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And I've been telling you that I don't think we need bathroom laws for the same general reason that we don't need laws about litter boxes in public schools. I've said over and over that if you prove to me there is a need for a law, we can discuss what that law should look like. But I remain unconvinced there is a need. I'm not going to design a law until you demonstrate a law is needed. Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence. The general pattern of your "propositions" is to start with a deliberately provocative quote, interpret it in the most hostile way possible, and then replace the nuances with dogmatism. e.g. "Parental caution is abuse or bigotry." I asked ChatGPT to redline your proposed ideologies for accuracy and this is what it came up with. But even with the redlines I question the accuracy, because these are still the issues that you curated and don't necessarily represent what is important to them. I asked GPT 6 Pro to synthesis what transgender organizations actually want and what they actually believe. Here is what it came up with: Articles of Transgender Dignity and Equal Participation An annotated synthesis of prominent advocacy organizations’ published positions I reviewed educational materials, policy agendas, legal priorities, healthcare-access guidance, and coalition statements from the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, Advocates for Trans Equality, Transgender Law Center, PFLAG, and The Trevor Project, with additional comparisons to Stonewall, TGEU—Trans Europe and Central Asia—and ILGA World. I gave particular weight to official organizational positions and jointly endorsed statements. For example, a June 2026 school-inclusion letter brought together HRC, ACLU, Lambda Legal, PFLAG, Trevor, TLC, and numerous other organizations; an international sports statement similarly documents shared positions across HRC, TGEU, ILGA World, GLAAD, and others. These provide firmer evidence of common ground than isolated statements by individual activists. A4TE The articles below are my synthesis, not quotations or a jointly adopted creed. They describe the standards these organizations seek, rather than what existing law necessarily guarantees. The emphasis is primarily American, with international comparisons. Where an organization advocates a more specific or expansive position, the annotation identifies it. I. Identity, recognition, and personal autonomy 1. Transgender people possess the same dignity, freedom, and entitlement to a fulfilling life as everyone else. The underlying objective is full membership in society: the ability to live openly, maintain relationships, work, obtain care, and pursue ordinary ambitions without exclusion because of transgender status. TLC emphasizes freedom to live safely and authentically; Lambda Legal describes the objective as full citizenship throughout everyday life. Transgender Law Center 2. Gender identity, bodily sex characteristics, gender expression, and sexual orientation should be understood as distinct concepts. These organizations describe gender identity as a person’s internal understanding of their gender, which can differ from the classification made at birth. Expression concerns presentation and behavior; sexual orientation concerns attraction. Their explanations are not identical: A4TE emphasizes these distinctions, while Trevor explicitly describes both sex and gender as spectrums and discusses intersex variation. A4TE 3. Transgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary people should be recognized in their genders. This is substantive recognition, not simply a request to overlook someone’s identity. Within this framework, transgender women are women, transgender men are men, and nonbinary people need not identify exclusively as either. Recognition is intended to guide social treatment and institutional practice, not just private self-description. A4TE also uses male and female for gender identity in some contexts. A4TE 4. There is no single required way to be transgender, express a gender, or transition. Recognition should not depend on surgery, hormones, legal paperwork, conventional appearance, or conformity to masculine or feminine stereotypes. Some people want medical transition; others do not. Some cannot obtain desired treatment or safely disclose their identities. A4TE expressly says that identity does not depend on which transition steps someone has taken. A4TE 5. Being transgender is not, by itself, a mental illness or moral failing. The organizations seek removal of classifications and social practices that treat transgender identity itself as something defective requiring correction. This does not mean rejecting psychological support or other healthcare. ILGA World, TGEU, and the East Africa Trans Health and Advocacy Network jointly advocate both depathologization and access to hormones, surgery, and psychosocial support. ILGA World II. Everyday treatment and belonging 6. People’s names, pronouns, and respectful self-descriptions should be used. The expectation is affirmative recognition in ordinary interaction. Trevor encourages learning and using a person’s pronouns, including nonbinary pronouns, while treating accidental mistakes as something to correct and move past. Institutional demands are stronger than voluntary courtesy alone: A4TE advocates protections against deliberate, repeated misgendering in workplaces and schools. The Trevor Project 7. Transgender people should control the disclosure of their identity and personal history. Being told that someone is transgender is not permission to disclose that information to others. Former names, medical treatment, anatomy, and sexual history are private matters, not subjects to which acquaintances are automatically entitled. A4TE’s guidance distinguishes necessary information from curiosity and asks others to respect the person’s choices about disclosure. A4TE 8. Families should provide love, safety, and room for honest self-understanding. PFLAG encourages listening, maintaining a welcoming home, respecting names and pronouns, and allowing a loved one to explore identity without fear of rejection. It recognizes that relatives may need time and support themselves. For children, it advises keeping options open and listening rather than assuming that every gender-diverse child will want the same social or medical path. PFLAG 9. Transgender people should be represented as complete human beings in media and public life. GLAAD seeks accurate, inclusive representation across news, entertainment, and digital media, including transgender people telling their own stories. The objective includes depicting relationships, work, creativity, and ordinary life—not only controversy or suffering. Its programs also seek better protection of LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression on social-media platforms. GLAAD III. Healthcare, bodily autonomy, and insurance 10. Transgender people should receive competent, respectful healthcare responsive to their