get the sixth point in? And I wanted you to answer
1680.506 that if you could. The sixth point of fellowship. Oh, the sixth point of fellowship. Oh God. Then you really have to go to the bishop.
1689.267 That’s exactly right. So anyway, it’s a story and we’ll see. But yeah, let me know if anybody talks to
1694.29 any other temple workers and this is part of it. So but just the idea of the policing and the policing of leadership.
1700.454 Right. Those rogue bishops and state presidents who might be letting people attend when they shouldn’t.
1706.078 I think that’s what they’re trying to check on. Right. So. I guess so. I don’t know. Or maybe they’re thinking maybe they’re getting there
1711.412 under false pretenses and trying to run into a sealing room and, you know, I don’t know, get themselves sealed in
1716.983 some unholy rite. Yeah. Well, that happened to me. I was accused of being a polygamist when I was
1722.075 simply peeking into a ceiling room. With three of your boyfriends? Yeah. Well, no, this was with my fiance and I had
1728.738 taken out my endowment, but it was the next time we went back and he wanted to show me what a ceiling room
1734.06 looked like because we were getting married in a few weeks. And so we kind of tiptoed off the beaten path.
1740.003 And we, I’ve told the story several times before, but we peeked into a ceiling room and right away this temple
1745.846 matron threw herself into the doorway and said I know who you are you’re a polygamist and you’re
1751.39 trying to do a ceremony and we’re not going to have this here and you know my fiance knew I was uncomfortable in the temple
1757.212 anyway so nervous about it before going even more disturbed after getting my endowment and you know he
1762.976 tried to explain nope I’m just showing my fiance but boy yeah it rattled me forever it rattles me to this day
1769.44 I love that story. Every time I hear it, I love it more. And remember, these are the kind of people who are going to be
1774.473 determining who the gay temple patrons are. That’s it. That’s exactly it. So anyway, unfolding story.
1780.5 We will keep you all informed. And if anyone has any information, let me know, because I think it’s pretty fascinating on a lot of different levels.
1786.443 I have a little bit more Temple news, and then we’ll move on to the next story. Fairview Mayor,
1792.028 a call for compromise with the LDS Church reflecting shared values. This is the wonderful Mayor John Hubbard,
1798.632 and he wrote an opinion piece in the paper. If you guys remember where we are at with Fairview,
1804.935 the conditional use permit was voted through. But then the residents group came forward and said,
1810.319 I think you guys needed a super majority based on some calculations and protest letters.
1815.444 And the Board of Adjustment just recently said, we don’t have any jurisdiction.
1820.769 So Fairview residents will be taking this to the district court, as I understand it.
1825.953 So while all this is going on, Mayor John Hubbard decided that he would write
1831.178 An opinion piece. And he’s an awesome guy. Remember Mayor Henry Lesner?
1836.278 He was the one that we were going through this for the last year. New mayor, John Hubbard, equally awesome. He was a council member
1842.339 through the whole thing, so he knows what’s going on. So I’ll just read this really quick. Again, an opinion piece. It says,
1847.681 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been a part of our Fairview community for many years. Many of our residents are members,
1854.021 and they have contributed in countless ways to the character and well-being of our town. Fairview in turn has
1859.473 welcomed the church and its members with respect and hospitality that define who we are as a community.
1864.935 That’s why the current dispute over the proposed temple and its prominent spire, again,
1870.597 I assume everyone’s been following this, but it’s all about how dang tall this temple and really all temples are.
1876.5 The prominent spire is especially painful. What should be a moment of celebration, an opportunity to build a
1881.963 new place of worship and reflection has instead become a source of division. »
1887.405 This is not about religion. It’s about respect for zoning ordinances, for neighbors, and for the shared values
1893.272 that help communities like Fairview thrive. To its credit, the church did participate
1898.459 in a mediation process with the town. We appreciate that step. Mediation is never easy, and entering it shows a
1904.286 willingness to listen. However, it did not result in an agreement that ended our community’s concerns.
1910.891 And today, litigation continues, an outcome that I believe neither side truly wants, right?
1917.736 Everybody loses during litigation. Oh, yeah. Remember,
1922.92 a lawsuit is a mechanism into which both parties enter as pigs and exit as sausage.
1930.768 I like that. I’ll remember that. All right. He goes on to say a group of Fairview residents known as Fairview United or FU is
1938.971 challenging the town council’s April thirtieth twenty twenty five approval of a conditional use permit for the construction of the temple.
1944.772 The lawsuit filed in Collin County District Court. seeks to reverse or nullify
1949.994 the council’s decision asserting that proper procedures were not followed there is presently no timeline outlining how
1956.155 the litigation will move forward so the ball is kind of in fairview united’s court there is however still an opportunity to
1962.698 move forward in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect the church has consistently expressed a
1968.0 desire to be a good neighbor and to live our principles of peace respect and community engagement
1973.06 How many times has the church said in all of these temple scenarios, we just want to be a good neighbor?
1979.785 And I think about that. There’s a difference between wanting to be a good neighbor and taking proactive steps to be a good neighbor,
1986.769 right? I think there’s some verses in the epistle of James chapter two about that. I don’t know if Mormons know those.
1993.461 Yeah, exactly. I mean, I can say I want to weigh a hundred and ten, but you know, until I stop eating cookie
1998.824 dough before the cookies are made, it’s not going to happen. So wanting and doing are two separate things.
2004.144 So he goes on to say those values are deeply meaningful. And I believe this moment
2009.487 calls for renewed commitment to them. um he says specifically I
2014.949 urge the the church to consider a further compromise now they did compromise as a little side
2020.991 note in mediation to take this fire down from a hundred and seventy three feet good heavens down to
2027.194 one twenty but seventy is what everybody is hoping for the sweet spot and they’ve been told asking
2033.478 over and over again that it’s just god that wants it a hundred and twenty just god that’s all not much you
2038.74 can do just god So he says, I urge the church to consider a further compromise on the height of the temple’s proposed fire.
2044.823 Doing so would demonstrate that this building is more than just an architectural statement. It reflects faith lived out of action.
2052.085 Love that. It would send a message that the church values harmony over division and dialogue
2057.608 over litigation. A temple built through collaboration can become a symbol of unity and reverence.
2063.329 But if built through conflict, it risks becoming a lasting symbol of controversy in our community.
2069.351 uh cody wyoming has entered the chat and many other towns right there fairview
2074.393 is a place where differences are resolved through conversation not confrontation the church has always said it shares
2080.237 those values there is still a path forward let’s take it together so I applaud
2086.179 mayor john that was really really good he’s really trying to say come on we can do this together and
2091.481 everyone will be happy Yeah, he is. But, you know, on the other side of the argument, the church already compromised once.
2098.561 And now they’re asking them to compromise again, which means they want two bites at the apple.
2103.967 And I could understand the church kind of taking offense at that. Right. But what did they really compromise?
2109.393 One seventy three is an arbitrary number just thrown out there. Well, by God, who’s going to change this mind?
2114.838 It is arbitrary. At least when they’re in codes such as these, they’re arbitrary, but they’re still there.
2119.943 And all I’m saying is that they compromised with the city. It was non-binding arbitration to the amount,
2126.492 and they reduced it. And now the city, it doesn’t make any difference, at least not to me,
2131.938 and I don’t think to the church. If it’s a different mayor, it’s the same city. And now they want you to.
2138.141 We already agreed to this. And now you want us to. No, no, we’re not doing that. Well, ideally, what they wanted is seventy feet, right?
2144.961 Seventy feet. It’s not that hard. It’s just a little shorter. So anyway, we’ll see what happens next.
2151.123 This was picked up in a couple other papers. The Houston Chronicle. It’s about respect. Tiny Texas town pleads for
2157.324 the compromise on LDS Temple. So the bad press continues, you know. Still, this has been ongoing for what,
2163.527 a year and a half? It’s pretty incredible. And really the question here is,
2169.71 right now the LDS church is in the process of submitting their plat. That means that the church
2175.733 has to submit a revised plat that will be filed with the county before they can get the building permit right and
2181.697 this plat has to reflect all the changes and conditions that were talked about in all of those meetings that we watched
2187.3 together right the temple has to be turned off from this time to that time and it can’t be this and that so as long as you know
2193.963 everything that was addressed during that meeting is in this new application it’s just administrative and it’s
2199.487 going to get a stamp however here comes fairview united right And the question there is,
2205.289 will Fairview United request and the district court grant an injunction
2210.692 before the LDS Church gets their plat approval and building permit? Meaning that Fairview United and their lawyer could say, hey, hey,
2217.295 we got to we got to table this for a little bit because we’re still going to be going through the process in the court and we
2222.577 can’t do anything now. So it may stall. We don’t know what’s going to happen next.
2228.318 Any thoughts or comments? I think I already gave mine.
2234.074 I think you did. I’m just saying if I’m representing the church, you know, everything that the mayor
2239.844 had a really good letter, okay? I usually don’t think much of letters, you know,
2244.949 but his letter that was kind of pushing the whole thing, these are your values, live up to your values.
