Church's Instagram and Facebook Accounts (but not Twitter)

[smac97]

Church Comms Dept. Features Man Who Sells Merch Mocking Church

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Key Takeaways

• The official LDS Church social media accounts featured fashion designer Pono Skousen, focusing on his career and vague faith concepts.
• Skousen is the co-founder of 'Church of Martin,' a brand that actively mocks LDS culture, songs, and doctrines with irreverent merchandise.
• This marks the second time in three months that the Church Communication Department has faced significant backlash from members over social media content.

This seems rather odd.

LDS Living has a 2023 profile of Bro. Skousen here.  No reference to his sexual orientation in it.

A video commentary from a few days ago:

A longer YouTube vid here.  From the description:

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On the last day of Pride Month, the official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Facebook account published a member spotlight featuring Pono Skousen — a fashion designer who spoke about learning to sew with Relief Society sisters and not having to choose between creativity and discipleship. It's a beautiful story. And it's only the first page.

Two taps from the church's official post and you arrive at @church.ofmartin — the fashion brand he co-founded. The brand has produced a Pride capsule collection featuring two men in an intimate embrace, shoots featuring men in women's clothing posed in front of a portrait of Christ, and content clearly aimed at gay and ex-Mormon audiences. The brand name itself is a deliberate play on LDS church aesthetics.

The temple recommend interview asks members whether they actively support or promote teachings, practices, or doctrines contrary to the church. That's not our standard — that's the church's own.

Tonight we're not asking whether Pono meets it. We're asking whether anyone at the church's social media team checked the second page before publishing. Because a 14-year-old who follows the official church account just got a two-tap path to content that contradicts everything the church teaches — delivered with the church's implicit endorsement.

Back to the first article:

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On Monday, the official Instagram and Facebook accounts for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted a story from a man named Pono Skousen, a fashion designer who lives in New York City. This was notably not posted onto X, formerly known as Twitter. 

In the post, Pono talks about how he grew up around female spaces, which influenced his desire to go into the fashion industry and design womenswear. He says that he loves to help women feel “strong, confident, and true to who they are,” and that there is a “real spiritual power in femininity.” Pono vaguely discusses how faith influences him in his career as a designer, and says that he doesn’t have to choose between “being a creative and being a disciple of Jesus Christ.” This is the only time Christ is mentioned in the post. Vague notions about identity, power, and telling stories appear more. 

What this post fails to inform anyone is that Pono is a gay man who makes and promotes products which openly mock the values of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Any Latter-day Saint doing this is troubling.  One whom is being featured on the Church's social media outlets is more so.

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Pono and another gay man, Charles Robertson, founded a fashion brand called the “Church of Martin.” This brand’s targeted demographic is gay people, more specifically gay members/ex-members of the LDS Church. On their official Instagram account, they have promoted themselves and their brand in videos, posted in May and June, which mock Church and Utah culture, often using Primary songs. 

In a Church of Martin apparel review video made by a personal friend of Pono [WARNING: partial nudity at 0:43], she notes that the brand is “ran by two gay Mormons,” and states that both of them are “definitely” openly gay. It is unclear whether the two are in a relationship. 

Just recently, in June of 2026, they released a collection based on the Boy Scouts of America. This includes a CoM-branded handkerchief, styled after the BSA’s, and a t-shirt/hoodie with a drawing of two Boy Scouts kissing, with the caption “Gay Scouts of America” under it.

They sell a shirt featuring a white and a black woman kissing enclosed in a heart with the phrase “Love one another,” which twists the words of Jesus Christ to condone homosexuality; scripture cases, with some Boy Scout theming on it; a shirt that says “I Love My Mormon Boy,” which is similar to shirts we’ve seen sold at pride festivals in Utah; many shirts based off the outfits of female Mormon pioneers, which feels very disrespectful to the “real spiritual power of femininity” that Pono holds to heart; and a shirt that says “Currently struggling with same-sex attraction,” which seems to mock Church rhetoric. 

I'm reminded of Chad Hardy, who also made money creating commercial products which sexualized things pertaining to the Church (scantily-clad Latter-day Saint women and former missionaries).

I wonder what is going on here.

Thanks,

-Smac

[longview]

At the very least, he has powerful artistic expressions. He appears to have great vim and vigor. His brain may be wired differently. He has great joy in crafts and fashion projects.

If he is faithful to the Law of Chastity, will he consider partnering with a "faithful" lesbian just to take on the commandment for having a biological family reared in love?

[ZealouslyStriving]

And instead of pulling it from the Facebook page, it has been followed up with a post clearly designed to make people feel guilty for pushing back against the Pono post.