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7.

Why I Believe
Weve had the opening song and prayer, so its now time for me to bear my heterodox testimony. Im aware many will find my testimony wanting (especially in the praise Joseph1 middle finger category) and point out what they perceive as its flaws. Im trying to evolve toward exaltation though, and I do not fear to share where I currently am on my faith journey- judge it as you will.

Choose your own caption! A) The five pillars of Mormonism B) Kristen Oaks: you can sell anything in this world with the right last name C) Creepy

Why I care about this issue Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail Sometimes folks ask me why I care about feminism since Im not a woman. The answer is simple and sufficient: Im Christian. Were all equally human.

I credit Terre J. Cossey for this and several other clever turns of phrase throughout

Its the same reason that I advocate for marriage equality even though Im straight- I put myself in the shoes of a young single black lesbian2 and I dont like the options I see, so I try to treat her the way I would like to be treated in her position. Turns out, the golden rule is still a potent ethical tool for humanists. My life goal is to become civilized: Civilization is the process in which one gradually increases the number of people included in the term 'we' or 'us' and at the same time decreases those labeled 'you' or 'them' until that category has no one left in it.

-Howard Winters3
If that werent enough, though, I have a personal family connection to this issue. This story makes me tear up about every time I tell it: I am alive today because of a laying-on-of-hands blessing my gggrandma gave her son, my ggrandfather. As a child, my ggrandfather caught pneumonia and got very sick. The doctor came over one day upon urgent request about the child's nonresponsiveness. He tested my ggrandfather for signs of life, found none, and pronounced him dead. When he left, my convert gggrandma gave him a blessing and refused to give up on him, rubbing his body throughout the night and placing him as near the stove as she dared for warmth. My gggrandfather refused to intervene, leaving the childs fate to the Lords will alone. In the morning, after my gggrandmothers labors and faith, he was alive. He was alive. No one can tell me that women can't channel God's power- my very body is living proof to the contrary. Why I stay Like Joanna Brooks, I have a love affair with this church and its people (though as youve seen, Im disinclined to ignore the flaws of LDS Inc.). Im Edward and Mormonism is my Bella! Im a participant in Mormon Stories, Mormon Democrats, Mormon Transhumanist Society, Feminist Mormon Housewives, Sunstone, and the list goes on and on- about anything with Mormon in the title. I come from a large extended orthodox family going back 6-7 generations on either side (including current/recent bishops, stake presidents, a general authority, etc.). I went to BYU for 8 years, was a veil worker in the temple, Assistant on my mission in Sacramento, Coordinator for EFY, etc. - I am and will always be, Mormon. This is the faith tradition of my fathers, and it is my faith- I claim it. Im active and hold a current temple recommend that I use (some of the ideas in this work came to me during an endowment session in the Mesa temple in May 2012). I've never touched coffee, I go to church, and I believe in the principles of Mormonism. As one friend said to me recently, "Mormonism oozes from your pores4." It would have been easy for me to exit- after all I'm right in the center of the Terrible Trifecta Prez. Packer described (I'm a feminist, intellectual, and I'm pro-gay). I could have walked away from this tradition years ago like two of my siblings did- I'm here because I choose to be. I recently posted on Facebook: I am a Mormon! I claim this identity. I plan to maintain it throughout my life. To me, the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism are pursuing truth, friendship, and relief (https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/141-32-41.pdf)- and it is to those three pillars that I cleave. Regardless of my participation in the LDS church, I am also a transhumanist (transfigurism.org). Through the ethical use
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I love this category- as opposite from God (old, white, male, straight, married) as you can get As quoted by Anne-Marie Cantwell, in "Howard Dalton Winters: In Memoriam." Unpublished paper, Midwest Archaeological Conference, Lexington, KY. 1994 4 My roommate described me this morning (June 3) as a super-Mormon, whatever that means

of technology, I seek to bring to pass the religious myths I find most valuable- resurrection, immortality, and Zion, or atone-ment. Now _that_ is a religion that excites me- a future that's (1) not guaranteed, (2) feasible, and (3) worth fighting for! A vision that doesn't rely on patriarchy, heterosexism, or dubious epistemology. An organic destiny that I can yet shape. Hear me, oh Mormons and post-Mormanity- I hereby embrace phase two of my Mormon life! Regardless of what happens to me as far as activism and church discipline, you will find me a month later sitting in church, taking the sacrament, and singing the hymns.

