I had another comment on my blog, just before I left for California, from yet another Mormon (at least I can only ASSUME he is a Mormon, because he wants me to stop writing about Mormons. Don’t remind me of the Ass-U-Me aspect of assume. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.)

Tyrone Hatchard (tyroneau@hotmail.com) wrote the following:
I couldn’t help but laugh at your comments. I think it is time you
move on… If you don’t care, why are you writing about it. No one
cares about what the Catholics do or don’t do?!

Well, why would I MOVE on, Tyrone, if you are laughing? I served my purpose, achieved my goal, because YOU ARE LAUGHING. I choose not to believe, for example, that you meant you couldn’t HELP but laugh because I am an object of ridicule. Surely, you didn’t mean that. Perhaps you could clarify? I make fun of myself all the time, so being an object of ridicule just isn’t something that immediately makes me run and scream and delete all of my information off the Internet. In short, I’ve seen YOU, in other shapes and forms, many, many times. You don’t frighten me.

And frankly, why should I care what YOU think? You wrote: “I think it is time you move on….” I don’t know you from Adam, and generally, I like a little advance knowledge about those who deem to give me advice, so just because you THINK I should move on doesn’t mean I will. You might sell Nuskin or even Melaleuca products, which would immediately make me want to move into your house and torment you for time and all eternity, so if you want to give me advice that you expect me to take, please submit a resume of your experience and I’ll get back to you on whether or not I will listen.

And what the hell do the Catholics have to do with it? People write about Catholics all the time. Do you live on Mars? Have you not heard about The Da Vinci Code?

IN short, this is a short post, because your comment was stupid, inane, and pretty much not related to anything I actually wrote.

But since you brought up the Catholics, I have to ask: Have you tried that sign of the cross thingie? Man, I am telling you, that is cathartic. You really have to try it. You see people do it all the time, and I bet more than HALF of them aren’t even Catholic. It just feels so good…..

A Court of Love sounds kinda trippy, doesn’t it? The truth is, there is nothing lovely about the kind of court Simon Southerton is facing. Simon is the author of Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church. Bet you guessed by the title that the Mormons don’t really “love” Simon at all. Kinda like me. Even worse, Simon’s book is nonfiction, and pretty much debunks the whole “Native Americans are Lamanites” theory that runs the Book of Mormon. Simon wrote the book to try to force Church officials to abandon their racist teachings and beliefs. In a nutshell, he is saying the whole “curse” thing is pretty much a figment of Joseph Smith’s imagination. It wasn’t even that original. Come on, remember the whole curse of Cain in the Bible? You remember the one. It allowed white people to treat black people like cattle–or worse. The Lamanite curse isn’t much different. Both basically say the darker skin equates to an evil lifestyle. Mormons take it even one step further, however, by teaching that we each CHOSE our lives in the pre-existence. If you don’t like how things turned out, you only have yourself to blame.

According to LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie, some of those who fought on God’s side “were more valiant than others- Those who were less valiant in pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the Negroes. Such spirits are sent to earth through the lineage of Cain, the mark put upon him for his rebellion against God and his murder of Abel.. The present status of the Negro rests purely and simply on the foundation of pre-existence” (Mormon Doctrine, op. 527, 1966 ed.)

Phew boy. Do you suppose Gladys Knight knows about these teachings? At any rate, this is just one of the MANY racist teachings that are mostly hidden by today’s mainstream Church. They are good at attempting to whitewash history. My least favorite General Authority Boyd Packer is one of the worst for this.

“There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.”

Hard to believe that this purveyor of Christianity is talking about the TRUTH!

Back to Simon’s Court of Love. This court will determine whether or not Simon gets to stay Mormon. It’s really Mormonspeak for “You-pissed-us-off-by-writing-about-the-seedy-side-of-Mormonism-so-we’re-kicking-your-ass-out-but-we’re-going-to-pretend-it’s-because-you-sinned.”

Since you will be hearing all sides of this story, including the one the Mormons want you to believe, versus the truth, I thought I’d give Simon some space on this blog to tell HIS version of what has and is going to happen.

He’s very upfront, and I applaud his candor.

Some of you may hear reports about my upcoming disciplinary council.I just thought I would clarify a few things that were a little incorrect in the story I saw.

My wife and I left the church 7 years ago in 1998. We separated in 2003 for a period of almost 2 years. Several months after we separated I met a woman and we were close friends for about a year. She was in the process of leaving the church, lives interstate, and was separated from her husband (now divorced). The relationship ended and about 6 months later my wife and I got back together. We have been together for about 9 months and things are going well.

