Mormon church issues new restrictions on transgender members

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 288 points – Mormon church issues new restrictions on transgender members
nbcnews.com

The new policies include a measure to annotate trans members’ records, grouping them with members who have committed sexual violence or child abuse.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, issued a slew of new policies this week expanding its restrictions on transgender members.

The policies, released Monday, include rules barring trans people from working with children, becoming priests and serving as teachers. The church also expanded on an existing rule that barred trans people from being baptized.

Trans members will also face possible annotation on their membership records, grouping them with churchgoers who have committed incest, sexual predatory behavior, sexual violence against children and embezzlement of church funds.

62

Did Joseph Smith come back to life and read the restrictions out of a hat? Otherwise it doesn't count

Tsk.. tsk... tsk... For clarity JS actually claimed to have:

"Read glowing writings off a stone placed in a hat."

Its much more believable that way...

Glowing writing? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your hat?

… May I see it?

LDS is at least upfront about how they change stuff

The leadership get revelations directly from god. In a weird coincidence, many of the revelations (like that black people aren't demons) come at times when societal pressure is overwhelming or they are getting bad press. god apparently has very good timing.

One might say its timing is providential.

At this point, the only societal pressure they're under is trying to retain the self-identified Mor[m]ons in the Western US who allow the Mor[m]on church to hold sway over local politics.

Yeah, but like, at least LDS will be forthcoming about how shit is different now. Sure, they kinda dress it up about how the old rules were right "for their time," but otherwise that's pretty progressive for a church, IMO.

Compared to JW which will just redact everything they don't like and pretend it's always been that way.

Tax free status for churches has been one of the dumbest policies ever, they don't follow the rules on not promoting political parties and candidates and use that privilege to oppress scapegoats.

I would even be fine with preserving their tax-free status if they were required to keep open books like other nonprofits. Let the world see exactly what a megachurch spends its money on. They'll find they have a lot fewer new recruits.

Grouping them with child predators, so they're part of the clergy now?

Sucks to be Mormon.

For sooooo many reasons.

The best things to come out of the Mormon church was John Moses Browning and Joshua Graham and Graham is fucking fictional.

TIL Moses was Mormon, I thought he would've been a Baptist

Nope the greatest gunsmith was a Mormon, though I dont actually know his opinions later in life.

It really does, and it especially sucks to live in Utah where everyone silently judges you for existing

I don't know if Mormons do posthumous baptism, but put me in a fucking dress before loading me in the furnace or chipper shredder or whatever if it will prevent any of that bullshit.

They certainly do and unfortunately they don’t need the body. No one is safe.

So many people did baptisms for both Anne Frank and Adolf Hitler.

There’s an easier way to not deal with it.

Remember, they need you to believe in a god that is all powerful, all knowing and doesn’t give enough of a shit to not make fuckups like this.

(That. Or maybe it’s all bullshit and their asshole god is made in their image.)

I'm not a believer at all in such superstitions. Technically, I don't care what happens after I die. But I don't want any religion to falsely claim me.

As an ex-mormon, I feel I should point out that they don't believe they're claiming the dead whom they're baptizing. They're providing an opportunity for the dead person to choose and accept the baptism.

That said, f#*# organized religion. The Mormon church especially.

I've harped on it at length elsewhere, but even within the illogical realm of theology, baptism for the dead is just childishly literal and stupid, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they cling to it.

There's a huge pull for Mormons to see their family again, it's one of the ways they manipulate you the hardest. If you're a good mormon, but this other person wasn't, then you'll basically never see them again. (Or meet them, in the case of ancestors). Plus it's a bragging point, I knew people who kept a count of everyone they did this for.

You know a religion is fucked when they believe in a divided heaven. Motherfuckers literally segregate the afterlife.

And Mormonism does it more than others. There's not only 4 places you can go after you die, but the "heaven" (best) one has 3 separate levels in it as well. You can only go to super secret top tier heaven if you're Mormon, get sealed (eternity married) in the temple, and remember all the secret handshakes and your special name learned in the temple.

