HBO should be writing y'all a letter of thanks for doing such a great job of promoting this Sunday's episode of Big Love that features a peek into your temple endowment ceremony. They simply could not have purchased this kind of advertising even if they had wanted to or could afford to. Larry Miller did it for Brokeback Mountain and y'all are doing it for Big Love. Thanks to you, everybody in the country is going to be sitting in front of their tubes Sunday evening riveted to the show just to see what the weirdness is that mormons don't want the rest of the world knowing about.
Let me tell you what you've done: you've focused the eyes of the world upon your strangeness. You love calling yourself a peculiar people and now the world gets to see what you mean when you say that. Now the world gets to see the strangeness of cult-based handshakes and secret tokens and green baker's aprons and white fluffy caps that are tied to the shoulders with a string. (Bow your head and say yes.) Now the world gets to see your infamous underwear with its Masonic marks over the breasts, the belly button and the knee. You're pretty damn lucky that the throat slashing and disembowling enactments were eliminated from the ceremony back in the early nineties or America would be having a field day after Sunday's episode.
If y'all had just been quiet and gone about your business then many hundreds of thousands of people less would have tuned in Sunday. But apparently you didn't get the memo that Larry Miller sent around explaining how that works, right? He sold a lot of tickets for Brokeback Mountain by refusing to show it at his theatres. And y'all have probably gifted HBO with what will be one of the biggest ratings spikes in its history.
You're screaming sacred sacred sacred and yet a few months ago y'all pulled out your swords and your checkbooks and went after our sacred families in California. You disrespected my civil rights and you violated the sacredness of my family and raised boatloads of money to do it. And with that money you purchased advertising that was filled with blatant lies. You, specifically you, helped win the fight to take away my civil rights. It was your money that put Prop 8 over the edge and into the winner's circle. All I can really say to that is, paybacks are hell.
What you're experiencing is a very real kind of karmic retribution. What goes around comes around, tit for tat, an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth, whatever you want to call it. So enjoy Mr. & Mrs. Mormon because this is what your 25 million dollars bought you; the probing eyes of the world all directly focused on the strangeness of your cult. You don't get to define sacred your way and then tell everybody else to fuck off with theirs. In reality it's pretty simple: Respecting others is the best way to get respect coming back to you.
If you want me to respect what is sacred to you then you must be willing to respect that which is sacred to me.
[To those of you non-mormons reading this, for a long time mormons very officially called the Catholic Church "The Great And Abominable Whore Of The Earth" and took great delight in spreading that title as part of their missionary work. And it wasn't that long ago that Satan in the temple ceremony was depicted as being a Protestant minister. Mormon disrespect for other religions is historically visceral and unkind.]
I sincerely feel sad for those amongst you who are intelligent and caring and progressive and who don't share the bigotry of the mainstream mormon beliefs. Unfortunately you're all going to be lumped in together in this one because nobody out here in the real world is ever going to bother trying to figure out who are the mainstream mormons, who are the fundamentalists, who are the good ones and who are the weird and bigoted ones. Nobody cares enough to go to that much trouble. In the real world a mormon is a mormon is a mormon, no matter whether you live on the Utah/Arizona border or up along the Wasatch Front.
Sometimes it's best to keep one's mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Karma's a bitch, ain't it.
Well said. I'm hoping they do go into all that detail. I was of the understanding that they weren't going to do the whole ceremony, just the wedding part. Still, that's going to raise questions to which people will want some answers. (What's the patriarchal grip?)
Not to mention, articles everywhere are pointing out that the temple ceremonies can be easily found on line. That alone will drive people to search for them. Pretty boring reading, to be sure, but some will find it captivating and even titillating.
Again, well said.
--Wag--
Posted by: Wag | March 14, 2009 at 01:50 PM
"You're pretty damn lucky that the throat slashing and disembowling enactments were eliminated from the ceremony back in the early nineties or America would be having a field day after Sunday's episode."
Not that I think they will be shown anyway, but the scene is a flashback. And barb first went thru the temple before the 1990 changes, so . . . . they could be shown.