2251.052 You know, that was the best part of the letter, I think, that was the most persuasive part of his letter.
2256.474 But on the other hand, looking at it from the other side, the other side can look at that and say, yeah, so we already did that.
2263.717 And now it’s your turn to be true to your word and keep your agreement. Yeah, I’m with RFM.
2271.266 At this point, you have the city who’s in a fight with its city council. That has nothing to do with
2276.67 the church now. There also were things that they requested the LDS church to do in order to
2282.255 get a pass with this, but with… qualifications or caveats.
2288.543 And so the church is already has to make the next move and decide whether it’s going to do those or not. And now to go back to the
2294.143 LDS church and say, I know we agreed with you on these things, but now we want you to even go further.
2299.244 That just seems they’ve taken it as far as they wanted to. And now they want to take it further.
2304.246 That doesn’t, that doesn’t seem fair to the LDS church. I think they’re just trying to say,
2309.407 can’t we all get along? Honestly, the steeple has nothing to do with what happens in the temple.
2315.255 Yeah, well, that’s true. Although more and more, the spiritual doctrine is creeping in there where
2320.84 they’re saying it is very important. So we’ll see. All right, there’s a little bit more temple news. I swear it gets weirder and weirder.
2327.847 I’m not kidding. It was a weird temple news week. So this is a video that somebody sent me where a
2333.55 woman who’s an influencer on the LDS faithful side had talked to a general authority about temples.
2339.436 And she got some information about why are there no more Moroni’s? The church has figured out that, you know,
2345.34 it looks in other countries like we’re worshiping a golden statue of Moroni, right? In countries where they worship golden statues.
2351.144 So no more Moroni, this general authority unnamed told this woman. Things like the church will
2356.987 never go into debt to build the temple. You don’t go into debt when you have, you know, three hundred and fifty billion dollars,
2364.032 things like that. So but one of the most interesting things that she said and she kind of asked
2369.237 the questions true or false. Right. There have already been so many temples announced recently.
2375.842 Right. It’s likely going to slow down a little bit. Right. Slow the you know what down.
2381.204 Is this true or false? Do you think are we going to slow down? What do you guys think? I know because I looked ahead.
2386.514 Oh, you should never look ahead. It’s fun to take the poll without looking. Okay. What do you think, Bill?
2391.782 Are we slowing down on temple building according to this unnamed general authority? At present or going forward?
2398.144 Going forward. There’s so many right now. Are we slowing down? It has to slow down. They can’t build them this fast.
2403.527 It has to. It has to. And that is what’s interesting. Yeah. As we learned from church, former church architect, Laura Lee Hall,
2410.373 they can only still crank out about eight finished ones a year, you know, unless they radically change their process. So they have about a backlog of, you know,
2417.416 like almost two hundred that they haven’t gotten to. Anyway, according to this unnamed general authority, I can move it here.
2425.762 Did I? Okay. So it’s true or false. Hold on a minute. Let me get over here. Okay.
2431.443 The answer is false. The goal is that every single member of the LDS
2437.184 church in the world is going to have a temple. In their backyard.
2442.186 One hour travel distance from them. What do you think about that? I thought you were going to
2447.367 say in their backyard. Yeah. One hour away from every single member. So that means the, what,
2452.849 thirty five hundred people or four thousand people that are active.
2457.893 Are those the numbers that we came up with? Every single one is going to have a temple within an hour away. That just seems incredible to me.
2464.177 You’re going to be able to see one steeple from the other. You better hope nobody moves. Yeah.
2469.922 Well, some of these areas are pretty remote. That’s incredible. But where my mind went. is already got one member.
2476.518 He’s out on the illusion islands. They build a temple within an hour and the guy dies or he moves or whatever.
2482.793 And they go, damn it. Now the missionaries just have to work harder. But where my mind went is
2488.63 that already people that staff and clean temples and even attend temples, you are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
2496.612 Temple workers who go to say Bountiful, you know, are like, oh no, now we have to split our time and try to go to Layton.
2502.773 The same people are just, you know, kind of circling the drain. trying to staff these temples.
2508.795 Oh, and here’s some corroboration. Somebody wrote me and said, there is something to this.
2514.099 My husband works in temple engineering and was told last year in training with the General Bishop Rick that it is the goal to have many temples,
2521.626 that’s M-I-N-I, within at least one hour of every member. They were told it was top secret,
2526.969 so it was not shared anywhere except from the Mormon newscast. I’m sure it’s top secret because it’s absolutely
2533.313 ridiculous on its face. It is absolutely ridiculous. And then I had to laugh because our good friend, Ron Yorgason,
2542.204 he got an email just today. And this describes exactly what I’m talking about.
2547.208 And he lives in an area where a new temple is being built. And so two stakes are going to be siphoned off from a
2553.492 temple that’s very close by and sent to support that temple, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
2558.996 And so the email says, you know, dear Third Ward, good morning third ward we have a name of temple
2566.021 cleaning assignment tomorrow july twenty second at eight fifteen pm I am looking for fourteen more
2573.148 members to help please let me know if you can fit this into your busy schedule please text or call me blah
2578.152 blah blah fourteen more people needed tomorrow to go to this temple if
2584.018 there’s a mini temple an hour away from everybody I don’t know how they’re going to achieve this it’s pretty incredible
2591.67 So what you’re saying is, of course, when you have a certain number of stakes and say you’ve got a temple area, right? Yep.
2597.655 And everybody is supposed to go to the temple in their area, although they’re a little bit looser on that. But that’s basically where you go.
2604.201 And then they put another temple in the same area. Well, they’ve got to divide it up now into
2609.666 two areas. So they siphon off stakes to go and help with that temple. And they’re necessarily
2615.311 being taken away from another temple. Yep, that’s exactly right. Because I mean, we’ve done some calculations, a twenty one ish percent of
2622.384 attendance and award of those maybe a fourth half active temple recommend holders of those,
2629.15 you know, that go another half of that. I mean, the number just diminishes. And so you do have a lot of
2634.675 the same people that are going from temple to temple being an ordinance worker. supporting the patrons there and cleaning.
2640.989 So we’ll keep an eye on it, but you know, many temples, many, many temples. Many, many temples.
2646.63 You know, the temple is such a great experience that it’s really, really tough to get people to go. Yeah.
2652.054 Yeah. That’s it. Well. especially with the new Elder Bednar training. People are going to be nervous, right? They’re going to be like this,
2658.338 kind of looking around. So, all right, I have one more little temple thing. I just couldn’t resist putting this in because, I mean,
2663.983 it just can’t get weirder. I’m not even kidding. Okay, so I’m going to have RFM read this. There is a Facebook page, Instagram page,
2671.487 where you put in your area code and it’s called Missed Connections. And you might post, hey,
2676.672 to the barista at Starbucks on Fifty Second Street with the red hair. I saw you and I thought
2682.719 maybe you winked at me. Would you like to communicate? Right. Missed connection. Hey, I saw you at the gym.
2688.744 You were driving a yellow car. You know, I thought you smiled at me. That kind of thing.
2694.07 Here is one. It’s like help wanted. It’s like help wanted kind of. And you’re putting out an ad
2699.579 and you’re hoping that this other person is going to peruse the ads and read this thing and know that you’re the one that’s,
2705.702 and maybe there’s something there and you’re my true flame or my whatever that’s called. Exactly. That’s it.
2710.726 A missed connection. That’s it. So this one came to my attention and it has to do
2715.829 with the temple. Now, this is really a post on this site. Whether or not the post itself is real,
2722.753 I don’t know, but there were a lot of comments on it. So I thought maybe RFM, you can read this.
2727.876 Yeah. This is going to be very triggering for me. I want you to know. I’m sorry. Would you rather have Bill read it?
2733.36 No, no, I can read it. I can power through this. Okay. Okay. I don’t know why you can ask my first why, but here we go.
2739.202 We both serve in the blank Salt Lake temple. Yeah. I wanted to make it anonymous.
2746.197 You all, we don’t know what temple it is. It could be any temple. But in the two-oh-eight misconnection,
2751.521 it does have the name. Anyone can go to this Facebook site and you will find this probably about
2756.806 twenty posts down. Okay, but it does have the name of the temple there. Yeah.
2762.21 And probably two-oh-eight gives it away. That’s an Idaho number, right?
2767.655 Very good. Nancy Drew. You’re amazing. We both serve in the Idaho Falls Temple.
2774.875 You always bring a calm light into the room, quiet, steady,
2779.998 reverent, so sexy. We’ve shared glances, small conversations,
2786.824 and a kind of unspoken head bowing and saying of, I do,
2791.989 that’s deeper than routine. You recently asked me to do ceilings with you at the
2800.135 Idaho Falls Temple. That invitation hasn’t left my heart since.
2806.291 I don’t know exactly what you meant by it. Maybe it was just spiritual.
2812.072 Maybe it was carnal. But it stirred something in me.
2818.333 We’re both married and not to each other, if you know what I mean.
2825.076 We both live with covenants, and yet there’s something undeniably present between us.
2833.331 If you see this, not the Holy ghost. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
2838.932 If you see this and you feel it could be one of our listeners that we’re bringing into their attention right now.