actual medical needs. This encompasses ordinary healthcare, not only transition-related treatment. A4TE opposes refusing care or insurance coverage because a service does not match a person’s recorded gender—for example, denying a transgender woman a medically indicated prostate examination because her records say female. Recognition of gender and attention to clinically relevant anatomy are both part of the requested standard. A4TE 11. People should have access to gender-affirming healthcare through informed, individualized decision-making. The organizations generally regard appropriate transition-related treatment as legitimate healthcare that can be necessary for wellbeing, rather than inherently elective or illegitimate. Some articulate a particularly strong autonomy model: ILGA World and TGEU advocate informed-consent care without mandatory psychiatric approval. That model emphasizes the patient’s informed choices rather than requiring psychiatric certification of the identity itself. ILGA World 12. Transgender young people should have access to developmentally appropriate support and, when indicated, medical care. This is not an adults-only platform. A4TE’s youth materials support social transition for younger children and individualized consideration of puberty blockers, hormones, and, for some adolescents, surgery. They describe decisions involving clinicians, young people, and supportive parents. PFLAG also stresses developmental appropriateness, expert guidance, and consideration of psychological and social circumstances. These organizations oppose categorical bans that remove those options. A4TE 13. Public and private insurance should cover medically necessary transgender healthcare without categorical discrimination. The demand is for meaningful coverage through employer plans, private insurance, Medicaid, and other public programs—not merely access to a policy that excludes transition care. A4TE challenges blanket exclusions, procedure-specific exclusions, and restrictions it considers inconsistent with medical standards. Its stated priorities include facial surgery and chest surgery for transgender minors, so the requested coverage is not confined to hormones or genital surgery for adults. A4TE 14. Transgender people should be protected from conversion practices aimed at curing or suppressing their identities. Organizations advocate legal restrictions on practices intended to change or suppress gender identity, not only public disapproval of them. Stonewall seeks a fully inclusive ban extending across medical, psychological, religious, and other settings. It expressly distinguishes conversion practices from healthy, exploratory conversations. The precise scope of legislation sought is an implementation question, not identical across jurisdictions. Stonewall UK IV. Equal participation in institutions and public life 15. Gender identity and expression should receive explicit, enforceable nondiscrimination protection. The central legal agenda covers employment, housing, education, credit, public accommodations, government programs, and other areas of civil participation. HRC’s longstanding Equality Act advocacy includes public spaces, federal funding, and jury service. The objective is protection that can be enforced, rather than relying entirely on individual goodwill or an institution’s voluntary statement of inclusion. Human Rights Campaign 16. Transgender status should not disqualify someone from employment, professional advancement, or public service. Advocacy includes protection against discriminatory hiring, firing, promotion decisions, harassment, and retaliation. It also includes the ability to transition or be openly transgender while employed. ACLU advocacy extends this principle to military service by opposing categorical exclusion of openly transgender people. These are demands for access to institutions, not only respectful treatment outside them. A4TE 17. Legal names and gender markers should be accessible and consistent with the individual’s identity. TGEU advocates quick, accessible, transparent procedures based on self-determination, without requirements for surgery, sterilization, divorce, or psychiatric diagnosis. Its approach includes nonbinary people, young people, migrants, and refugees. It also has a broader, formally adopted position favoring removal of gender markers from official identity documents and limiting unnecessary collection of sex and gender information. That latter position is specifically TGEU’s, not something to assume every organization has adopted. TGEU 18. Schools should provide safe, affirming education and equal opportunities for transgender students. The requested practices include protection from bullying, respectful names and pronouns, participation in school activities, inclusive curricula and books, trained staff, and access to supportive adults. A4TE additionally supports confidentiality of transgender status and equal treatment of LGBTQ student clubs. The June 2026 coalition letter demonstrates substantial organizational agreement on these objectives; Stonewall similarly advocates LGBTQ-inclusive teaching. A4TE 19. Everyday gender-segregated facilities should be accessible consistently with gender identity, with voluntary privacy options. The mainstream organizational demand includes restrooms and locker rooms, not simply an option to use a separate single-user toilet. A4TE’s school guidance opposes forcing transgender students into separate facilities, while supporting private alternatives when a person wants them. Its general guidance also supports gender-neutral facilities and identity-consistent access without making an identification document the controlling test. A4TE 20. Transgender athletes should have meaningful inclusion in sport, including gender-consistent participation. This includes advocacy for transgender women and girls participating in women’s and girls’ sports—not merely permission to compete somewhere. The international statement signed by HRC, TGEU, ILGA World, GLAAD, and others opposes exclusionary approaches and invasive sex testing. It also favors case-by-case approaches balancing fairness and inclusion over one-size-fits-all arrangements that segregate athletes. It does not supply one technical eligibility rule for every sport and competitive level. TGEU 21. Transgender people should be free to form families and retain equal parental and reproductive rights. This encompasses marriage, adoption, fostering, fertility services, and legal protection of parent–child relationships. TGEU also advocates recognizing transgender parents appropriately on family documents, including their children’s birth certificates, rather than using documents that disclose a parent’s former gender classification. Stonewall’s family-formation work includes reducing financial and practical barriers to assisted reproduction. Lambda Legal 22. Protection from violence, harassment, and discrimination should include effective remedies. The organizations seek prevention, responsive institutions, accessible complaint processes, and