I am proud to be an apostate and deliberately never requested that my name be removed from the records. There are only two ways that my name can be removed. I could request it myself or they must hold a church court. They can’t take my name off the records without my knowledge. I wrote Losing a Lost Tribe because I want to pressure the church to change its teachings and doctrines that are racist and wrong. Native Americans and Polynesians are not descended from Israelites and they are not the descendants of the imaginary cursed Lamanite race. I was looking forward to a court because it would give me an opportunity to admit to the charge of apostasy and defend my integrity.

Like many church leaders in Australia, my Stake President is aware that I have publicly challenged the teachings of the church for several years. Rather than hold a court on the charge of apostasy, he chose to take the sleazy route. He arranged for church leaders in another state to meet with my friend and to get a signed confession that she had had a relationship with me. She admitted she had before she knew what they were up to, and then refused to sign anything. Several weeks ago the Stake President and bishop met with me and my wife. I wasn’t interested in talking about the adultery charge and we spent most of the time discussing my difficulties with the Book of Mormon. It was a very pleasant discussion and both seemed very
sincere. Two weeks later I received a letter from the Stake President inviting me to a disciplinary council to answer adultery charges. He made no mention of my apostasy in the letter.

I deserve to be excommunicated. I fully expect to be excommunicated. But I am disappointed that the Stake President has engaged in official backbiting and snooping in order to avoid discussion of the more difficult issues related to Polynesian and Native American ancestry. I suspect he would probably prefer his high council didn’t hear about this.

As a bishop I never snooped into the lives of inactive members to look for opportunities to discipline and the bishops I have known didn’t do this either. If they did they would be holding courts all the time. We have not attended church in 7 years and have not had a single home teaching visit during that time. Now I am back with my wife they choose to haul me into a church court to punish me for alleged sexual sins. My wife is looking forward to attending the court and letting them know how she feels about the course of action they have taken. Should be interesting!

Regards
Simon

M.J. Rose is a stylish, lyrical writer with a new series available from Mira Books. I reviewed the first book, The Halo Effect, for ReadersRoom.com. The book is now available in paperback, and in a great effort to promote literacy, Rose has arranged for $5 to be donated to Reading is Fundamental for each Web site that links to her Vidlit promo for the book.

From Rose’s Web site:

Introducing the first
“GOOD BOOKS/GOOD CAUSE BLOG-A-THON” campaign

The goal of this two-week campaign is to connect book lovers with a good cause and a great summer read via the vidlit for THE HALO EFFECT.

I’ve secured pledges from real-life supporters - my publisher, agent, family and friends - who will collectively donate $5 to the nonprofit literacy organization, Reading Is Fundamental, for each website or blog that links to the Vidlit for THE HALO EFFECT before July 19.

The goal is to get at least 500 blogs to link and raise $2500+ for the charity.

Working with publicist Lauren Cerand (lcerand at gmail.com), I’m making a serious outreach to cultural blogs, New York centric blogs (the book takes place in NY), entertainment blogs, blogs that focus on psychology, sexuality, true crime, women’s issues, erotica, and yes, of course lit blogs.

THE HALO EFFECT is just the first book in the GOOD BOOK/GOOD CAUSE BLOG-A-THON series. I’ll be blogging about how it goes and if it takes off watch this space to get information about how to get involved with your book and/or your author.

In the meantime, if you want to help raise some money for a good cause, all you have to do is blog about M.J. Rose’s novel THE HALO EFFECT including a link to the short animated film for the novel (http://www.vidlit.com/mj/) just once! And $5 dollars will be donated to the nonprofit literary organization Reading is Fundamental. (If you want a copy of the book for review. contact lcerand at gmail.com while supplies last.)

Below is my review of The Halo Effect.

The Halo Effect, besides being the title of the newest work from author M.J. Rose, is a psychological term used when an individual creates an overall favorable impression because of his excellence in one trait. If someone is successful in one thing, we assume they are successful in all things. This can lead to some serious misjudgments on our part, and Rose explores this artfully in her new thriller from Mira Books.

The Halo Effect is the first in a new series about Dr. Morgan Snow, a sex therapist with the Butterfield Institute. Morgan’s patient, Cleo Thane, is a high-priced call girl who can fulfill every man’s fantasy, except the one she wants so desperately to please–her fiancé’s.

