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demoisverysexy · 10 months

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I'm sorry but "Warnings for ... anti-Mormonism" The Mormon religion is a fucking cult and countless ex Mormons have come out to say as much. It's abusive, controlling, and horrifying. Don't you dare act like being against a cult deserves to be in the same warning as ableism.

Putting aside the fact that this ask implies that you have been searching through my blog for dirt on me, I have some thoughts. You say there are "countless" ex-Mormons who say that Mormonism is a cult. How many exmos is that? I know ex-Mormons who say it isn't a cult. They left because of legitimate grievances they have with the church, grievances which I largely agree with, but they insist it isn't a cult despite those issues they have. Which ex-Mormons should I be listening to? The ones who agree with you or the ones that agree with me?

My issue with this ask is how deeply uncurious and unserious it is. I have talked about why Mormonism isn't a cult before at length. I have talked about my issues with the religion, and have criticized aspects of it publicly. I have engaged publicly in interrogating and living my life in a way that neither betrays my principles nor Mormonism. How well I have done in that regard is not for me to say. But what I can be sure of is that you don't care about that. You're here because you're mad because I chewed you out about your bad take about Brandon Sanderson, as you demonstrated in your second ask:

There are a few things of note here. First of all, in the first sentence alone you made it obvious that your concern about me being Mormon isn't real. You're concern trolling me. You care far more that I dared to disagree with your weird take on the quality of Brandon Sanderson's writing than you care to actually bring up anything meaningful about the harm Mormonism has caused in the world as an institution. You're attempting here to sabotage my character and not actually address my beliefs and positions. You don't care, and that is why you move the goalposts both for your statement about my beliefs on Mormonism (me believing Mormonism isn't a cult becomes me "acting like anti-cult is bad"), and your shifting of your own position.

Let's talk about your original post for a moment, shall we. When you, the curator of a sideblog centered around A Song of Ice and Fire (hereafter referred to as ASoIAF), decide to make a post making fun of fans of Brandon Sanderson's books, how are we supposed to interpret this? Typically online when we make fun of the fans media online, we are not merely passing judgement on the fans themselves, we are implying that the fact that they enjoy the specific media they are fans of is an indicator of their stupidity in some way (e.g. Marvel fans, Swifties, etc). So while, in your initial post, it is true you said nothing textually about the quality of Sanderson's writing, by throwing Sanderson's fans under the bus, you were implying that Sanderson himself has done something to incur our ire as well. Then on top of that when I said in response to your post with "Question: why the fuck are we dragging Sanderson in all this? Not everything has to be game of thrones dude," you replied hyperbolically that you were going to break into every fan of Sanderson's writing and replace their copies of the Stormlight Archive with a box set of ASoIAF. Which implies much more strongly that you have a negative perception of Sanderson's writing compared to Martin's. The fact that after I responded with my post dressing you down, you went on to tag me in the notes of your own post passive aggressively, and then send me two anons vagueing me about my takes on Mormonism that you never bring up specifically indicates to me that you don't have an argument, not really. You're just mad, and you want an excuse to not like me. It's been a full day since I reblogged your post, and you decided to send me these asks. Don't you have anything better to do?

At the end of the day, a lot of the anti-Mormon sentiments (bigoted sentiments, as opposed to sentiments merely critical of actual problems within the church) comes down to laziness. When someone hates someone or something, there is a strong temptation to no longer think of the object of their hatred as worthy of study or speculation or even scrutiny. Any bad thing that is said about the object of one's hatred can be accepted and not questioned. It's useful in affirming your hatred, after all. And because of that, Mormonism itself is cast as a reason to dislike someone, as opposed to their actual bad actions.

I have done bad things in the past on tumblr. Publicly too. I'm sure you could find them if you went digging. But if you were to do that, I don't think you would be doing yourself, or me for that matter, any good. You would be no closer to seeing me, to hearing me, to understanding my way of seeing things and what makes me tick. When you view me merely as an opponent, as an obstacle in your story as opposed to somebody with a rich and complicated life, you impoverish your own experience and it becomes impossible for you to change me in a way that matters. If I am wrong to be Mormon, your attitude is the last thing I need. If you can't respect my human decency, please at least leave me alone. You have nothing to gain in obsessing over me because I disagreed with you about fantasy novels.

#mormonism #religion #queerstake #demo speaks #demo answers #asks #cw antimo

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