Category Archives: Guest Post

Guest Post: Why I still don’t wave the rainbow flag

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By: Latter-Day Publius

If the LGBT movement has done one thing right, it has alerted much of America to the difficulty minority groups experience. One good example of this is Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s recent explanation of his own journey to being out as a gay man. As one of the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President M. Russell Ballard, said:

We need to listen to and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing. Certainly we must do better than we have done in the past so that all members feel they have a spiritual home where their brothers and sisters love them and where they have a place to worship and serve the Lord.

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Guest Post: Trump’s Mormon Problem -or- If you want Mormons to like you, maybe you shouldn’t act so much like King Noah

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The following guest post is from  Beth C. Buck.

Beth Buck is a budding writer who mostly spends her writing energy waxing erudite about yeast and freeze-dried chicken at an emergency preparedness website. Someday she hopes to publish a novel, but probably not today. She has four kids, a spinning wheel, a black belt, and a degree in Middle Eastern Studies.

How crazy is this election cycle? I suppose it wouldn’t be a real election year if our news feeds weren’t inundated with muckraking, scandals, and political plot twists. Most days, I don’t know whether to move to Canada, or sit back and watch with a bucket of popcorn on my lap as if it were only another crude reality TV show.

But there is one thing I like about this election, and that is how we Mormons have successfully distinguished ourselves by refusing to ally with Donald Trump. It was with no small amount of pride that I first heard the phrase, “Trump’s Mormon Problem.” In the short time since the famous “Trump Tapes” have been made public, Trump’s Mormon Problem has only intensified as top LDS Republican leaders have rescinded their endorsements.

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Discovering The Joys of Womanhood in Ancestors’ Patriarchal Blessings

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young-woman-receives-patriarchal-blessing-fullThe following guest post is from Beth Buck. Beth is a stay-at-home mother of three. She works part time as a staff writer for an emergency preparedness website, has a degree in Middle Eastern Studies/ Arabic from BYU, and holds a black belt in Karate.

Patriarchal blessings are unique to Mormonism in concept and practice. No other denomination (save the offshoots of Mormonism) continues the biblical tradition of receiving a prophetic blessing unique to each person. The lds.org topical article describes these as “personal counsel from the Lord.”

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Mormon Channel 101

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The following post comes to you from our friends at Mormon Channel. We invite you to learn more about Mormon Channel and the content that is available for members and friends of the Church on Mormon Channel.

Maybe you’ve heard of Mormon Channel, maybe you’ve seen a Mormon Channel video posted by a friend of yours on Facebook, or maybe this is your first time hearing about Mormon Channel. No matter which category you fall into, do you really know what Mormon Channel is?

If your answer is no, then here’s everything you need to know about what Mormon Channel is and all that it offers its audience.

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The Problems with Moral Equivalence – A Response to Geoff B.’s Perspective on Ukraine

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[This is a guest post by Morgan Deane who is a military historian that teaches history for BYU-Idaho. He is an Mphil/PhD student at Kings College London and writes at http://mormonwar.blogspot.com and http://www.arsenalofvenice.com. He has written a book titled, “Bleached Bones and Wicked Serpents: Ancient Warfare in the Book of Mormon”, which will be released shortly. His guest post is in response to Geoff B.’s recent post: Perspective on Ukraine]

Every time the U.S. might take potential military action there are a variety of people who argue that these tyrants and dictators are little different from the U.S. This article in particular caught my eye, since it contained so many of the common moral equivalence errors. Despite the legitimate mistakes made in American foreign policy, America is a different and better country than Russia and our foreign policy is morally superior to that of Putin’s. The quotes are from this article from Geoff B.

“The United States is currently occupying Afghanistan”

Occupy is a loaded term with a negative connotation. We have troops there, but the most frequent criticism about Obama is that we are leaving too soon. We just left Iraq and the leverage we had there, so I’m amazed at how consistently America is attacked over “occupations” when we seem to be heading towards the exits like scolded gorillas. Continue reading →