Desperate to reconcile her line of work and past with her future, she turns to Morgan to help her find the underlying reason for her inability to connect–intimately and physically–with her fiancé. In addition to this, she turns to the doctor as a person she can trust with the book she is writing–a book that will spill the secrets of the high-priced clientele she caters to, even though she is attempting to disguise them.

At the same time Snow is counseling Thane, a series of murders unfold in the city, and the serial killer’s target victims are young prostitutes. Detective Noah Jordain is on the case, and he is appalled by the ritualistic–and apparently religiously motivated–brutal murders. A man with demons of his own to spare, Jordain is the perfect person to capture this killer, if only he can put the pieces of the puzzle together and come up with the answer he needs. When Cleo Thane disappears, Morgan is convinced that it could be related to the murders of the other call girls, and that perhaps the killer is one of the men described in Cleo’s memoir, even though the other victims were street hookers, and Cleo served only the wealthy and famous. But Morgan is hard pressed to convince Jordain that Cleo’s disappearance is related to the other murders, so she decides to go undercover herself and meet the men that Cleo described in her memoir–a copy of which Morgan still has in her possession. She is able to identify all of them mostly because Cleo described them so completely, even though she gave them nicknames–all of them, that is, but one.

And so, the slightly cold Dr. Snow traipses over into Cleo’s world, one inhabited by the powerful, wealthy, and sexually perverse. She arranges meetings with each man as a way to discover if they could be the killer–or if, at the least, they could have done something to Cleo. Along the way she forms a fledgling relationship with Detective Noah Jordain, a man who makes her want to open herself up–and warm up–for the first time since her divorce, even while she is contemplating the trouble that sex can cause in a person’s life. Her husband divorced her because they became little more than friends, her work affecting her ability to pursue intimacy, and while the friendship was enough for her, it was not for him. Now Jordain is challenging her desire to keep herself safe in the confines of a relationship, all the while disapproving of her dabbling in his case.

What ensues is an enlightening look at sex in the twenty-first century, lyrically written as only M.J. Rose can do, along with a compelling murder mystery and a detailed look at what lies beneath the trappings of wealth and power–and what drives people to kill.

When reading The Halo Effect, it is necessary to put all your preconceived notions aside, and consider the vagaries of human nature and human sexuality. The book is gritty and graphic, yet compellingly lovely and open-minded, and full of surprises and nuance–much like the people it portrays.

I owe Mike Bearnsen an apology. He’s really nothing like Stanley Barker.

He wrote me back, and although he wasn’t very happy with my last blog on his email (and please note that Mike DID write me with a sarcastic bent about my Trapped by the Mormons story), he actually seems like a pretty nice and sincere guy, who is a little upset about what he sees as an attack on his religion. For that reason, I have abandoned my usual sarcasm and am answering his questions with all the sincerity I can muster. (No wisecracks from the cheap seats, people!)

Mike wrote:

I just read your response and the fact that you had the gall of accusing me
of arrogance and condescension is a stretch compared to your haughty
response. As for my spelling I apologize, I always have been more of a Math
guy and did not do well in English as my us of the language can attest, but
again you have the same problem, it is not “fuck” it is “fetch”.

I am terrible at math. Math is evil. I’m convinced Satanists get together and do math at their parties. They are not sacrificing small animals. They are trying to solve x + 9 = 18 - 2x. Any fool can tell you that NUMBERS and LETTERS do not mix. Who came up with this shit? Anyway, I guess that puts us at opposite ends of the spectrum. LOL at the fetch comment. I don’t think my response was haughty. More snarky. I’m known for it. And snarky is such a cool word.

It amazes me when people that are not Mormons find it so important to trash
the church. I excuse you as your involvement and frustrations give you
cause to vent. My focus is more with the people that show up at the temple
or at General Conference and seem to have my Church as the single focus of
their/there? lives.

It’s their. And I would never show up at General Conference or hand out pamphlets, and frankly, found the guy who was waving around the temple garment appalling. I even blogged on it, comparing him to a bully running someone’s underwear up the flag pole. I do understand why ex-Mormons are tied up in it. I do not understand why others have made it their life’s project, especially to cut it down.

This is a serious question that I am asking you in
sincerity. Why do you think this is? Have you ever talked to people like
this? Do you know what drives them? I came across your site as I was
investigating a web site that I catch sight of while driving past the temple
and saw a group of young people holding signs advertising the site. Again I
am asking this earnestly. What do you think?

