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THE
MORMON CURTAIN
Containing 4,184 Articles Spanning 288 Topics Ex-Mormon News, Stories And Recovery Online Since January 1, 2005 |
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| Monday, Aug 22, 2005, at 07:11 AM Defending Martin's Cove Posted By Anonymous MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| "Guides at the cove should not be telling visitors that certain parts are off-limits because they're sacred. Sacredness and public land don't mix very well; on this we can agree with the ACLU."
The LDS Church is again embroiled in a lawsuit over public access. This time, it isn't the Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City but an empty piece of land lined by granite cliffs on the Mormon Trail in Wyoming. In June, the church joined a lawsuit on the side of the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management against the American Civil Liberties Union, which has challenged the church's lease on Martin's Cove. The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of the Western Land Exchange Project and four Wyoming residents who claim the church's lease allows it to promote a religious message on public land. One of the plaintiffs, Susan Wozny of Laramie, claimed that LDS guides at the cove repeatedly asked her about her religion and forbade her from going into certain parts of the cove because it was "sacred" ground. The cove is where members of the ill-fated 1856 Martin handcart company sought refuge from winter storms while awaiting rescue parties from Salt Lake City. Many of the handcart emigrants, suffering from exposure and starvation, died and were buried in the cove. The church attempted to purchase the cove from the BLM, but because of a lack of support in Congress, it settled for a lease at $17,000 a year. The church owns a visitors center on private property, which serves as a gateway to the area. http://www.newutah.com/modules.php?op... (Obviously this story was written by a Mormon) |
| Thursday, May 11, 2006, at 07:48 AM My Visit To Liberty Jail Today Posted By Mr. NBA MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| I am in MO on business today. I decided to visit Liberty Jail. Here is what I learned:
1. According to the tour, for no apparent reason the evil people of MO attacked the Mormons. The Mormon War, Hauns Mill were unprovoked attacks. 2. JS was falsely imprisoned for treason. But, he was gracious to his captors and the evil people who wanted to see him suffer. During his time in Liberty he produced amazing revelations. 3. Sidney Rigdon was a smooth talker, who talked his way out of jail early. 4. Mormons were persecuted because of their religious beliefs. When asked what beliefs, the response was the belief in the BofM. 5. Sister Missionaries are called upon to sing a hymn for the tour participants. Its a tug on the heart strings. Our guide should try out for American Idol. Talent wasted. 6. You get the feeling that the church is using the Hollywood game plan of sex appeal and special effects. Together they serve as a very effective focus deflector. Kind of like watching an episode of Bay Watch. Hard to remember the plot, but Pam Anderson is easy to remember. Both Girls were cute, talented and charismatic. 6. The Gold plates are on display at the Liberty Jail. (If you look closer its not the real plates. Its a clever marketing trick to give credibility to the golden plates story.) Peace Out! |
| Thursday, May 11, 2006, at 09:28 AM Cove Fort Posted By Millie MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| My family and I like to go to historic places and take tours. We especially love the old west, and thought it would be fun to see something we haven't seen before. So, for the first time, we mustered the courage to see Cove Fort.
For those of you that don't know Cove Fort was/is a fort commissioned by Brigham Young, and built by GBH's Grandfather. (I think his name was Ely.) It is located about an hour south of Provo, Utah, near the I-70 and I-15 intersection, near Beaver. It appears that the fort was always well-appropriated, and that visitors had first class accomodations. What is NEVER mentioned in the tour is the fact that this man was a polygamous. The "photograph" of the husband and wife in the last room of the tour looked odd to me as the proportions were way off and the positioning seemed wierd. Now I believe that they were clipped and placed from other photos with the rest of the wives being omitted. To hear of these two people, you would have thought they were super-human. It turns out there were more than 36 people employed at the fort. Hmmmmm.... |
| Tuesday, Jun 20, 2006, at 07:50 AM Got Preached To At Brigham's Place Posted By Journey MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| I spent a day in St. George last week, visiting an old school friend I hadn't seen since I was 17.
