webbles

There was a transwoman who just recently expressed a desire to play in the WNBA. It is possible that this is what triggered it all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Tétart. She is a player on the French women's division. She expressed the desire on Aug 6. I believe the men that smac is talking about made their announcement on Aug 7.

If you want to read all of the filings as they come out, see https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73209567/intellectual-reserve-inc-v-open-stories-foundation/. It has the ACLU and EFF amicus briefs. And it has the latest filing from the Church. The current state is that Dehlin has filed a Motion to Dismiss, the ACLU and EFF filed an amicus brief in support of the motion, and the Church just filed their response to it. That is what triggered the latest batch of news. In the Motion to Dismiss, one of Dehlin's arguments is that this case is long after any statue of limitation. The term is "latches" for copyright cases and both of the motions (Dehlin's and the Church's) talk about it. The Church says that it has basically gotten worse. Starting on page 27 of their motion: (there are images that I can't copy from the pdf so I put <image> to indicate where they would go) Both motions are arguing about 2 different Supreme Court cases and which one has priority. Dehlin argues that "Rogers v. Grimaldi" is the controlling case and the Church argues that "Jack Daniel’s Props., Inc. v. VIP Prods. LLC". The 1989 Rogers case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_v._Grimaldi) said that using a trademark word in a title is acceptable and gave a formula (called the Rogers test) to determine if the trademark was being infringed. The 2023 Jack Daniels case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel's_Properties,_Inc._v._VIP_Products_LLC) said that the Rogers test does not cover situations where the trademark was used as a trademark by the infringer. I think the Church's argument is stronger because "Mormon Stories" seems to be more than just a title. It is more like the identity. Yes, the company is technically called "Open Stories" but it is mostly marketed as "Mormon Stories". But even if the Church wins here, it just means it goes into the discovery phase. Dehlin could still win at the end.

I read that article and the ordinance and I don't see any "explicit let transgender people use the restroom of their choice". The ordinance is an anti-discrimination ordinance. It does say that it covers "public accomodations" that could cover public restrooms, but it isn't explicit and I don't see any attempt to use this ordinance in that manner. Additionally, in 2001, there was a case in Minnesota where a transwoman sued her employer because she was denied the right to use the women's bathroom. It went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court who ruled that the Minnesota Human Rights Act (which had similar language to the Minneapolis ordinance) did not protect her and that her employer could force her to use the men's bathroom. The case is GOINS v. WEST GROUP (https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/mn-supreme-court/1061687.html is one location to read it). If the Minneapolis ordinance actually allowed transgender people to use the restroom of their choice, then it is odd that she didn't sue under that ordinance. And it is interesting that a very similar law was read the opposite. So, I don't think that the Minneapolis ordinance has anything to do with transgender people and bathrooms.

That's not the current policy.

They don't say everything is unknown. There are somethings that are known per the scripture. But the parts that the scripture doesn't explain is the Mystery. So, if you try to force other Christians to define things in those mysterious parts, you are either going to get their own personal ideas or the answer "it is a mystery". Similar to asking us to explain how God came to be God. Is He the original one or does He have a Father? Was He a savior of His world like Christ or not?. These are things we don't know and only have speculation on. It also kind of defeats your statement of "God helps us understand Him by continuous revelation through living prophets". Even for us, there are limits on what has been revealed. I think the normal response for us is that it is not important to our understanding of God, and I would expect that is also the normal response for other Christians as well. The things defined for the Trinity do allow theological disagreements between trinitarianism and us. And it does also show that we "believe in a different God/Jesus". I'm not saying that the entire belief of God is a mystery. Only the details about the Trinity are a mystery. For the Catholic church, the declaration of what is heretical or not would be called continuous revelation to us. They have the public revelation, which is all of the revealed scripture. And then God continues to give inspiration to make sure that it is understood correctly. So the Nicaean creed is pretty much the same thing as our document "The Living Christ" (the one from 2000 signed by the 15). The first is from leaders of the church who got together, discussed, argued, and came to an agreement and wrote to the world. The second is also from leaders of the church who got together, discussed, argued, and came to an agreement and wrote to the world. And both groups believe they were inspired. We (LDS) accept the inspiration of the latter but not the former. Catholics (and other trinitarians) accept the inspiration of the former but not the latter.

