Holland's second "scolding" at BYU

[Lem]

Over at Patheos, a second article on Holland's address has appeared. This one is better than the first one.

That's a very long way of saying Holland and the Mormon Church he represents are opposed to anything LGBTQ. He opposes their rights, he opposes people who are their allies, and he opposes openly gay people who aren't ashamed of their LGBTQ orientation... even when they aren't violating Church doctrine.

you're right. Much better.

[Kishkumen]

By complaining about a valedictorian coming out at graduation, Holland made it very clear that LGBTQ+ people are not really fully welcome or fully accepted at BYU. Only by staying in the closet is an LGBTQ+ person allowed to remain at BYU, in Elder Holland’s view. We all know that people of all genders have always been at BYU. They have been there in fear, always worried about being entrapped or kicked out. Elder Holland still lives in that mindset, and he wants BYU to remain there with him.

[Gadianton]

My wife once asked me why I had purchased a book of Elder Spencer Kimball's sermons. My reason was that I enjoy being scolded by him. He did not dance around the crucial issues. Later my wife and I were fprced to visit a prison where some fellows insisted that we read his famous book The Miracle of Forgiveness. I am aware that some of the Saints wanted a more slushy book. But those in prison demanded that we read that book, which we did once a week for almost two years. They all had faced some facts about their current position. Some were former Saints, most were not. However, all of them insisted that if they had done exactly what Elder Kimball demanded or had not done what he warned against, they would not have ended up in prison--many in a sex-offenders unit.

Not sure he's fired that musket, but at least he's packing the powder.

Anyone have a psychological interpretation of his second sentence?

Not sure I believe that his wife asked him. That's one of his standard setups -- somebody asked. Why wouldn't he as a presumed intellectual Mormon buy a book by a Mormon prophet?

[Mixman76]

My cynical take after a day to think about it:

The timing of this talk is not coincidental. Holland was sent out to shore up the base. It's as simple as that. Last week, Rusty "Donuts" Nelson told the members of the church that they should get vaccinated and wear masks. And the base went batshit. The DezNats openly rebelled against the Prophet's counsel and started attacking the Brethren. So this week they sent Droopy Dog out to get them back in the tent.

The LDS LGBTQ community are the easiest targets to serve up as a blood sacrifice to the DezNat base.

And it worked. The right-wingers are ecstatic and all abuzz about how Holland really stuck it to the "Marxist critical theory" professors they think have infiltrated and taken over BYU.* And the church leaders are thrilled. If some of the DezNatters take Holland too literally and get out their "muskets," this is acceptable collateral damage from the corporation's point of view. The DezNats, the thinking goes, will merely go after the LGBTQ community who deserve whatever violence they suffer. After all, those LGBTQ people have been sowing "division" what with all their rainbow flags and parades and "symbols" and such, right?

*Example from a comment on a Mormon friend's Facebook wall by one of these right-wing "iron rod" Mormon types: "I have long suspected that the wokeism and slavish bowing to intersectionality and critical theory (a Marxist creation) that we’ve been seeing at BYU have at least SOMETHING to do with accreditation. I also know however that BYU students have been raised and educated in the same social media world as everyone else their age and that have attended the same victim/oppressor lectures and classes in school. Thus, there is likely a lot of pressure from the students, and frankly a lot of faculty and staff, BYU to be just like every other university and adopt the pablum." The comments on various sites where the talk has been posted or reported on contain similar sentiments. Looks like ole Rusty managed to successfully change the conversation to win back the hearts and minds of the DezNats.

Looks like we have a Mormon friend in common, I’m having lunch with said friend this week to talk about this issue and why I left the church. Should be fun, maybe I’ll be able to help him join us over here.

[IHAQ]

Holland’s remarks ignited hundreds of responses Monday on social media.

“It is a disastrous message to give to a university faculty,” Michael Austin, a BYU alumnus and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Evansville, a Methodist school in Indiana, wrote on Facebook. “It is exactly the opposite of the norms of academic inquiry that most universities operate under.”

