Censorship at Sunstone?

[Ramus_Stein]

Sunstone happened a couple of weeks ago. It was an interesting meeting. I was kind of bummed though when one of the speakers I wanted to see was removed from the program. Gazelam Ale was supposed to speak about the history of tarot cards, but a couple of days before the meeting they were kicked off the program for supposedly violating Sunstone’s code of conduct. When I found out about it I was very confused, since the meeting had not even started. If you read their code of conduct, it looks like rules to keep the meeting from being rowdy or offensive. But here Gazelam is kicked out for some other reason. They said they made some graphic images in their art, and because of that they were kicked out. Sounds weird to me because I did not know Sunstone was keeping track of Gazelam’s life like that. Someone was, and they reported Gazelam to Sunstone.

Can someone explain to me what the hell is up? This sounds like the kind of thing that would happen at church and not at Sunstone. So Sunstone people are now narcing each other out to get people kicked out of the conference? Lame.

[Kishkumen]

Hello, Ramus! Yes, that was unfortunate. The full story is a complicated but kind of sad one. You are right about people contacting Sunstone to complain about Gazelam’s art. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I heard Sunstone even consulted a prosecutor who advised them on it pro bono. Your point about the reach of their Code of Conduct is well taken. So anyone can be excluded for things against the CoC done outside of Sunstone?

The whole thing is odd. Gazelam is devastated. He has attended Sunstone for years, and now he doesn’t know whether he will ever be allowed back. Radio silence from Sunstone. Are they going to let him know exactly what his future with them is or isn’t?

Sunstone has always been an interesting gathering, quite a mix of heterodoxy, criticism, and Mormon culture. I have always enjoyed the magazine and I had a great time at the few meetings in which I spoke. Now I feel it is kinda tainted for me. It’s the idea of hanging out with tattle-tale Mormons that puts me off. If I wanted that, I’d go back to church. That is one of the reasons I don’t go, in fact.

Still, I like what Lindsay Hansen Park has been doing with this “Many ways to Mormon” slogan. Well, I guess nudity in art is not on that list of ways, but still . . . .

[Philo Sofee]

I saw on the news today that there is a group of Mormons over 1,000 who wrote the Governor of Utah absolutely LIVID, DEMANDING, INCENSED, and mortally, DEEPLY WOUNDED in their very Godly souls over his name being "Cox." They *****DEMAND***** in the name of DECENCY that this immoral lout change his name from that heinous male organ! I am, truly and sadly not kidding. You just can't make this up. The dumbed down intelligence level in Utah is lower than the bottom of the Great Salt Lake. It is an entire embarrassment and their IQ's are not quite high enough to see their abject stupidity for what it is. And they are sending a petition out statewide to get that man's evil, heinous, immoral and downright wicked name CHANGED. The good news for him, I suppose, is he will get "a new name" if he caves...

I mean... what was God even thinking making the male organ?! And the woman? Oh don't even get me started! Those big, gooshy......sometimes braless ......erm........no, I shant.

[malkie]

When I saw this topic appear, I got in touch with Lindsay Hansen Park, Exec Director of Sunstone.

She is not a member of this board, so I offered to post a statement on her behalf.

Here it is:

I'm happy to offer some clarification.

We were really excited about the tarot event and it was a highly-anticipated session with good presenters. Because we promoted the names of the presenters, several of our attendees went and purchased the decks of different presenters, including Gazelam Ale's deck.

Several days before the session we received two independent complaints about their deck containing images of child nudity. We then began to receive additional complaints from attendees who had found Gazelam's deck through our promotional material.

At Sunstone we have a wide berth when it comes to nudity and art and so we tried to work as quickly as we could to respond to the situation and still give the presenters time to prepare. If this had been naked adults, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Upon review of the deck we found seven cards with naked children and eight with semi-nude children. I understand that these were sourced through nature magazines in Europe, but unfortunately for this situation, we live in the United States under different laws and legislation.

Our Mormon community has a particularly complicated history with underage exploitation and I really wish that the discussion would include an acknowledgment of that fact. Our decisions certainly did and because we didn't want to have our own Mormon purity biases factor in, we consulted both mental health experts, sex therapists, and two lawyers who unanimously told us they found the images concerning. We were strongly advised to cancel the session.

