Episode #187: Pride Goes Before The Fall W/Justin Francom

0:26 The you're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast. Well, look, this is one of those those episodes that I'm sure is going to get a lot of views and a lot of listens. And this could end up with you and I both being in a lawsuit, Facebook jail, YouTube jail and general outcast of societies. But other than that, this is going to go great. How you doing tonight Justin? I am ready to be a pariah. I'm ready to be a pariah. Let's do it. All right, dude, When when we first started talking about this? Wait real quick, Dave.

1:12 Yeah. Happy, Happy Pride Month. Dude, I look, I didn't do that because I wasn't going to do that to you, right? I thought about it and then I was like, well, he's not going to do that to me. I can't do that to him. And like a brother should you got you beat me to it. I second guessed myself. That's my fault. Folks, This is a lesson. You never ignore the promptings of the spirit. You always go first. Well placed, Sir. I like to call it beware of Pragma. Honestly, I think there's, I think it's kind of great, right? I think we need to come up with five more deadly sins and we can have one to focus on every month. Yes. Yes, it's a a great call to repentance. Yeah, You know, because we wouldn't want to devote a whole month of celebration to like, I don't know, the troops, you know, anybody else worthwhile.

2:04 We, you know, really victimhood's where it's at, Justin. That's been our problem. We haven't played the victim enough. As Mormons, I think we should really look into this. I think we're missing out on a few things. I think. I think there's something to be had so. We need a Mormons were persecuted month. I know, I know. We need a Mormon month, that's all I'm saying. And not like like hardcore Mormon month, like you and me kind of Mormon month, right? So so. I I could see it already. It'll be great. All the companies will put, you know, the Deseret flag and stuff on their. Logos. Oh no, you silly man. Don't you know alternative lifestyles are fine. If you're on the left side of the spectrum politically, then it's good.

2:49 But guys like you and I know that's not for us, my man. So Matt, as we as we were talking about this last night, I was like, I'll be honest, there are certain episodes that I don't want to do right, but need to be done. And this is one of those. And as we approach this, we're we're going to do it like we always do it. And and I'm sure there'll be some humor along the way, but this is pretty serious stuff, right? So Justin, what? What'd you find, man? Well, I've just been trying to keep up with with the with the culture, right? And there's a lot of things, a lot of things going bad, but then there's there's some positive stuff as well, honestly.

3:34 So, but I think it's time to really look at some of these things and address them. And what I'm specifically talking about here is, well, Pride, LGBTQIA, plus all that, all that stuff, because the culture on this, even within the church has shifted an immense amount since, well, since the proclamation of the family came. I'll, I'll be honest. So I was still in the church when the proclamation of the family came out. And I was like, at first, really, really excited because I'm like, finally we've got some new revelation, something new official.

4:15 Coming. You know, I mean, my whole life I was I've been waiting for some new. You were waiting come from the church. You were waiting for the call to go back to Missouri, right? I mean, I think as priesthood holders, we all. Work something we the seal portion coming out maybe? Something. You know something and then the procolate, and I'll be honest at the time, I'm just like, what is this? What is this? I mean, it's not, it wasn't bad. It was just like, so in your face, obvious. Duh. I'm just like, OK, I'll be honest. I'll hand it to those men. Dude, I got to. Give it to the guys whose signatures are on the proclamation to the family that was inspired Revelation and it's insane that it's not canonized in the scripture.

5:02 Absolutely. You know, it's, it's funny because that came out when I, the year I joined the church, I joined the church in 95. That came out, I think late 95, early 96, right. And I remember had a couple of buddies like, why did you become a Mormon? I'm like continuing revelation, bro. And they're like, well, what do you got? I'm like, well, all this stuff in the Doctrine of Covenants, they're like, yeah, that's from the 1800s, like right now, what do you got? And I'm like, well, this, they just released this, right? And there was a proclamation and everybody was like, well, yeah, but I don't know if you can call that revelation. That's that's pretty. That's a no brainer, right? I mean, look, we knew there were gay people out there, right? And we didn't necessarily have a problem with it, right? We're just like, whatever you do you, not my thing, you do you. But we never saw coming what has happened recently, right? In my youngest 17 year old self, I was like, well, this is a no brainer.

5:57 Of course, there will always be outliers and we need to, you know, make sure that our position is fortified. But you know, the the interesting thing was is I'm like you, I kept waiting for that bad boy to be canonized, right? I'm not sure that you can't. Like if you're using just the definition of what scripture is, I think that meets the qualifications right? I mean, it deserves. It it was signed by the quorum and the First Presidency, they all signed it. I mean, if that's not, I mean other than the need to present it to the church to be accepted, what else is there? Yeah, yeah, no. And and I've always said if we wanted to put this debate to rest in the LDS Church, super simple, canonize that that that proclamation done no more, right, We see what kind of effect that can have.

6:47 Look, most devout Mormons in the LDS church, they still think that plural marriage, whether they like it or not, is, is doctrinal, right? Because it's in the book, right? We could do the same. The same thing could be done with the proclamation. And in my estimation, the only thing that's missing is the political will to get it done, right. I mean, all the trappings are there. I think it's pretty telling that it hasn't been done. That thing is what, now 95? That thing is 30 years old this year and and it's the. Most relevant. It's it's probably the most relevant thing that's ever come out of the modern church. Absolutely. And and it's still just languishing in this in between area, right?

7:32 Right. Yeah. And I'm like, OK, if, if the church isn't going to use it, can we have that? Because I think that's kind of cool, right? Like it, it kind of actually, you know what we we ought to do a a fundamentalist family proclamation to the world. Yeah. That would be money. All right, so everybody send your submissions to Dave. Let's do an official Fundamentalist Family proclamation. With that one statement, you have single handedly destroyed my e-mail like I'm going to. I'm sorry there tonight and clean that bad boy out. Cuz I won't. Happen. You need to cut that. You can cut it. No, I'm gonna leave it in. It's good. It's too good not to. So what are you seeing exactly? Yeah, so I mean, I try to keep abreast of culture. I like to know what's going on and, and where minds and hearts are.

8:20 And I saw, I saw some really interesting stuff happening on social media. And one of them, one of these things actually kind of shocked me, but I think it just kind of, well, let me share it. I'll show you this post. This was made by actually, I believe it was originally put on Facebook. I don't have the whole thing. I'm not on Facebook. Here we go. Hey, here we go. You got it, Is that it? Yep. What's up? All right, this came out from Fair Mormon. OK. And. Anybody what fair Mormon is, in case they don't know. Right so fair Mormon is it's church adjacent.