We had a great time. My 20 y.o. son and her 18 y.o. daughter got along great. She told her daughter how I had tried to keep her on the straight and narrow in high school, and had picked her up every morning before dawn for seminary. (I apologized and asked her not to hold it against me, as I was young and brainwashed). While killing time waiting for X-men 3 to start, I got a wild hare up my butt to take the tour of Briggy's Winter(?) home. Stoopid me, I was thinking we'd be treated to a normal tour, with interesting facts, look at the old furniture, yada yada. Nope, we got preached at, of course, about the restored gospel and all that crap. He asked us all if we were mormons and we all said "no", then of course after the tour he had to tell us about eternal families and give us the opportunity to fill out those little cards so we could receive a free gift. I declined, and he asked me how I felt about being with my family forever. I told him I was familiar with that concept. My friend's daughter spilled the beans that we were all former mormons. He looked at me like a child that had broken his favorite toy, and asked "What happened?". Wow! I wasn't really prepared for that, so I simply told him that I had stepped back and took a good hard look at the church and didn't like what I saw. He asked for specifics, but I told him he really didn't want to go down that road with me. I said that we were really just interested in the historical information about the home, and he stated that the historical and spiritual couldn't be separated. I just rolled my eyes and off we went to the movies, and a great visit afterwards. If I hadn't promised to behave, I'll bet we could have gotten thrown out of there. |
| Sunday, Dec 28, 2008, at 09:09 AM Moonie Mormon Missionary Sites Posted By whitendelightsome MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| Have any of you been to some of the church history sites or other little tourist traps the Mo's set up to milk their people of their minds and money? I made the mistake of going on a church history tour with my mother, sisters, and daughters. I won't ever do that again. I'd love to hear what some of you have been through when you've gone to LDS sites.
Church "History" Sites and the Moonie Mormon Missionaries Cove Fort is just off the I-15 and I-70 interchange in central Utah. It's in a pretty little valley that is very cold and windswept and surrounded by lava strewn hills and juniper forests. During a snowstorm it is the best place to pee while waiting for the snowplows to come through. The Mormons have done it up like Santa's village at Knotts Berry Farm with all kinds of 'Authentic" reproductions of little houses and cabins and barns and such to replicate the thriving wealth of GBH's ancestors. The fort ittself is interesting and sturdy, made from thick walls of lava stone and sturdy heavy pine doors. It's just precious, in that sort of sickening sweetness that one gets from downing 9 cups of artifically sweetened, thick karob flavored fake hot chocolate. Watch out though because as you drive up to the site and park in the nice wide parking stalls with the well lit walkways and brightly painted reproduction pioneer houses you'll see little shadows of chubby older men scurrying behind the corners of buildings, lurking and peeking, giving each other the eye to see who can waddle over to approach you first. It's almost a geezer race and you're the ribbon at the end of the track. The dominant or more agile one will get to you and the sad look or latently angry glare from the "loser" will fill you with a curious awe as he shuffles off to his post behind a building or back to his well appointed RV or double wide modular home on the premises. The goal of these well meaning but desperately bored old farts is to take you to the gates of the fort, and with some carefully practiced lines, get your name, address, and phone number so "Some representatives" can call you. Even if you're just there to pee or other necessary business they want to get you on their list, sort of like army recruiters at a high school football game, desperate to fill the dwindling ranks and assured of a "Heavenly reward" for the bonus of getting your contact info.. Don't succumb, or better yet, give them Infymus's e-mail address. That would be too dang funny. Just do your business and get the hell out of there because if you stay, it's like an endless Amway convention and you've just been selected as "Sucker of the moment". The fort is pretty cool and well appointed with the trappings and artifacts from all kinds of legendary pioneer acoutrements. The garden just outside the fort is so well attended by these competing old men that narry a weed pokes it's desperate head above ground before one of them comes and chops it with a sharp hoe. The same for any nay sayers of church doctrine or revisionist history so watch out when they come at you with their "hoes". Speaking of Hoes, they have these sweet old ladies that have been placated over a lifetime with the expression one masters at the end of a really good bowell movement....ahhhhhhhh, that feels so warm and good. The sing songy voices are so anxious to tell you the fabulous tales of the generous and welcoming Hinkley family who opened their big wooden doors to all the weary travelers passing on their way south or to California. They have the well practiced gestures of an airline stewardess, guiding you through the little rooms and showing you the precious beds and kitchen implements, all the while bearing testimony to the truthfullness of the gospel because the chamber pot is the one GBH's grandmother used and it must be good, otherwise God would have seen to it that it would be lost from the site. Don't forget how generous and loving they were to "Their Lamanite neighbors", supplying them with