We reached out to Gazelam and let them know we received a complaint, reviewed their work and removed them from our program. As a representative of Sunstone, I stand by this. As Gazelam's friend, it was very painful for me to do. I met them years ago, interviewed them for my podcast and was happy they were presenting. As an artist myself, I can appreciate the complexities of representation.

I will take responsibility that our response was abrupt and did not allow for dialogue. That is where I erred personally and I apologized personally to Gazelam and to the other presenters. They understandably did not find the apology helpful and declined my invitation to have further discussion about it. I believe due to our friendship, they deserved more chance to discuss this.

If I were to do it again, I would offer more time to have a discussion. We would have still removed them from the program since we put ourselves in a position of potentially promoting images that are illegal in the state of Utah. The CD cover was offered with the deck and we specifically referred to it since it was a public image and their tarot deck was not. No one, including those who were upset by the images, felt comfortable sharing those online for fear of committing a crime.
Unfortunately it was a very hurried and stressful time for us and I didn't have a lot of bandwidth to argue child nudity and exploitation with a presenter. I regret that decision, as it is against our mission to foster dialogue. That is the mistake I will take responsibility for.

In the past (as far as just two years back) we have had presenters be dishonest about what they are going to present, and we no longer can take risks when we bear legal responsibility.

This was not a moral issue, this was a legal one and Sunstone is happy to host a censorship debate and what constitutes art. We cannot host anyone promoting, sharing, distributing or possessing child nudity or pornography on our premises and since the deck was already promoted under our presentation, we felt that the line had already been crossed.

I hope that clears up our position.

Edited to respect Gazelam's pronouns - his/he/him changed to they and their, as per Lindsay's request.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Wow, malkie. Thanks for running down some good information. Thank you.

- Doc

[drumdude]

I wonder if Consiglieri was the one they consulted? I'm sure he would have offered his advice bro-bono.

[Moksha]

That little girl from the Coppertone ad has been removed from the Sunstone Brochure.

[Res Ipsa]

Wow, malkie. Thanks for running down some good information. Thank you.

- Doc

Ditto. Child pornography laws can be very broad and many haven't been tested against the First Amendment. I think the organizers handled it smartly.

[Res Ipsa]

I wonder if Consiglieri was the one they consulted? I'm sure he would have offered his advice bro-bono.

Nice.

[Kishkumen]

Yes, as I said, it is a complicated and fraught situation. I have to hand it to malkie, as he was able to pry more information out of Lindsay Hansen Park than anyone else has so far, including Gazelam. On the one hand, it looks pretty cut and dried, child nudity? You gotta cancel. As a legal question, certainly there is not even a question here.

On the other hand, with all of the time spent to assemble a team of experts to determine whether Gazelam’s art was too risky, there stood the phone and the computer, providing ample opportunity to reach out to Gazelam or any of their co-presenters to ask whether the offending images were going to be *shown* at Sunstone. It is my understanding that they were not, but Gazelam could have also been given the choice not to show them or not to present.

I notice Lindsay said that Sunstone had had the experience of two presenters switching up their presentations in the past. This statement addresses their lapse in communication with Gazelam. I ask, “which two presenters and what presentations?” It is easy to breeze past this and not consider that Lindsay knows Gazelam personally, has hosted them at Sunstone and featured their art before, and interviewed them on the Year of Polygamy podcast.

So I guess this comes down to not trusting Gazelam, and choosing not to reach out to Gazelam in anything but a terse, organizational notice of removal. Fair enough. I get that questions of artistic nudity are too fraught, particularly when images of children are involved, and there is no question that such images should not be displayed at a public gathering in this country. It’s just a sad commentary that it is easier to assemble a battery of experts and shoot off a terse email than it is to pick up the phone and call a friend.

Thanks to malkie for managing to extract this statement from Lindsay. Another case of who you know, unfortunately, and evidence that quiet attempts to work with people get nowhere. It is only when Ramus Stein posts this in a public forum that some kind of fulsome explanation of process is published. Good grief.