9:02 It's not official in any way officially connected to the LDS Church, but it's basically the apologetic arm. The the the most well known popular. I mean, I honestly, it's they they they're they can be a great resource. A lot of times, sometimes as apologetics go, I find sometimes things get stretched to try to accommodate a narrative and you have that a lot of times and apologetics. And maybe I should explain apologetics. So apologetics is the the the theological philosophical defense of your theology. It's not like giving an apology, right? It it? No, it's not.

9:42 Giving an apology? No not at all not at all. In fact apologetics are usually usually pretty arrogant in us off putting to me in a lot of ways. But but the idea behind it is there's a lot of anti Mormon lies and and half truths out there, right, right. And the idea with apologetics is to answer those claims. So when somebody's like, Hey, I heard that Joseph Smith had underage wives, you know, they're going to have an article talking about explaining it, putting into context. OK, well, underage according to modern society or society back then, right. And questions of whether whether there were relations or not. And so they they take things that, you know, anti Mormons generally will take as shock and awe to try to deter people from their faith in the in the restored gospel. And they try to answer some of those claims and criticisms. And, you know, I mean, honestly, The funny thing is, as a fundamentalist, I find that a lot of the Anthony Mormon stuff is just like, yeah, yeah.

10:51 Yep. Did you know that? Did you know that Brigham Young said Adam was God? Yeah, yeah. And I'm pretty good with that idea, right? Yeah, yeah. Mm. Hmm. But anyway, that's kind of what Fair Mormon is. And so it's a it's a well respected organization within, within Mormon culture, within the LDS culture. And a lot of people go there to find help when they encounter stuff that they don't understand when people are attacking the faith. So they put out for pride month this post and they started a firestorm on on social media.

11:36 So loving our LGBTQ plus brothers and sisters, you know, I don't have any. I don't see anything wrong with with that per SE, right? I think that that's something that we definitely should remember. Definitely something we should remember that you know you can you can love the Sinner despite the sin. Yep. However, however. Can can I stop you just there before you move on there? Because because I want to point something out, right? This is something that we get a lot, which is well, you just want them to go away. You just want them to die. And that's not the case. Neither of us are advocating like, look, if you want to see what that looks like, go to the Middle East, right? Go ahead and go set up shop in Iraq, in Iran, any of those countries over there.

12:26 I am a fan. I'll just say this now. I am a fan of not throwing people off buildings. I I'm crazy that way, right? I I mean, don't get me wrong, I like to throw a good party, but never once did, yeah, let's throw that dude off the building. Seem like a good thing no matter which way he swings, right? And I don't espouse that. So anyone who thinks this is a call for violence or anything like that, put that away. That's not what we're doing here. No, not even close, not even close. But The thing is, is that the pride movement might have started with this desire to seek recognition, right?

13:06 And I can understand a certain amount of of sympathy to that at that time where they don't want to be second rate citizens. Right. OK, I don't think anybody should be a second rate citizen. However, at this point this is 2025. Right. It's no longer about being an equal citizen, and it's about being a privileged citizen. Yes, and it's about making everybody else agree. That is a great point and that's something I have said a few different times on the show here, which is what was the fatal flaw here with the LDS church on this? It was not understanding the game that you were playing, right?

13:52 The I firmly believe that the LDS Church had great intentions of, you know what, just like I was saying, we don't want to see violence perpetrated on people no matter what, right? Not our thing. We think all people should be able to go out and buy whatever rent, whatever space they can afford, right? Everybody should should have a right to to work, so to speak, if you're willing to put in the work. And and I think the church was was in that camp. What they didn't realize is that the ones up top who were pushing this agenda, the LGBTQ agenda, they were playing a different game. They weren't. They were saying, yeah, hey, we we just want, we just want recognition.

14:37 What they were really wanting was to win at all costs, full riot at the expense of of things that we hold dear as Mormons. Look, no faith in the world is as reliant on heteronormative behavior between husband and wife than Mormonism. It is a core central tenet. And to have us just throw that out undermines our perception and belief in God. And I think this is one of the lessons we really need to take away, which is understand what game you're playing and who who the opponent is and do a little bit of research before you just poke the I believe button and run with it.

15:20 Right. And let's be honest here too though, right? Like I, I agree with you there. However, you know, if I show up in full Magagarb at a Starbucks looking for a job, you know I'm not getting that, you know, you know I'm not getting that job. Why? Why? They would be bad to their brand. It would offend their customers. I understand that. Actually I'm I'm OK with that even. Sure. And so, yeah, I, I think that anybody, everybody deserves to have a place to have work, but that doesn't mean you, you have a right to work in any place and position that you so desire or to live in any place and position that you desire.

16:02 I mean man, I remember being a a college student and I would not want college students live in next door to me if I lived in a duplex. Right. I wouldn't, right? And if my landlord was putting them there, I'd be me and anybody else with a family in that neighborhood going to want to move. And then so I think it's it's reasonable to understand that discrimination is a natural thing and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Right. This is this is how we learned don't eat that plant. Do eat that plant. This plant that you, this plant feels your tummy. This plant gives you the runs right? Check. And so discrimination is is an important characteristic and and and judgement of that kind. We just don't want to judge unrighteously. And I think that's up to individuals to decide not not to the state.

16:52 I agree. And so I'm not a fan of of state sponsored guaranteed. Me neither. You know, rights like that anyways. And personally, as as fundamentalist history shows, fundamentalist aren't we don't get those perks. No, no, no, no. We. In fact, even to this day, right? I know people who've lost jobs over over their religious positions and fundamentalism. And that's tragic, right? But do you want to live in a world where the government's policing that though is either though.

17:33 Absolutely not. And, and look, I wasn't espousing government, you know. No, I know, I know. But that was the church's thing. Is that that that sounds charitable. That sounds nice. I'm not even there though. First, personally, I'm still like, but that's not even where they wanted anyways. They weren't looking for equal rights. They were looking for superior rights and we see that with the DEI and all these DI hiring practices. Right. And yeah, so with that, I mean with the context of of pride, it being Pride Month, a post like this is just kind of, in my opinion, a little bit in poor taste. Sure.

18:13 Yep, Now they they listed the church's official stance on this, right. So the church does not take a position on the cause of same sex attraction. OK, sure. I mean, it's, it's not, we don't have a theological basis to to make a determination like that, right? It's not like the scriptures we're we're not that. This isn't the Nemenhah. No, yeah, let's not revisit that. That was rough. Let's not revisit that. Yeah, But you know, we don't have any theological grounds to say what where this comes from other than, well, Satan's the father of of all elites and sins. So. You're right. Outside of that, feelings of same sex traction are not a sin.