There's a reason that the Trinity is called a "Mystery". It can't be fully explained with our human understanding. We (LDS) have similar things with our belief in God. For example, to say that we believe in "one God" because it is a title, station, etc doesn't really help because we do believe that Heavenly Father is actually a God and the God. We pray to Him, not to Jesus. But Jesus is also a God but not the God. We do have multiple Gods as separate entities. Redefining it the way you did doesn't help with Occam's Razor approach.

In the last 70ish years, how is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints any different from the Catholic church with regards to revelation. We say we have continuous revelation but yet there are no new published revelations. Just "divine inspiration". Will we continue doing that? And when we get to be as old as the Catholic church (thousands of years old), will a new upstart religion be able to say the same thing you are saying here? That we (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) don't believe in continuous revelation because we only have "divine inspiration". Revelation means something specific for Catholics and is targeted for very specific things. But they still believe that God leads them and directs them. Pretty similar to us. We just use revelation much more broadly.

I'm from a small town in Arizona (Mohave County) and I always wanted to go to EFY growing up and that is the 80s/90s. I did get to attend the younger "World of Adventure" which was only for pre-teen boys. There was also a "World of Adventure" for pre-teen girls. Similar to EFY/FSY but for younger ages. I think they merged those in with EFY in 1999 - https://universe.byu.edu/1999/04/12/lds-church-educational-system-makes-changes-to-youth-program

Latest news points to the people were there for the funeral https://www.ksl.com/article/51611958/twin-brothers-identified-in-kearns-funeral-shooting The person who was killed was visiting from Seattle specifically for the funeral. The police also no longer believe it was gang-related. And all the participants are distantly related to each other.

My comments started because Analytics said we would still be able to prosecute such cases. And I just don't see how. Before society changed to allowing trans women into locker rooms, a woman in a locker room who was stalked by someone didn't need that much proof if the person was a man. Because it was assumed that he shouldn't be in there and so must be nefarious. I agree this was bad for trans women. But with the change in society, now if a woman is stalked by an actual man (not transwoman) who is in the locker room, she has to have even more proof or just accept being the victim. I don't know how to make it work but it is what bugs me the most about this. I don't see how these cases can be prosecuted anymore. Locker rooms and other sex-segregated places are no longer safe places for woman.

Maybe Elder Shumway isn't getting a modest stipend or anything because he is currently employed.

How is this prosecutable? You said that we would still be able to prosecute exhibitionism, voyerism, etc. That's my issue. How do we protect victims? If we could trust everyone to be reasonable, we wouldn't need criminal laws. But we can't trust everyone to be reasonable.

The first one I linked to - https://www.deseret.com/utah/2026/08/17/1-dead-2-critically-injured-in-kearns-funeral-shooting/

It doesn't seem like the people who were involved in the shooting were there for the funeral. Or at least, that's how the news articles read to me. One of the articles mentioned how the police don't believe there is any relation. So just bad coincidence.

I don't think "what's the person doing" or if it is "creepy behavior" would work. That isn't prosecutable. Because a locker room allows behaviors that would normally be considered creepy. How do you define "she is hanging out in the locker room more than she needs"? How do you prosecute that? That's why I feel like this change is going to limit prosecution to only assault and I guess things that involve external things (like a phone). But exhibition, voyeurism don't require those. So they cease to be prosecutable. Also, maybe I'm misreading you, but telling someone who was a victim of exhibitionism to "get over it" feels a little callous.

Another article https://www.deseret.com/utah/2026/08/18/father-of-teen-shot-at-kearns-funeral-arrested-for-investigation-of-murder/ This one describes what the police think happened. What kind of dad hands a gun to his kid to shoot another person?