2846.096 And you feel it too. I just like to know what this moment means to you.
2852.378 No pressure, no expectations, just a quiet reaching out
2858.599 across silence and sacred space.
2863.911 If not, I’ll continue in quiet gratitude for the small moments we
2871.014 share while serving. Wow. You read that so poetically
2876.315 and I can’t really tell if that’s a man or a woman, you know, writing that, but of course I had to make the Coldplay celestial cam right there.
2883.304 Just thinking about that. I’m sure everybody’s been following that over the last week. And just to prove it’s real,
2888.786 here are some comments. Somebody said, I approve of this relationship. And a picture of Joseph Smith.
2897.009 Yeah, people were having a lot of fun with this. And again, perhaps somebody put it up there
2902.05 as a joke. I don’t know. That last part did strike me as a bit AI-ish.
2907.422 Yeah, and that’s what I felt too. But if somebody did that, that is pretty funny in a not funny way.
2912.545 So anyway, go check it out, Missed Connections in the Temple. And I think that’s the end of my very weird and
2918.326 getting weirder temple news. And I think now, oh, I wanted to say one more thing. They do have a leg to stand on,
2924.128 this couple, because as Brigham Young said, if a woman finds someone of
2929.509 a higher priesthood level, she can go with that person. She doesn’t even need to get divorced.
2934.55 So Brigham Young did say that. So if they’re in the temple and working together and he has a higher priesthood than her husband,
2940.472 you know, they might be able to work something out. Adultery never sounded so romantic.
2945.773 It does sound very romantic, doesn’t it? Fortunately, I have the highest priesthood of all. All right.
2951.313 On to RFM’s story. The RFM Priesthood. It’s available upon request
2956.695 and a small donation. Exactly. All right. The next story has to do with a story we covered a
2962.34 couple months ago when a law was passed here in the state of Washington. And this is the next story on it.
2969.382 It has to do with the first leg of the appeals. Judge grants injunction
2975.603 against Washington law requiring clergy to report child abuse. You might remember this.
2981.043 It’s really from, I think it was May twelfth on the newscast. So it’s July twenty first now,
2986.545 which is a couple of months ago. So we’ve had the first hearing and nope, constitutional.
2991.733 That’s what the judge says. Catholic leaders in Washington filed a lawsuit claiming the law would
2997.456 require them to break the seal of confession or be jailed.
3002.478 It’s King five by Helen Smith, July, the date of this article, Washington law,
3009.4 excuse me, Washington state passed a law requiring clergy members to to report child abuse even
3016.713 if disclosed during confession on May second, two thousand and twenty five.
3023.396 This law, Senate Bill five three seven five, was signed by Governor Bob Ferguson.
3030.86 The law makes clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect.
3038.443 A change that had been sought for three years according to the Washington
3043.887 State Standard. That’s a publication. Dateline Tacoma, Washington.
3050.333 Washington’s law that would require clergy to report child abuse or neglect no
3056.077 matter how they learned about it was put on hold by a federal judge on Friday.
3064.724 Catholic leaders who filed a lawsuit against the legislation were granted an injunction
3070.719 by Judge David Estudillo with the U.S. District Court of Western Washington.
3077.362 Otherwise, the law would have gone into effect on July twenty-seventh. They claim the law violates
3083.523 their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by requiring that
3088.744 they break the seal of confession, which is grounds for immediate excommunication
3095.668 in the Catholic Church. And here’s a picture of the judge who made that ruling.
3102.15 County prosecutors had previously agreed not to enforce the new law until a
3109.474 final ruling was issued.
3115.938 The bill, titled Clergy Duty to Report Child Abuse and Neglect,
3121.101 stipulates that clergy penitent privilege would no longer be recognized in Washington state
3128.833 when it comes to learning allegations of child abuse. Things members of the clergy
3134.838 learn in confession would still be confidential otherwise.
3140.164 Failing to make a report is a gross misdemeanor in Washington, punishable by three hundred
3146.11 and sixty four days in jail. It’s jail, not prison. A fine of five thousand dollars or both.
3157.101 In a previous interview with King Five, Archbishop of Seattle, Paul Etienne,
3162.726 said Catholic priests had no intention of honoring the law,
3167.949 should it have ever taken effect. He said, our priests have told me,
3174.213 Archbishop, I’ll go to prison before I allow the state to coerce
3179.938 any such information from me. And I think all of our priests feel that way, he said.
3190.028 The bill’s prime sponsor, State Senator Noel Frame,
3195.373 said the bill was about protecting children from physical and sexual abuse
3201.297 and institutional cover-ups. Governor Bob Ferguson has
3208.422 also signaled his continued support for the bill, saying when the lawsuit was
3213.786 filed by Catholic officials, quote, End of quote. Now,
3230.195 Do you have any comments about this? I know the next part is my prediction, which I gave two months ago
3237.057 when I think I just actually landed at the airport and I’m up there on the top level at SeaTac of
3242.639 the parking garage and the sun is coming in at this crazy angle. It’s kind of warm, but I have the windows down and I find out how to put up a
3249.266 sort of a background from a photo that I had and I’m talking to you and you’re, I think you’re just sort of
3254.289 letting me know for the first time, I think, that this had just happened and that this law had just been passed here in Washington
3260.414 and I had made a prediction. Yeah,
3265.418 you always throw a dose of realism onto the rest of us when it comes to legal issues because we’re getting all, you know,
3270.762 uptight and you’re like, no, this is what’s going to happen and it always is in every one of these stories.
3275.987 Not always, not always. You can see around corners. I was going to say, I’m just glad that we have
3281.21 someone on the earth who does see around corners. It’s useful.
3288.893 Like Mr. Fantastic. He can see around corners and over the tops of buildings. Did you like that movie, RFM?
3295.295 I haven’t seen it yet. I think it comes out on Thursday, at least up here. Okay.
3301.596 I’ve got my fingers crossed. Please, please, please let the third time be the charm on the Fantastic Four.
3310.356 Are you ready for this? Oh, yes, yes, yes. This is this is me from May twelve. Is it May twelve? I think from this newscast.
3317.342 Yeah.
3326.09 You have any thoughts? I say this is a no brainer. Of course, it’s unconstitutional.
3332.898 The idiot Senate and House and governor in my home state,
3338.4 and they’re idiots all, they probably are in your states too, whoever it is who’s watching out there. Hi, everybody.
3344.621 Decided that they were going to pass and intentionally pass an unconstitutional law for whatever reason, for grins,
3352.144 whatever. But it’s going to be appealed and it will be found unconstitutional,
3357.606 not only at the Supreme Court level, but at every court level along the way.
3366.623 So there you go. That’s the first one. That’s one. And we’ll see if anybody else is going to appeal this.
3372.791 I guess they are. I mean, they put this bill together. They passed it. The governor signed it.
3377.835 I imagine he’s going to have his attorney general pursue it. So there we go.
3384.282 We’ll see what happens from here on out. Now, a lot of people, a lot of people,
3389.324 they don’t like it when I say these things about, you know, it’s not constitutional. And what I want to do is
3395.525 instead of having a discussion about the law, I just want to tell you about an episode in history and a very, very famous speech, a short speech,
3401.987 very famous speech from a play made into an Oscar winning movie called…
3407.309 A man for all seasons, which I think was from nineteen sixty six. And I would encourage you to watch it.
3412.835 You can get this scene if you just want to watch the scene. We can’t play the scene because bad things happen
3418.139 to us and things get rained down on us from above if we play scenes that are copyrighted. But I’ve got a little bit
3423.864 the script portion and I’ll read it to you here in a second. But it has to do with this guy.
3429.027 OK, Richard Rich, not Richie Rich. This is a great, great, great, great grandfather.
3434.688 Richard Rich, fourteen ninety six to fifteen sixty seven. He’s a bad guy,
3439.831 was a prominent British royal official who played significant roles in the reigns of four monarchs,
3445.715 beginning with Henry the Eighth. He participated in religious persecutions and helped use
3452.221 the rack on the only woman to be tortured in the Tower of London.
3458.338 This bad guy, Rich, is also a character in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons.
3466.322 In the play, the disreputable Rich, this bad guy, seeks a position of prominence from Thomas Moore,
3473.606 who rebuffs him. In a powerful scene, Thomas Moore’s future
3479.248 son-in-law urges Thomas Moore to arrest this bad guy, Rich. Thomas More says that this guy, Rich,
3486.436 has done nothing illegal, but the son-in-law objects that this is only a technicality since Rich is morally bad.