18:56 That statement I find a little bit I I understand what they, what they, what can be meant from that, but it can mean a lot. It can look like it's saying a lot of different things, right? Right. Because I mean, could you, if we replace same sex attraction there with lusting to to another man's wife to take another man's wife by force, feelings of desiring to take another man's wife by force, it's not a sin. Is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean. So there's a difference, I think, behind an innate attraction and, and an actual desire, a specific desire, right, Right. And those specific desires, whether or not it's a sin, they're not healthy, right?

19:45 And they, they shouldn't be entertained. And it doesn't say anything about that here though, right? There's nothing here saying like, but to dwell on it, to fantasize about it to you know that that you can't take that too far. Yeah, that, that is a different thing. And the other thing, I'll say this, there's a man once in the LDS church, he told me and he said that upon which you fix your eyes is what you will come to desire, right. And look, as normal heterosexual men, we can appreciate a good looking woman. We make sure not to dwell on it though, right? You put that away as quickly as it comes and and then you move on from that. And so I'm like you, it's it's kind of ambiguous given the the context.

20:36 Right. I mean, I think there probably are clearly there's some kind of innate thing going on there or maybe not innate, but nonetheless a developed thing. There's something there that I don't have because I don't, I don't have that. No. But I do have an interest in women though. Right. And so it's not like I'm completely unempathetic, but at the same time I watch myself because of I take responsibility for my inclinations to desire to sin. And that almost seems like a, an excuse to that. You don't have to, you don't need to take that responsibility. That's why it bothers me a little bit. Like I, I, I, again, it's not like people can have things that aren't their fault, but you know, it just, it's worrying.

21:27 It worries me. What is the message that's being conveyed to people? Right, because there's not enough nuance here. And that's what bothers me. These look at these, these bullet points and there's there's really no nuance to any of this. There's no really going deep and well, what do you mean by feelings? What is that feeling? Is that mean just the fact that you are interested in men in general? Because if that's the case, OK, sure, I understand that, right? But if it's talking about in specific, well clearly that's a sin. Just like it would be for me to specifically see a woman and say I I want to I want to lust after her. Right. No.

22:09 But that's Christ, the higher law that's committing adultery in your heart. Absolutely. And and that's where I was going next, right, is there's that whole thing about not lusting. And so are, are they talking about lusting? Are they talking about somebody just noticing somebody else? Where's it at? There's no nuance here to this. And to put this forward, and I want to say this, timing is everything, right? Had this been done in the month of September, we're probably not batting much of an eye at it, right? Wait, isn't September gay History Month? I don't know my birth month anyway, No, no, my yeah, I just again, timing is everything, right?

22:58 And look, if it, it has the appearance of of celebrating Pride month with every other organization out there, right? Every other business or nonprofit, right? And. That's that last quote specifically here that really to me is the most off putting. It says those who experience same sex attraction or identify as gay can fully participate in the. Church or? Identify as gay. That's weird, isn't it? Isn't that strange because I like. The same sex attraction terminology because you're just stating a fact. Right. I'm an opposite sex attracted person. Some people are same sex attracted. You're just stating a fact, right? But I don't say that.

23:46 You know, I don't call myself a whoremonger. I don't identify as a whoremonger, but there's definitely an inclination in there, right? There's a there's certainly a darkness within me that without the gospel would lead me to desires that would go to a place like that. But I don't call myself that. Right. And generally speaking, again, the the language is so ambiguous here, right? But generally speaking, if somebody says that they are gay, it kind of in all the world that I know. And maybe maybe things are different in Utah, but in all the world, I know people who say I'm gay, it means that they have sexual relations with men or, or with, you know, with women, with women or men with men. It's it's not an issue of, of just attraction. By saying you're gay is kind of saying that you actually act on and engage in that kind of stuff. Yeah, no, that's, that's a good point. The the other thing that I was looking at there with that because, because my eyes went to that too when I saw that earlier this week.

24:57 If, if you are attracted to the same sex, right? And, and here I think you can say you at least have those inclinations, right? But to identify it that way, right, Just like you were saying, if you're a raging alcoholic and you stop being a raging alcoholic, you don't you might understand that that's. You say I'm I'm 500 days sober. Yes, you don't say. Exactly you you don't embrace it right, You don't go well, I've seen this happen actually, but you shouldn't, you shouldn't, right.

25:38 You shouldn't say like, Yep, I'm an alcoholic and then just embrace it, right? And look as as and as believers in the restored gospel. There's not a lot of ways that that lifestyle can fit inside of the restored gospel. It's, it's, it seems to wreck that plan to a certain extent, right? Right, right. And so again, same sex attraction. I mean I I've known people that are have same sex attraction that have. Had. They've gone through experiences with the gospel and they have found healing through that and that they have found even wives and have gone on and, and, and been able to live functional lives right, Despite that adversity.

26:29 However, if you're still identifying as gay, how can you fully participate in the church? Like so if you, you can identify as gay and be sealed to a woman, is that, is that smart? Is that safe? Like if you still like, I mean, I, if you said, hey, I, I, I, I'm same sex attraction. I had that, I was born with it, but I don't act on it and I, I'll never act on it again. I'm committed to never acting on it again. And I think that I have attraction to women as well and I'm willing to, to, to be sealed. That's, I think that's fine. That's great. That's a good thing, right?

27:10 Right. But if you're just saying no, no, I'm gay, I'm not attracted to women, I'm attracted to men. But I want to fully participate in the church, so I'm going. Well, yeah, I mean, let's face it, right? I mean, think of all the callings that we know of because we were both members of the LDS Church, that they usually make sure that unless you're in a singles ward, you're probably married for right. You got Bishop, you got elders, corn president, you've got all their counselors. I guess there's no high priest group now, but just go down the list, right? There's a lot of them that they, they, you know, last time I checked, and I could be wrong, I haven't read it in a long time. But like, I remember that, like I remember being in APEC and that was called Priesthood Executive Committee, you know, before they change stuff up and we would bat around ideas for certain callings and be like, oh, you know what? I wish brother so and so was married because he'd fit this one right.

