Happy Valley Photo Essay

[_Dr. Shades]

Could you please point me to the "blatant inaccuracies" in Shumway's captions?

The parts that I felt were misleading were these, paraphrasing from memory:

• "The church forbids most forms of premarital contact between the sexes." No, it only forbids four: Sexual intercourse, oral sex, petting, and necking. Some Nazi Mormons assume that French kissing is also verboten, but that's only found in The Miracle of Forgiveness to my knowledge. The casual reader may have gotten the false impression that co-ed dancing is forbidden, like what we saw in Footloose.
• "On Sunday, all such activities must cease." No, they don't "must cease;" they're simply advised against, with frequent exceptions made for exigent circumstances. Other such activities, like visiting the sick, are actually encouraged. When it comes to day-to-day activities, even on Sunday, the church isn't nearly that cultish.
• The part about the brother-in-law rushing from the shower to the closet to quickly don his garments. A casual non-LDS reader might assume that some sort of cultish punishment might befall him, like group shaming, for being out of his garments for more than 30 seconds.
• The part about a vegan burger. The unknowing reader might assume that Mormons have to be vegetarians, sort of like the Jehovah's Witnesses can't give or receive blood. Since the essay was about Mormons, it would've been preferable to add in an appropriate disclaimer.
• The part about the sister melding Mormon and Native American religion. A disclaimer that such a thing is not, uh, native to Mormonism could've served the casual reader well.

Stuff like that.

[_MsJack]

[*]"The church forbids most forms of premarital contact between the sexes." No, it only forbids four: Sexual intercourse, oral sex, petting, and necking. Some Nazi Mormons assume that French kissing is also verboten, but that's only found in The Miracle of Forgiveness to my knowledge. The casual reader may have gotten the false impression that co-ed dancing is forbidden, like what we saw in Footloose.

He said that "many" forms of premarital physical contact are forbidden. The current For the Strength of the Youth manual (which was just recently updated for 2011) lists "passionate kissing" among the forbidden activities: "Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing." So it sounds like Shumway got it right to me.

I've already addressed the part about activities ceasing on Sunday here and here.

I don't believe it's the photographer's responsibility to try and account for any and every farfetched way in which a "casual observer" might misunderstand Mormonism. If that's the case, no caption on Mormonism could ever be regarded as both brief and accurate (including the captions put out by the LDS church in its own official publications). On the contrary, I think most "casual observers" could infer that things like veganism and Native American religion aren't normative elements of the LDS religion from the fact that Shumway doesn't list them as normative elements of the LDS religion, even as he goes out of his way to explain which things are normative to Mormonism.

In any case, almost all of the things you listed weren't "blatant inaccuracies." At best, they're subtle potential misunderstandings that could only exist if a very specific set of conditions were met.

[_Blixa]

[*]"The church forbids most forms of premarital contact between the sexes." No, it only forbids four: Sexual intercourse, oral sex, petting, and necking. Some Nazi Mormons assume that French kissing is also verboten, but that's only found in The Miracle of Forgiveness to my knowledge. The casual reader may have gotten the false impression that co-ed dancing is forbidden, like what we saw in Footloose.

He said that "many" forms of premarital physical contact are forbidden. The current For the Strength of the Youth manual (which was just recently updated for 2011) lists "passionate kissing" among the forbidden activities: "Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing." So it sounds like Shumway got it right to me.

I've already addressed the part about activities ceasing on Sunday here and here.

I don't believe it's the photographer's responsibility to try and account for any and every farfetched way in which a "casual observer" might misunderstand Mormonism. If that's the case, no caption on Mormonism could ever be regarded as both brief and accurate (including the captions put out by the LDS church in its own official publications). On the contrary, I think most "casual observers" could infer that things like veganism and Native American religion aren't normative elements of the LDS religion from the fact that Shumway doesn't list them as normative elements of the LDS religion, even as he goes out of his way to explain which things are normative to Mormonism.

In any case, almost all of the things you listed weren't "blatant inaccuracies." At best, they're subtle potential misunderstandings that could only exist if a very specific set of conditions were met.

Exactly, Ms. Jack. Of all of Shades' complaints the most ridiculous one is that the business about his sister's interest in Native American religion would be interpreted as "Mormon."

[_Dr. Shades]

Exactly, Ms. Jack. Of all of Shades' complaints the most ridiculous one is that the business about his sister's interest in Native American religion would be interpreted as "Mormon."

The Book of Mormon being touted far and wide as revealing the origin of the Native Americans could mislead people into making some sort of link between Native Americans and Mormon doctrine or teachings. Perhaps that photo and the accompanying caption could reinforce such a notion.

[_Blixa]

Exactly, Ms. Jack. Of all of Shades' complaints the most ridiculous one is that the business about his sister's interest in Native American religion would be interpreted as "Mormon."

The Book of Mormon being touted far and wide as revealing the origin of the Native Americans could mislead people into making some sort of link between Native Americans and Mormon doctrine or teachings. Perhaps that photo and the accompanying caption could reinforce such a notion.

I think that's a stretch because I don't think the casual observer even knows that the Book of Mormon makes that claim.

[_Dr. Shades]

I think that's a stretch because I don't think the casual observer even knows that the Book of Mormon makes that claim.

Good. I hope I'm wrong about that.

[_Kishkumen]

Thanks to Jack and Blixa for responding to Shades' unreasonable nitpicking of Shumway's captions. I just noticed his response and I am about to watch The Nutcracker.

[_Dr. Shades]

Thanks to Jack and Blixa for responding to Shades' unreasonable nitpicking of Shumway's captions.

"Unreasonable?" Would you label the parts to which I objected "accurate?"

[_Kishkumen]

"Unreasonable?" Would you label the parts to which I objected "accurate?"

Accurate enough for photo captions on a blog, hence my characterization of your reaction.

[_Dr. Shades]

Accurate enough for photo captions on a blog, hence my characterization of your reaction.

So we agree that the captions were inaccurate--the only difference between us being whether they were accurate enough.

Right?