3495.985 And here is this little bit of script, okay, on two slides. William Roper, that is the son-in-law.
3503.793 You can see the back of his head on the right here in the little screen grab. William Roper says, so now you give the devil
3510.099 the benefit of law? And Sir Thomas More, played incredibly by Paul Schofield, says,
3515.641 yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?
3523.402 The son-in-law says, yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that.
3530.143 And here’s the line from Sir Thomas More. Oh. And when the last law was
3535.478 down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper,
3540.601 the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast,
3548.085 man’s laws, not God’s. And if you cut them down and you’re just the man to do it,
3555.291 do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
3561.842 Yes, I’d give the devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.
3570.648 And that is that scene. So, any thoughts from anybody else or
3575.733 comments? I’ve been talking for quite a while. You have to say, scene, right? You’re done.
3581.197 Yes, and scene. And scene. Well, my first comment is, I think I was wearing the same shirt in that video that you showed.
3587.74 How embarrassing. That’s awkward. No, weren’t you? I don’t think so.
3593.822 That’s why I was looking at it. I was like, how embarrassing, right? Exactly. No, we just appreciate you being on the
3600.085 panel because you really can kind of, you know, help us understand this and cut through these things because, you know,
3605.126 on the surface, we’re like, what the heck is wrong with those guys? Of course, you’re going to report.
3610.128 Someone in the chat said parents should be aware and not send their kids to church. Sometimes I feel that way.
3616.409 And, you know, parents got to do what they got to do to protect their kids as they see fit. Yep.
3622.081 I sometimes think that in a certain way, the law is designed,
3628.804 or at least it gives more protection to the rich and powerful.
3635.106 They have more ways to get around things.
3640.688 So whether there’s a good law or a bad law, our You have two things.
3645.784 One is that we’ve got to play by the rules. There has to be rules, which is sort of what that whole movie script was getting at.
3651.248 There has to be rules, and the rules are what keeps us safe from the bad guys. And if the bad guys are misusing them,
3657.51 the best thing we can do is change the laws, change the rules. And there are processes by which that can be done if
3663.994 enough people raise their hand and object. and are willing to put in the time and energy to change things.
3669.958 And almost certainly every system, including the one we all live in,
3675.762 will be deeply flawed and imperfect until the end of time. Yes, you’re right.
3681.146 And by the way, of course, it’s subject to change. The Constitution contemplates that.
3686.15 But if you’re going to change the Constitution, you have to do it not by a state passing a law,
3691.211 piddly little law from a piddly little state or a great state it makes no difference which you have to have sufficient support
3698.257 among the populace and their and or the representatives in order to change the constitution and
3704.322 it’s been done a number of times it’s not insurmountable all I’m saying is that if you want
3709.525 it to change there’s a way to change it and this isn’t it yeah yep
3716.57 Great reporting, RFM. All right. I think we are on to Bill’s story next, aren’t we?
3722.554 Yep. So let me go back here. Sorry. We’ve covered this before. We all knew that Stacey Cram was becoming the next
3728.338 president prophet of the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus
3733.882 Christ of Latter-day Saints. But she finally got ordained. First female prophet president.
3740.248 says her church is in a financially strong position after selling the Kirtland Temple.
3746.652 So she got ordained. She is officially the prophet president. I’ll just note here, there were three main
3752.175 things in the article that I thought were interesting. Stacey Cram, former Air Force flight test engineer,
3760.019 has been ordained as the first female prophet president of the community of Christ, who also traces its roots
3765.103 back to Joseph Smith. When Joseph died, the majority of folks went
3770.619 with Brigham Young, ended up in Utah. The next largest group of them eventually ended up
3776.146 following Joseph Smith III, and that’s where the RLDS Church, Reorganized Church,
3782.532 or eventually the Community of Christ, came out from. All right.
3788.19 With an educational background in engineering, organizational management, and religion, she brings a pragmatic
3793.594 visionary lens to her role. This represents a clear shift, at least within one branch of Mormonism,
3800.018 away from the rigid patriarchy of traditional LDS hierarchy and toward a leadership model that fully
3805.443 embraces gender equality. The last time we talked about Stacey Cram, somebody in the comments
3810.505 said something about other LDS factions that have top leadership being females?
3816.789 I’m not aware of any. And if anybody is, I’d love it if in the live chat, if you’d name what that
3823.713 Mormon faction is that allows females into the upper echelons of leadership.
3830.297 But as far as I know, the community of Christ is the only one. I’m sure there’s something out there, but I’ve not heard of it.
3839.923 away from the rigid patriarchy of traditional LDS hierarchy and toward a leadership model that fully embraces gender equality.
3845.724 Under Cram’s leadership, the community of Christ is actively embracing inclusivity, not just in gender,
3851.507 but also in global and social issues like climate justice and gun violence. The church also boasts full
3857.427 financial transparency. Kudos to them. The church does belong to
3862.53 the people and not the leaders if we take it at
3867.773 its definition of what a church is and what it’s supposed to do and what it’s supposed to be.
3872.936 So good on them for being fully financially transparent. I imagine the LDS church
3878.079 boasts full financial transparency too, though. If by that you mean everyone
3885.163 stands up and says, we’re doing everything just great, trust me. Yeah. Yeah.
3890.487 The church also see here. Sorry, I lost my spot. That’s my fault. Yeah.
3895.851 They also have a future oriented five year plan modeled on stewardship and accountability. So they they lay out a plan
3902.878 and allow everyone to know what it is. And they’re accountable to their membership for trying to carry that plan out.
3908.382 I think that’s great. signaling a stark contrast to the often opaque financial practices of the LDS church.
3915.047 For those who’ve left Mormonism, this openness and willingness to evolve can feel refreshing,
3920.63 offering a compelling alternative build on trust and shared values. The community of Christ,
3927.358 formerly the RLDS Church, they have a segment of people, they call them the Latter-day Seekers,
3932.742 and it’s a group of Community of Christ members who used to be LDS Mormon,
3939.067 and they get to meet separately from the regular Community of Christ membership,
3944.951 and they get to sort of create
3951.885 some group dynamics as well as the worship meeting,
3958.289 what that looks like, and sort of keep it a little bit more LDS Mormon in some ways.
3964.293 And so they really do give a lot of flexibility to people coming in from the LDS faction.
3970.858 So anyway, there’s that. Cram’s ordination in the twenty twenty five world conference was described as a kind of modern Pentecost,
3977.262 a moment of rebirth and profound excitement. Community members felt energized,
3982.443 describing the moment as one of collective renewal rather than decline. And I’ll just say her engineering mindset brings
3988.447 a problem-solving ethos, imagining what a more just, equitable church could be and working to make that a reality.
3994.731 And those are things that she speaks to. For those frustrated with issues within the LDS faction,
4000.11 The community of Christ signals not only that transformation is possible, but at least in some small part,
4006.657 Joseph Smith’s religious views have led some to discovering a faith community that genuinely
4012.661 lives radical inclusivity and shared leadership. And it took a while for the community of Christ to get here.
4019.148 They had their stubborn moments as well. They had times where they denied parts of their history or
4026.88 denied things in spite of the historical overwhelm of those things having had have happened and so I’ll
4034.364 just note that I think the the one thing I take away from the community of christ above all others is
4041.487 that no matter who joseph smith was no matter what mistakes the church has made,
4047.134 no matter how unhealthy its current leadership is, I think there is hope that someday we get there.
4054.101 And the community of Christ is an example of a church that started from the same foundation and making different choices,
4061.367 going down different paths, eventually arrived at a much better, healthier place.
4067.632 Yeah, but they’re selling and we’re buying. They’re selling and we’re buying. That’s true.
4074.155 If money is how we’re going to gauge success, LDS Mormonism is killing it.
4080.922 And LDS Jesus is a real estate God, right? That’s how it works. I’ve attended the community of Christ.
4087.11 What? I’m just saying the earth is his. The earth is his, that’s right. So I’ve attended a Community
4092.282 of Christ meeting several times in Salt Lake. And you’re right, Bill, it’s familiar. You know, they’re using our scripture,
4098.648 they’re using the DNC. And yet then there’s this refreshing element where you’re like, wow,
4103.652 I’m not super triggered and feel like I have to run to the lobby with every single thing they say.
4108.895 And plus there was a potluck afterwards. That was an awesome part of it. But yeah, they’re a great group. They’re wonderful.
4114.44 I I tried I tried for a few months I was part of the latter-day seekers I went to several meetings I
4119.944 helped to get the group kind of off the ground here in southern utah uh nancy ross uh professor at the
4126.886 university here who’s also a very influential person in the post-mormon spaces uh was a big part of that
4132.529 as well I think she still might be there but um it just I don’t know what it
4137.652 is like once you stepped away from lds mormonism There’s something to the way
4143.479 it does things that nothing else gets close to that. So even though it’s not true,
4149.28 even though it is so unhealthy and it lies at every turn,
4154.863 the community of Christ just wasn’t close enough. And so I stayed a few months and walked away.