protection from retaliation—not simply declarations that mistreatment is unfortunate. Depending on the setting, this means employer action, school intervention, legal assistance, administrative complaints, or court remedies. Lambda Legal also challenges discriminatory policing and abuse within the criminal legal system. A4TE 23. Religious disagreement should not eliminate equal access to public services and civil protections. Lambda Legal explicitly supports religious freedom while opposing exemptions it regards as allowing discrimination against LGBTQ people in healthcare, child welfare, and other services. Thus the platform includes substantive limits on some claimed religious exemptions. Precisely where the boundary should fall remains a legal and policy question; the organizational position is that religious belief should not generally nullify another person’s civil equality. Lambda Legal V. Safety, material security, and participation in decisions 24. People in custody should retain safety, dignity, appropriate care, and individualized consideration. A4TE’s prison advocacy supports individual assessment of vulnerability and risk, serious consideration of a person’s own safety concerns, and housing decisions that are not determined solely by anatomy or birth classification. It also supports privacy in showering, respectful searches, reporting protections, and alternatives to involuntary isolation. This is a more individualized institutional framework than its everyday restroom-access guidance. A4TE 25. Transgender migrants and refugees should have fair access to protection and safe treatment. TGEU advocates asylum procedures that recognize persecution connected to gender identity, adequately trained officials, and safe reception conditions. It opposes treating countries that criminalize transgender identities as automatically safe destinations. It also identifies barriers arising when applicants have not medically transitioned, cannot safely disclose their identities, or lack identity documents reflecting their gender. TGEU 26. Equality should include the material conditions needed to live safely throughout life. The agenda includes stable housing, access to services, support for young and older people, and attention to poverty, disability, racism, migration status, and HIV. TLC gives these interconnections particular prominence. Its broader liberation agenda includes abolitionist goals concerning incarceration and rights for people in sex-work economies. Those are significant elements of TLC’s platform, but should not automatically be attributed to every organization sharing the narrower nondiscrimination agenda. Transgender Law Center 27. Transgender people should participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their lives. Organizations seek a role in designing laws, healthcare services, research, education, and institutional practices—not merely consultation after decisions have been made. ILGA World’s joint statement explicitly calls for participation in health, legal, and human-rights decision-making. TLC emphasizes transgender leadership, particularly by communities whose needs have historically received less attention. ILGA World For my part, I disagree with #14, presuming that the individual is the one choosing for themselves to pursue "conversion practices aimed at curing or suppressing their identities." If somebody wants to take the path for themselves, I think they should have that right. Otherwise, i pretty-much agree with all of this. I realize this is merely what they are advocating for and doesn't represent the underlying "load bearing principles" that drive these things. So, here is my list of the underlying load bearing principles: The foundation is a combination of moral values, substantive beliefs about gender, beliefs about what causes harm, and judgments about who should make decisions. “Dignity and equality” alone do not explain the whole agenda; the organizations also make particular claims about identity, recognition, healthcare, and exclusion. The following is a synthesis of their published rationales—not a jointly adopted creed. 1. Equal standing: transgender people’s rights do not depend on other people’s approval. The starting value is that transgender people belong to the same moral and civic community as everyone else. Their safety, relationships, opportunities, and wellbeing count equally. PFLAG describes its objective as an equitable, inclusive society in which LGBTQ people are safe, empowered, and loved; Lambda Legal frames its work around civil equality. This supplies the foundation for nondiscrimination protections independently of any detailed theory of gender. PFLAG 2. Gender diversity is a legitimate variation in human life, not something inherently defective. Advocates reject the premise that a transgender identity is itself an illness, moral failure, or condition that society should eliminate. The 2025 joint statement from ILGA World, TGEU, and the East Africa Trans Health and Advocacy Network explicitly calls for removing classifications that treat transgender identities as mental disorders, while preserving access to healthcare. Their distinction is between treating a person’s healthcare needs and treating their identity as the disease. ILGA World 3. Gender identity is a meaningful feature of a person that is not reducible to anatomy or stereotypes. Their conceptual framework distinguishes internal gender identity from bodily characteristics, sexual attraction, and conformity to masculine or feminine expectations. A4TE expressly distinguishes being transgender from being intersex and from being gender-nonconforming. Some organizational materials go further: A4TE’s FAQ describes identity as “innate knowledge.” That language is part of its position, although the FAQ does not establish a detailed causal theory explaining how identity develops. The central commitment is to the reality and significance of the identity—not merely the existence of unusual clothing preferences. A4TE 4. Individuals should have primary authority over identifying their own gender. This combines an epistemic claim—people know their internal experience in a way outsiders do not—with a normative claim—outsiders should not have general authority to decide whether their identity is legitimate. TGEU makes the normative component especially explicit, describing transgender people as the “sole authority on their gender” and advocating legal recognition without third-party medical or psychological approval. This principle does substantial work in arguments for self-identification and against requiring surgery, diagnosis, or conventional appearance as proof of identity. TGEU 5. Transgender identities warrant actual social recognition, not merely permission to express a belief. This is a distinct, substantive commitment. A4TE does not simply say that a transgender woman should be permitted to believe she is a woman. It says she should be treated according to her gender identity, and it uses man, woman, male, and female in that gender-identity sense. Within