28:13 And so and again, there are outliers like in singles wards and that sort of thing where I have seen it before, where, where there is somebody who's not married in one of those positions, usually a counselor, but usually the president didn't want to see you married, right? Excuse me? Well, and then also as far as participation goes too, not just that, right, but like if somebody does have admits that they've got an, you know, they're struggling with something like that. There are certain callings that might not be the best idea, right? You may maybe it's not the best for you to be working with young men, for example. And I think that's very reasonable. Right.

28:56 We wouldn't send a dude unaccompanied to to to girls camp, right? I mean. Right. And I don't think you you do that at all either, right, in general. No. And so we don't have women teach, you know, the, the priest quorum or be the priest quorum teacher. We don't have men be the young women's teachers. Absolutely. I mean, I, I think that's kind of reasonable. It's just common sense. It's. Kind of common sense. It's not saying you're a bad person, it's just saying you're a dude. You don't. You don't need to be hanging around the young women. Right, right. Same thing last time, Yeah, No, Yeah.

29:36 So that whole thing about full participation, I want to ask what is that define that for me? Is that just showing up to church and taking the sacrament? Well, I got no problems with that. If you're you're working through those things, trying to to to be a better person. I got no problems with that, right? Well, OK, I'm just going to to share a story here real quick to illustrate this point because I got some personal experience in this. I was living in a ward in Orem, UT. Not exactly a hotbed. Of. Leftist activities, right? However, by the time I left the the second to last ward I was in before I left the church, I get assigned home teachers and one of them now and I got, I still have young kids at home, right?

30:31 I got 1012 year old kids at home. One of them is gay. OK, again, I would normally probably not have too much problem with that, but he came in and he just started talking about life with his partner. And I was like, what the hell No, no, Huh. And I polite, I, I dismissed the kids and I politely asked them to leave. And that Sunday I went to church and the Bishop kind of got a little huffy because this got back to him. And I said, you know what? Let's go talk in your office. And we went in there and I said, look, I got 10 and 12 year old kids at home and all this is going to do is confuse them. Now, what you're allowing this gentleman to do, I have no problems with and I have no problems with with or I shouldn't say that.

31:27 What what you're allowing him to do, that's between you and him. I would personally take exception with a few things, Right. If he's going to, if he's going to church at the same time, he is actively living with another man and you've given him a calling. Well, yeah, I do kind of have an issue with that because he is. He is. You know, I would have that same problem if it was a man shaking up with a woman and he wanted to put that forward. That's not what we do. We get married first, right? And I tried to lay this right thing out that that, you know, hey, just switch the rolls up and just say it's a heterosexual man just living with a woman or a man living with two wives. Are you still going to let him be a home teacher, take the sacrament, do all those things?

32:16 Well, no. Well, why not? Well, because. And then he got real quiet and real uncomfortable, right? But this is what we're up against, right? And. And it's this ambiguous messaging like this, right, that kind of sets that because what does it mean if you identify as gay? You can fully participate in the church, But but does that mean you can be actively living a homosexual lifestyle? It didn't stayed in the church. It did in this ward, right? So now I have a conflict, right? And, and I want to give voice to this because I get a lot of emails, right? And I haven't had a chance to give voice to this. If you're someone from the LDS church who happens to be listening in a high, high position, you may want to listen to what I'm saying because I'm hearing from your members on this.

33:04 They are confused and they are nervous and they don't know what's going on because you can't get your messaging together enough to let them know where it is. Now, being on the outside looking in, I understand what you're doing. You're playing the long game to see who's going to come out on top and that's where you're going to throw your weight. But my advice to you, whoever you are who happens to be listening up top, and I'm sorry, I'm going to get a little spicy here. You need to grow a pair, become men, and draw a hard line about where this falls. Because right now your congregants are suffering. And I hear about it and I don't mind hearing about it. But understand you are slowly putting yourself in a place where the people who make the church function, they will leave.

33:56 And if if you. I don't want to see a world without the LDS church in it, I still think they're a net positive. But but you are on dangerous ground, flirting with things that quite frankly, are going to come back to bite you. I don't care how much you love this, the rattlesnake, go ahead and press it to your chest and see what happens. You might think you're going in for a hug. You're going to get bit. And mark my words, you keep going down this road and that's exactly where you're going to be. Yeah, I'm going to share another slide here because this actually I want to show, I want to share some responses and I've kind of censored out some names. It's social media.

34:38 It's all public anyways. But so I just I I just wanted, I felt it'd be better to censor out some of the names of these some of these comments, but I just wanted to go over them because this is this is the response that that that just to that, that fair Mormon post that that we we get what started firestorm was this account. And I guess the one that's public, this is the one that brought to everybody's attention was this Kruger Chronicle account on Twitter and said, Hey, you want LDS fair wants to know, wants you to know it's pride month. May we suggest reading the family proclamation, which yeah, right. Why not? Why not share the Family proclamation? For pride month, yeah.

35:18 And so we look at some of these responses and below that somebody says no, they want you to, they want says no, they want you to know the church's stance on things while others celebrate pride. Is that wrong? And then this debate, somebody else jumps in and says no mention of the family proc and that person responds. And this is a debate going back and forth. Now quoting the prophets and scriptures is not enough for you. But again, it's ambiguous, right? I think it's not enough. I absolutely think that's not enough. Of course, that's not enough, and so this person responds, quoting some of the prophets and scriptures over others is.

36:01 Fairpoint. Yep. He says tell me specifically what they said you disagree with fair starts off with an acknowledgement of pride month and uses LGBTQ dog whistles like a firm. The ways you can love section is extremely weak. Makes no mention of affirming the doctrine of eternal marriage. The person it goes on and says to learn and understand their perspective leads to Charlie Bird firesides. No mention of family proc by the way. The question is what does it leave out? And they came back again arguing saying so they haven't said anything incorrect, undoctrinal or against the gospel. You're just mad they didn't address it how you wanted them to.

36:42 OK. And they spawned it. Yes, that's correct. I expect opposition to Pride Month to be more substantiative and straightforward rather than promoting a love and listen framework that leads to the problems and confusion we've seen over the last few years. That's exactly what we just talked about, right? Absolutely, this is where most I don't know if it's most anymore. I I need to stop using that word. Most of your of the membership in the LDS church that makes the church run and operate are feeling the exact same way as a few of these people that you just showed screenshots to.

37:23 I get the yes, I got the receipts right, I know exactly how they feel. Right, we got a few more here same stuff though, basically right here at my fair actually kind of jumped in though and and defending themselves in a in a very kind of unflattering way. And Phares saying, if you haven't seen our original post that has been picked apart and scrutinized. We use the same terminology that's commonly used by the church. So again, their defenses, we're just saying what the church has said. That's their that's Phares defense. But the conservative Mormons on Twitter or LDS people Latter day Saints are not very happy about this at all. As you can see the person responds. Maybe we shouldn't use words that have been hijacked by those meaning and whose meaning has become ambiguous. Absolutely.