4160.525 So it’s like non-alcoholic beer. It is. It’s like, why the bad taste but not any of the benefit, right?
4165.969 Yeah. I’ve also been to a Bickertonite service before,
4171.131 and that was really interesting because to me, it was really what I, the closest thing I think
4176.176 we can get to to like old timey Mormonism, right? It really had all these different elements and it was fascinating.
4182.14 If anyone has a chance to attend a Bickertonite service, I’d recommend it. Wasn’t Chief Mitiga a
4187.524 Bickertonite for a hot minute? Well, yes, there was that. About two weeks. Yeah,
4193.069 they didn’t quite know what they were in for there and they quickly had to say, all right, come on. They were warned.
4198.837 They were warned. We still don’t know what’s on those birchbark scrolls, do we? Oh, dear.
4204.06 I’m sure they’ll rear their ugly head again at some point. All right. Is that the end of your story, Bill?
4209.603 That was excellent. I love to hear about Stacey. She’s fantastic. And someone in the comments did mention another LDS
4216.627 woman-led congregation. I don’t know if you want to look back and try to put that up, but I saw it kind of scroll by.
4223.047 Now we are going to talk about a story that we have covered before. This is the extraordinarily
4228.63 tragic event that happened back in June. I think it was the twenty first in South Africa.
4235.773 There was a multi car accident and it involved a
4240.894 group of young people. from a branch there and their leaders,
4246.056 and there was an extreme loss of life. It’s really hard. Whenever I see these articles pop up,
4253.362 my heart breaks and these pictures are just so poignant. It’s been really hard to research this.
4259.604 People were killed? Fifteen altogether. You know, the numbers were not clear when
4264.752 they first came out, but that’s what we’re going to talk about today. The memorial service, the funeral and the actual numbers.
4270.314 So but yeah, you know, because I just remember you’re a kid in the church and you always go on these trips.
4275.337 Either they rent a big bus or you’re in a caravan. You got your leaders that you love with you.
4280.64 You got your friends with you. Seriously, I just can’t even imagine what
4286.023 this must be. Oh, my gosh. And there’s all the coffins, the white coffins lined up side by side under the tent.
4291.984 Yep, that’s what I’m saying. These pictures are really hard to look at, but I thought it was really important.
4297.347 And I think about how they were traveling to a youth activity, a youth conference. And when the conference got
4303.27 the word of what had happened, of course, they ended. Everyone went home. How do you have a conference?
4308.453 And then, of course, the word getting back to the parents who are so excited their kids are going off on this adventure.
4314.135 It’s just heartbreaking and tragic, and we just can’t express our sympathies enough.
4319.737 So this is an article, God is Still God, Remembering the Lives Lost in the Lesotho, I think that’s how you say it, Lesotho Bus Accident.
4327.338 And there’s a couple of different things that they did. So it says nearly a month.
4332.543 And this is true. It happened almost a month ago after the tragic bus accident that resulted in the deaths of fifteen individuals.
4338.649 The numbers have been unclear how many individuals and who they were exactly, including six young women
4344.475 and four adults going to a district wide young women’s gathering. A memorial service provided
4350.02 peace to families and a community in pain. And it’s not just a memorial service. It’s a memorial and then a funeral.
4356.043 So we’ll kind of explain what happened here. So it says nearly five hundred individuals
4361.327 gathered under tents at a local soccer field in Lesotho on Wednesday.
4367.31 OK, this is the memorial service smaller than what’s going to happen on Saturday to share memories of loved ones,
4372.873 to comfort one another during a time of intense loss. Then three days later, on Saturday,
4378.896 the XIXth, A crowd of more than three thousand with eleven caskets on the same soccer
4385.685 field as part of a shared funeral service for others who died in the accident because this was a multi
4390.97 car kind of a pile up have or will have separate funerals. But the LDS here are the eleven caskets.
4398.199 The sunrise service came after a night of heavy rain that settled the dust and cleared the air.
4403.506 Like I said, these pictures are just really difficult to look at when you think of the ages of
4408.952 these young girls. Among those in attendance… from the Church of Jesus
4414.297 Christ of Latter-day Saints were leaders from the branches in the area, mission leaders from South Africa,
4420.442 Johannesburg Mission, and Area Seventy was there and he was actually presiding.
4426.485 This is not a general authority, this is an Area Seventy who was the top leader there
4432.168 and he was presiding. Civic leaders attended, tribal chiefs, members of the parliament
4438.012 and district leaders and the prime minister. So, three thousand people. Like, this is a major event tragedy in the
4447.056 country. It’s a- That’s the end of the list of the attendees. Tell me there was at least one apostle who went, Rebecca.
4452.859 Well, you know, I’ve been looking into that. And again, not to diminish our discussion
4457.88 of the tragedy, but I have some questions about this. So, again, it’s picked up in all the
4463.742 different newspapers, the Tribune, the Deseret News, on the Church News. Thousands gather for the joint funeral.
4469.203 of ten LDS members killed in Lesotho in a car crash.
4474.546 It says, this is what I wanted to get to. I’m not going to read every single one of these. If you guys want to,
4479.688 you can pause later and read. But here are the details. The crash killed fifteen people and injured at least
4485.449 a dozen others, according to church officials. Ten of the deceased were leaders and young women of the local congregation.
4491.912 Here’s the thing that surprised me. The branch president and his wife were killed.
4497.506 the branch president and his wife, in addition to a young woman’s president,
4502.591 a counselor, and then, of course, the young women ranging in age from twelve to sixteen years old.
4508.837 And the details kind of have trickled out. I did not realize that the I mean, this branch was decimated by this crash.
4518.125 I want to use a different word other than tragic, but that is all I can think to say. So they have the memorial on Wednesday,
4526.751 and the person that presided there was sort of a local leader. And then they have the event
4533.935 on Saturday that’s attended by three thousand people and the prime minister. And it’s presided over by an Area Seventy,
4542.18 not a general authority, but an Area Seventy.
4547.784 Let’s see. The prime minister says, I give my undivided respect to all families who have been affected by this tragedy.
4553.467 We pray for those who are affected by this horrible tragedy. We are here to mourn with those that mourn. Our country is at a great loss.
4559.371 It is a painful time. So as I said, this is a national tragedy to them. The prime minister is in attendance.
4565.994 You know, everyone knows that this has happened and the entire country is mourning.
4571.938 and um let’s see there are two thousand members of the of the church that are that
4577.783 are in that country and like I said this is one branch that was you know completely decimated by this scenario they also
4584.53 have an area chief that spoke and he said we wondered why god would not raise his mighty hand to
4590.216 comfort us but everything that’s been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things I lack word to express how
4595.721 sorry I am but I’d like to pass my sincere condolences to the families and the students and the teachers of these kids and everyone
4601.823 who is present today and I say may the souls of our brothers and sisters rest in eternal peace with our father in heaven so you
4608.765 know they they definitely tried to give some comfort and some peace um a young woman’s president from a
4614.769 neighboring latter-day saint congregation said that she burst into tears and couldn’t help but cry at
4619.951 the top of our lungs when they heard about the accident. I mean, this is impacting everyone in the area.
4625.975 But she says, of course, that she found comfort in the embrace of Jesus and pointed to his concern and
4631.557 continual care for everyone. And that was sort of the message as it went on to say,
4636.74 let’s find peace in the joy of the teachings of Jesus Christ. And this is a father of one
4643.145 of the daughters who was killed speaking. Let us raise our eyes on him. Let us look to him. family will come to an end in this life.
4649.909 Friends come to an end, but the Lord remains the same today and forever. And may the peace of Christ abide with each one of you today.
4656.033 So definitely words of comfort. Now, here are a few more pictures. Like I said,
4661.238 they really put a lot of pictures out and it’s just absolutely so sobering and heartbreaking. But as I was reading through
4667.042 all these things, and all these articles in different places, I kept looking for a
4673.256 statement or a presence from Salt Lake leadership, right? I’m talking upper leadership
4679.579 of the church. This is a national tragedy on the level that a prime minister would attend this.
4684.942 And I just, I couldn’t, I kept trying to read all the articles and I couldn’t find anything about any kind of representation
4691.625 you know, from church leadership. So I asked AI, you know, to go out there and scour the articles and it came back, you know,
4697.189 several church leaders attended the funeral services for the victims, specifically the area seven D and there,
4703.833 his name is listed there presided at the funeral and spoke. So the most senior person will preside.
4709.798 So this is the most senior person that attended. This is not one of the hundred and two general
4714.823 authorities who are out there. This is one of the hundreds and hundreds of, of area authorities that are out there.
4721.766 And he presided there in that branch. And it also went on to say,
4726.77 let me go back here. This is AI again. It’s important to note that while church leaders were present at the funeral and
4732.233 have expressed condolences from Salt Lake, the articles do not explicitly state whether any leaders from Salt Lake
4737.935 specifically traveled there for the event. And I couldn’t find any either. And I looked at a lot of things. If they were there, we’d know it.
