A red-letter day in Maverick Mormon world

Well, new fans and lovers, today has been a red-letter day. It's the day I've emancipated myself from LDS Linkup (www.ldslinkup.com), home to some of the most atrociously un-Christian viewpoints that I've seen this side of Anton Lavey's website (poor analogy, I admit -- I have no idea if Satanist leader Anton Lavey is even still alive, let alone if he has his own website).

For a year-and-a-half (barring a six-month ban instigated by a fight I had with the site's resident Alpha Female, who has, oddly enough, been booted herself since that time) I have subjected myself to the ravings of lunatics who pour endless consideration into such hot topics as the church's actual stance on R-rated movies and how drinking Coke will place you in a lower level of the Celestial Kingdom. Suggest for an instant that maybe they should start with basics such as kindness and sympathy towards their fellow man and you've formed a recipe for all kinds of hand-wringing over how the "spirit of the law" is directly correlated to the "letter of the law" and other such things that only create cognitive dissonance in my own mind (ie. they bore the hell out of me).

The amazing thing? LDS LinkUp actually represents the intelligentsia of the LDS online community. These are the hip, urban kids with Master's Degrees and no intentions to marry until well after 30. To be fair, there is some exceptionally intelligent dialogue on the Politics sub-board (there's also a great deal of "my country right or wrong" flag-waving on American foreign policy, but it's still more articulate than the emotionally-charged debacles I've witnessed on other LDS sites), but get them talking about the minutiae of the Gospel and you can guarantee the stupid thread is going to go on for a million posts and go absolutely nowhere.

The fact that LDS LinkUp actually represents the best and brightest among young LDS culture is a depressing proposition indeed, and one that has convinced me that I need to make more non-member friends post haste in order to preserve my very sanity. I hate to use the trite cliche of "the church is true but the people aren't" but for me it's a truism that ranks up there with "the Earth is round" and "cats always land on their feet." Quite frankly, Mormons drive me nuts. I'm sick of their culture, I'm sick of their state (Utah), I'm sick of their initially-amusing-but-growing-quite-thin attempts at comedic cinema and I'm sick of their carrot-ridden Jell-o salad.

And yes, I'm sick of being a single LDS person. However, only in my capacity AS as LDS person do I care that I'm single -- my religion-neutral side could care less and actually quite revels in the self-centered lifestyle being single offers me. But that's fodder for another entry -- perhaps many more to come.

G'day,

The Maverick Mormon