38:21 And you know, this whole thing is insane and so on forced. I was in so and so's camp. Let's be gracious. We're on the same team. But let me tell you, I'm far less in that camp today as as fair blocked them for for disagreeing with them on the appropriateness of the post and just get another. Person was there? Was there other? There's a there was more in there. Yeah. OK. I don't have Facebook so I don't. I didn't see the whole thing, but apparently they're using words like a firm. OK, well, I was going to ask, did did the, the, the people who were critical of the post, did they say anything in, in your estimation that would would have deserved just to shut down the conversation? Like, hey, we're not.

39:04 Well, they're trying to be Honestly, a lot of them are just saying, hey, we love you, fair Mormon. We're allies, but we kind of have an issue with this. Don't you think that that's a little bit of a problem that, you know, you're sending this really ambiguous message that can clearly be interpreted as very pro LGBTQIA plus? Sure. And Sarah's response is absolutely not. And and block and kick and and kind of throwing tantrums over it. Look. If you're, if, if the the discussion has remained relatively civil, albeit vigorous, and you decide to shut down, I, I hate to break it to you, you're probably on the losing end of that thing, right?

39:49 If you want to just the critic and the critic is not doing personal attacks, they're not being, you know, over the top with it. It's a you know all the posts I've seen so far. They've been, well, it's been constructive for the most. Part right, Right. Well, look, this guy is so boisterous and so insensitive that he's saying. But let me tell you, I'm far less in that camp today after being blocked by them. Right. I mean, if that if I was blocked, I'd be like you bleep, bleep, bleep and he bleed, you know, You know, I mean even having been blocked, this person is still showing restraint. That's the amount of restraint in my opinion. Yep, absolutely.

40:33 Yeah, this this thing kind of became a firestorm and I'm glad. OK. This seems to be a bit of a, in my opinion, this is a failure in church leadership. The messaging on this is not clear. And it's opened the door for, like you said, having it both ways so that they can you can interpret it how you like. If you're pro LGBTQ, you can interpret it as, yeah, you can, you can be a practicing homosexual and go to church and that's that's no problem. And you can be fully participative. And those who don't believe that can read it and say, oh, no, it's just same sex attraction. It's just for people who are struggling with those things.

41:15 Obviously we don't want to exclude them, right? And, and it's kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too. And I think it's failing. And I think the reason why you're seeing it failing is exactly what you just described happened with that home teacher. So I actually had a, a family member share an experience with me just earlier this spring where a lesbian couple moved into their ward and, you know, OK, lesbian couple, but they're living together, They're going to church together. And my sister found a little bit off putting when, you know, she's in a relief society and, you know, the other ones, one of them's getting the other one a massage and. And yeah, a little off putting, right. But the real concern kind of came when she was given an opportunity.

42:06 One of them was given an opportunity to speak on covenants in sacrament meeting. Right. And she went up to speak on on covenants and she started off by talking about how her and her girlfriend are going to be married. Here. This spring and then went on to talk about covenants with God started she started her talk with hey, I'm not keeping my covenants and then gave a talk on on covenants. And the Bishop didn't shut it down. The Bishop didn't say anything. And my, and you know, my sister's got children that are there and she's just sitting here. I'm hoping they weren't hoping they're not paying attention because I get where the Bishop's coming from. The Bishop wants to be inclusive. He wants to be loving.

42:53 He wants to be Christ like here, right? But what he's not weighing in is what this is doing to the children. What message does it send to the children? When a woman gets up and talks about how gives a talk on keeping covenants while she admits that she's living in a lesbian relationship and intends to and intends to continue that relationship, It kind of, I would think that it kind of sends this message that you can keep your covenants and be a lesbian. It doesn't fit with the temple, doesn't fit, doesn't fit with with our ideas of, of heaven, right, right.

43:38 It is what it is, what it is, right? And I'm not even saying they're bad people. I'm just saying no, no, right. It just doesn't work. No, there's got to be a, a place at which we understand and and even have a mutual respect, right? We we're not looking to deny your humanity. We're just saying this is what we believe. Don't don't encroach upon that. Don't Co opt it for your own, for your own use. Go start your own church if that's what you want, if you think that's good. There's plenty of them. Right, right. Even some. There are plenty. Of them, right, I mean, you still want the Book of Mormon that there's some out there, right but.

44:20 Yeah. This is and, and it's even hard for me to blame fair Mormon all that much, right? Because this is essentially for look, I've had people from fair Mormon on here who I really liked and I think they do some good work, but they're no longer farms, right. You remember farms, right? That was that one was had some. That was academic and yeah. That one, that one went for it. This is the I don't even want to say it's an offshoot. I, if I'm not mistaken, I believe I could be wrong. I, I need to double check this, but I do believe that they were the, the group that came behind farms, right?

45:01 Farms got dismantled. Bear steps in and takes its place and. Wasn't farms part of BYU? They were. Yep. It was actually an official apologetic arm of the church. And sense, yes, this is more unofficial, but there's no doubt I can see why they're confused, right? What? Well, what are we going to put on here? Well, we don't know. I mean, can you make heads or tails out of this? Now I don't know. My parents taught me if you can't say anything not pro pride, don't say anything at all. Yeah, no, I agree. I kind of agree. It's very unforced. It's not like, but nonetheless I do.

45:41 Yeah, when the church's messaging, it's so unclear. So the last one is. I just want to. Compare and contrast. A couple quotes here. So on the left, we've got Delan H Hoax. That's Boyd K Packer, bro. On the right. On the left is a quote from Dell. There's two quotes. Sorry, sorry. I want to compare and contrast these quotes. OK, so on the left it says while we must practice tolerance and respect for others and their beliefs, we are not required to respect and tolerate wrong behavior. Correct. Sounds nice. It sounds nice. Is it correct? I think there's a lot of ambiguity there.

46:23 OK. We must practice tolerance and respect for others. Yes, and their beliefs. No, Well, no, no, no. I think, I think I there's. Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't have to. I. Don't have to respect that. And and can I say this too? This too, bugs me. If you are so comfortable with who you are and what your lifestyle is, why do you need my approval? Why do you need approval? Right. What? What is it you're aiming for?

