Sexy Healthy Wealthy

So I went to the liquor store the other night with my adorable friend Maika from school, and she wanted to buy a “40″…which is one huge 40 ounce bottle of beer.  ONE bottle each.  The Mormon in me can’t deal with that sort of nonsense….we buy everything in bulk.  Mormons store, in their basements, enough food to last 1-2 years–in fact, in Utah houses are built with concrete foundations which holds this special room in the house.  So you have this concrete walled room that has huge “garbage can” containers full of wheat, barrels of water, hundreds of cans of food and  piles of toilet paper–well–imagine what you think a year’s supply of food and staples looks like for a family of 8…it’s a LOT.

When I buy mayonnaise…I buy the HUGE jar, the gallon size….it’s what you do!  A smaller size would be silly!  You must ALWAYS be prepared–there’s nothing worse than running out of something.  It just doesn’t happen.  Utahns laugh at Easterners that clean out the grocery store of milk and bread when a storm is coming.  Utah stores stay the same…Mormons are READY.

Which is why I insisted that we buy not two, but SIX bottles.  And it makes sense that we actually have a keg at our house.  My food supply has turned into a beer supply.  (Don’t worry mom–I do have a case of chili and mac and cheese in my basement).

I guess there are some things that will never leave me.  And if you know any Mormons who have left the church and insist in buying their alcohol in bulk, it’s not because they’re raging alcoholics.  Actually, they probably won’t say it out loud…..but they think you’re quite impractical.

I’ve found this fascinating audio clip of an interview with Princeton University Historian Neil J Young entitled “Marriage, Law, and Society Part 1:  Marriage and the Mormons.”

He discusses Mormon’s political involvement in Prop 8, and what I found interesting is the Mormon role in defeating the ERA movement- and particularly how Mormon women were basically gleefully losing their rights as the rest of women in America were fighting for more.  Listen to how the church brilliantly defines gender roles for women.  How could women argue against that?  And don’t forget for a second who is benefitting from these roles. (Yes, I am still fired up from my rant yesterday).

I’ve always grown up knowing and believing “The Prophet will NEVER lead us astray” but I hadn’t known that this version of loyalty to the president of the church is a relatively new development.

I was going through my pictures to find the right one for this post…sorry, I couldn’t find anything related ;)  This was taken in a boutique on South Street.

If you have a few minutes, there’s some great stuff–click here.  You know you want to….

Here is what young Mormons are surrounded with (my emphasis added in bold).  Keep in mind, prophets and general authorities must be listened to and obeyed. This is only a small sampling, this idea is reinforced constantly.   Following will be my response.

“Surgical Sterilization (Including Vasectomy)

The First Presidency has declared, “We seriously deplore the fact that members of the Church would voluntarily take measures to render themselves incapable of further procreation.

Surgical sterilization should only be considered (1) where medical conditions seriously jeopardize life or health, or (2) where birth defects or serious trauma have rendered a person mentally incompetent and not responsible for his or her actions. Such conditions must be determined by competent medical judgment and in accordance with law. Even then, the person or persons responsible for this decision should consult with each other and with their bishop (or branch president) and receive divine confirmation through prayer.”
(1989 General Handbook of Instructions, Chapter 11)

“. . .in most cases the desire not to have children has its birth in vanity, passion and selfishness. . . All such efforts, too, often tend to put the marriage relationship on a level with the panderer and the courtesan. They befoul the pure fountains of life with the slime of indulgence and sensuality.”
(David O. McKay, “Birth Control,” Relief Society Magazine, July 1916, p. 366)

“Children are a heritage from the Lord, and those who refuse the responsibility of bringing them into the world and caring for them are usually prompted by selfish motives, and the result is that they suffer the penalty of selfishness throughout eternity. There is no excuse for members of our Church adopting the custom of the world. . . We have been better taught than they.”
(George Albert Smith, “Birth Control,” Relief Society Magazine, Feb. 1917, p. 72)

“As to sex in marriage, the necessary treatise on that for Latter-day Saints can be written in two sentences: Remember the prime purpose of sex desire is to beget children. Sex gratification must be had at that hazard.”
(J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report 1949, Oct: pp. 194-95)

“When the husband and wife are healthy, and free from inherited weaknesses and disease that might be transplanted with injury to their offspring, the use of contraceptives is to be condemned.”
(David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1943, p. 30)

“We seriously regret that there should exist a sentiment or feeling among any members of the Church to curtail the birth of their children. We have been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth that we may have joy and rejoicing in our posterity. Where husband and wife enjoy health and vigor and are free from impurities that would be entailed upon their posterity, it is contrary to the teachings of the Church artificially to curtail or prevent the birth of children. We believe that those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by.”
(First Presidency {David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, N. Eldon Tanner} Letter to presidents of stakes, bishops of wards, and presidents of missions, 14 April 1969)