And you're welcome to rip this from my cold, dead fingers

Mormonism has so much to offer, and the FTB [Follow The BrethrenTM] meme is not its most valuable product. My LDS Churchs biggest cash value crop, in my view, is instead the doctrine of theosis. The idea that we can and should become like what we imagine God- benevolent, immortal, ethical, potent, creative, unselfish, intelligent- that is an idea we can truly actualize by believing and pursuing it. Willing to bear one anothers burdens5 The second biggest cash value crop is the ward. When I attend a family ward, I like to look at the awkward teenagers and see how the Church wraps arms of belonging, purpose, and support around them. Children and parents are two demographics that are especially supported. As much as I hate to be a bleeding heart about bureaucracy6, I think LDS Inc. offers a very valuable product: the local unit. Though not a governance guru by any stretch, I do see great value in the way participation is structured at the local unit. They are often sized to nearly the exact measure of our effective social network (no matter how many Facebook friends you have, youll probably have about 150 you could count on for a favor/ interact with regularly- about the same size as the active membership of a ward). I would be unsurprised to learn that this size is comparable to the size of tribes that we spent much of our evolutionary past in.
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Mosiah 18:8 Youll have to forgive my love poem to structure- Im a Master of Public Administration graduate of the Romney Institute of Public Management, which seeks to be a touchstone of guidance on governance, and I tend to think in these terms

You are expected to pitch in, and in exchange you are privileged to ask for help from the community. Its like a supersized family, just right-sized enough (thank you, Goldilocks) to make you annoyed sometimes dealing with people you wouldnt freely choose, and grateful and integrated for much of the rest. Communities need the rules, roles, structures, and schedules wards proffer. Falling through the cracks happens less than in many comparable traditions, and children and parents especially receive a lot of structured sheparding. Like in functioning families, members covenant to and fulfill the caretaking role- they attend to the needs of each other. To the extent they cause and sustain this result, I take my hat off to LDS Inc. Also, I actually value the up-in-your-business approach of Mormonism. We have checkpoints of inclusion, such as temple recommend interviews and tithing declaration; we have home and visiting teaching, which serves as a teaching model for how we should be taking care of each other (even if, like in our families, we dont always express that model as we should). In some other traditions, the come-and-go-as-you-please model results in the painful conclusion that we could care less whether you participate. Community requires at least a measure of pushiness, and at our best that pushiness is the loving invitation and gentle watchcare and kin creation the Savior emulated. Jesus didnt wave at the house from the street for a few seconds before passing on- he went right up to the door and firmly knocked. Until we evolve to the point that we can truly treat a stranger as a sibling, we need tribes: and Mormonism delivers. I think the social capital generated by the Church is even greater than its financial assets. The ward unit is simply genius.

It takes scaffolding to construct a building: it takes structure to construct a community

Now, I acknowledge that some classes are marginalized in our tradition (the disaffected, gays, divorcees, single sisters, etc.), but as regrettable as those are, the list is a limited and shrinking one. We demarginalized a particular racial minority recently, and we can demarginalize more classes as well. We need not drift toward becoming a country club for straight couples. The gospel of Jesus Christ is broad enough for, dare I suggest it, all classes of people. As a religion, I believe we LDS can live up to that gospel. We can strengthen Zions stakes and enlarge its borders without losing our distinctive identity. 4

Would we not prefer our peculiar people features to be service and theosis, rather than sexism and heterosexism?

Havent we more to offer investigators that is of good report and praiseworthy, besides the fervency of our claims to authority? Faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost have no tubercle length requirement. Building community and loving our neighbor8 are blind to Gender JudgmentsTM.

