Most of this is taken from a facebook note I did about a month before I escaped the island of the cheese wiz utopia and slightly updated so forgive the lack of punctuation, I wasn't much of a fan back then:
March 23, 2010 at 8:43 a.m.
yesterday church offered up yet another speech on the sanctity of marriage. and of course how courageous it is for mormons to stand up for what they believe in. but when i think of courage this is a much more stellar example. u can basically judge someones level of courage by the amount of social suicide they are willing to risk:
As can be seen in the video. A Mormon steps up during a "Testimony Meeting" at his church in which Mormons typically make unsubstantiated claims such as "I know this is church is true" (honesty anyone?) but instead this Mormons speaks out against Prop 8 and is then invited to get off the podium.
Partial transcript:
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I would like to take a moment to reflect on some serious issues that have deeply affected my life and how the holy spirit is guiding me here in front of you good people today.
I have never felt the spirit so strongly in 40 years as a latter day saint. I have supported this church and its teachings and the gospel of Jesus Christ all of my life and even did some missionary work among my own family members who have been reluctant to be baptized due to certain policies of this institution.
After last years controversial election my eyes were opened wide to the nature of the leaders of this church and its political agenda specifically to take away rights from my [unintelligible] that worked hard to get them.
(video edit)
Brothers and sisters when I found out how much money this church and its members had contributed to the passing of prop 8 it disturbed me a great deal. It made me realize I had been a hypocrite to so many friends and family members and I needed to re-evaluate who I am and what institution I belong to.
I am grateful today to the ******* family for adopting me and loving me unconditionally in every aspect of the word. I am literally ashamed and embarrassed as a latter day saint of this church and how it has used its influence to provoke good people into donating its hard-earned money toward hating another group of people under the false pretense, in my opinion, of protecting the sanctity of marriage.
(Bishop rises in the background and in so many words informs the speaker that his testimony is not wanted and turns off the speaker system in an attempt to force him into silence.)
What remains I can't hear well enough. If anyone else can then send me your transcript. Thanks.
The LDS MORMONS don't want GAY PEOPLE around them they might get contaminated.
"We do not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals. If any of you have this tendency and have not completely abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university immediately after this assembly...We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence." (Ernest Wilkinson, president of Brigham Young University, in a 1965 lecture to the BYU student body, titled: "Make Honor your Standard.")
(Gays) are probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of...They're the meanest buggers I have ever seen." Utah State Senator(and twice-LDS bishop) Chris Buttars, 2009
"The only marriage sanctioned by God is of a man to a woman. In the case of a gay person, they really have no hope. And to live life without hope on such a core issue I think is a very difficult thing." Marlin Jensen, official LDS historian.
"I do not find in the Bible the modern terms "petting" nor "homosexuality," yet I found numerous scriptures which forbade such acts under by whatever names they might be called. I could not find the term "homosexuality," but I did find numerous places where the Lord condemned such a practice with such vigor that even the death penalty was assessed."
-Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, "Love Versus Lust", BYU Speech January 5, 1965.
This is a piece I found (not sure where?) about the psychological mind control that is so prevalent in the mormon religion and dare I say organized religion as a whole and my own notes as it pertains to the reality of the video and my own experiences and what our humble speaker is trying to convey:
DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON'S CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM
(BRIEF OUTLINE)
1. MILIEU CONTROL the most basic feature is the control of human communication within and environment if the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control)
*for example cutting off the mike in the above link
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity) extensive personal manipulation seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative the "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment)...
*glen beck is right cause he's a mormon your're wrong because your you
3. THE DEMAND FOR PURITY the world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group) one must continually change or conform to the group "norm" tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality the radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming
*the above link being a great counter example of this or what i heard in church sunday with black and white thinking. being gay is evil and we MUST eradicate it. with no regard for the secondary and tirtchiary effects it has. tipping the prop 8 cause into the very definition of evil, intolerance and what hitler would call a final solution. in this case labeled prop 8 or what dubya would call an amendment to the constitution because its just an amendment.
4. CONFESSION cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change is an act of symbolic self-surrender makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility...
*feeling guilty for not being a republican, country music mclovin', disney watching, homophobe
5. SACRED SCIENCE the totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited a reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology
*al gore is a tree huggin' satanist
6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE the language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers) repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon "the language of non-thought" words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase
*in church sunday there was a talk i think maybe the same one about the sanctictity of marriage where he talked about 'whoa is me' or something. talk about a loaded word. i got a major joey lawrence flashback. fortunately the church giggles never came cause i may have been on the verge of puking. but WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, or however u spell it. damn right (or left????)
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it the pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience if one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly...
*this 1 really pisses me off cause there is nothing like asking someone that you really like and care abouta ? and all u get is a theological response and not an authentic answer. (see previous post: How to get someone to delete you in 8 minutes) even if you ask the same ? 10 different ways to sunrise (or sunset???) u never get an authentic real heartfelt response from them. the only good thing i ever get from something like this is knowing that the tear ducts r still capable of doing their job.
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist "being verses nothingness" impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed one outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them the group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.
*al gore is still a tree huggin' satanist, barack is the anti-christ, the world is in its final days, jesus will come back any second, be fruitful and multiply A LOT, and less than 5 kids makes u a major underachiever and unworthy to share your husband in eternity with hundred if not thousands of other sister wives to populate your godly husbands planetoid
MORMONISM AND THE DOUBLE BIND
The following link is amazing piece on the psychological impact on the mormon brain and the damage it does to people in the religion, and especially being born into the religion. For me, when I read this it was like swallowing the red pill, a big ass red pill, and explained so well why I was feeling so conflicted with who I am as an authentic person and what mormonism does to that authenticity.
Mormonism and the Double Bind
*or how i stopped feeling guilty and learned to love myself again
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