47:05 I don't think it's about approval. Again, I think it's about at some point the goal is everyone will bow the knee to this ideology. That's what this is. This isn't, I would like to say it's not, but I firmly believe this is an all or nothing kind of thing with the higher ups of these organizations right now. But I think this exactly right here is the key slip. Yeah, the bottom part is exactly correct. We're not required to respect or tolerate wrong behavior, absolutely true. But saying we have to tolerate and respect beliefs, I think that idea is what has opened the door to all of this coming in this.

47:48 It's the, it's the genie out of the bottle thing here. And it's why things are now so ambiguous and why it's so confusing. Compare that to Boyd K Packer. What he had to say. He says several publications are now being circulated about the church which defend and promote gay or lesbian conduct. They rest the scriptures attempting to prove that these impulses are inborn, cannot be overcome and should not be resisted, and therefore such conduct has a morality of its own. They quote scriptures to justify perverted acts between consenting adults. That same logic would justify incest or the molesting of little children of either gender. That's from Boyd K Packer.

48:29 And I would ask, is Boyd K Packer respecting that belief? No, no, no, he's not letting you have it. Yeah, he's saying this belief is incorrect. You can't just rest the script. Not all beliefs are equal. We are all children of God. And you can have respect for somebody who believes in incorrect belief. You can still respect somebody like that, right? Like my me and my dad have different political leanings, but I still respect him as my father, right? Even though I don't respect some of his political takes and some of his political beliefs, but I can still respect him.

49:10 But this idea that you have to tolerate and respect the beliefs. So that's why. So when the woman comes up in sacrament and says me and my lesbian and girlfriend are getting married this spring and as a talk in church, why doesn't the Bishop do anything? Because that's her belief. It's her belief and he's being told that he has to tolerate and respect that. Right. And you don't, right? You can step up there and say something. The funny thing is I saw the exact same, almost the exact same story on on Twitter where faithful LDS guy on Twitter was posted about fast and testimony meeting.

49:54 And he said that a some guy got up and said some, you know, affirmed his LGBTQ plus pride in fast and testimony meeting. And he and he was shocked and he looked he was visiting this ward, but he looks over and he kind of expected the Bishop to come clarify. Nothing happened. And well, we can talk. I don't know if we want to transition to this right now, but what I thought was interesting is he, he said that he felt prompted by the spirit not to get up and reaffirm the family, so to speak, and just to watch and see what happens. And he says nothing.

50:40 Nobody ever came up and, and challenged it at all, really. And he was saying he was kind of disappointed in that. And just where? Where are the men? Well, that's a good point, right? Where are the men? Because right now I can't find them. Well, I shouldn't say that. That's that's probably too harsh. Can't. Find many of them. Right, right. I think I think we better get used to being very uncomfortable in some some excuse me, I think we better get real comfortable with being uncomfortable because the times are coming that I don't think we're going to just be able to kind of, you know, walk this back, so to speak and and just lay low. I think those days are over, Justin. And I think now it is incumbent upon us that we've got to stand up like we've never stood up before. Because I don't think it is an overstatement to say that Western, the West as we've known it, not just the West of the United States or even the West of the globe, but kind of what everything's been built on to this point that was good is being attacked quickly.

52:04 And power abhors a vacuum. And something will step in to fill that vacuum. And if we want to say it this, we, we, we've got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and saying things that are true that may be uncomfortable for other people to hear. Hey, I I think you're right. In fact, there's some scriptures on this topic that I kind of wanted to delve into, if you don't mind. I know this isn't a talk but I just, I don't know. I like sharing scriptures. Absolutely. And because I think that the Scriptures can provide context. And so the question here's the really the question is, is what should we do about this?

52:49 Should we affirm? No. Should we create safe spaces for LGBTQI Plus? No. I mean, I think we should create safe places. What is a safe place though? Do we really understand what defines people are saying? Right. Let's define safety, right? Safety is you're probably not going to get beat up or shot or any of those other things. If you're looking for a place where your ideas can't be challenged, I have a problem with that. I think all ideas deserve to be challenged, right? Look, you and I just got off a class where we talked about, you know what?

53:34 Sometimes there's a blessing within a faith crisis if you stick it out because you get the truth through it, right? And so this idea that there's a safe space and again, not bodily safety, a safety where you can just spout your ideas with no pushback, I abhor that kind of safe space. That is a place that offers no growth, that leaves you in the same horrible condition that you were found. Have you ever grown without some sort of discomfort, Justin? Never, never. And here's the thing right The Scriptures teach us that wickedness never was happiness. Right. The people who are suffering under these sins aren't going to find safety while they're holding on to those sins, because those sins are what is what's harming them. Right.

54:30 Those behaviors are what's harming them, and if we want to have compassion, if we want to have real compassion, we need to be honest. Yeah. If you want to be compassionate. To. Your friend or family that are struggling with this, you can be compassionate and honest at the same time. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Absolutely. Just the same way if, if, if any of my children turn out to struggle with this, I would talk to them honestly about it because that's the safe space. The safe space for them is is you know, you don't let babies play with knives either.

55:10 Why? But shouldn't we have a safe space for babies that want to play with knives? No. No, these things are dangerous, right? And they're dangerous to the people who are, who are experimenting or playing around with them. And if we really care about them, we will want to call them to repentance, not with judgement and criticism or hypocrisy, right? Right, but. With sincere love and concern for their well-being and their welfare, their happiness. Absolutely. And if you don't? Have a testimony. This is honestly what I think is going on. I think we're seeing a huge lack of testimony. I think so.

55:51 If you if you actually have a testimony that the wages of sin are death, that that's the consequence is spiritual death, that's a that's a terrible thing to happen to somebody I care about. I am pro-life. That means I'm against abortion, but that means I'm also against people killing themselves spiritually. Through. Whatever means, through alcoholism, through adultery, or through these pride related sins, these things all destroy life's. They destroy people. They're destroying sons and daughters of God. And how are we going to help these people if we're too busy affirming them?

56:33 You know, this is where I feel like sometimes a good analogy isn't at play here, right? Needs needs to be used. If I go to the doctor and I got cancer, I want the doctor to be like, bro, you got cancer and it's going to suck and you're going to have to go through a whole bunch of stuff to get better, but we can make you better, but it's going to suck for a while. That's the doctor I want. The doctor I don't want is the one where I walk in, I got cancer and he goes, gosh, I don't know if I want to give him these results. This is going to ruin his day, probably going to ruin his month. Is, is that helpful? Right.

