Free Republic

Mitt Romney loyalists are trying to gin up the narrative that Republicans just can't get enough of Romney.“Democrats don’t want to be associated with Barack Obama right now, but Republicans are dying to be associated with Mitt Romney,” Spencer Zwick, "a longtime Romney confidant who chaired his national finance council," claimed to the Washington Post. The Chamber of Commerce, which has vowed to wage war on the Tea Party and push through amnesty legislation, glowingly praised Romney, alleging he would be in a "commanding position" if he entered the 2016 race. Romney is reportedly set to make trips to West...

Mormons have some really weird beliefs. For example, many (all) Mormons believe they (males only) can take a cooking/salad oil, pour just a small drop on the crown of your head and their god will heal them of almost anything. Mormons believe that by wearing ugly underwear bought from a specific company, their god will protect them from harm. Mormons believe that by wearing a really weird looking costume they are taught secret ways to touch angels so after they die, the angels will let Mormons get into heaven quicker. Mormons believe their god requires women to not wear outer...

As I’ve thought about the issues of asking questions, faithful agitation, and looking for a much-needed change regarding gender inequality in the Church, I have come to the conclusion that we as a church don’t know all there is to know about God. None of that has to take away from the truthfulness of the Gospel, but the suggestion that the Church is perfect makes the declaration of having a living prophet seem a bit confusing. If there are not things that we are waiting to open our eyes to (which means God is waiting on us to ask him)...

In the US, polygamy seems to be most commonly associated with Mormons. TV shows like Big Love, Sister Wives, and My Five Wives offer looks at polygamy, but only from a specific viewpoint. For some Americans, TLC’s reality series Sister Wives, which centers on a fundamentalist Mormon family, may even teach them all they know about polygamy. But the practice of polygamy hasn’t been sanctioned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which is the official name of the Mormon church) since 1890 when Church President Wilford Woodruff ended the practice. The Mormon church has actually denounced the...

SALT LAKE CITY — Sexual assaults in Utah are going underreported, but the work of a BYU professor is helping to convince lawmakers and law enforcement to pay more attention to prosecuting such cases. Julie Valentine, a sexual assault nurse examiner and nursing professor at BYU, found that only 6 percent of cases in Salt Lake County have been prosecuted. Valentine examines rape victims and collects forensic evidence for cases. As she examined victims for prosecution, she would not hear back about any follow-up and wanted to find out why. “We would do these examinations — we’d do hundreds —...

A Provo, Utah jury found MacNeill guilty Thursday of assaulting his daughter Alexis Somers in 2007. Read more here: dailymail.co.uk

Announcement: 9 November 1871 Groundbreaking and Site Dedication: 9 November 1871 by Brigham Young Private Dedication: 1 January 1877 by Wilford Woodruff, Erastus Snow, and Brigham Young Dedication: 6–8 April 1877 by Daniel H. Wells (with Brigham Young presiding) SNIP The St. George Utah Temple is the first temple where endowments for the dead were performed. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America appeared twice to Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Utah Temple asking why their temple work had yet not been performed on their behalves. A striking painting depicting this singular event hangs in the temple...

Marriott International launched its #LoveTravels marketing campaign on June 2, targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender customers—as well as pro-LGBT consumers—with a campaign designed to “convey the company’s commitment to make everyone feel comfortable being who they are.” The campaign already has its own dedicated website (two of them, actually); hotel-mounted billboards in Washington DC; and is spreading in social and LGBT media. Shot by the photographer Braden Summers, it features the recently out-of-the-closet basketball player Jason Collins and the transgender model Geena Rocero, and invites people to share their stories of travel on social media with the hashtag #LoveTravels....

Lawsuit claims teen girl was repeatedly abused by Mormon missionary in 1985 in Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert.PALM SPRINGS – A lawsuit filed Friday against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a church bishop and a missionary, claims a woman was repeatedly sexually abused when she was a teenager in Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert, and it was covered up. The lawsuit, which was filed in Riverside County Superior Court in Palm Springs, contends that from July to November 1985, Jacqueline Tyler, then 13, was repeatedly abused by a missionary and that after a church bishop learned of...

TROUTDALE, Ore.–Jared Michael Padgett was a straight-arrow kid who had a fascination with guns, planned a career in the military and was deeply devoted to his Mormon faith, those who knew him say. And they're all wondering why the 15-year-old took an assault rifle, a handgun and nine ammunition magazines to his high school and killed a fellow freshman, injured a teacher and took his own life. Police said Wednesday that they have not been able to establish a link between Padgett and Emilio Hoffman, the 14-year-old who was shot dead in a locker room. Police have not said whether...