(The name isn't even that special, they just make it seem like it is. Every person of the same gender as you (remember there's only 2 🙄🙄) gets the same name for that date. They're all biblical names, and since there's only like 8 women mentioned in the Bible (because why would they right?), they're recycled even more making your super special secret temple name super common.)

Additionally, of you get a special placement in the afterlife based on what church you associate with, and not even based on your deeds and intentions, then that's F'd up. You could be literally the best person ever, but if your Catholic or atheist, you don't get into super secret top tier heaven. That's reserved for the sycophants.

2 more...
2 more...

They don't only do posthumous baptism, they do posthumous baptism of non-Mormons to make them into Mormons.

They did a posthumous baptism for Anne Frank. Assholes. I realize that doesn't change anything about anything, but they're still assholes for doing it.

Anyone can submit names and people often submit names to embarrass the church because they know it will cause problems. Secondly the 'anne frank' that had work done was not the historically famous figure but a different person entirely,

Temple work is ancestor focused worship, it's not about changing anyone's historical factual life, that's not at all a belief in the church, no one thinks that temple work changes ANYTHING about history, that's INSANE and no one thinks that's what's happening with the names you work.

All the names you so work for are supposed to be YOUR ancestors, people do go through and offer to do names people have left available for anyone, but those names are still supposed to be that other persons ancestors, not unrelated people, no one is supposed to be submitting names of any historical figure they arend provably a decendent of, and even then, they should only do so if they have a right to do that work.

A lot of people hate Mormons and like to make up the worst things they can think of to insult or vilify them. I was Mormon for a long time, I left the church because of ACTUAL THINGS the church does that are wrong and bad and against the churches own doctorine, the choices they make about training and policy, the severe anti lgbtq hatetred they support and spread. NOT because of made up bullshit no one in the church has ever done or believed.

There's more than enough factual information to criticize, making up bullshit isn't necessary and it's dishonest and stupid.

BftD is a very weird doctrine that is childishly literal on the one hand, but inefficient to the point of cruelty on the other. There is no real point to it except busy work for grandmas and finding something to use for indoctrinating teens at the temples, and maybe it was an effective lever of control over superstitious members when it was first rolled out. I can guarantee you that any well known person was submitted at least once by "well meaning" members, regardless of the rules when they were doing so.

It's so facially... stupid... that it's extremely disrespectful to cling to it and claim it's any kind of benefit. When I was a kid, they would say that if you died unbaptized you were in some sort of spirit prison, and it was only after some dumb kid who lied about cranking it to the Sears catalog got dunked in an overgrown bathtub that you'd get your hall pass to let you "decide" whether to accept the gospel (which is another bone to pick... what kind of choice is that after you're dead and it turns out the Mormons were right?!).

It's horrendous on its face, but it only gets every so slightly better upon deeper investigation. It's still an arrogant and incoherent but of theology, and the sooner they have a "revelation" that it's unnecessary, the better.

Not really sure what you mean. Me and everyone I knew absolutely believed we were offering salvation for each person we were doing this for. If you didn't, then you weren't a good mormon (honestly, good for you, I wish I wasn't so in the coolaid)

They have kids, 12+ do this all the time, and they use other submitted names, with literally no relationship to any of the names the kid is baptized for. There's no "supposed to be related" they just encourage it to make you feel more personally attached to the work.

Also if you were in it more recently than I, perhaps they changed it. It's been about a decade, and despite what they say, they change their story all the time.

"Not really sure what you mean. Me and everyone I knew absolutely believed we were offering salvation for each person we were doing this for. If you didn’t, then you weren’t a good mormon"

It's not surprising to me or anything, because this is a huge problem in the church that they don't teach the doctrine, they just want the numbers, the tithing, the cultural power, they don't care about the teachings.

No you weren't ever supposed to be changing the historical facts of anyone's life

There is no belief in the doctorine that work for the dead REWRITES their historical life, or the facts of their life.

Nowhere.

The belief is that the soul of the dead person, in spirit prison/spirit paradise can chose to accept the gospel, and the work done for them. If you do your ancestor's work and they died in Spain in the 1400s, no matter what work you do for then, in their life they were never Mormon. History books do not need to be updated that their life is now as a Member of the church. No one should believe that. That's not a part of any teaching in the church at all.

