Author: Nate Oman

Some poets are available for Mormon appropriation and some are only to be envied and enjoyed. John Donne is only to be envied and enjoyed.

Being an American Mormon makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, for me to be a tory.

Both of my parents (now divorced) have been deeply involved in Mormon studies for my entire life. (more…)

Sandra Day O’Connor has retired from the Supreme Court and John Roberts will almost certainly replace her. History might have been different.

I find the universal love of mankind a little creepy.

I know some people who assiduously avoid buying Nike shoes. The moral logic of this position, however, is tricky.

If you are interested, email [email protected].

August 11, 2005 To Whom It May Concern: I hope that you will not find an unsolicited letter presumptuous, but I wanted to give you my thoughts on what I see as Dialogue’s problems and some things it could do to improve.

This Saturday at 5pm in Springfield, Virginia. If you are interested in coming, please email me at [email protected]. I will send details and directions via email.

Like most rugged and red-blooded American men I have long enjoyed the work of Jane Austen.

I have always thought that one of the most telling and subtlety vicious aspect of segregation was the fact that a white person regardless of age or economic status could always call a black person, regardless of age or economic status, “boy” or “girl.”

Despite Brigham’s frequent attacks on the profession, there are a lot of Mormon lawyers. Some LDS thinkers have posited all sorts of troubling reasons why this is so. Nibley sees it as a symptom of moral decline, and I have repeatedly seen it used as evidence of excessive Mormon materialism or anti-intellectualism. However, today I…

Today on my way to work, I passed by the Lincoln Memorial where the great man’s sermon on blood atonement is inscribed in marble.

Bloggernaclites! For those in the Washington, D.C. area there is going to be a get together at Casa Oman (sans, alas, Heather and Jacob, the more interesting Omans) on Saturday, August 13th beginning at about 5pm-ish. It will be a bring your own food kind of BBQ. I will provide watermelon, drinks, and fresh salsa…

OK. I don’t want to go to film school any more.

My wonderful wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, as left me.

OK, lets talk about antitrust law and the plight of persecuted Mormons.

I don’t often read novels, but after making it through the most recent Harry Potter, I thought I would try slumming it in fiction for awhile.

Among my other glories, I am an assistant ward clerk.

I have a confession: I don’t much care about what the people in my ward think about me. I feel guilty about this.

In times past, Mormon intellectualdom has been much exercised over the issue of objectivity and the writing of history. By and large, I think that these debates have focused on the wrong issues. Stalin’s toes help to illustrate one of the reasons why.

I did not want to go to BYU.

For those who haven’t noticed, John Roberts has been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. The next obvious question is what does his jurisprudence tell us about Mormon theology.

Okay, it is time for another post on Mormon legal history. This one is on the state of the field and where we go from here.

It is hard not to admire Winston Churchill.

Cannibalism, it seems to me, is one of the unspoken issues that lurks beneath all Mormon sacrament meetings.

In a comment on Gordon’s recent post, Jed Woodworth raises an interesting point. He, entirely accurately, points out that the notion that the temple is a place that most members should regularly attend is a late 20th century phenomena in Mormonism. Prior to that time, the temple, for most members, was generally a place visited…

It occurs to me that there is a politically well-connected Mormon who is eminently qualified to take Justice O’Connor’s slot on the Supreme Court. (And no, I don’t mean Orrin Hatch.)

Here is an empirical question that I don’t really know the answer to:

Ed Firmage, for many years the token Mormon at the U of U law school, is an interesting apostate.