“The tendency for many of our girls and many of our married women to put off or to reduce their families is not pleasing to your Heavenly Father, for He said, ‘multiply and replenish the earth,’ and He knew what He was doing, and any of our personal opinions don’t amount to much as compared to the wisdom of God. And he said as he concluded this great effort of creation, ‘And I . . .saw everything that I had made, and behold, all things which I had made were very good . . .’ He stood off and looked them over. He had made no errors; He had made no mistakes; He had created man and woman for a purpose. That purpose was not fun; that purpose basically was to live together in harmony and peace and to rear children in righteousness . . .”
(Spencer W. Kimball, Address to Special Interest Fireside in Tabernacle, 29 Dec. 1974, pp. 4-5)

“Speaking of mothers, the First Presidency said: “Motherhood thus becomes a holy calling, a sacred dedication for carrying out the Lord’s plans, a consecration of devotion to the uprearing and fostering, the nurturing in body, mind, and spirit, of those who kept their first estate and who come to this earth for their second estate ‘to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.’ (Abr. 3:25) To lead them to keep their second estate is the work of motherhood, and ‘they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.’ (op. cit.) [Abr. 3:26] This divine service of motherhood can be rendered only by mothers. It may not be passed to others. Nurses cannot do it; public nurseries cannot do it; hired help cannot do it—only mother, aided as much as may be by the loving hands of father, brothers, and sisters, can give the full needed measure of watchful care. The First Presidency counseled that “the mother who entrusts her child to the care of others, that she may do non-motherly work, whether for gold, for fame, or for civic service, should remember that ‘a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.’ (Prov. 29:15) In our day the Lord has said that unless parents teach their children the doctrines of the Church ‘the sin be upon the heads of the parents.’ (D&C 68:25) Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels. That message and warning from the First Presidency is needed more, not less, today than when it was given. And no voice from any organization of the Church on any level of administration equals that of the First Presidency.” (Boyd K Packer, “For Time and All Eternity,” Ensign, Nov 1993, 21)

“Men, if you have returned from your mission (age 21) and you are still following the boy-girl patterns you were counseled to follow when you were 15, it is time for you to grow up. Gather your courage and look for someone to pair off with. Start with a variety of dates with a variety of young women, and when that phase yields a good prospect, proceed to courtship. It’s marriage time. That is what the Lord intends for His young adult sons and daughters. Men have the initiative, and you men should get on with it. If you don’t know what a date is, perhaps this definition will help. I heard it from my 18-year-old granddaughter. A “date” must pass the test of three p’s: (1) planned ahead, (2) paid for, and (3) paired off.

Young women, resist too much hanging out, and encourage dates that are simple, inexpensive, and frequent. Don’t make it easy for young men to hang out in a setting where you women provide the food. Don’t subsidize freeloaders. An occasional group activity is OK, but when you see men who make hanging out their primary interaction with the opposite sex, I think you should lock the pantry and bolt the front door.  If you do this, you should also hang up a sign, “Will open for individual dates,” or something like that. And, young women, please make it easier for these shy males to ask for a simple, inexpensive date. Part of making it easier is to avoid implying that a date is something very serious. If we are to persuade young men to ask for dates more frequently, we must establish a mutual expectation that to go on a date is not to imply a continuing commitment. Finally, young women, if you turn down a date, be kind. Otherwise you may crush a nervous and shy questioner and destroy him as a potential dater, and that could hurt some other sister.

My single young friends, we counsel you to channel your associations with the opposite sex into dating patterns that have the potential to mature into marriage, not hanging-out patterns that only have the prospect to mature into team sports like touch football. Marriage is not a group activity—at least, not until the children come along in goodly numbers.”  Dallin H. Oaks, “Dating versus Hanging Out,” Ensign, Jun 2006, 10–16

College students should not put off creating families until they have completed all of their studies, an LDS Church apostle said Sunday….Using examples from his life, Elder Nelson, a surgeon and medical researcher, said he and his wife struggled financially early in his career while he earned medical degrees.  By the time he set up his practice his wife had given birth to five of their 10 children.  He urged his listeners to seek first to follow the teachings of the church before seeking wealth, which includes the commandment to create families. “The beauty of family is much more than physical. It is spiritual,” he said. Times have changed in half a century, Elder Nelson said “Temptation and sin exceeds anything we knew in our day,” he said.  “Satan is waging war directly at the heart of God’s plan — the family,” he said. The age of couples getting married for the first time is increasing, as is the number of unmarried couples, he said. “It takes real faith to withstand this attack,” he added. (”Fireside Focuses on Families, Deseret News, Feb 16, 2005.)

Here is my response:

ENOUGH.

The church is run by a First Presidency (the Prophet and 2 counselors) and a quorum of 12 apostles.  These are all white, male, highly educated, highly experienced business men that are strategically chosen to be part of a business team.  They are in their positions for life, and they want me to make them more Mormons.

When they say to “multiply and replenish the Earth,” are they speaking as “prophet, seers, and revelators” that church members believe them to be, or are they speaking as business men who run a multi-billion dollar corporation and who literally depend on my uterus to increase their numbers and assets?  Are they genuinely concerned for my salvation as a woman, or are they concerned about their balance sheets?

Enough is enough.

So my question to them is:

Are you going to be there?

Say I have the 4, 5, 6 children you want me to have….are you going to be there when they are all sick at the same time and I need a break from puking kids and snotty noses?