I will answer you as sincerely as I can. I know many, many ex-Mormons. They speak out because Mormonism has touched their lives, most negatively, and it continues to do so. Mormonism works for a lot of people. I don’t deny that. My mother and father live deeply couched in the ties of religion, patriarchy, and the power of the Priesthood. And they thrive there. They have never even THOUGHT about questioning it, and when something comes up about the Church that they cannot reconcile, they choose to ignore it. And they are happy that way. I have a sister who is the same way. She challenged me on my ex-Mormon status until I brought her solid proof that there are too many discrepancies in the Church’s past, and in Joseph Smith’s life, for it to be true. Since the proof I offered her came from Church records, she could not discount it. So she said, “I do not want to talk about this anymore.” And that was that.

Please be aware that SHE came to me. SHE was trying to tell me I was wrong, not the other way around. I have not set up my life trying to tell other people that what they have believed all their lives is a bunch of crap. Life is too short for that. I only go after it when it comes to me. My blog is no different. I don’t address Mormon issues unless they affect me. Of course, that happens just about every day. And thus you have TRAPPED BY THE MORMONS. And I was not joking when I told you that story was meant to be funny. I THINK it’s hilarious that I was all indignant about being a Mormon, and went through the whole hassle of having my name removed (and it was a hassle), only to have it show up on the roles TWICE just a few years later. It was at that point I decided to laugh about this sh….er, stuff instead of having issues with it. (I censored that for you, Mike.)

Mormonism is my heritage. Utah is my home state. EVERY day the church comes to me. When people say, “Why can you not leave the Church alone?” well, I can’t because the Church CANNOT and will not ever leave me alone. But I’ve taken a different stance now. I’m not mad anymore, so I write about it. People still take issue with that. The Salt Lake Tribune reviewer called my book an “angry book.” True. Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby once told me that ex-Mormons are the angriest people he knows. Again, true. So the fact my book is about an ex-Mormon, and the anger runs clear through it, tells me I succeeded.

Why do ex-Mormons get so angry? When we reject the tenets of Mormonism, we become exiled, pariahs, to those around us. I have received many tearful letters from people whose children join the LDS Church, and they find themselves unable to attend weddings, etc., because they don’t embrace the truths you embrace.

This creates division. It’s a “we are better than you” kind of attitude that sets people off. And the answer, “All you have to do to participate is join our Church, or live according to our moral standards” just doesn’t cut it. I believe that you can have your temples, and do your sacred rites in privacy, and frankly, I don’t want to be there. But UNTIL the Church hierarchy wises up and realizes that excluding non-Mormons from important family events such as weddings is going to continue to create a HUGE divide that cannot be bridged, things will continue to get worse.

Now I don’t know what Web site you are referring to, and I also don’t know if you are talking about ex-Mormons or non-Mormons. I can only speak for ex-Mormons, having never been a NON-Mormon. My parents took care of that. But in recent years Mormonism has become an “in your face” religion. It never used to be that way. Mormons proudly declared their “peculiarity” and embraced the fact that they were different from all other religions, but President Gordon B. Hinckley has been working very hard to mainstream Mormonism into modern-day Christianity for many years now.

To a certain extent, he has succeeded. But that only makes the divide wider, because there are certain teachings in Mormonism that other Christians will NEVER embrace. Because Mormonism is now a very public religion, fundamentalist Christians are more and more determined to point out the differences between Mormon beliefs and their own.

Thus, you have picketers and Web sites, etc., where they did not exist before.

And that’s my sincere answer.

I don’t often find myself at a loss for words, but that is the position I am in right now, as I want to pay my respects to a good friend, Evan Hunter AKA Ed McBain. Evan passed away yesterday at the age of 78. Rob Holden, my partner at ReadersRoom.com, and I knew Evan was not well. He’d been fighting cancer for quite a while.

In the last chat we had with him, he talked about retiring, something that we refused to believe. I teased him that he wouldn’t–COULDN’T–quit. Perhaps even then he had an inkling that the end was near, and that even if he didn’t plan to stop, life had other things in mind for him.

And now he’s gone.

It was always surreal to me that the man who called Alfred Hitchcock “Hitch” also called me “Nat.” And yet even knowing who Evan really was–the author of The Birds, The Blackboard Jungle, and of course all of the 87 novels–he was not the least bit intimidating or snobby. He liked to chat, to joke, to tell stories, and most of all, he lived and loved to write.

Evan, I will miss you. I will miss your funny little jokes about me being from Utah, and of course, it’s relationship to Mars, and miss your career advice and encouragement.

Godspeed.