elishasbaldhead

[elishasbaldhead]

if your church is really true, then why are the leaders so scared of you looking at outside sources. why do they shame you for looking and trying other perspectives. why would the spirit threaten to leave you. shouldn't you be able to look outside and use that information to confirm that your church is the true church? why don't they trust you to be strong enough to handle other information?

[elishasbaldhead]

getting dirty looks at church is the most rewarding feeling oml

[elishasbaldhead]

if you ever feel like a loser just remember joseph smith ran for president 1844

[elishasbaldhead]

Remember kids, it's only grooming when it's gay.

But for real heres personal story time. Let's talk about actual grooming.

I grew up in the Mormon church in the 90s and early 2000s. Like a good child, I participated in all the church activities including the young women's program. My parents wanted me to do it, i was told the church leaders were good people so I didnt question anything.

While the guys in the boyscouts and young mens program were learning survival skills, learning woodworking, learning how to fix cars, and learning financial literacy ... we were learning to do our makeup, can food, bake bread, sew clothes, cook large meals, and learn about changing diapers. It was hammered in our heads from a young age that our entire purpose in life was to get married, serve the husband, have kids and raise a family.

I remember when I was a Beehive, around 13 or 14, our ward was invited to participate in a fashion show for one of the local bridal stores. They dressed all the young women up, did our makeup and hair, put us in wedding dresses, and invited all the men in the ward to come watch us runway walk in the cultural hall. I was a literal child. I didnt even have tıts yet. Men in their 60s and 70s in our ward came to watch us parade around in our little wedding gowns. That's straight up a pedopagent and grooming child brides, y'all, and I didn't even realize it because things like that were so normalized in the church.

I remember sitting in the bishops office interviewing for my first temple reccomend so I could participate in the young women's activity to do baptisms for the dead. He asks me if I live by the laws of chastity. I was young, naive, sheltered and didn't even know what the word chastity meant. I remember him aggressively, explicitly asking me questions about my virginity- had I ever kissed a boy, touched a boy, thought about a boy, touched myself, touched a girl, thought about a girl, felt tingly down there, had a hymen. He kept asking me over and over if I was sure about my answers, and would elaborate on what he meant like he was fishing for a specific answer. It felt so dirty and invasive. In hind sight it felt more like he was trying to get spank bank material than trying to find out if I was being a "good girl".

Fast forward a few years. Im in Junior High, probably about 15 years old. I'm a closeted homo sitting next to my girlfriend in church, trying my damndest to hold my tongue and not let people catch on that I was crying. The young woman's lesson was about a woman's worth.

They opened up by talking about how we're getting old enough to go to college in a few years and that that's great, but a career and college education should be a hobby and not a goal. They stressed that we shouldn't put our educations and careers as a priority over finding a man, getting married in the temple, and starting a family. They said as soon as we found a man, we needed to drop out and become stay at home mothers. It was the mans duty to provide for the family. We were told that the reason God sent women to this earth to serve men and raise families, and that it was a divine and sacred calling.

The second half was about how lesbians and gay people were sent by the devil to destroy families. We were told if we "struggled with same sex attraction" we needed to pray, repent and try harder to be straight. That we needed to tell the bishop so they could help us get gay conversion therapy. That even if we liked girls, we needed to find a man to marry and bear his children. They actively encouraged gay men and women to catfish straight partners and trick them into thinking you loved them with the purpose of bearing children. Can you imagine how fucking awful it would be to fall in love and marry a person thinking they felt the same way, only to find out they're gay and living a lie so they don't go to hell?

The church advocating "its ok to be gay but you have to be celibate and single for the rest of your life" was a change the church made a few years later when Prop 8 passed and their members started leaving in hoards.

Meanwhile I've been to drag shows since I was in high-school. It's just a bunch of people with great makeup skills doing lavish impressions of Lady Gaga and Freddy Mercury.

Why is a drag show considered grooming but telling actual children that theyre going to be mommies and daddies when they grow up not? Why is it grooming if a trans person is out in public doing something mundane like grocery shopping, but it isn't grooming watching television shows that has love triangle plotlines that revolve around teenagers making out and exploring their sexuality? Why is it grooming when a children's show has a character with two daddies but not grooming when the children's show character has a mom and a dad?

If people really give a shit about grooming, they need to start in their own backyard. Start by deconstructing straight representation in media. Start by asking why its ok to joke that a toddler is going to be a ladies man when he grows up. Start by asking why child beauty pagents even exist. Start by looking at how your religion teaches and enforces sexuality. Start with comprehensive and age appropriate lessons about the human body and consent with little Suzy so when uncle Bob is being inappropriate at the family reunion she has the knowlege and tools to know whats going on, to assert her boundaries, and the confidence to tell another grownup what's going on.

[elishasbaldhead]

It's amazing to me just how good the Mormon church has been at hiding just how bad they really are from public view. Even the shit that gets spread around is the relatively harmless bullshit. They had a crazy prophet with magic glasses. They believe in god-mandated polygyny. They think everyone who is good enough will get their very own planet after the world ends. They wear magic underpants. Mormon men are all paladins.

Here's one of the ones you hear less often:

See, like many other Christian sects, the Mormons really do believe that the existence of Christ obviates the existence of Judaism. Judaism was just a placeholder until the "real" church could be established by Jesus.

