- Jesse on OUR, Tim Ballard, and the Church: “John Mansfield, fwiw, in Tim Ballard’s first rambling response video, he said he doubted the provenance of the church’s statement in part because he called his Stake President who told him, in effect, that the Church had not contacted him (the stake pres).” Sep 28, 19:30
- on OUR, Tim Ballard, and the Church: “Miles, how would you know if the church did or did not forward concerns to Ballard’s bishop? In the case of highly publicized dissidents, their interactions with their bishops and stake presidents have only been publicly announced by the church at the end of such matters. I can’t think of any cases of public announcements by the church that were not first preceded by public disclosure by the dissidents themselves, and the dissidents have in some cases preferred not to publicly disclose letters from and meetings with church leaders until months after those things have commenced.” Sep 28, 03:41
- on OUR, Tim Ballard, and the Church: “Based on my understanding, in July O.U.R. notified high profile donors that Tim Ballard separated from the organization after an investigation into multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Presumably Russel Ballard and possibly others at the church were notified at this time. I imagine the church’s initial plan was just to stay quiet and hope things blow over. Once Vice ran a story on what was happening and asked the church for a statement, the church likely felt it necessary to publicly distance itself from Tim Ballard at that point. I don’t fault the church for publicly distancing itself from a problematic individual, especially if the church has a high degree of confidence that the accusations are accurate. I am troubled that the church didn’t forward the misconduct allegations directly to Tim’s bishop immediately. Certainly a dissident wouldn’t be provided similar ‘confidentiality’ by church leadership.” Sep 27, 21:15
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “On the question of how close a friendship has to be to “count,” I think it depends on why you’re bringing it up. If you’re saying “I’m not racist–some of my best friends are black!” then they’d better be *best* friends, and you really need to lean more about racism. But I have found that having immigrants and LGBT people in my ward has changed how I feel about related issues. I’m not “best friends” with anyone in either group: I don’t speak Spanish, most of the active LGBT people are youth, and I’m an all-too typical male of my generation and don’t have really close friends outside my family anyway. But I care about them (that’s what we’re trained to do, right?), and when something happens, I now think “How will this affect so-and-so?” That hasn’t necessarily changed my positions, but it does change how I respond.” Sep 26, 15:37
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “What seems to be missing in this list is single parents, seniors, people struggling economically, suffering depression or worse people feeling they need to keep up the “image” of Mormonism while struggling with doubts about the faith.” Sep 26, 10:08
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “Thank you not today for sharing. My experience is similar that most people stop coming in order to preserve their mental health from taking a beating every Sunday when they feel othered at church. We must do better. My experience is similar to RexT and Brian G. My community is diverse; my ward is not.” Sep 25, 22:12
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “@Brian G: And the Census Bureau’s map tool actually makes doing that really easy. If you look for “percentage Hispanic” or whatever it’s pretty easy to get maps of the racial composition of your ward boundaries, or at least the census blocks that make up your ward boundaries. https://data.census.gov/map?layer=VT_2021_040_00_PP_D1&loc=43.3751,-113.1138,z2.6270.” Sep 24, 21:31
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “If you want do do a much more interesting and informative study why not compare the racial and ethnic percentages of local wards with the local census records. Where I live in the mid south is still quite segregated in many ways but has a very high percentage of the ward boundaries with a dense black and Hispanic population. My old ward did not reflect that. Very few local wards or communities match the average for the whole country. That should be obvious to any study of demographics.” Sep 24, 21:25
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “Hispanics are about 20%, but the Hispanic case is a little different since they’re often apart in the Spanish speaking units. Jack makes a good point about Utah. People tend to chide Utah for not being diverse because it doesn’t have a lot of Black people, but in response I’ll sometimes point out that you can go for a while back East without crossing paths with a Pacific Islander. Utah has its diversity too, just different kinds. (And that’s beautiful that your ward is good about ministering to its members in all their diversity even if they can’t make it to a pew). ” Sep 24, 21:25
- on Some of my Best Friends Are…, or Representation in our Wards: “We have a lot of racial diversity in our ward in Orem, UT. A lot of Whites, of course–but a fair number of Hispanics too. Plus a few Polynesians, Asians, and even one or two African Americans. We also have a few Whites who’ve immigrated from Europe. As far as the other kinds of diversity are concerned–we’ve got some of that too. I rarely attend church myself because of mental illness. But the ward sends the young men to my home to administer the sacrament to me and others in my family who suffer from similar mental limitations. Its a wonderful thing to see those bright Latino and Gringo boys working together to serve my household.” Sep 24, 20:05