Only their soul in death can accept the work. No history books to change. No facts to update.

"There’s no “supposed to be related” they just encourage it to make you feel more personally attached to the work."

I'm sorry you grew up in Utah or Idaho, I have no idea what the church does there, but from everyone I've met that grew up out there, you all are so devoid of the actual doctorine of the church it's clear no one out there bothers with it in the first place.

Temple work has always been to redem YOUR dead. This has never changed. You were always supposed to be doing your own ancestors work. That's why if you go through the old temple records you'll see generation after generation do the same ancestors in the same order over and over. Now the work isn't supposed to be done over and over on the same names, but it has always been restricted to your own ancestors. No one is supposed to be submitting names of random people, it's why when the church digitized all this and put it all online you can't submit names without some proof it's your ancestor. You can still work names with open submissions, but only direct ancestors has been the policy on paper since the beginning.

This is how you have a whole religion that is willing to think it's OK to hate LGBTQ people, actively try and harm them with legislation and policy, and say they accept Jesus' teachings that you must ''love one another'' you never bother with the doctorine in the first place.

Heh nice call, did grow up in Idaho, but didn't start doing temple stuff until I was in California.

Anywho, sorry never heard anything about changing any historical facts about anyone. (Not even sure where that came up in the thread, but forgive me, it's almost 4 am 🤣). The past is the past. Just offering them the "atonement" or whatever. They could still decide whether or not to accept.

Anywho, it's a sucky religion, and I've used up my quota of energy on it for the quarter.

I hope you have an excellent rest of your life, free from the special Mormon flavor of religion!

I read a few years back that the temple was giving out names for people to baptize and if a family ever came back to baptize them they would just redo it. When I found that out it felt wrong for some reason.

Knowing all the work I had done to find the names just to find out they had the name the whole time and they potentially gave it to someone else really rubbed me the wrong way.

2 more...

Don't you have to want to be baptized.... Like isn't absolution supposed to be a self sought ideal.

Yeah, the real impact of this will just be further alienation of trans youths.

Mormon baptism is also the key initiation ritual. You aren't "officially" Mormon until you're baptized. Typically, this happens at age 8, because that's when you are deemed to have sufficient agency for some very stupid reason, but also all converts and previously excommunicated people must be baptized (or re-baptized in the latter case) to become members. I think this is mostly telling local missionaries and members not to even try to baptize a trans person until they're "fixed."

Until a lawsuit happens and senior members of the church have a magic moment and change their minds?

I hope changes like this make them taxable. I want a fat cut of all that cash they are hoarding.

It's like they learned nothing with the gay community. All this shit just screams scared old man. Fucking over their nonsense.

You mean to tell me that it's too much trouble for them to keep track of their own leadership and bishops to remember which have been accused of misbehavior and sexual abuse, but they totally have the time and capacity to keep track of which church members had a sex change and then group them with the empty file of sex abusers to was too troublesome to keep?

Church of Jesus Christ? More like Church of "Jesus Christ!"

Funny, I've mentally annotated mormons my whole life as likely to commit sexual violence and child abuse.

The LDS church is straight up is a scam. They are tax exempt, require you pay tithing, and even use their members to clean the church buildings, despite the absurd amounts of wealth they have. And all they do with that money is build temples all over the place, and hoard it.

What did Joseph Smith say about transgender people? Nothing. What did Brigham Young have to say about transgender? Nothing. What does the book of Mormon say about transgender? Nothing.

Must be nice to hide your bigotry behind a religion that does not even back you up your hate in its scripture. Truly pathetic.

So is Brandon Sanderson going to rewrite the king of the reshi isles or what? Lmfao I always laugh whenever someone tells me how inclusive or socially positive any of his writing is. Y'all can clown on JK Rowling no problem but give this guy a pass?

Asking genuinely as someone who hasn't read any of his books; what had B.S. said/written that is socially negative? I know nothing about the guy tbh.