4745.292 The church would make sure we knew it. I think that’s really true. And I feel like when prime
4750.573 ministers are at events and things like that of this magnitude, I feel like usually there is a representation for
4758.274 church leadership. So then I started looking at have apostles attended other events
4764.634 that are tragic in this vein. And I had remembered this recent one in Utah where
4769.858 President Holland had shown up at the funeral of a young girl who had passed away. And he had spoken and kind
4775.842 of presided at that funeral there. I remembered an event from a decade ago that’s hard for
4780.966 me to talk about because I have a personal connection to this, where two missionaries were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning.
4787.091 Yeah. And we have Elder Cook and actually then Elder Nelson
4792.395 that attended their funeral. So, you know, upper leadership Q-Fifteen, they do. They have been known to go
4798.559 to these events. So then I also tried to look at, do they go to West Africa or Africa?
4806.703 Because I thought, OK, maybe they don’t travel very much there. And that’s why they’re. They’re letting people on
4811.872 the ground represent them. And I found all kinds of instances in the last year
4817.613 and going back where many of them have traveled to many African countries, held conferences,
4823.074 given remarks. We kind of talked about that. Encouraging them to pay tithing. Yes, we all remember.
4828.136 So apparently apostles can make their way to Africa to hit the members up for tithing,
4833.238 but not for a funeral at which ten members are killed. Didn’t something crazy happen in Mozambique?
4839.774 That’s right, that event in Mozambique where there was a robbery. So yeah, they do spend time in the African nation.
4846.128 And then I thought, okay, well, let’s look for statements from upper leadership.
4851.764 I’m not talking about local. I’m talking about upper. When it first happened, there was Elder Rasman and
4857.725 his wife put out a statement. We are very sorry. It kind of came from them as a couple.
4863.729 It doesn’t necessarily make it sound like he’s saying, as an apostle of the LDS Church, we are so sorry.
4869.451 This is Melanie and I express our condolences. It’s a very heartfelt message.
4874.912 But again, not from, you know, not with the stamp of the upper leadership. Now, there was a message put out by the
4883.28 local area presidency. And that’s what they’re quoting in all of the articles on the church news
4889.407 and in Deseret News and in the Salt Lake Tribune. They’re quoting this. You know, the statement where they say it’s a very long statement,
4895.31 but starts out is which much sadness that we share the names. You know, they go through and they tell the
4900.472 names and we have our deepest sympathies to the families and the two victims. And they go on to say that the church is helping to support,
4907.055 you know, work through funeral arrangements and all of that. But again, the person who signed the people
4912.296 who have signed this are the area presidency in Africa South. Carlos A. Godoy.
4918.137 right there. And Denelson Silva, he’s from Brazil.
4924.079 And then a name that’s familiar by Sikahima, right? That’s the area presidency. And they are the most
4929.943 official statement that I can find about this tragedy.
4935.585 So I just kind of had to put this together. Because to me, I mean, I think about this, like I said, I can relate to this,
4941.127 being a young woman going on this trip, full of joy and excitement, a temple trip, whatever it is,
4946.488 I cannot imagine the heartache for everyone, the ward waiting back home. You know, the parents,
4952.372 the people at the activity, it’s just inconceivable. So who attended the services
4957.597 from the LDS Church? Well, an Area Seventy, and he presided on Saturday.
4963.502 And again, he’s one of hundreds of Area Seventies. He’s not a General Authority member.
4969.047 On the Wednesday memorial, a district president is the one that presided on that.
4975.094 And then who released a statement expressing condolence here in an official capacity?
4980.939 You have the African South Area Presidency, like we just read, and also a more personal
4986.564 statement from Elder Ronald A. Rasband Jr., And his wife, Melanie.
4991.728 So I just I was very surprised by that because I kind of felt like I don’t
4996.992 know that we’ve ever had this kind of loss of life in the church. Can you think of any other time where it was something like this?
5003.015 This is this is the tragedy of epic levels. And I just I’m surprised
5008.298 that there isn’t some kind of statement, you know, signed by the Q-Fifteen saying
5013.862 we’re so sorry. I don’t know. What do you guys think? The Hans Mill Massacre and the Willie and Martin Handcart Company.
5020.89 And that might be it. Yeah. But as far as something like this in modern day where, you know,
5027.615 I mean, missionaries are killed and they, you know, and that’s tragic and horrible. Yeah. I just don’t even like to
5032.658 read the news about that kind of stuff. But they do, you know, sometimes they’ll say something. But I was just surprised at a gathering where there was
5038.122 a prime minister that the highest ranking LDS person was a a seventy. So I don’t know.
5045.247 What do you think, RFM? I already said what I think. And I’m just saying by making the observation,
5051.31 I don’t think my observations are wrong. I know that, wasn’t it President Nelson who
5056.434 went to Africa in order to encourage the members of the church to pay tithing with the promise that
5061.936 tithing would raise them out of poverty if they paid it faithfully? Yep. But we know they know how to get there.
5068.939 but they couldn’t find their way there for this funeral service where ten members of the church were killed tragically.
5078.701 Yep, I don’t know what to make of it, but again, our hearts go out to everybody, and it’s just really one of
5083.862 the most sad things that I’ve come across, and I’m really sorry for everybody. All right,
5089.243 let’s move on to the next story. I think that’s Bill. All right, this one really quick.
5095.01 I won’t even read this. I just want to note that it happened. There was an article that came out this week,
5100.693 what it feels like to leave the Mormon church. I’m trying to remember what the story was published in, but it was a major…
5107.996 medium. I don’t remember what it was, but Brett Evans was raised a devout Mormon and he
5113.1 talks about his leaving. He was, he was gay and he tried to fit in and he did everything he
5118.925 could and he couldn’t make it work. So folks do want to go out there and look for that article, what it feels like to leave
5124.729 the Mormon church. So I’ll just note that. And then this was something you mentioned earlier today.
5130.715 I had seen this this morning and I didn’t, I didn’t read it. I was busy doing something else at the moment. And you would ask why or bill.
5136.856 It might’ve been Esquire. Esquire magazine. Yeah. Did you look it up just now to see? Yeah.
5143.957 Something else that happened here, Rebecca, you brought this to my attention. Like I said, I saw it earlier, but you noted that this
5150.759 seemed like a big deal and I didn’t really see the magnitude of it until you had brought it to my attention.
5156.52 In twenty twenty two in March, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experienced a cyber attack
5162.701 that compromised personal data of some members, employees, contractors. church was working with law
5168.35 enforcement and cyber security experts trying to figure out what had gone wrong and if you the
5173.61 audience are asking why are we talking about an article from I just want to note the last sentence here the
5178.733 church encourages members to remain vigilant about their personal data security on some level
5186.913 maybe the church should start to remain vigilant about personal data security because they ran into the problem again
5194.465 BYU Pathway, this just came out today. No, sorry, a week ago. July, fourteenth, twenty twenty five.
5201.71 Statement and frequently asked questions on BYU Pathway data incident.
5207.875 BYU Pathway worldwide detected unauthorized network access that affected the personal data
5214.319 of some students. At this time, there is no evidence that this personal information has been used for
5219.863 fraudulent or other harmful purposes. What they seem to note, by the way,
5225.502 in that sentence is that some of the data that was compromised could be used for those things. It just hasn’t been yet.
5232.387 They say, we worked with U.S. federal law enforcement authorities and third-party cybersecurity experts to
5238.474 establish the origin, nature, and scope of this incident and to mitigate possible impacts.
5243.559 We have taken steps to further enhance the security of our data, including vendor access.
5250.029 This incident has been reviewed with staff and security measures have been reemphasized to protect against similar incidents in the future.
5257.576 Our top priority is the privacy and security of our students. The church and its various
5265.003 factions are always noting how their top priority are the people.
5270.649 And then everything they do or don’t do seems to say otherwise.
5276.279 the security of their students, and we are taking all necessary steps to keep our student information safe.
5281.801 We regret any inconvenience or concern this incident may have caused, and with that, we consider the matter closed.
5288.246 Anyone with questions about the security of their information, don’t call us. Instead, you can learn more by referencing
5294.329 the frequently asked questions below. So I did take three of the questions that I think are most important,
5300.966 at least to the audience and understanding what happened. What personal information was affected? The breach systems contained
5306.569 personal data of current or previous online students served by BYU Pathway and its partners,
5313.914 BYU-Idaho and Ensign College. The data accessed may include name,
5321.038 social security number, national identification number, and if provided an account ID.
5327.963 but not a password. Contact information such as address and phone number, gender and marital status,
5333.706 religious aide, if provided, age and records of educational courses.
5339.988 So not enough to get your financial data, but enough to do identity fraud.
5345.11 What is being done to prevent this from happening again? The privacy and security of our students is our top priority.
