#mormones

[unblogparaloschicos]

Cine: Latter Days (2003)

El título de la película alude a la "Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días", organización religiosa cuyos miembros son conocidos como "mormones". Cuatro jóvenes arriban a Los Angeles con la misión explícita de comunicar su fe, todos ellos llevando el título de "Elder" (son chicos de entre dieciocho y veinticinco años): Elder Aaron Davis (Steve Sandboss), Elder Paul Ryder (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Elder Harmon (Rob McElhenney) y Elder Gilford (Dave Power). El grupo se hospeda en un complejo habitacional y descubre que su vecino es Christian (Wes Ramsey), un joven abierta, orgullosa y (también hay que decirlo) promiscuamente gay que trabaja de mesero en Lila´s, un restaurante propiedad de Lila Montagne (la ganadora del Globo de Oro e ícono cinematográfico Jacqueline Bisset).

El inevitable choque de pensamientos y creencias genera una grieta entre los cinco, pero es Aaron quien, luego de un pequeño accidente en el patio, ayuda al díscolo Christian con su herida e inicia un acercamiento que lo aterra porque teme convertirse en una deshonra para su familia y su comunidad, además de ser excomulgado. Pero el amor puede ser más fuerte que el temor, ¿o no?

Una vez más, los prejuicios (los de Aaron y los de sus compañeros, pero también los de Christian) se convierten en una amenaza a la interacción e incluso a la vida humana. La historia de C. Jay Cox, autor y director del filme, tiene muchos puntos en contacto con la de Aaron, aunque su obra no es estrictamente biográfica: proveniente de una familia mormona, luego asumió su homosexualidad tras su paso por Los Angeles. Así, logró una película considerada de culto en la riquísima y variopinta historia de la cinematografía LGBTQ: cálida, divertida e incluso tensa debido a los efectos de la decisión de sus protagonistas, a los que se suma Mary Kay Place como la atribulada madre de Aaron, Rebekah Johnson como Julie, gran amiga de Christian, Khary Payton, en el rol de Andrew, un compañero de trabajo (también gay) de éste, y Erik Palladino, que interpreta a Keith, a quien Christian ayuda debido a que enfrenta el sida en su estado final.

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

[spurgie-cousin]

This is such a good, succinct way of describing the illusion of choice many fundamentalist women and men have when it comes to life paths.

[inbabylontheywept]

I was walking out of the Walmart today, and a car passed me, and I got this incredibly vivid impression. It wasn't really in words, but if I had to put it into words, the two key points would be

a). I needed to watch that car and

b). That I needed to be careful, because the driver of the car was a massive bitch.

It kind of took me by surprise, because I really had no reason to be beefing with that car, and I also hadn't really had an impression like that since I was religious, which was in my teen years. Right? It'd been a decade since I had a little voice whisper in my ear, and I'd basically written it off as nonsense.

Anyway, I watched the car, because The Spirits or whatever were very insistent that I did. Car drove fine, went into the parking spot, inched forward, and right when it should've just stopped, the driver gunned it for some reason and it ran into the curb and cracked its bumper.

So, the driver got out, and she went to the front of the car to check that yes, she had cracked her bumper, and then she turned to look at me. The parking lot wasn't empty, but we were the only two people standing in that row, and I'd probably been staring at her for tenish seconds now.

She demanded very angrily to know why I hadn't warned her of the curb. And I could have said I didn't know you were about to gun it or is it my job to help every stranger park, or even could you have even heard me, inside your car?

And all of those would have been fine, but I was really, really busy digesting that I had somehow communed with Mormon Jesus again for the first time in fifteen years, and that the communion had mostly been there to let me watch someone park badly (?), so what I responded with was:

"Because it was foretold."

And I can't tell which would be funnier, if she went silent because there's not much to be said to that, or if she went silent because in Utah, she might actually believe me, but we parted ways without more words.

I'm still kind of digesting this myself, actually.

[lizardho]

When I came out, I was SO scared I was gonna get disowned. I wrote a letter to my parents, sent it to their emails, put a physical copy on the counter, and left the house for a few hours to give them time. In that time I tried coffee for the first time, which was a dreadful idea, and got all jittery. I kept waiting for a text or something but nothing happened.

After a few hours, I didn’t hear back from them so I went home. My parents were home and had stacked a bunch of groceries on top of the letter without opening it. They said “hi” and I said “hi” and went down stairs to the basement. I held my dog and panicked about what to do. My sister, who knew that I had written them a letter of great importance, told me they hadn’t read it yet. She also told me she could ask them to do so. I consented to this and stayed in the basement. A few minutes later my dad knocked on the door and poked his soft smooth little nerd head in and said “hey buddy” and I started crying so hard I almost vomited. He came over and gave me a BIG hug and said that it was gonna be OK, he was OK with this, he knew it must have been hard but he was here for me. He told me he and my mom had already talked years before they had me about how if they had to pick between their faith and their child they’d pick their child. It was a very sweet moment. I came out to my mom later that evening and we were both bawling the whole time.