57:15 Look, sometimes you need a physician to give you the tough news so you can know what to do next to get healthy. And I'm sorry in in my ideology, I don't think you can be totally spiritually healthy living in that lifestyle. There's just no way around it. You. Know. So this is a little personal and I'm not going to go into all the details, but I always believed that I had a, a good marriage. I always believed that my marriage. Was just. Fantastic. Me and my wife, we almost never fought. And I thought, you know, this is something good. Got this down, got this marriage thing down. And then one day I asked the Lord to show me my weaknesses and I saw things about my behaviour in my marriage that made me deeply ashamed.

58:16 These aren't gross things, This I'm not. I'm not committing adultery on the side. These would seem like small things, but for me they were very, very cutting because these were my idols. These were my, these were my weaknesses that I had hidden and buried and, and was, and I was ignoring them. And the Lord showed me very clearly and pointed out, there's this, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that. And I was like stop please. Never mind, I don't want to. Hear it. After all, it was awful. It was one of the most awful experiences in my life because that was a sacred cow to me, that I had a good marriage, that I was a good husband, and that I had built this fantastic marriage.

58:59 And then the Lord showed me so far, I am from the ideal right before I am from my, from my own desires for an ideal. And that gap hurt. It hurt, but I'm glad I experienced it. And I'm. I have yet to get this figured out but I am working on it right? Right. And I am much happier, actually happier knowing that hey, I'm not there yet, but at least I know that I've got work to do then. I was when I thought that everything was totally OK and that there were no problems, that I had a perfect marriage, I'm the perfect husband. And so, yeah, so I'm not being hypocritical when I say this.

59:45 I I've experienced my own chastisements before the Lord and had been called to the floor on my own desire to hide my own sins. The things that I that I were that I was doing and that I do still sometimes that aren't ideal. And I want to do better because I want to have an eternal marriage. I want to have an eternal family. I want to I want to return with all of my children and my wife. Right. Back to God. And how can I do that? If I'm being dragged down by something that's that's actually creating separation there, If there's if there's something there I want to know, I'd rather know about it, even if it hurts. And I'd and.

1:00:33 I'd much more respect somebody who would call me on that kind of thing then I would that somebody could be like, ah, that's not a big deal, don't worry about it. Right. I don't know where you're at, but for me that is a big deal. Yeah. And I, I, I respect that more myself. So I'm not being hypocritical when I'm saying, hey, if we care about our brothers and sisters that are struggling with this, we need to be honest about it. So, but with that right, do we have an obligation or duty to be involved in this at all? Or. Just protect your own family, make sure that they're safe. We shouldn't be on Twitter talking about this. There's no point in you're just stirring the pot. You're creating contention maybe, right. I've I've seen some arguments along these lines. And so I wanted to share some scriptures. The first one here is out of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah chapter 29.

1:01:28 And this is in reference to basically the shift of the Nephite government from the monarchy to this kind of the brain of judges. Right, right. Yep. And So what we've got is. Shoot, I've. Got multiple markets in here. I think this is the one I'm sharing. OK, so King Mosey is explaining what's going on here. And he says, for behold, I saying to you, the sins of many people have been caused by the iniquities of their kings. Therefore their iniquities are answered upon the heads of their kings. So he's saying under a monarchy, you know, if the people are doing wrong stuff, that's kind of on the king. There's a there's a delegated kind of responsibility there. Right.

1:02:15 And now I desire that this inequality should be no more in this land, especially among my people. But I desire that the land be a that this land be a land of liberty. And every man may enjoy his rights and privileges alike so long as the Lord sees that, that we may live and inherit the land. Yeah, even as long as any of our posterity remains upon the face of this land. So Mosiah is saying, hey, I think that that's not an ideal situation. I think that people should have individual accountability rather than this delegated kingly responsibility. And many more things did Mosiah write into them, unfolding into them all the trials and troubles of a righteous king, all the travails of soul for their people, and also the murmurings of the people in the king. And he explained it all unto them. And he told them that these things ought not to be, but that the burden should come upon all the people, that every man might bear his part.

1:03:12 So if we were in living in under a monarchy right now, there might be a case to say, Hey, this isn't something that we need to be involved with. Just keep your head down. You don't have to participate. But we live in a land of freedom. But with that freedom comes a responsibility. And we all have an equal share of that responsibility that we that this burden that we need to need to carry. And so with, with great power comes great responsibility. And it came to pass. And this is Jimmy now. 37 Now it came to pass that after King Mosiah had sent these things forth among the people, they were convinced of the truth of his words.

1:03:56 Therefore they relinquished their desires for a king and became exceedingly anguished, anxious that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land. Yeah, and every man expressed A willingness to answer for his own sins. And so living here in this land of freedom, in America at least, I think that we have a civic responsibility to stand up against this kind of thing. This isn't somebody else's job in the Democratic Republic like we live in. This is the people's job. Prior to that, we're told that if the time comes and the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, that is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you. Yeah. Then is the time that he will visit you with great destruction, even as he has hitherto visited this land. If we don't make a stand as a people against this, then God's judgments come upon all of us.

1:04:52 There's no putting your head down. And I'm just going to wait this out with my family. We're just going to hunker down. We're going to wait out the storm. That's not the the responsibility we have living as as free men and women in a Freeland. We have a duty and obligation to proclaim the truth, to speak the truth, and to encourage our brothers and sisters, fellow citizens who live according to truth. Because if not, then by AB, just like a king who abdicates his responsibility has the sins of his people come upon him. That happens. That can happen with us too. Earlier in the Book of Mormon we had Jacob talking about this how he diligently taught his people so that this blood and sins of them would come upon him and stay in his own garments. Right.

1:05:44 At the very least, if not as citizens, as priesthood holders, we men have an obligation to God to stand for what's right and true. That doesn't mean that we have to. And So what does that mean? Well, you mean as far as what it looks like in practical application. Yeah. I think as you stand your ground, right, you don't, if you have a conviction that something is either right or wrong, you don't sit down on that, right? That's not that's not our role, right? And and this ties in with with that parable of the salt with the Savior, right, or the light on the hill, right? We are not meant to just be quiet. Keep your head down.

1:06:35 Don't say anything, be still. No, the Commission is your change agents within the society. If you're picking up discipleship, understand that comes with a responsibility to let that light shine, to be that city on the hill. Otherwise, you're good for nothing. That's not my words, That's the Savior's right. Salt is a preservative. It also enhances flavor. If we're not doing those things, we're, we're, we're not being disciples. I, I think it is that simple. I think it is that clear cut.