And the Mormons in particular believe, dead ass, that the entire inheritance of Israel has been given to them, because the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah when he was on Earth. They really do. They have this whole system where people are given a "divine revelation" about which of the Tribes of Israel they're a member of (don't worry, they decided that most people belong to the two tribes that are willing to "adopt" people. Only the most specialest boys and girls are members of the original ten).

Let's sum up so far. The Mormons believe that they are the people of Israel, chosen and protected by God. If Jews want to get back in on that party, they can always repent and convert to Mormonism, the one true church to which God gave all the rights and blessings that were originally bestowed on Abraham's house.

But it doesn't stop there!

The Mormons also believe, in all seriousness, that all Indigenous peoples of the Americas are descended from a small group of Jewish people who left just before the fall of Jerusalem (~600 bc iirc). Their entire weird-ass extra bible is a chronicle of those people's history in [unspecific part of America]. At the very beginning of the book, two brothers in the original family turn away from god, so they and all their descendants are cursed with dark skin, so that the good Nephites (who remain "white and delightsome") will always be able to tell themselves apart from the wicked Lamanites.

So, you've got supposedly Jewish people running around the Americas. And the "good" ones are white, and the "bad" ones are brown. Then, ofc, Jesus comes to visit them (I guess supposedly that's part of what he was doing during his dirt nap? Or possibly after he left again, it's not clear), and they all convert to Christianity, which they think is clearly the natural evolution of Judaism. Well, at the end of the book, all of them become wicked, in a kind of weird pseudo-apocalyptic series of events. They are all cursed with dark skin, until such time as they repent for their ancestors sins and return to the gospel.

But of course, Mormons being the good and kind people they are, they want everyone to receive the blessings of God and be brought into the houses of Israel etc etc. And it isn't the fault of those poor little Indigenous children that their distant ancestors turned away from God and became wicked.

So what's the natural answer? Well, Mormons are real big on missionary work, as we all know. But apparently that wasn't enough in this case.

Because the Mormon church has been one of the big players in abducting as many Indigenous children as possible, in order to indoctrinate them into being good Mormons, so that they can turn white again and be blessed. My mother remembers hearing talks about this in the 70s and 80s. The church literally had a "Lamanite Adoption Program," where families in the church were encouraged to get as many Indigenous children as possible away from their families and not let them be reunited until they were fully assimilated and ready to go back and proselytize about how wonderful the church is.

The church leadership literally talked about how wonderful it was to see these children becoming whiter. Actually whiter. Like, saying that when they finally saw them with their families again, it was beautiful how much paler they were.

I'm pretty sure this program has been officially ended, but it doesn't take a genius to speculate about who might be behind the curtains on the movement in the western US to gut the ICWA....

So yeah. Next time someone tries to tell you that the Mormons are just harmless weirdos, please remember that they're an antisemitic cult that advocates for the forced assimilation of Indigenous children to help them escape the cursed brown skin of their ancestors.

[elishasbaldhead]

gahhhh just spent 5 grueling hours at the temple

like jesus CHRIST my feet hurt so bad

also anybody else feel like super uncomfortable doing confirmations with the guy's hands like hovering over your hair slightly,,,like if you're gonna touch my head commit to it

[elishasbaldhead]

to all you piper-haters out there saying she complains too much but her backstory wasn't even tragic: you don't have to have a "tragic" backstory to have a rough backstory, and you don't have to have a dead parent to have a tragic backstory

also stop saying she's a mary sue she's just a badass okay

that's all

[elishasbaldhead]

talking about "the LGBTQ+ community" in seminary today and I just want to scream, like I'm feeling very violent but also I found out David Archuleta has stepped back from the church and it makes me feel so seen THERE IS A WAY OUT! YOU CAN MAKE IT BETTER! YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT THIS CONSTANT DOUBT AND PAIN! YOU CAN LOVE YOURSELF WITHOUT CAVEATS! GODDAMMIT!

[elishasbaldhead]

[elishasbaldhead]

you're telling me leo & piper dont have movie nights in camp? that they dont love to watch twilight ironically? that they dont make fun of the cringiest scenes together? that leo has never shouted "bella where the hell have u been loca?" to piper to embarrass her in front of everyone? you're telling me they're not the best friends that ever existed ?? is that what you're saying? damn baby it must be so sad to be as wrong as you are right now </3

[elishasbaldhead]

my theory on why mormons have so many kids

coming from a mormon family of 11 kids, people always ask if it's an actual part of the religion and i never really know what to say

but here's my theory: now, mormons are pushed to get married and start families as soon as they can, like early twenties (especially because you have to get married in order to go to the highest level of heaven). here's the problem with that- you're not allowed to start dating until you're 16, and even then you can only go on double dates and according to the old youth handbook you shouldn't date the same person for too long or you'll get too attached. that's why a lot of mormons get engaged/married in college.

another thing is that when you get married in the mormon church (specifically in the temple) you'll be sealed to your partner for all eternity. which is why divorce is very taboo in the church.

my theory is that the couples just have so much sex to make up for not actually knowing each other!

here's another little problem though: the church says not to take birth control because it's practically abortion of potential life, so when mormon couples have sex there's a higher chance of getting pregnant. (real quick- not taking birth control isn't a super strict part of the church, people still do, but it's advised against)

and there you have it folks, my theory of why mormon families have so many kids.

[elishasbaldhead]

rb if as a child hearing the phrase “oh my god” made your heart rate shoot up so much that you could physically feel it beating