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2026/08/17/1-dead-2-critically-injured-in-kearns-funeral-shooting/ https://www.fox13now.com/news/crime/police-investigate-possible-gang-connection-in-deadly-shooting-outside-church-funeral-in-kearns Interesting that the police were contacted before the shooting and they were there and heard the shots.

I think it would be pretty easy to determine sexual assault, but the others you mentioned (voyeurism, spying, exhibitionism). How would we prosecute them? I've been in locker rooms where if the same behavior was done outside of a locker room, it would be considered exhibitionism. Or how do we say that someone is spying. Say a person in a locker says that another is spying, then what? We don't have cameras in locker rooms. And if the person being accused is a trans person, wouldn't they see it as an attack on them and rightfully defend themselves? That's where I come from. Sex segregated places made it a bit easier to determine if someone was being nefarious. A person could accuse another person and if the accused happened to be the wrong gender, then it was a simple case. But that's no longer the situation. Now, it seems like we have to have actual assault before any prosecution can happen.

By the way, https://fullerconsideration.com/DeseretDemographer/ is a pretty interesting site that tries to graph out the changes in membership over time. It includes both disaffected members, less active (but still believing), moderate active, and full active, children under 8, and "lost deceased" (people who are still on the church records but have died and will stay there till they are 110 or discovered earlier). The methodology seems pretty impressive and it does incorporate Pew Research as well as others.

I'm guessing that the ChatGPT is talking about is actually https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/12/15/why-do-some-americans-leave-their-religion-while-others-stay/ or something like that. Because the report you linked to only has a single line about LDS and it is the percentage change over each year (1% on 2025, 2024, 2023, then 2% on 2022, and back to 1% on 2021). I'm not seeing anything in the pdf you linked to that has anything like what chatgpt is talking about. It is a 4 page report that is mostly talking about how frequently people go to church.

Are you sure that is the correct link? Because I don't see the numbers that chatgpt is talking about. I'm wondering if there is a different link?

Isn't this the same for the other side? Those who are pushing for transgender people to be in sports but don't know anything about sports are probably being manipulated by somebody for political purposes?

Oh, it absolutely was a forced marriage solution. She didn't really make the choice, it was done by her parents. But it isn't polygamy related. Parent arranged marriages where the child (either daughter or son) didn't agree was definitely a thing in those days. I'd love to see these other stories. Do you know where I can find them? I don't think the website does a good job with arguing those three points. I actually agree with the first point and I think the website isn't really strong in their argument. The way it is written, it is all over the place and doesn't really use the data it has. It references some data that is not very strong or incorrect. So, even though I agree with it, I wouldn't use that website as a source to learn. I disagree about the other 2 points. Now this could be because I do believe that God actually did command polygamy (and yes, I've prayed about it and studied it extensively). So I don't find the website's arguments very convincing.

The first quote is from a 12 May 1844 discourse. It is what Thomas Bullock recorded. There is another account from George Laub that is similar but different at the same time - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-12-may-1844-as-reported-by-george-laub/4 Kind of explicit that blood is the corruptible part, not flesh. The second quote is from a 20 March 1842 discourse. It was what Wilford Woodruff recorded - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-20-march-1842-as-reported-by-wilford-woodruff/4

I think I actually found out who the people are: Mercy Fielding Thompson, her husband James Lawson, and her daughter Mary Ann Thompson. Mercy is an Englishwoman. She was married to Robert Thompson who died in 1841. Her daughter, Mary Ann Thompson, was born in 1838 and is her only daughter. Mercy was then sealed to Hyrum, which would make her a widow of a close relative to Joseph (and Robert was a close friend of Joseph). She marries James Lawson in 1847 and he goes on a mission to the Sandwich Islands from 1852 to 1855. When he returns, he marries a third wife in 1855. The new wife is Elizabeth Ann Noon, the daughter of Sarah Noon, the wife of Heber C. Kimball. That matches everything that Remy said: Englishwoman, widow of Joseph relative, only child is a daughter named Mary, remarries, husband goes on a mission to the savages, new wife is from Heber's harem and married in 1855. I can't find any thing from Mercy, Mary Ann, James, or Elizabeth that mention this episode so no additional corroboration.