Service knows no gender

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http://mormongags.com/content/condemning-homosexuality You can watch this tear-jerker (its beautiful) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zq7JPVPz9os

Yes, we need to make low-hanging fruit reforms (i.e. these twin terrors, heterosexism and sexism, which both grow from the baseless gendered theology that steals more value from our tradition than it adds). Zion cannot abide these ugly obstacles to beauty and equality. Let's prune the wild fruit and cultivate the natural fruit! There is a lot of virtuous, lovely, and natural fruit worth cultivating. But hey, that's just one vote - and I am interested in and invite the other voices in this Mormon community that I love.

Activism Rsum Now that Ive shared why I believe, I feel I should also disclose some of the expressions of that testimony over the last couple years. Plus, I want to ease the job of the SCMC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengthening_Church_Members_Committee)9 staff assigned to me- my file is getting fat and unwieldy these days.

The Strengthening Church Members Committee (SCMC) is a committee of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who monitor the publications of church members for possible criticism of local and general leaders of the church. If criticism is found, the committee may forward information to local church authorities, who may bring charges of apostasy, which can result in excommunication *SCMC+ was mentioned during the 2004 church discipline of Grant H. Palmer in which it reportedly sent a dossier on Palmer to his stake president.

1. Shared an updated version of my book, Homosexuality: A Straight BYU Student's Perspective (sold out at Benchmark Books, Sam Weller's Bookstore, and BYU Bookstore) 2. Spoke at Affirmation's April post-general-conference meeting in SLC 3. Delivered a pro same-sex marriage address at the conservative academic conference, Strengthening the Family 4. Presented Why Mormonism Can Abide Gay Marriage at the Sunstone symposium 5. Wrote two analyses of church discipline- Church Discipline: Unveiled and Differences between "Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and Bishops 2010" and 'Handbook 2: Administering the Church" 6. Authored a guest post, Can Mormonism Make a Place for Same-Sex Marriage? Guest Blogger Brad Carmack Says Yes, on Jana Reiss's Flunking Sainthood blog 7. Was featured on the cover of Qsaltlake 8. Was profiled by Utah Common Values 9. Delivered the keynote at the annual Affirmation banquet (held in 2011 in Cleveland and the Kirtland temple) 10. Advocated involvement in nonprofit groups as part of a panel on the Mormon Channel 11. Interviewed with J. Seth Anderson on Qtalk Arizona about my book 12. Interviewed with Eric Ethington on PRIDEinUtah about my book 13. Manned the PFLAG booth at the SLC Pride Parade, summer 2011 14. Spoke on Sunstone panel re: LDS life in the "Borderlands," also in Sunstone Magazine article (page 76) 15. Published an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, Time for same-sex LDS marriages 16. Was highlighted in the Advocate: Mormon Lawyer: Church Should Embrace Marriage Equality 17. Guest posted Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary on Feminist Mormon Housewives 18. Was written about in the Salt Lake Tribune in an article entitled Mormon Pragmatism 19. Wrote Reflections of a Mormon feminist: the role of women and men in and out of the church on Feminist Mormon Housewives 20. Was discussed in The L Magazine: A Change of Heart on Gay Marriage From a Mormon Former Anti-Gay Rights Campaigner 21. Added my straight ally voice to the "Mormon Family and Friends" video campaign ("It Gets Better" style) in a solo clip 22. Was targeted in a same-sex reproduction article by Red Mass Group: Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary 23. Spoke about sexual orientation science at the opening event for PFLAG Utah County, summer 2011 24. Shared a video activism series at my YouTube channel 25. Featured in "It is time for same-sex marriage in the LDS Church," Moxie Magazine (Issue 2, first article) 26. Presented Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary at the Mormon Transhumanist Association Conference

I believe in Zion- that through work and love of self and each other, we can become a unified and exalted community. I am committed to donating all the time and talents Ive been blessed with to its construction.

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