It gets weirder
Christopher Bigelow, co-founder of the satirical Mormon newspaper The Sugar Beet and the Mormon literary magazine Irreantum, blogs that the recent gay demonstrations are a sign that Salt Lake City is destined to become the capital of wickedness — sort of counterbalancing it's identity as HQ of the LDS church.It sounds a lot like satire (or, if it wasn't coming from a Mormon, I would say bad acid), but I think Bigelow is being serious and his point of view might resonate with many Mormons. (Evangelicals, of course, believe SLC is already is a seat of evil.)
Salt Lake City proper is already fast moving away from Mormonism and swiftly moving toward the most liberal, progressive "worldly" values and outlooks. I'm not saying those values and outlooks are necessarily or 100% bad, but this process is creating a vacuum in Salt Lake proper as the old Mormon hegemony sloughs off and something else arises to take its place. When the pendulum has been as far right as it historically has been in Salt Lake, it's natural that, once loosened, it would swing way over to the left.Oh, I get it — it's really the rise of so-called gentiles and Demoncrats in Salt Lake that is driving this horror. Barack Obama's carrying Salt Lake County could only have been a another sign of the apocalypse. Here's Bigelow's predictions (I dare not call it prophecy):
- Militant gays will flock to SLC. "It will become the ultimate 'We're here, we're queer' trend to move into the shadow of the Salt Lake Temple and practice their alternative lifestyle."
- A gay SLC mayor within a decade."You take our rights, we'll take your city."
- Church HQ itself will become, "essentially, a fortress in the midst of it all."
6 Comments:
A gay SLC mayor within a decade? It will be much sooner than that.
The comment on your post about the BYU/Utah football game was right. Without the Mormon church you'd have nothing to write about.
It's so true, you wouldn't have a job without the Mormon church. So, you're indirectly employed by the Mormons. Funny really.
Here's to hoping that the lds church never pulls it's head out so he has something to write about.
My god, that religious nut-job blogger writes like he lives in Provo. Look, I love Salt Lake - and every since I was a teenager (back in the 80s), I"ve been going there to score drugs and basically have a good time. But to imagine that it will *ever* be anything close to San Francisco or New York (or Chicago or Los Angeles) is just plain delusional.
What is happening is that mormons are becoming more and more removed from mainstream society. Their anti-gay views are just the tip of the iceberg, and the flourishing of a gay population in SLC is just the sign that's most visible to them. But I assure you, it's not unique to Salt Lake. Visit Boise, Portland, Sacramento or any of a dozen mid-sized cities within 1000 miles and you'll see the same thing: a flouring gay population. What you won't see: a large population of religious extremists who fantasize that their state/city/whatever is gay-free.
Again, what's unique here is the large number of mormon reactionaries who are increasingly distant from the rest of society. Gay society is flouring everywhere. That the blogger noticed it lately says more about him than about Salt Lake.
I disagree with embarcadero. Mainstream society is migrating and the mormons are dragging their feet behind, but still following.
By the way, congratulations on scoring drugs in SLC. I'll characterize you as a drug-nut-jobber who writes like he lives in San Francisco.
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