The day after I came out to my parents, I came out to my brother @inbabylontheywept at a Mexican restaurant and he took it like a champ. That evening my mom took me for a walk and looked almost angry - she said she wanted to make sure that I didn’t use being a woman as an excuse to not go to grad school. I told her I wouldn’t and she instantly looked relieved and happier.

My dad, on the other hand, seemed to struggle with it. He kept asking me if I had a boyfriend, and I told him I did not. He kept asking me if I wanted to go clothes shopping with him and I did not. He kept asking me if I would let him go to some of my shows, and I had NO idea what he was talking about.

Finally, 6 months after coming out, of awkward misgendering and questions that didn’t make sense from my dad, he excitedly pokes his soft smooth little nerd head into my bedroom again and says “I found a movie about Your People.” My people. I was absolutely bewildered, but he was so excited and I knew he had been trying SO hard so I watched it with him. It was The Birdcage, and it was amazing. It also was revelatory in that I finally realized why my initially-supportive father seemed to be having such a hard time with my pronouns and stuff - he didn’t know what the difference between trans and doing drag was. After the movie he again asked if I would invite him to one of my shows, and I said, “Hey dad, you know how about half the world is women?” And he said “yeah,” and I said “Well, see, I’m on that half now. I’m not doing drag.” And it was like a switch flipped in his brain. He was like “omg that’s so easy? I was so confused about what to call you when?”

Anyway, my parents are charming and my family has been so kind and patient with me, I like sharing the stories of my little wins with them.

[heartnosekid]

weirdolini on ig

[gibbearish]

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

[anotherpapercut]

genuinely it will never stop baffling me how people will wear twilight shirts and talk about team Edward vs team Jacob and then the same people will be like "I'm not basing my personality off of a piece of media (harry potter) made by a transphobe 😌" like good that's great! so you can excuse racism but you draw the line at transphobia? good to know

[llithiaskyla]

guys alex hirsch was never slick

[eve-was-framed]

I wish the conversation around Ballerina Farm had far less “umm that’s just white feminism sweetie, it isn’t a big deal and other women have it worse so why are we even talking about this?” and more “if even a wealthy, young and attractive white woman is being treated this badly, then think about how horrible things must be for less privileged women”

[shiftythrifting]

something me and my gf found while looking around our local thrift store

[astal-art]

Been rethinking about my cringe musicals days….

[froody]

I also read the account of a girl in Nebraska who married when she was about 17 and was living on a farm with her husband in the 1840s when he was bitten by a rabid dog. She was then trapped on the isolated homestead, heavily pregnant, alone with her violently rabies maddened dying husband. She could not escape for help until his strength failed him and he died. She had a son (survived to adulthood) and then joined a Mormon wagon train passing through, remarried a Mormon man (not as a plural wife, thank god), had five more children, divorced her husband and died in California in her 90s. I truly think her life story is the premise for a damn good revisionist western horror story.

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

This is just a reminder of how Christianity became so popular today.*

During the reign of Charlemagne, women were impaled on sharpened poles put in the vagina.

Slowly, over days, the pole would travel the length of the body through the organs, causing tremendous pain, simply because a woman was found collecting herbs in the forest. She was labelled a witch.

Their screams could be heard for days as an example to those who would not accept the foreign faith. Christianity became so popular because of sheer terror of what would happen if it wasn't accepted

[inbabylontheywept]

so i left the mormon church as a teenager (15ish? 16?), but stayed in attendance until i was 20. i was pretty up front about the whole deciding-it-wasnt-true process with my bishop, who frankly took it really well, but it wasnt like i pulled all 150 ward members aside and had a heart to heart with them. anyway, i didnt believe, so at 19 i didnt go on a mission, and while some people in the ward were totally fine with that, others werent. and there was one woman in her late 50s who pulled me aside one day to interrogate me why i hadnt gone on a mission.

"the duty of every young man" she said.

and the thing is, im autistic. and a lot of people assume that when youre autistic, your social skills just arent very good. but thats not exactly true. your Be Polite skills are kind of eh, and they tend to stay that way, but as a sort of survival mechanism your Be Rude skills become amazing simply because you get put in tons of situations where your choices are to Function or Be Polite. and no one can choose Be Polite forever. the world demands function, it merely encourages politeness.

anyway, it can really catch neurotypicals by surprise, because hey, heres this kind of awkward, graceless guy, who stumbles over his words a lot and is very apologetic. hes probably a huge pushover. but i'm only like that when we're playing The Polite Game, because i am frankly kind of bad at it. but when its time to play The Rude Game, i go fucking ham and asking about the not-going-on-a-mission thing is Super Rude. so i said:

"sister hadlock... they wont let me go because i lit-er-ally cannot stop sucking dicks. i dont know why, its just so, so hard."

*dramatic pause*

"also - its very difficult to stop."

anyway, it almost killed her. i think she'd expected to just kind of steamroll me for the entire conversation, but the answer crushed her soul. instead of continuing her interrogation she made a noise like a horse drowning in a bog and left.

to add insult to injury, she went to the bishop after that, thinking he'd chew me out for being an ass, but instead he chewed her out for not minding her own business. then she went to my parents after that, who basically went "yeah, babylon was pretty rude. but youre also pretty rude. what are you, mad that he's better at it than you?"

i really loved that ward.