From: TKeske@Comcast.net   
      
   "Latter Days", a movie about the struggles of a young,   
   gay Mormon, was another good movie that did not   
   attract nearly the attention of "Brokeback Mountain".   
      
   There is a long, ugly history to the Mormon Church's   
   oppression of gays, that continues to this day.   
   They used to practice electroshock of gays   
   at Brigham Young University, which is named after   
   the Mormon founder/prophet.  They defend themselves   
   by saying that they did not force electroshock on gays,   
   but only did this for gays  who "wanted" it.   
      
   However, in reality no one in their right mind "wants"   
   to be electroshocked unless they have been indoctrinated   
   and brainwashed with religious hate propaganda   
   and believe that they are "going to hell", otherwise.   
      
   What they did to our bodies is one grievance.   
   What they did to our minds is simply another.   
      
   They succeeded in making gays loathe themselves, to   
   such a pathetic degree that gays were willing to torture   
   themselves.   
      
   The Mormon governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney donated   
   a million dollars to Brigham Young.  His son attended there, and   
   had a lovely wedding ceremony that I'm sure was very   
   important to him.   
      
   Mormons have donated millions to the anti-gay   
   marriage crusade.   
      
   Mormons used to follow gays into gay bars, and take   
   pictures of them with cameras.   It was part of a pattern   
   of harassment at Brigham Young.   
      
   There are still  high-ranking Mormon clergy who preach that it   
   is OK to beat up gays, saying that they deserve it.   
      
   You will not find the media mentioning this.   
      
   The CIA likes Mormons, I have read, because they   
   are so "wholesome".   That is one of the more interesting   
   things about the human race- the irony of how it becomes   
   so completely damned in its pursuit of "wholesomeness".   
      
   I do believe that is what the Nazis wanted, at their heart.   
   Their own propaganda posters look so much like   
   Norman Rockwell or 1950s America.  Germans are strong, clean,   
   rosy-cheeked, hard-working.   The only problem is that   
   others are in comparison "sickly", "evil", "ugly","immoral"-   
   like the gypsies, the Jews, the gays.   
      
   It is just like the Mormons and  Catholics and other Christians-   
   their inflated image of themselves as "good" and representing   
   everything virtuous is contrasted by their deep loathing of others   
   for whom they have inflated perception of being just   
   the opposite.   In the end, the self-love and the hate go   
   like hand-in-glove, to turn them into perfect, little   
   monsters.   
      
   The Mormon Church, of course, hated "Latter Days."   
      
   The young Mormon in "Latter Days" is perhaps the   
   only kind of cautionary example, why not simply   
   to judge and hate them all.    At first, his later-to-be   
   lover regarded him with contempt, just a game,   
   but later understood that he was a real human being,   
   not just a sex object.   This path of discover was   
   major part of the  message of the movie.   
      
   Most gays would luck ever to find someone as sweet, idealistic and   
   innocent as that young Mormon fellow.   
      
   As refreshing as he was, I do not know if his like outlook   
   represented truth, or just an appealing fantasy.   
      
   I couldn't really believe, I'm afraid, in his uplifting concept,   
   that if you could "connect all the dots" and see the big   
   picture of life, that it would really be warm, funny and good.   
   I think that seeing the Big Picture would probably be   
   a shocking horror show of random suffering in a   
   universe that is completely blind and uncaring   
   as its innermost nature.   
      
   What should we want?   To be correct or to be content?   
      
   This is perhaps the purpose of religion- to give comfort   
   as a balm for the pain that is life.  I could forgive its being   
   that, at the expense of Truth, if the package had not come   
   combined with its tendency to act as a justification for   
   the natural human tendency to hold others in contempt.   
      
   Tom Keske   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)