The canons that “govern scholarly activity and research stipulate that the research be conducted without bias, and the results published, regardless of whether they confirm any particular hypothesis or doctrine,” Austin wrote. “What this talk seems to be saying is that academic research should begin with the desired conclusion in mind and either reach that conclusion or be dismissed. That is not scholarship; it is propaganda.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/08 ... -expected/

Propaganda is exactly what Holland & Co. want BYU to produce. I think there's a the faculty at BYU will ignore Holland (again) and continue to progress towards embracing diversity and honest research and comment. Or BYU becomes an increasingly marginalised, ever decreasing circle of stunted thinking and out dated bigotry. What academic professional worth their salt would want to be part of an institution headed in the direction Holland demands? And let's face it, the Brethren are lame duck landlords when it comes to BYU. They can't cut funding as punishment as that would destroy their academic flagship, it would be shooting their own toes off. They can't start firing faculty and staff or there'll be an exodus of good people. In reality, if BYU ignores Holland, ignores the Brethren, then what? Just like Nelson's with thinly veiled threats in 2014, and those within Hollands First Scolding, there'll be no promised consequence. There can't be. The power has shifted, and everyone knows it. The brethren are firing blanks (the vaccination fiasco tells us that) and Hollands' musket fire is all powder and no balls.

[Jen Psaki]

I asked my father,
I said, "Father change my name."
The one I'm using now it's covered up
with fear and filth and cowardice and shame.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

[Philo Sofee]

The cynic in me says it is all about money somehow. The filthy rich DezNat patrons who want their pure kids to remain untainted while at BYU are probably threatening to remove their kids. The church is walking a tightrope, and not doing very well with it.

[IHAQ]

The cynic in me says it is all about money somehow. The filthy rich DezNat patrons who want their pure kids to remain untainted while at BYU are probably threatening to remove their kids. The church is walking a tightrope, and not doing very well with it.

It's interesting to me that the people who tell members not to write to them, are the same people who cite letters from members when they want to justify a speech they're making.

[Res Ipsa]

My wife once asked me why I had purchased a book of Elder Spencer Kimball's sermons. My reason was that I enjoy being scolded by him. He did not dance around the crucial issues. Later my wife and I were fprced to visit a prison where some fellows insisted that we read his famous book The Miracle of Forgiveness. I am aware that some of the Saints wanted a more slushy book. But those in prison demanded that we read that book, which we did once a week for almost two years. They all had faced some facts about their current position. Some were former Saints, most were not. However, all of them insisted that if they had done exactly what Elder Kimball demanded or had not done what he warned against, they would not have ended up in prison--many in a sex-offenders unit.

Not sure he's fired that musket, but at least he's packing the powder.

Anyone have a psychological interpretation of his second sentence?

Not sure I believe that his wife asked him. That's one of his standard setups -- somebody asked. Why wouldn't he as a presumed intellectual Mormon buy a book by a Mormon prophet?

They were forced to visit a prison once a week?

[Lem]

Not sure he's fired that musket, but at least he's packing the powder.

Anyone have a psychological interpretation of his second sentence?

Not sure I believe that his wife asked him. That's one of his standard setups -- somebody asked. Why wouldn't he as a presumed intellectual Mormon buy a book by a Mormon prophet?

They were forced to visit a prison once a week?

I seem to recall the Midge mentioning this while reminiscing about his senior mission with his wife. It was around the same time that he would steal fruit from people’s yards and then jump in the getaway car he made his wife drive to avoid the owners chasing him. His excuse was the owners obviously weren’t going to eat it all, so he had every right to steal it.

This was while he was a senior missionary representing the LDS church, making his senior missionary wife play Bonnie to his Clyde. Maybe the prison assignment was just to get him off the streets. There are times when I am quite curious about how some parts of this guy’s life played out.