this framework, recognition is part of equal treatment, rather than an honorary exception to an otherwise birth-sex-exclusive category. That helps explain why advocates connect pronouns, records, and institutional participation to dignity rather than treating them as unrelated requests. A4TE 6. People should have substantial control over their bodies, presentation, and personal information. The underlying value is self-determination, not a requirement that everyone transition. It supports both obtaining desired care and declining unwanted procedures, as well as choosing how to present oneself and when to disclose transgender status. The ILGA–TGEU joint statement advocates informed-consent healthcare and opposes medical prerequisites for legal recognition. A4TE’s interpersonal guidance treats medical history and transgender status as private information whose disclosure belongs to the individual. Recognition should not have to be purchased through bodily alteration or surrender of privacy. ILGA World 7. Much of the harm associated with being transgender is produced by mistreatment and exclusion—and is therefore preventable. This is an empirical and explanatory commitment, not merely a moral value. The Trevor Project explicitly attributes elevated suicide risk among LGBTQ young people to mistreatment and stigma rather than identity itself. It uses the minority-stress framework: rejection, discrimination, victimization, and insecure living conditions create additional burdens. That understanding motivates interventions directed at families, schools, workplaces, and laws—not just at the individual experiencing distress. It is the organization’s explanatory framework; establishing the causal contribution of each factor remains a research question. The Trevor Project 8. Supporting an affirmed gender—and providing transition-related care when needed—can improve wellbeing. This is another empirical commitment. A4TE argues that social and, for some people, medical transition can relieve dysphoria and enable fulfilling lives. It also says not everyone needs medical treatment and opposes attempts to change identity through conversion therapy. The underlying therapeutic idea is that helping a person live more congruently with their identity can be appropriate care, rather than requiring the identity to conform to the original classification. The benefits, risks, eligibility criteria, and evidentiary certainty for a particular intervention are additional questions; the general premise does not determine them all. A4TE 9. Equality requires meaningful access, not only formally identical rules. This is the distinction between formal equality and substantive equality. In the organizations’ approach, a rule can apply to everyone on paper yet deny transgender people effective access to an ordinary service. A4TE’s insurance advocacy illustrates the reasoning: enrollment alone is insufficient when a plan categorically excludes the transition-related care a person needs. Conversely, a gender marker should not prevent coverage for care relevant to the person’s actual anatomy. The aim is to make the institution work for the person, rather than count nominal eligibility as sufficient. A4TE 10. The goal is belonging and flourishing, not merely the absence of violence. The desired outcome is being able to live openly, form relationships, learn, work, and participate without treating one’s identity as a shameful secret or permanent exception. PFLAG emphasizes belonging, empowerment, and love. A4TE expressly urges support and inclusion beyond tolerance. This explains why the agenda includes representation, school culture, everyday language, family acceptance, and participation in communal activities—not only criminal prohibitions or emergency protection. The value being pursued is an ordinary, fulfilling life, rather than bare survival. PFLAG 11. People affected by a policy should help define the problem and shape the response. The epistemic insight is that people living with institutional barriers possess relevant knowledge that outsiders may overlook. The political principle is that they should participate in decisions affecting them, rather than appear only as subjects of other people’s decisions. The ILGA–TGEU statement explicitly seeks participation in health, legal, and human-rights decision-making. Transgender Law Center goes further by centering leadership from communities affected by overlapping racial, economic, disability, and migration-related disadvantages. This is both a claim about whose knowledge matters and a commitment about how power should be shared. ILGA World How those foundations generate the Articles The connections become clearer when several premises are combined: Names and pronouns: recognition of gender membership + individual authority over self-description + respect in everyday interaction → an expectation that others use the person’s stated name and pronouns. A4TE Healthcare and insurance: bodily autonomy + the belief that transition-related treatment can address genuine health needs + substantive equality → access to appropriate care and opposition to categorical insurance exclusions. ILGA World Schools and public institutions: equal membership + the belief that rejection and exclusion create preventable harm + the objective of meaningful participation → affirmative institutional protections, rather than reliance exclusively on private goodwill. The Trevor Project Broader social reform: interconnected disadvantage + community leadership → attention to housing, poverty, disability, migration, and incarceration. This connection is particularly prominent in TLC’s agenda and should not be assumed to produce identical commitments in every organization. Transgender Law Center The important qualification These principles are not a deductive chain in which “equal dignity” proves every subsequent policy. They are a combination of independent commitments. For example, believing that someone deserves equal dignity does not, by itself, settle which gender classification an institution should use. Believing that gender identity is real does not establish that it must control every eligibility decision. Believing that a treatment helps some patients does not establish that it is appropriate for every patient. Those further conclusions require additional judgments about the institution’s purpose, competing interests, evidence, and implementation. The international sports statement endorsed by several advocacy organizations illustrates this: it combines a strong inclusion commitment with a call for approaches that balance inclusion and fairness, rather than supplying one eligibility formula for every sport. TGEU The deepest shared structure is therefore: equal standing and legitimate gender diversity; self-determination and recognition; preventable harm and potentially beneficial care; meaningful access and participation. Those are the premises doing the work. Particular policies express combinations of them, with different organizations assigning different scope and weight to each.