5350.872 It’s their top priority. It’s the most important thing. We are even getting them
5356.796 married in the temple. Yes, we are taking, yeah.
5362.36 By the way, also notice the things it does in terms of marginalizing people that actually puts
5368.363 at risk the security of students. We are taking all necessary steps to protect their information,
5373.545 including working with staff and adding extra safeguards around system access. We’ve also been working with
5378.846 an external cybersecurity experts, US federal law enforcement, and our legal team to
5384.287 further enhance the security of our data. And then lastly, was this incident related
5389.314 to BYU Pathways new system transition? No, a vendor’s account was compromised by
5396.1 an unknown third party. I want to note, by the way, they don’t want to tell you what vendor and they don’t want to tell you the unknown third party.
5402.908 Well, third party, I was obviously people that broke in, but they don’t want to tell you the vendor. And I’m curious.
5410.046 why the vendor would have access to all of that information. In other words, it seems like on the surface,
5416.988 and the church can correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure they’ll rush to do this. My hunch is that the church
5423.149 sold the information to the vendor so that the vendor could then do what vendors do,
5430.032 which is reach out to students and try to sell things that the church and the vendor have an agreement to do.
5437.221 I don’t have a better explanation because what the church is acknowledging is that the student gave their information to BYU Pathway,
5444.685 and BYU Pathway gave the information to the vendor, and then the vendor’s system was compromised.
5451.686 So just FYI, a church that has this many billions of dollars apparently seems to be
5457.712 selling that information onward. I’ll also note a church that has over two hundred and
5462.735 sixty five billion dollars should have not only the best cybersecurity.
5469.64 Maybe among any entity on the planet. but should also use that
5475.412 cybersecurity to implement tons of processes that have you having to go through a
5481.255 two-step or three-step verification anytime any of this info gets out.
5486.356 And apparently the church gave it to a vendor just willy-nilly. So your thoughts, you guys?
5491.93 Here’s what I thought was interesting. I came across this article in Cyber News, right?
5497.637 Not the church website, not the church newsroom, Cyber News.
5502.922 And what you just showed is off of the BYU Pathways site. So unless you happen to go
5509.99 into BYU Pathways online, I don’t know that you would even know that your data and we’re talking about my mic.
5516.518 We’re talking about twenty five thousand students, right? Whose data was compromised.
5522.622 I haven’t found anything like the church newsroom saying pathways compromised. You would have to go log on
5528.408 to your pathways website, and that’s where you’d get that information. Cyber news outside of the
5534.231 LDS world is where they presented that. So I think that’s kind of interesting. Shouldn’t they be telling people?
5540.615 I once had an employer and I found out two years later that they had been hacked
5546.159 and my W two had been stolen. They knew it was taken. They knew all the information was on it.
5553.395 never told me you know I quickly froze my credit and all of this but you know it gave him a couple years to be doing stuff so I don’t
5559.658 know what’s going on so I you know it’s a sensitive topic but I feel like the church might need to get the word out a little bit
5565.279 more to people that this has happened this is you think the church would have enough practice hiding shit
5571.403 by now that they should be able to hide the shit that’s supposed to be hidden yes yeah
5581.252 No, they can’t hide that. So they hide the fact that it got discovered and stolen from the people
5587.277 whose information it is. Yeah, I mean, maybe there’s an article out there I didn’t find, but I looked.
5593.382 The only one I could see was cyber news. You know, what kind of LDS pathway student is going to come across that in cyber news, right?
5599.807 Who doesn’t get like a Mormon alert? You would think cyber news might have a link in it to the Deseret News or the
5605.913 church website or something. Yeah. And maybe it will come out, but I just feel like right now you would kind of, and I have friends that
5611.538 have done the pathway, you know, moms that didn’t graduate and went back. I feel like unless you happen to log on and I
5617.404 don’t even know if it’s active students, like what if you’ve already graduated and you never are going to look at the pathway website again, right?
5623.511 But your information is still there. How are you going to know that your data was compromised unless from the
5629.457 Mormon newscast, right? This is the second time in, you know,
5634.613 not a super long period of time, second time in just a few years that the church has
5639.938 had a major data breach and people’s personal information has gotten out.
5645.582 It reminds me again, not to the extent, I’m not comparing these two to that degree, but I’m just noting,
5650.966 this is a church that claims it’s the gold standard against protecting children and abuse seems to
5656.19 happen more prevalently in this faith than it does in many others. Um,
5662.274 if the church really did want to prioritize the safety and security and personal
5667.398 information of its students and members, it has so much money. It could easily do that.
5673.942 I can’t, the steps I have to go through to get into my bank should be the same kind of steps one
5679.404 would have to go into to get your students information. Yep.
5686.247 I see. You mean a gold standard is supposed to be a good standard? It’s supposed to be.
5691.73 Okay. Well, that’s, I think, where the miscommunication was.
5697.001 And then one more little thing, Rebecca, because you didn’t know this was coming, but I just want to note,
5702.163 I saw this earlier. I don’t want to go into great detail. I just saw the heading.
5707.967 We all knew this was going to happen. Former BYU quarterback, former BYU quarterback, Jake Retzlaff commits to Tulane football as a walk-on.
5715.814 So he has stepped away from BYU and, And breaking the law of
5721.297 chastity is no big deal at Tulane when you’re a good old college boy. But he’ll still have to deal
5727.804 with paying whatever that was for that other issue to go away. So good luck to Jake at Tulane University,
5734.729 I guess. Well, I did notice in that article, I’m so glad you put that up, that they said that Tulane’s Title IX office
5741.722 had to scrutinize everything that happened. They had to look at everything that happened, and they had to sign off on it.
5749.006 This is what happens to athletes that get caught in that BYU web of the honor code.
5754.648 You know, other universities may not quite understand. All we did is, you know, something consensual.
5760.27 So they have to look at it. What I’m trying to say is I think athletes may be a little stained going
5765.832 forward because people don’t understand the dynamic of the school that they came out of. Where is Tulane?
5771.155 Sorry, I don’t know. Oklahoma, isn’t it? It’s Oklahoma? Okay. Yeah, I was going to Google that and I
5776.926 didn’t have a chance. But yeah, I mean, it’s a cautionary tale to any athlete that involves itself with BYU is that
5783.208 here the place that he chose, they had to do extra steps at the Title IX office to make sure everything’s resolved.
5789.912 He’s okay. He’s not going to be a black mark on their university. So cautionary tale to any athlete at BYU.
5799.594 New Orleans, okay, south of Oklahoma. See, I said it with a question mark because
5804.796 I don’t know where all these universities are. I don’t follow college sports. Sorry, guys.
5812.242 If I go back to the previous story, doesn’t it seem fair that if I’m a student, my information’s been compromised?
5819.006 Don’t I have a right to know what vendor that was and how that vendor got my information? I would think so.
5826.363 You have no rights. What are you talking about? You signed this away in a small print when you didn’t check the box withdrawing
5832.368 the automatically given permission for them to sell your information to other unnamed vendors.
5838.953 Yeah. Well, I wonder if somebody in our audience knows someone who’s involved in the Pathway
5844.516 program that might want to contact them and say, hey, I want more information about what happened to my info.
5850.02 That might be interesting. Yeah. Anybody feels like doing it, do it. Let us know.
5855.22 Vendors do vend. Okay. Vendors have to vent. All right. I think we’re almost done. I have one more last little thing. I think that I added,
5861.145 unless you added anything else, Bill, like I said, it’s the news day where everything just kept coming, you know? So I have to say that of course,
5867.689 this week we have all been following the cold play kiss cam. I don’t have to explain that,
5874.015 but of course out there in the Mormon world, actually, I think I made both these memes, but I, Is that just a massive
5879.198 screen out there over the stadium? Yeah. And the idea. Yeah.
5884.403 For anybody who doesn’t know, the concept is they highlight a couple in the audience randomly. And when the couple looks up
5889.867 and sees their face ginormous in front of the whole stadium, they’re supposed to kiss. Right.
5894.951 Which is cute and really fun. Unless you’re not supposed to be at the concert together. And then what happens.
5900.734 A couple of Mormon missionaries. Exactly. Like in this case, you know, both people kind of just like sit. sunk into the floor turned
5907.22 around and oh my gosh I’m sure you guys have been following this all weekend long you have you know
5912.344 sports games everybody’s doing it people are standing there it’s just hilarious it’s it’s broken
5917.368 the internet and they say that it’s really bringing everybody together everyone’s so polarized but
5922.61 they can all agree on the comedy of this um of course the CEO has resigned all this kind of stuff that
5928.414 here we have Joseph Smith you know because he’d be okay with that and then I had to put this up the cold
5933.519 plate wait a second wait a second Did you mention who these people are and that he’s married?
5938.862 Well, I think people assume that. Yeah. And of course, the lead singer said, oh, those guys are really shy
5944.244 or they’re having an affair. You know, it was one of those kinds of things. He’s the CEO or is he HR?
