This presentation highlights gender boundaries within today’s Mormondom through a study of Sheri Dew, the first female president of Deseret Book and a staunch defender of traditional gender roles. Is Dew’s defense of a traditional “woman” subverted by her prominent position and rhetoric? In her speech and actions, does she transgress traditional gender boundaries and …
Speaker: Hugo Olaiz
Steps In The Right Direction? Evaluating New LDS Publications On Homosexuality
This past year has seen the publication of In Quiet Desperation: Understanding the Challenges of Same-Gender Attraction and A Guide for Latter-day Saint Families Dealing with Homosexual Attraction. The Church also recently revised the language on homosexuality in its For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. Other publications with questionable language remain unrevised. This session examines …
For The Strength Of Gay Youth, by Aaron Cloward
Aaron Cloward’s 7500-word guide, For the Strength of Gay Youth, includes frank discussions on some of the most serious issues facing young gay Mormons, from how to deal with family and depression to what to do about the Internet, dance clubs, and dating. The guide also includes a lengthy section on sexuality. Panelists will critique …
ANGELS IN AMERICA REVISITED
Set during the Reagan era at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America incorporates Mormonism’s sacred history into a symbolic universe that includes angelic visitations, prophetic callings, and seer stones. Ten years after the play was first staged, a six-hour, 60 million HBO production with Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, and Emma …
REMEMBERING JAY BELL AND HELPING PRESERVE HIS LEGACY
On December 18, 2003, we lost Jay Bell, a Sunstone friend and independent researcher who spent the last years of life working for the preservation of gay Mormon history. Jay helped start a collection of gay Mormon materials at the archives of the University of Utah and created a GLBT Studies CD-ROM that he shared …
THE PIVOTAL BATTLE OF OUR AGE: WAR METAPHORS, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, AND THE LDS RHETORIC OF DOOM
A few days after Canada legalized same-sex marriages, BYU professor Brett Lattimer called this “a bigger [issue] than the Civil War,” and Richard Wilkins, another BYU professor, asserted that “the pivotal battle of our age has began.” When and how did LDS leaders begin to use war metaphors to describe Satan’s purported assaults on the …
An Uncomfortable Connection: Brian David Mitchell and the Mormon Prophetic Tradition
SL03091, This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the thirty-fifth anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. It also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revelation reversing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ policy of …
How Many Members Are There Really? Two Censuses and the Meaning of LDS Membership in Mexico and Chile
SL03091, This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the thirty-fifth anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. It also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revelation reversing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ policy of …
Temple Square Iconography: A Photographic Tour
Temple Square has recently undergone a major facelift. With the purchase of Main Street and the construction of the Conference Center, the square has more than doubled in size, and radically different displays have been placed in both visitors centers. Join us for a photographic tour of the new Temple Square. How do the changes …
Entonces Y Ahora, Then And Now: A Look At The New Spanish Hymnal
Entonces Y Ahora, Then And Now: A Look At The New Spanish Hymnal In 1992, the Church produced a new Spanish- language hymnal, the first since 1942. How does the 1992 hymnal compare with its predecessor? How does it compare to the 1985 English hymnal? How have cross-cultural considerations affected it? What contribution, if any, …