blankets, selling the kids for $70.00 or whatever they could get, or even better, blaming them for the MMM. Ohh the sweetness of it all will coat your tongue like cheap malted easter eggs and soon you'll be glad for the backwash of stomach bile to neutralize the sugary sappiness. You won't get out of there in less than 45 minutes if you succumb to the gates. They keep you in those little claustrophobic rooms while they witness to you till you relent out of desperation to escape. Give them anything, a name, an address, whatever or they will surround you like toothless pirhannas, gumming you to death. I made the mistake of going with my mom, sisters, and daughters on a church history tour. Forget the passive agressive 101 fiasco of navigation and resentment. That's another dissertation but Good Gawd, site after site is an excersize in redundancy and bullshit that can hardly be imagined. Nauvoo is absolutely beautiful and the restoration is so commendable, but crikey, don't get stuck in one of those buildings!! They corner you and close the doors from room to room and continue to bear witness till you will do anything to escape. I found myself having multiple Morgasms (faking pleasure and approval) over and over just so I could get through these little pieces of "History". I'm not sure what codswallop is but I hear Brits and Aussies use it all the time. It flows like sewage on a rainy day and you get it all over your shoes, it creeps up your pantleg and pretty soon you can feel it gooeing between your knees. Slogging through it from house to house you soon feel like Tim Robbins in "Shawshank Redemption". That moment you get out of the town limits is just like when he leaves the sewer and breathes fresh air. You gasp and gulp and spread your arms in a greatful gesture of freedom. At the printing office in Palmyra one gilded and naive old lady stated that the "Not YET LDS" printer of the Book of Mormon died shortly after the first printing, but that since he'd "Served his purpose here on earth", that God took him for his heavenly reward. I was fairly incensed because I doubt his non-mormon family felt that his sole purpose on this earth was to print the codswallop that was the BOM. While he may not have been paid well, it was his JOB and from what I understand, printers print stuff in exchange for money, even bullshit fantasy like the BOM. I suggested to this sweet schitzforbrains matron that I highly doubted that this man's family felt that "His usefullness" was over nor that his purposes on earth had been well served by printing the BOM. Of course mom and the entourage were upset at me for ruffling the pretty surface and I had to walk away, steamed and incensed and indignant. The rest of the trip went accordingly. I took some fabulous photos of Nauvoo with the leaves turning and sun setting over the Mississippi, the light glowing on the temple and the valley below fading into darkness. Palmyra and the surrounding area are equally lovely and I could spend weeks there going up and down the little country roads, enjoying the flavor of New England towns and history that the west just can't hold a candle to. Pretty is different than authentic though and every single site is a contrived, trumped, overdone, absolute fabricated version of the real life there or true history of the church and the people and the times. Like going to Santa's village at christmas, it's fun to see the efforts of the crafty folk who decorate and create the illusion, but don't forget that it's all fantasy. Don't make jokes about "Governor Boggs" when someone knocks on the door at the Liberty Jail, or ask about any authenticity to the first vision in Palmyra, or ask where the wars were fought in the surrounding forests. The sweet old geezers and "hoes" are ill prepared to deal with controversy and really are just the little costumed elves helping to carry out the fantasy. It's not their fault that Santa is exploiting them or that he gets to sit around getting all fat and lardy while they toil away fabricating the playthings that are the doctrine of the LDS faith. Like any museum or art gallery, the goal is to sell you stuff. They take all credit cards, cash, and travellers checks at the gift shops with authentic resin statues of JS or the other characters in the fantastic legends. You can get little aprons and clothes and nightgowns so you can look just like Emma or the other wives and concubines. You can get cast iron pots and pretend to slave away over the dishes displayed in the recipe books from the times. You can get an authentic Mormon Brick for free, well not really because you have to pay with the price of your ears swelling from a nasty puss oozing infection of Mormon bullshit first. The brick is about the size and consistancy of the rest of the crap they spew and passing it hurts like heck, but eventually the sphincter relaxes and you get back to normal. If you go, try the Fall season. The sites really get all decked out and Nauvoo celebrates Halloween in a big way with a big pumpkin carving festival and parade and trick or treating, live bands, and a few impotent "Christians" decrying the foulness of the doctrine and JS. Nauvoo is so pretty and the whole place is fun to look at. There's a big statue of Joseph Smith in front of one of the gift shops but don't try to sit on his lap. To say he'd get a big woody would be a misnomer. He's larger than life and ready to "Frig" anything that comes his way. |
| Friday, Aug 14, 2009, at 08:32 AM Utah Mormon Women And The Uniform They Wear Posted By What Is Wanted MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| Went on vacation a few weeks back to visit some TBM family members in SLC. We went to "This is the place Heritage Park" to spend the day. It was FREE DAY so there were a lot of people there and activities for the young ones.