No, but from a non-Christian view, it’s logical that literal offspring of a literal God are literally Gods. That would include Satan, also an offspring of God and brother to Jesus. If God really is an exalted human from another world, then his offspring are also human.

This appears to be permanent

How long will it take to teach teachers to adjust to the 25 minute schedule ?

And youth teachers /RS and Priesthood miss SS.

I believe the 3 year period just affects the type of relief available. Dehlin couldn't be forced to change the name from Mormon Stories as that name existed longer than 3 years. But they could get an injunction to never use the color blue or light rays. And they still could get an injunction to require a verbal disclaimer. So, comments from earlier than 3 years that shows confusion is probably still ok to be used. And any element that existed across the boundary (like the name) is still available to be included in the confusion calculation. And the rebranding could be used as evidence of intentional confusion. I believe Dehlin where he said he didn't intend confusion, but he didn't do the rebrand himself. He had hired some designers to do it and they might have intentionally mimic'ed the church's trade dress. And if that is found during the discovery phase, that would be treated as intentional confusion.

I am confused. Are you saying some teachers will miss teacher training? added: I think I get it. SS teacher training preempts RS for SS teachers once a month.

So you said the rebranding 3 years ago becomes the relevant material. So only comments by Dehlin or others after the rebranding matter? Why wouldn’t elements still present in the rebranding matter since the effect is likely cumulative?

If that is all he said about it, it’s accurate imo that he doesn’t state he thought it was put out by the Church. Doesn’t state he didn’t think that either. Its vague, therefore imo it’s not supportive of confusing with the Church website. Dehlin’s response seems to show he intended confusion even if not his primary motivation for the design, but exactly what type of confusion (church affiliation or faithfulness of the site could both be inferred from what little was said) does not appear to be specified by him either. Will be interesting to see what the judge says. From what you have posted, this specific evidence doesn’t seem very strong to me.

I thought more about this and I think that if the judge ignores this evidence (because of the lie, mischaracterization, etc) it weakens the church's arguments a bit. In their response to the motion to dismiss, they bring up intentional confusion in 2 places. The first is on whether this should be motion should be subject to Rogers. An intentional confusion is automatically not subject to Rogers and that would automatically fail the motion to dismiss. Since this is the church's only evidence at this stage (they say they have more but don't provide any), the judge would have to look at other factors on whether this should be subject to Rogers or not. I do think the church still has a pretty good argument even without intentional confusion. But it removes that automatic win. The second is on laches. This is where the church has a weak point. They waited 20 years to bring this up. Technically, Lanham Act infringement has no time window, but long waits usually are dismissed. But an intentional confusion bypasses that. So it wouldn't matter if it was 20 years or 100 years. Without this intentional confusion, the church's best argument is probably that Mormon Stories changed their branding 3 years ago and that is when they started to trigger confusion. But that means that everything before 3 years ago is no longer part of this lawsuit, including the name Mormon Stories. So the lawsuit would continue, but it would be a smaller lawsuit.

Changed in September, we meet during second hour. Since I teach GD I miss RS. It used to be quarterly, now according to “changes in the Sunday schedule” section of LDS.org, under “common questions, “ it indicates monthly teacher training. I mean you gotta dig to find it but apparently our new SS president did her digging and now here we are. And she stated today she is not gonna let this die. I just wondered if we are the only ones. I suspect it might even be a typo since it’s not updated accordingly in the handbook itself.