SALT LAKE CITY — Eight LDS missionaries serving in the Salt Lake City East Mission and their leaders are working with the Forest Service to remove a flagpole that the missionaries cemented to the top of Mount Olympus earlier this week. Hikers discovered the flagpole with a U.S. Flag and an autographed mission T-shirt on Forest Service lands and alerted rangers. The Forest Service confirmed that posting the flagpole was indeed breaking the law. “You would need to get a permit to put up a flagpole. In wilderness it wouldn’t be allowed at all,” said Kathy Jo Pollock of Uinta-Wasatch-Cache...

PLAIN CITY, Weber County — A man convicted of assaulting another man over saved seats at an LDS meetinghouse chapel was ordered Wednesday to serve 30 days in jail. Wayne Dodge, 52, pleaded guilty in May to assault, a class B misdemeanor. In exchange for his plea, an additional charge of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, was dropped. On June 30, 2013, Dodge, who regularly attended the Meadows Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Plain City, got into an argument with another family that was visiting. The church that day had a full house during...

VANCOUVER — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is suing the religious leader of a small polygamous sect in British Columbia, alleging Winston Blackmore has violated the church's trademarks and is attempting to portray himself — and his controversial community — as a part of mainstream Mormonism. The Salt Lake City-based church has filed a notice of claim against a corporation set up by Blackmore, who is one of two leaders in a commune in southeastern B.C. known as Bountiful. Blackmore and his followers practise a fundamentalist form of Mormonism that still holds polygamy as a tenet of...

In his landmark work Jesus the Christ, James E. Talmage spends several pages outlining the “high priest’s unrighteous adjuration” of the Savior. The Sanhedrin wanted so badly to not only stem the growth of Jesus’ growing disciples, but to take back control of what he continued to point out as a broken religious system of Pharisees, Sadducees, hypocrisy, judgment and adherence to outdated laws that ignored the heart of his message of love, tolerance and spiritual growth. Before I proceed, let me make it clear with those who are looking closely for opportunities to cry foul that I am not...

...The Herald Journal of Logan, Utah is running an online poll asking readers, “Would you support the excommunication of Mormon activists John Dehlin and Kate Kelly?” At the time of this writing, the “No” response outnumbered “Yes” by nearly 4 to 1. Mormon blogger Jana Riess is very troubled by the Church’s actions toward Kelly and Dehlin. She asked, “Are we looking at a Mormon purge?”... “If the point of these pending excommunications is to strike fear in the hearts of other Latter-day Saints who love the Church but do not always agree with it on matters of social justice,...

....From California to Virginia and states in between, more than a dozen Mormons interviewed in the past week said they had recently been informed by their bishops that they faced excommunication or risked losing permission to enter a temple because of comments they had made online about their faith, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.SNIP "When it goes so far as creating organized groups, staging public events to further a cause, and creating literature for members to share in their local congregations," Otterson said, "the church has to protect the integrity of its doctrine as well as...

Christianity is by far the largest religion in the United States; more than three-quarters of Americans identify as Christians. A little more than half of us identify as Protestants, about 23 percent as Catholic and about 2 percent as Mormon. But what about the rest of us? In the Western U.S., Buddhists represent the largest non-Christian religious bloc in most states. In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and...

From The Salt Lake Tribune: To any guilt-prone women, the annual idealization of motherhood that sweeps across the country at this time of year can be agonizing.The image in the mirror seems less qualified, less nurturing, less altruistic, less crafty, less organized, less patient, less self-assured or wise or adventurous than the one these moms see portrayed in greeting cards, TV ads, and on YouTube.But Mother’s Day may be most painful to Bible-believing women — whether Mormon, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish — who cannot have children.After all, God’s first commandment to the first couple in that holy book was to...

A fledgling Mormon dating site reports that IRI, the intellectual property rights arm of the LDS Church, is attempting to shutter the planned launch of Mormon Match because of its use of the word “Mormon” and its appropriation of an image of the Salt Lake Temple.Here’s what the front page of the site-in-progress looks like now:For a good discussion of the issues involved, see Holly Welker’s post in Religion Dispatches. (I don’t think RD’s headline is quite accurate, though; as far as I know, the Church has not filed a lawsuit but applied pressure and commenced an “opposition proceeding.” According...

The controversy over a Nevada rancher’s decades-long use of public land without paying federal grazing fees has quickly become a national issue — one that Glenn Beck on Monday urged Americans to fully understand before taking a side on. “We did some research online with PsyID today, and found that there’s about 10 or 15 percent of the people who are talking about this online that are truly frightening,” Beck said on his television program. “They don’t care what the facts are. They just want a fight.” Beck said there are many “decent, small-government proponents from groups like the Tea...