#mormons

I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (been out for 25 years) and when my ex walked in and immediately sat in the front row, I panicked because that is SUCH a faux pas in the JW religion.

Then a WOMAN went to the platform and did a talk? Like, all by herself?? And then another woman SAID THE CLOSING PRAYER. Mind absolutely blown.

In the JW religion a woman can only do a sermon (talk) with another woman sitting at a desk on the stage. They can NEVER say the prayer and if in some weird circumstance they have to, they have to wear a head covering. I remember my nanna putting a dirty kitchen towel on her head to say the prayer once when my brother was in the room.

Over on Threads they're gnashing their teeth and raging over the fact that the Trump Administration via Pete Hegseth ordered the military to cut recognized religious categories from over 200 to 31. And most notably reclassifying the Church of Latter Day Saints as "non-Christian" and therefor not recognized.

LOL

No, really, I laughed out loud. I did. It's hilarious.

I laughed so loud, people came to my office door (and my office is a separate building from the rest of my property) to find out what was so funny.

Nearly seven in ten Mormons voted for Trump.

Why? Well, I'll leave the specifics as an exercise for the reader, but in general it's for the same reasons any other conservative religion voted for Trump: abortion and gay marriage and that one transgirl who wanted to play soccer. Fear of outsiders. Fear of change. Fear of government run by liberals. The idea that liberty is a zero sum game. Somewhere along the line, some holy man with a direct line to their god convinced the faithful that only Republicans, only Trump, would protect their religious freedoms to hate people not like them.

Generally speaking.

And in that, no different than the Southern Baptists, for example. Which is the shared belief they thought would protect their freedoms. Except the Evangelicals don't consider Mormons to be Christians and in a nation where Christian Nationalists got themselves elected to power based on the fears listed above and then decided to make this a Christians-only nation, well... here we are.

Mike Lee, hardcore Mormon Republican Senator from Utah, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of War, KNOWING HEGSETH was a Christian Nationalist because he literally has the symbols of that belief inked into his skin and was in fact separated from the military for his extremists views. And now, somehow, Lee is shocked, surprised, angered to find that Trump's military on the orders of Pete Hegseth will no longer recognize the Church of Latter Day Saints as a legitimate religion.

What's that bit about leopards eating faces?

I mean, have the Christian Nationalist White Supremacist day you voted for, right?

I laugh. I do. But it's a bitter laugh.

See, the thing is that *I* a non-believer voted for their religious freedom, and *they* voted for their own oppression. That's hilarious.

Ironic, indeed.

If it's any consolation, Trump's military will no longer recognize non-believers like me either. They'll all be treated as good little Christian Soldiers, Crusaders, marching off to war and making America great again. And in the end, if this goes on, I'll suffer the same fate as the Mormons. Maybe that'll give them a bitter chuckle there at the end, knowing they voted for it and I didn't. But somehow I doubt it'll matter much by then.

But, hey, at least that one transgirl wasn't allowed to play sports, amiright?

The Pentagon on Monday updated its religious affiliation codes after members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints criticized the list because it did not describe LDS as a “Christian” faith.  On Friday, the Pentagon cut the number of religious affiliation codes from over 200 to 31 to help military chaplains streamline religious support services. The 31 codes included the Church of…