I think all that will be shown is a shortened version of the seremony at the veil, including the five points of fellowship, then her being pulled thru the viel and a few seconds in the celestial room.
Posted by: Deryk | March 14, 2009 at 01:57 PM
Well said and I couldn't agree more.
Posted by: In my other Life I was a Mormon | March 14, 2009 at 02:26 PM
A small sect of no particular importance, mormonism possesses an outsized pridefulness and sense of entitlement, and an unrestrained urge to increase its numbers - all quite the antithesis of Christian values.
Having accumulated massive karmic debt, let the megatons of payback fall upon their unthinking heads.
Posted by: George E. | March 14, 2009 at 02:34 PM
I love you. Really, really, I do. Thanks for putting my thoughts into words when I couldn't really figure out what I was thinking in the first place.
Posted by: Michelle | March 14, 2009 at 03:01 PM
Amen, and thank you.
Posted by: angsty | March 14, 2009 at 11:47 PM
I find the whole apoplectic Mormon response to be downright... amusing.
So incredibly satisfying and amusing.
Granted, the whole thing gives Mormons another reason to be pathetic victims, but in this instance, I'm feeling charitable enough to simply enjoy their discomfort.
"Unfortunately you're all going to be lumped in together in this one because nobody out here in the real world is ever going to bother trying to figure out who are the mainstream mormons, who are the fundamentalists, who are the good ones and who are the weird and bigoted ones."
Tom - you are wonderful.
Posted by: Sideon | March 15, 2009 at 01:53 AM
Tom, you said it well. Unfortunately the average Mormon isn't going to see the logic. All they know is that they've been told for years that everyone is out to get them, and now here's evidence of it.
It's pathetic and sad.
Thanks, Tom
Posted by: Pen | March 15, 2009 at 08:46 AM
Beautiful, just beautiful. I think this is going out to all my Mormon relatives who sent me links to the church's "Publicity Dilemma", along with my email welcoming me as a new HBO subscriber :).
Posted by: Angela | March 15, 2009 at 09:01 AM
Here in the East, we don't know Mormons from a hole in the ground, but we can hear the whines of outrage all the way from Utah. I'll bet the was an announcement at sacrament meeting today forbidding everyone from watching, upon pain of losing their TRs and the priveledge of doing the sacred hokey-pokey themselves. My bet is that they will show the penalties, and a gratuitous scene of the washing and annointing. I'd be a Temple worker for Bill Paxton. I't annoint his loins....and hopefully they'd annoint me back. ;-]
Posted by: Jim | March 15, 2009 at 09:16 PM
Tom, you are beautiful. After watching this episode tonight, my heart is just aching for all the excuses and guilt and hate that religion has caused and perpetuated. During Barb's "court of love", I wanted to yell at the tv 'THIS is a perfect example of why I left you assholes". How fitting that, in the middle of watching, my mom called to tell me her brother was called as a Stake President today. I was, needless to say, less than charitable about it.
I was just sick watching the parts of the ceremony they showed. At first I thought it was shock at what they were showing. Then I realized that was just a programmed response. What was REALLY making me sick was that that was ever special and holy and sacred. It's ridiculous and I'm glad to see it being brought to light.
Posted by: Tracy | March 15, 2009 at 11:24 PM
Well, we taped it so that we could watch it tonight, now that the Schnickle is back with his dad. This season has had be sitting on the edge of my seat, yelling at the TV and shouting...I LOVE THIS and YOU for speaking your mind.
Posted by: Lisa S | March 16, 2009 at 05:56 PM
At first I didn't want to watch this episode, and I'm not really sure why. I think its just my natural aversion to anything aired on television. But now, I'm kind of curious. Thanks for the great post, Tom. I'm sure the Mo church has plenty of karmic retribution coming their way still...
Posted by: Heather | March 16, 2009 at 09:38 PM
Pretty bizarre and now I see the cult aspects. My dad was a Rosecrucian and then there are the Masons. Booga booga! Nice hats...your 15 minutes are up (my favorite line in that part of the show).
Posted by: Lisa S | March 17, 2009 at 05:24 PM
Well said, darling Papa!
Posted by: Erica | March 18, 2009 at 10:54 AM