Thanks.. I have not read the ms response yet. You are right.. we will see

And this is the subtitles from what the person actually said on the podcast (so you don't have to actually listen to it):

The quote from the church's lawyer is the response to the motion to dismiss. And it says (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.71.0.pdf, page 2): Dehlin's lawyer noticed this and responded in their response to the response (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.73.0.pdf, page 1): And RFM made the video based on this information. So, it is already in the suit and we'll see what the judge thinks. I'm not sure that it will have much of an impact at this point since this is an attempt to show that the confusion was intentional (by quoting Dehlin's "admission") but intention is not a requirement for the likelihood of confusion.

See response to smac. You can listen to the three min clip yourself.

This is from the church’s filing reference the confusion of a listener: “The Church will prove that many have, in fact, been confused by Defendants’ infringement of the Church’s intellectual property. They encounter Mormon Stories and begin to consume its content believing it contains Church-affiliated material, only to discover it is not what they were seeking. And this is intentional. In a 2022 Mormon Stories episode, a guest tells Mr. Dehlin he began listening because he believed Mormon Stories was Church-affiliated. Mr. Dehlin responds: “That was not why I named it that,” but then confesses, “Okay, maybe it was a little bit why I named it that.“ if you listen to the episode ( about 13 min mark on linked video. Runs about three min) you will see he definitely did not say what the church lawyers claimed in the filing.

Please summarize what it claims for those of us who don’t watch videos usually or don’t have the patience to in this case. Added: I don’t know how I missed smac’s post as it appeared to my brain I was at the end of the thread.

The filing to the court itself cites statements that were never made in the ms episode they were discussing. in my non-lawyer mind I don’t think submitting evidence that doesn’t match what the listener ( the one who was confused) actually said is a good idea because it will be found out. If it was a simple mistake then it would naturally lead one to believe perhaps the lawyer is incompetent… or just dishonest. the listener in question never mentioned anything about thinking the ms episode was produced or owned or affiliated with the church. He stated he thought it would be a faithful or faith promoting (don’t recall exact what he said- it’s on the video I linked) and was disappointed it wasn’t a faithful episode. Did you listen to it? If so what do you think about what the listener said vs what the church submitted in its filing? It definitely does not match. Does filing statements with the court that are not true help the church’s case? I don’t see how it can. Certainly doesn’t hurt ms.

These hyperbolic AI-generates splash images are really getting old. A Grok summary of this episode (from the auto-generated transcript) : "They also say 'soon discovered it wasn’t what they were seeking” undercuts lasting confusion: listeners figure it out quickly." In other words, some folks were confused initially. Not sure how this helps MS. Thanks, -Smac

Confusion is grounds for a Lanham Act lawsuit. But it has to be confusion around a trademark (either registered or unregistered). The Church/Dehlin lawsuit includes both Lanham Act confusion, Lanham Act trademark infringement, and copyright infringement.