5949.347 He’s the CEO of Astronomer. Yep. And she is the head of HR.
5955.511 Yep. And then standing next to them is the recently promoted VP of HR. Yep. So there’s all kinds of stuff going on there,
5961.175 but it is just taking on a life of its own as it kind of goes crazy. And it’s just, you know, everybody’s reenacting it
5967.337 anytime they’re at a game. So I put Joseph Smith on there. And then I also put in the light of shining a
5973.26 spotlight on someone who did not want to be caught on camera, the Coldplay Truth Cam.
5978.341 And that’s President Oak saying, so we know that we have a mother, a heavenly mother or mothers.
5985.765 We absolutely know that. That’s a great idea. I love that. It’s like they’re the two
5990.912 kids in the front of, what, the Titanic or something. It’s that scene from the movie. Oh, yeah, I know.
5997.5 Top of the world or something, I don’t know. Yeah, the top of the world. Well, it is interesting because it’s been a week now,
6003.485 a little over a week since Mormonish put out this video of President Oaks, and not only have the
6008.551 personal attacks on me and my appearance… Continued, which is hilarious.
6013.574 What attacks on your appearance? What are you talking about? Well, you know, just saying that I’m a liar
6018.756 and I’m an anti-XMO Mormon cat lady. And the video is as fake as
6024.56 the Botox that I use. Rebecca Biblia Botox. Wait a second.
6030.902 But again, I welcome all that because it means if they have nothing to say about the information I’ve put out,
6036.323 all they can do is attack me. you know, my appearance or who I am. Yes. And I was especially offended.
6042.365 Remember a couple of months ago when those, those guys over at a porch time gave you the autist of
6048.074 the month award. You’re the one that keeps bringing that up. Well, I’m just wondering if you remember.
6053.567 I think they’ve decided to make it a lifetime achievement award. Exactly. And I agree with what Song says there.
6059.609 I am proud to be a cat lady. I’m a cat and a dog lady. I embrace that and love that. But another group of people
6065.01 are attacking this video as a deep fake saying, you know, his fingers look weird. And they do. But again, this video was taken from,
6072.632 you know, kind of an old phone video. Old computer screen, Zoom meeting, you know, it’s very grainy.
6078.395 So I can assure everybody that this, whether you want to hear what is said by the prophet or not, this is a real video,
6085.139 a very authentic source. It’s not a deep fake. Jacob Hansen said that this was a nothing burger.
6091.721 Yeah, he did say that. Why did anybody think it’s a big deal? Yeah, well, because a lot of people, especially younger people,
6097.067 have never heard that there is polygamy in the next life. Of course, I was raised with that idea. Jacob Hansen said, nothing, Berger.
6103.171 We all know that. We don’t all know that. Some people are extremely disturbed to hear this.
6108.293 And that’s why this has kind of taken on a life of its own. In fact, I kind of added up all the different places that’s shown up.
6114.198 Wheat and Tares, By Common Consent, Inside Out, Salt Lake Tribune, Exponent.
6120.582 steve pinecker show I mean everybody nemo did an excellent episode on it um
6125.646 yesterday everybody is weighing in because this this has a lot of meaning to people you know is it
6131.411 real are they saying it out loud what does it mean so I I think it’s going to continue going it’s very interesting well I don’t
6137.896 think we have to worry about it being real yeah well no it’s real it’s real
6143.26 Yeah. Just like the temple training video is real. So I know, like I found myself two times in
6148.542 the week being accused, you know, you’re deceiving us. I have to go.
6153.564 My mommies are calling me. Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly. One time I was in ninth
6158.886 grade social studies with Mr. Shen. I was in ninth grade and we
6164.409 were studying LDS or American history. And there was a segment on Mormons. He did not like Mormons.
6170.132 This is not in Utah. And he said, Rebecca, you’re a Mormon. Why don’t you tell us about that?
6176.076 And I said, well, I don’t know. I’ll go home and ask my mothers. I thought it was a really funny joke.
6182.06 Did you say that? I did. I was funny. Even when I was, I know.
6189.786 Then I sunk down into my desk, like the CEO, right? Yeah. Well, I kind of got him because then I
6195.05 think he kind of realized he goes fine. All right, watch this film strip. And it was a very derogatory film strip,
6200.613 you know, beep about God makers. So, yeah, but it was not the God.
6207.387 Oh, my gosh. All right. Let’s let’s end and talk
6213.051 about what we’re going to be doing this week coming up. I think we have a lot of really cool stuff on Mormon discussions.
6218.216 Why don’t you take us through that? All right, so this was an episode we did last week.
6225.604 I just wanted to note, I think we had a great conversation about some things tied to both the Oaks,
6232.27 Heavenly Mothers, and also Joseph Smith’s predatory techniques on
6238.333 this last Mormonism After Dark. I thought it was a great conversation. Saturday, RFM, talk about your show that you put out.
6245.525 This is a real fun riff on five issues having to do with the war chapters in the Book of Mormon,
6252.051 where apologists try and find evidence for the Book of Mormon, or at least explain away
6257.494 problems that these chapters produce. And actually, it’s really bad for the Book
6263.739 of Mormon here. The war chapters are the Book of Mormon’s waterloo.
6269.645 Yeah, there you go. So check that out. And then, Rebecca?
6274.726 Yeah, we have an awesome episode coming up tomorrow night at six p.m. Mountain Time with, of course, Dr. Randy Bell.
6279.908 We’d love to have him on. We are going to be talking about the rebranding of the LDS Church again.
6286.112 We see this all over the place where they’re dropping of Latter-day Saints and just calling it the Church of Jesus Christ.
6292.454 And Randy likes to point out, and he’s going to bring the receipts on this episode, there are hundreds of the
6297.756 Church of Jesus Christ. How in the world do they think they’re going to get away with this? So this is going to be
6302.798 Fascinating. And it’ll give everybody a lot to say. If you have friends or relatives in the church that say we are the only
6308.903 church of Jesus Christ. So he kind of goes through the history of the name of the church. And then we talk about where it may be trying to go more
6315.587 mainstream Christianity in the future. Although how can you really
6320.591 enter the mainstream if you admit you have heavenly mothers?
6326.333 Yeah, that’s rough. And when you got a frat boy, Jesus in your logo, cause he looks like he’s on its way to a toga party.
6332.047 Yeah, it’s channeling a little bit of Jim Belushi there. That’s exactly right. Oh, and then I think you wanted to bring
6337.091 this up, Bill or RFM, whichever one of you put this in here. And this is great. Excellent. Thank you so much.
6342.234 This Wednesday on Mormonism Live is going to be the religious business. We’ve had Nathan Opfel,
6348.198 who is the director, producer, guy in charge of this show.
6354.323 We had him on the show a few months ago in preparation, but it is now about to be released. This…
6361.001 This thing says, this tag, this, what do you call it? This thumbnail says,
6366.523 it’s a seven-part docuseries coming Easter, well, that’s not Easter anymore. It’s actually coming out
6372.844 here this month in July of, we’re gonna have to have them on in two days to talk
6378.126 about it and what this was like to get this thing up on the screen. I believe that there’s going
6384.087 to be a cinematic presentation that he can tell us about in Salt Lake City.
6390.548 That’s going to happen too. Later on this month. And I think it’s going to be on the twenty fifth.
6395.632 I believe it’s this Friday. So twenty first and second. Yeah. So it’ll be two days after he’s on the show and we’ll
6401.637 get the details there. Or you could just Google it and find it the way I did. So he’ll be in Salt Lake?
6407.002 He’ll be actually in Salt Lake? I don’t know if he’s going to be there. I can’t speak to that. He certainly might be, but I don’t know.
6414.908 The movie’s going to be shown. I think maybe all seven parts. Anyway, he’s going to be on our show Wednesday. We’re going to get all the
6420.635 deets on this incredible show about the religion business. It’s an incredible business,
6427.462 this religion. If you don’t have ethics and you just want to make some money, this is a great place to go. And some do it better than others.
6434.31 Yes. Yeah. And with what we discussed last week, the IRS saying, you’re okay. Just act like a business.
6440.154 Go ahead. You can promote people. You can, you know, yeah, it’s only going to get more and more interesting. So, all right, we’ll put information out
6445.876 about that for sure, because that’ll be really fascinating for all of us. And I think that’s it. I think we covered it and we
6450.957 ended a little bit early, even though we had so much news. So thank you, Bill. Thank you, RFM.
6456.42 And we will see everybody next Monday, same time, same crew, six PM.
6461.86 We’ll see you guys next time. Bye-bye. That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of the Mormon Newscast.
6468.538 We appreciate you tuning in and sharing this time with us. Keep the conversation going
6474.023 and stay informed on all things Mormonism. Until next week, wishing you peace and joy.
6480.766 See you next Monday at six p.m. on the Mormon Newscast.
.
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