Are you going to be there when I run out of diapers and don’t have the means to buy them on my own?

Are you going to be there when I want to buy my child a decent gift for his/her birthday that doesn’t involve food stamps?

Are you going to be there when my kids want a bike, but mommy can’t afford it because she had to drop out of college to produce them and care for them?

Are you going to be there when my own child gets pregnant at the age of 15 and wants to keep her baby?

Are you going to be there when I want to just “run” to the store, are you going to watch them for that 30 minute break I will need during the day?

Are you going to be there to load the kids up in all the car seats just to drive to MacDonalds as a “special treat” to shop off their dollar menu?

Are you going to be there when I need a new house to accomodate all my kids, when 3 to a room gets to be a little too crowded?

Are you going to be there when my marriage falls apart because of tension over lack of money and/or sex?

Are you going to be there to babysit while I search for a job that will hire a woman with no education and no skills?

Are you going to be there when my kids are all grown and gone, and I look back on my life and wonder what the world is really like, and what did I miss out on?

Are you going to be there to take back the time I devoted to you, to building up your agenda and your business and forgoing all my own dreams and desires?

And are you going to be there after we all die, after I’ve lived my whole life righteously and devoting my whole life to my priesthood leaders, only to find that my husband was not-so-worthy and then all of a sudden I can’t make it into the highest degree of glory in the Celestial Kingdom? (As you believe?)

I know you have church welfare, I know you can help with food and diapers,  but is that really in my best interest to be able to minimally get by, and to be dependent on any handouts you can throw at me my whole life?

NO.  NO,  NO, NO,  NO!!

So– Thomas S Monson, Henry B Eyring, Dieter F Uchtdorf, Boyd K Packer, L Tom Perry, Russell M Nelson, Dallin H Oaks, M Russell Ballard, Richard G Scott, Robert D Hales, Jeffrey R Holland, David A Bednar, Quentin L Cook, D Todd Christoffersen, and Neil L Andersen—

all of you sitting on the Board at the Deseret Management Corporation–the FOR-PROFIT division of the church—-NO, NONE of you will personally be there for me, will you?

And who, exactly, is suffering from “vanity, passion, and selfishness”….is it I, who wants to enjoy and be in charge of the only life I have….or is it you…who has the most to benefit from my doing your work for free?  You can no longer make me feel like less of a person for not wanting to be your sex worker.  I am furious because these are people’s LIVES you are manipulating.  If you really and truly cared, you would let people know they have their entire lives to be married and to have kids.  Setting teenagers up as “young adults” when they are 18 years old and urging them to get married right away and have children robs them of their childhood, their teenage years, their time to experience this world before making lifelong and irreversible committments. 

And I am angry because you know what you are doing, and you’ve known it all along.  As Jon Stewart said in his interview with Jim Cramer regarding how CNBC has been reporting (or rather…not reporting) on Wall Street and the shady practices going on: “CNBC could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination for people that believe that there are two markets: one that has been sold to us as long term- put your money in 401ks, put your money in pensions and just leave it there, don’t worry about it, it’s all doing fine.  Then there’s this other market, this real market that is occuring in the back room where giant piles of money are going in and out and people are trading them and it’s transactional and it’s fast, but it’s dangerous, it’s ethically dubious and it hurts that long term market. So what it feels like to us, and I’m speaking purely as a laymen… It feels like we are capitalizing your adventure, by our pension and our hard earned (money)…and that it is a game that you know, that you know is going on and then you go on the television as a financial network and pretend isn’t happening.”  And then (after watching a video clip of Cramer describing and encouraging shady practices)…”I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a fucking game…when I watch that I get, I can’t tell you how angry that makes me, because what it says to me is you all know.  You all know what is going on. (Jon Stewart interview with Jim Cramer, March 13, 2009. The full interview is here).

I feel Jon Stewart’s passion and anger, and I understand it–only I’ve felt deceived by another source, and my own view goes like this:  The Mormon Church could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination for people who want to believe in something eternal, but there are two realities: one that has been sold to us as long term- put your money in tithing, consecrate your life to the Church and just leave it there, don’t worry about it, it’s all doing fine.  Then there’s this other market, this real market that is occuring in the back room where giant piles of money are going in and out and profits are being made and it’s transactional and it’s financial, but it’s secretive, it’s ethically dubious and it hurts Mormons in the long term.  So what it feels like to me, and I’m speaking purely as a woman who believed in this her entire life…It feels like we are capitalizing your adventure, by our time and our hard earned money…and that it is a game that you know, that you know is going on and then you go on the television and internet as a religion and pretend it isn’t happening.  I understand you want to make money for your corporation, but it’s not a fucking game.  The newspaper headline on April 4, 2009 reads: “New LDS Apostle Brings International Experience.”  Yet another MBA from Harvard University.  When I hear or read things like this, I can’t tell you how angry that makes me, because you all know.  You all know what is going on. 

I’m sorry, gentleman.  My vagina is not for sale.

<this photo was taken at my sister’s wedding shower.  these are just the kids there in this age group (all different mothers)>