Okay. The "intentionally a little bit blurry" comes across - quite strongly, in my view - as evasive and vague, as effectively impossible to apply, as motte-and-bailey. I was in a hearing last week in which the judge was rendering a decision on a motion for summary judgment I had filed. The opposing attorney, David, had filed an opposing memorandum that either dodged many of the points of law I was making or only addressed them vaguely and obliquely. The most acute example was a question about David's first cause of action (I represent the defendant), seeking a judgment that my client, when he foreclosed on the plaintiff's house, violated the law by failing to send a "Notice of Default" to the plaintiff. This is indisputably a requirement of the nonjudicial foreclosure process in Utah, but the obligation to send it rests with the foreclosure trustee (not my client). In fact, my client is statutorily prohibited from doing what the trustee is obligated to do. At the hearing the judge asked David: "About that first cause of action, you aren't claiming that the defendant was the foreclosure trustee, correct?" David didn't talk for about 15 seconds, but then said "No, we're not." The judge then said "And the duty to send a Notice of Default to the property owner is the duty of the trustee, right?" Another pregnant pause, even longer, then David said "That is correct." The judge did not ask the next obvious question: "So the first cause of action necessarily fails, doesn't it? The defendant can't be held liable for not sending a Notice of Default when he had no obligation to do so, right?" The judge did, however, dismiss the first cause of action a few minutes later. David did what you have been refusing to do for months now: answer questions directly and candidly. Of course, he had an obligation to do so, and you do not. I have been asking for weeks and weeks how you would propose to differentiate which men can legally access women's bathrooms and which cannot. I have also been asking for "limiting principles" to your proposal. I have also been asking you to acknowledge that your proposal, in enacted, would result in de facto and/or de jure eradication of sex-segregated spaces. Huh. ChatGPT doesn't seem to actually address the propositions. "Proposition 1: Gender identity is real, innate, and authoritative. A person’s stated identity is the primary fact about whether they are a man, woman, both, or neither." Do you agree or disagree with Proposition 1? Is gender identity "real, innate and authoritative?" Do you agree or disagree that "[a] person’s stated identity is the primary fact about whether they are a man, woman, both, or neither?" What do you mean by "sex recorded at birth?" If a person is a man by biological sex, but is a "woman" by "gender identity," is that person a man or a woman? "Proposition 2: Identity is sex (or replaces sex for social/legal purposes). “Trans women are women” / “trans men are men” is treated as a literal truth, not a courtesy or a political slogan." What does "recognize transgender people socially" mean? Do you agree or disagree that "trans women are women" is a "literal truth?" "Proposition 3: Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid." Do you agree or disagree that a man who "self-identifies" as a woman means he is a woman, regardless of "medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation?" "Proposition 4: Denial of the identity is a denial of the person. Disagreeing with the identity claim is framed as saying the person 'doesn’t exist,' not as disputing a proposition." Do you agree that if Person A denies that Person B, a man who "identifies" as a woman, actually is a woman, Person A is denying the "existence" of Person B? "Proposition 5: Sex is a spectrum, a social construct, or at least not a strict binary relevant to policy. Chromosomes, gametes, and reproductive anatomy are treated as crude, incomplete, or bigoted ways to classify people." So is sex a "spectrum" or a "binary?" How many sexes are there? "Proposition 6: 'Assigned sex at birth' is the preferred description of sex, implying a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category." Do you agree or disagree that "assigned sex at birth" implies "a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category." Do you think a doctor "assigns" a sex to a newborn or "observes" it? "Proposition 7: Preferred pronouns and names are morally mandatory. Using sex-based pronouns is 'misgendering'; using a prior name is 'deadnaming.' Both are treated as harms comparable to slurs." Do you agree or disagree that using sex-based pronouns is "misgendering?" Do you agree or disagree that using sex-based pronouns is "comparable to slurs?" "Proposition 8: There is no polite way to state the sex distinction. 'Biological male/female,' 'natal sex,' and similar terms are often classified as hate speech or dogwhistles." Do you agree or disagree that using terms like "biological male" or "natal sex" are "hate speech or dogwhistles?" "Proposition 9: Gender dysphoria is validated by affirmation, not primarily explored as a possible misattribution of other distress. 'Watchful waiting' or exploratory therapy is frequently labeled conversion therapy. Do you agree or disagree that "gender dysphoria is validated by affirmation?" "Proposition 10: Medical transition (blockers, hormones, surgery) is healthcare, and withholding it is violence. Access is framed as lifesaving; gatekeeping is framed as cruelty." Do you agree or disagree that withholding medical transition is "violence?" Do you agree or disagree that medical transition is "lifesaving?" Do you agree or disagree that "gatekeeping" medical transition is "cruelty?" "Proposition 11: Minors can have a stable, knowable transgender identity that justifies social and often medical transition. Parental or clinical caution is cast as abuse or bigotry." Do you agree or disagree that "{m}inors {} have a stable, knowable transgender identity that justifies social and often medical transition?" Do you agree or disagree that "{p}arental or clinical caution {regarding pediatric medical transition procedures} is ... abuse or bigotry?" "Proposition 13: Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Exclusion of males who identify as women is discrimination." Do you agree or disagree that "Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex?" Do you agree or disagree that excluding males "who identify as women" from these spaces "discrimination?" "Proposition 14: Any line among 'trans women' is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is 'transmedicalism' or 'dividing the community.'" Do you agree or disagree that differentiating trans women in any way (medically-transitioned versus non-medically-transitioned, etc.) is "bigotry?" "Proposition 16: Questions are a form of harm. Asking for definitions ('what is a woman?'), evidence, or tradeoffs is treated as bad-faith or as endangering trans people." Do you agree or disagree that "{a}sking for definitions ('what is a woman?')" is "bad-faith?" As "endangering trans people?" "Proposition 17: Opposition is explained as animus. The admissible motives are hatred, disgust, or religion; safety, fairness, child protection, and definitional accuracy are discounted." Hoo, boy. This sure would be nice to see, as you have in my recollection been a non-stop member of the bucket brigade drawing water from the "Bigot!" well. Haven't seen it. "Proposition 19: Conflicts with women’s rights and gay rights are denied or inverted. Sex-based rights are reframed as bigotry; same-sex attraction is pressured toward 'attraction to gender identity.'" Do you agree or disagree that "sex-based rights" are "bigotry?" Thanks, -Smac

What is different about this from the prior monthly teacher training?