As we waited for the TBM family to arrive my wife went to the rest room. She came out pissed off because some TBM nutter approached her in the bathroom saying " Hi, are you here to learn more about our church and its history? I would be happy to answer any question you may have." My wife looked at her strangely and said "No thank" you and walked away. She came out and told me what happend and wanted to know why the lady would think she was not LDS. That is when the veil was parted for me even more and I looked around and realized the maddness we where in the middle of. As I looked around what I saw was hundreds of LDS women dressed EXACTLY ALIKE. While the colors they wore varied the uniform was the same. What I saw were women everywhere wearing a plain pull over shirt and a pair of Capri style pants. They often had children with them, wore no to little makeup and their hair was a simple cut with little styling. All the women and teenage girls wore this uniform and they did not even realize it. I then told my wife that she stood out like a sore thumb. She was thin, had a colorful floral print blouse with, very nice slacks, designer sunglasses and salon style hair and color. She looked like a BUTTERFLY among a bunch of moths. So as we looked around we just started laughing to see more and more woman wearing the LDS uniform. As our TBM family started to arrive, lo and behold here came the females in the family wearing, plain color shirt, capri pants, no make up and surrounded by kids dressed the same. We could not keep this find to ourselves. We pulled aside 2 of our nephews 18 and 21yo (non TBM's college kids) and pointed it out to them. As they peered around they too started to laugh and said " We have lived here our entire lives and never even noticed it"...LOL So for the rest of the day we kept snickering at all those uniforms. So we had a good laugh at how a TBM could single out my wife in the toilet and teach her about the church....Because she obviously was not a member...LOL We both have been members our entire lives but totally left the cult a few years back. It feels good they no longer see us as one of them. Now here is a real kicker. My wife's entire family have lived in Utah most of their lives and the inlaws lived there their entire lives. But 95% of them have never visited "This is the Place Heritage Park" The church museum or SLC cemetary where the prophets are buried. They did not go until their APOSTATE relatives drug them there to learn some of their own history. It was nice being a tourist instead of one of the worker bee's. |
| Friday, Aug 28, 2009, at 08:06 AM Visited Nauvoo And The Shrine To Joseph Smith Aka Carthage Jail Today Posted By GenY MORMON VISITOR CENTERS -Guid- | ↑ |
| I had been to Nauvoo and Carthage before, pre mission and young in my naivety to not notice all the sanitized tidbits of the early church history that are so glaring to me today more than 10 years later.
Making my way to the small visitor center adjacent to the tissue box laden restored Carthage jailhouse one of the plaques had on it the standard and most common version of Joseph's supposed first vision with the two personages, etc. Even on my mission I didn't know about the earlier and different versions of the first vision. In the visitor center watching/stomaching the video they showed before the tour of the jailhouse I now understand why TBM's hold Joseph Smith to an almost deified state. The video was very biased to all the 'positive' things about Joseph's life. This is understandable in that propaganda is supposed to remain in line with and reinforce the common slanted view that every church member is taught about Joseph from the early days of Primary or from the very first missionary discussion. The video shows a crude representation of the BoM translation where Joseph is 'translating' while reading the gold plates like one would read a book, the common view of the translation process. As I was sitting there I wondered what people's reaction would be if they showed in the video Joe stuffing his head into a hat to translate. Also, of course the only wife mentioned in the movie and basically anywhere in the church's standard sanitized literature is poor old Emma. I understand that any organization would want to shed all the positive light it could on any figure associated with that organization and minimize or outright omit anything that goes against the grain, especially if that figure is the founder. So in that way I can understand the sanitized history the church puts out, however it is being very disingenuous in the long run especially when people can so easily obtain all the history, the 'good' and the 'bad' with a few clicks of the mouse. This is the main reason I started to become suspect to the church how it operates. If there is nothing in the church's history to hide as Hinckley said then why didn't I hear of these alternate and some would say "anti" versions of history until a few years AFTER my mission? All that time in church and seminary growing up then on my mission and I didn't hear anything about them. What is there to hide? Why not be forthcoming with all info so members aren't blindsided? In this day and age I think it does the church more harm than good to keep parading sanitized church history like people would have no way of being informed otherwise. TBM's take everything hook line and sinker because they are told to stay away from "anti" while everyday rational people don't buy it. Now that I see the church from an 'outsider's view' I can see it for what it is....of course Satan's minions are clouding my judgement and working hard against me...right? ;-) |