If this is accurate, it looks like church lawyers lied in their filing against Mormon Stories:

Maybe I'm being unfair. You at least sometimes come across as being selective in your focus and outrage for these LGBTQ groups. You are only further demonstrating my point. To disagree with you is to be "bigoted." To disagree with you is to be "outraged." Again, you seem incapable of allowing for reasoned and principled disagreement. You are here demonstrating why I don't see you as a reliable narrator. You cannot be trusted to fairly characterize viewpoints which diverge from yours. Here is what I have said, and which you characterize as "really, really hate": Nothing about "hate" here (as in "to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest"). I have strong principled disagreement with coerced and compelled speech, but you can't accommodate that, so you rebrand it as "hate." It is based on principle. Coerced/compelled speech is a terrible idea. I am not selective about this. It just so happens that the only substantive movement I can think of that incorporates coerced/compelled speech into its objectives and means is some parts of the LGBT movement. I see this as a tacit acknowledgment of its vacuity. You and yours can't persuade, so you coerce. It's agree with you or else be branded a "bigot" driven by "hate." It's agree with you and yours or else you will seek to use the coercive power of the State to compel me to say words I do not want to say, or else punish me for not saying them. There is no real effort here to persuade hearts and minds. "Bigot." "Really, really hate." "Morally outraged."' You just can't help yourself. To answer your question: No. The same can be said when I rendered military courtesies to officers I found to be not really deserving of it. A few reasons for this. First, I am in those circumstances effectively required to use titles, honorifics, and formalities. I knew that was part of the gig when I joined the Army, and later when I joined the Bar. Second, these formalities are principally focused on the position and the system in which it functions more than the individual inhabiting it. Band of Brothers got it right: Third, to the extent military service or courtroom formalities by members of the Bar are seen as "compelled," they are very much exceptions to the rule. I think that's a stretch, though. Calling a judge "Your Honor" is legally classified as a regulation of conduct and decorum within a specialized government facility rather than unconstitutional compelled speech. A servicemember being required to address a superior officer as "sir" or "ma'am" is not considered unconstitutional compelled speech because of the legally distinct nature of the U.S. military. While the First Amendment generally prevents the government from forcing citizens to say things they disagree with (like the Pledge of Allegiance), the rules are fundamentally different for active-duty personnel. "Bigot." "Really, really hate." "Morally outraged."' "Awful." You just can't help yourself. I am not sure what you are referencing here. Most employers are private entities, and hence are not bound by the First Amendment, which regulates State behavior relative to speech. You aren't being precise here. The assertion isn't and never was about "a complete list of everything that can exist or act." The assertion is about whether unknown forces or particles can interact with normal matter with enough vigor to have any effect on our everyday lives. And in this context, this doesn't just mean bending spoons. It means subtly nudging an electrical impulse enough to change the probability that a neuron fires. In this context, "spirit matter" (as conceived by Mormonism), "revelation" and other such things are all in the broad category of "new particles or fields". That is a fair correction on wording. The live claim is not "nothing else can exist." It is: nothing unknown can couple to ordinary matter strongly enough to change everyday outcomes, including the probability that a given neuron fires. If a soul or an act of revelation had to be a new field or particle that continuously exchanges energy-momentum with charges and ions the way known forces do, then yes — a nudge at the synapse is exactly the kind of coupling experiments were built to find. I am not saying that coupling was missed. What I am disputing, and have for years, is the requirement that revelation or a soul, if real, must be that kind of extra term in the effective theory. That is the step that turns ‘no fifth force in the neural energy range’ into ‘therefore an infinitesimal prior on God speaking.’ A cause that is not another particle species, or that does not act as a stable, law-like force across the board, is not constrained in the same way by crossing symmetry. You can reject those options. You cannot treat the rejection as if it were just the experimental bound on extra particles. "Bigot." "Really, really hate." "Morally outraged."' "Awful." "Boloney Detection Kit." I accept the particle-physics claim in those pages. If something is another quantum field that lives long enough and couples to ordinary matter strongly enough to change everyday processes — including whether a neuron is a little more or less likely to fire — then yes, we should have produced it. Carroll’s three options for missing particles are the right list for that kind of thing. I am not arguing that a hidden electron-like field was overlooked. The religious claim I am defending is not "there is a fourth option: a long-lived, moderately coupled particle we somehow missed." It is that God, or a soul, or revelation, need not be a term you add to the Core Theory equation the way you add a new force. Carroll is right that if you insist on modeling the soul as something that pushes protons and electrons around inside the existing Lagrangian, you have a serious problem. That ‘if’ is the whole dispute. Treating every influence on a brain as "must be a modification of this equation in a way colliders would have seen" is the physicalist rule. The experiments bound extra couplings. They do not by themselves prove that the only possible cause is an extra coupling. On the kit: I have said from the start that Sagan’s tools are the right tools for candidate scientific mechanisms: ESP papers, medical miracles, sloppy history, fraud. I apply them there. I do not accept that the same protocol, with the same restriction on admissible causes, is a neutral test of whether God can speak. That is not "science for thee but not for me." It is refusing to let a method designed to police extra particles in the everyday domain also serve as the sole judge of a different kind of claim. You can call that selective. I call it not collapsing two hypotheses into one. I can be wrong about God. What I will not grant is that Carroll’s bound on undiscovered particles is the demonstration that I am wrong, or that declining to treat revelation as a missing term in the Core Theory is a refusal to think. Thanks, -Smac

When?