1:07:18 And that's not my line. That's the savior's line that he draws in the New Testament as well as the Book of Mormon in 3rd Nephi. Well. You're not saying we need to, we need to get up in these people's faces and, and, and get signs and, and protest in front of their houses. And but there's things that we can do absolutely. For example, if you're in fast and testimony meeting, you can, you can get up and bury your testimony about eternal family and the importance of, of the eternal nature of, of our sex and those roles and those responsibilities that come with them.

1:08:00 And how beautiful that is, that we're made in the image of God as man and woman, which means we don't have, we don't have a heavenly Father and a heavenly other Father. Right, right, right. Right. No, no. It's a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father. Right. And these things are important for a for our eternal, our eternal destiny depends on these things. Right. And so we shouldn't really, we don't have to be aggressive with people. We don't have to get in their face. We don't even have to run for school board. But you can speak out in defense of of your truth, of God's truth, of the truth of the restoration.

1:08:43 And if that conflicts with somebody else's, their personal truth and that offends them, pray for them, absolutely. But better, better to speak the truth and pray for them than to lie and to let that thing and, and to let that continue within their own lives, let alone permeate into the culture. So another kind of concern about this is you might think that, well, it's a losing game. This is another spot where I kind of take issue with, again, a bit of failure of leadership with the church because of the great compromise that was made in Utah specifically, right? The great political compromise.

1:09:29 And we started talking about that a little bit earlier. But basically what happened was the church backed the bill to give protections. And that's if you can't see, if you don't have video, that's my my air. Quotes Air. Quotes, yes. That's what those are my air quotes protections for, for gays, lesbians and these people. And the compromise was if the church would back that, then they wouldn't push for controlling the church and forcing this ideal ideology onto the church. And, and I get that it's really important to preserve the church's autonomy, but more important than preserving the church's autonomy is, is preserving the doctrine. There's no point in having a church that is free to preach Baal and Jezebel and Moloch but isn't allowed to preach Christ. But at least we got a church.

1:10:33 Do you know what that compromise was? I won't be. I won't be able to prove it because I don't have the receipts on this, but something tells me it was very never Neville Chamberlain. I think they they thought we will now have peace in our time, right. For those of you not familiar with Neville Chamberlain, he was the he was the Prime Minister of Britain during when Hitler's like making end roads into the into the rest of Europe, right? He's Winston. Churchill. What's that? I thought it was Winston Churchill. He comes later once once he has to come clean up a mess.

1:11:16 Yeah, haven't I heard of this Neville guy? Now, this is interesting, right? And I'm glad you actually brought this up. I wasn't planning on bringing this up, but this is an interesting lesson, and I think it's got some comparisons. Do you know where Churchill is during Neville Chamberlain's kind of administration? I know. Where's? Where's? Churchill. He's a pariah in his own country. A pariah he has not looked at favorably. He's looked as as a failure because of his time as the as in in the military, a failure over in India.

1:11:57 I mean, he is not well liked by the the establishment, but Neville, Neville Chamberlain, he's the Prime Minister before Churchill and Hitler's now making end roads into Europe. He's taken over Poland. I don't know if he had Poland yet, but he was. It was either the hinterland or something. He was. He was on the conquest. Neville Chamberlain says I'm just going to go talk to the man. So he does. He gets on a plane, he goes to Germany. They talk things out. He comes back and he says, hey, you know what? Hitler said he wasn't going to come after us. So we're OK, He said. He said we're good.

1:12:38 We're going to have peace in our time, Did ya? How did that? Turn out, huh? Did ya? Then Winston Churchill's message gets real popular, right when you can see battle is coming and they're like, yeah, give me that dude. Because he's at least he at least knows what time it is. That compromise that was very Neville Chamberlain. We will have peace in our time and again, Well, meaning, I'm not saying that it was it would had any ill intent, but you got to know the game you're planning. You got to know who you're playing against and you got to do your homework or else you wind up as Neville Chamberlain or what we see in the LDS church right now, right?

1:13:28 And unfortunately with that compromise, even though nothing happened in a vacuum, right? And everybody's aware of that at this point, we all know about what happened there with the church. And the message is, is that the message to the members that compromise made was for one thing, hey, we're kind of selling you out because we're more important. But beyond that, it's also we couldn't, we can't win this. We can't win. We give up, we surrender, we're going to, we're going to sign this peace, peace treaty that we all know is not really a peace treaty because we can't win this.

1:14:13 And it's very demoralizing. It's incredibly demoral demoralizing. And I think it leads to a lot of our brothers and sisters in the LDS church to essentially being black pilled on this issue. If the church isn't willing to stand up and fight for the truth, for our own beliefs, for our theology, if the church isn't willing to defend us, the members on that, then do what? Do we defend it? Do we or do we just follow the church and, you know, maybe hunker down. The end times are coming.

1:14:56 It'll blow over. It'll blow over. I mean, there's a, there's a sentiment I see growing in the LDS church, unfortunately, of, of a lot of black pill with a lot of these cultural issues that I think are, are are actually crucial because these are the battles that these are the battles of our time. We were born in this day and age to fight these battles and to walk out because you're black billed, because you think we can't win, to not even fight, that's a tragedy. That's a tragedy.

1:15:39 And here's the thing, ultimately, the way the world is going, I completely agree we can't win this long term. I think we're going to lose this war. I think we're going to need God's direct divine intervention to save us. But even if that is true, what can we do in the meantime? Does that excuse us from making a stand or making trying to make a difference? Do you find yourself missing having conversations with people who believe as you do? Maybe because you live in an area where there's not a whole lot of Orthodox Mormons running around? Or maybe you're an active member of the LDS church or maybe even a Never Mormon, but you're really curious about what the faith teaches.

1:16:26 Well, I have something here for you today that you might like. Now, every Thursday night at 7:00 PM Central, Taylor Smith teaches a class on gospel fundamentals from a very orthodox point of view. He will cover everything from the nature of God, some of the deeper doctrines of the faith. Now to join the class, all you got to do is click the link in this episode, show notes. And on Thursdays at 7:00 PM Central and join the class. It's an easy place where you can be as open or private as you want. It's all up to you. Again, all you got to do is on Thursday night. Hit that link in this episode, show notes and you can log on to the Gospel Fundamentals class taught by Taylor Smith. Thanks and I hope to see you there. And this is this.

1:17:06 This has been the most on my mind actually with a lot of what I'm seeing, because I see a split. I see certain groups like in that chat that you saw up above, you have the one, the one person who's saying, Hey, this is this is kind of a problem. And they have the other guy. What's the problem? What's the problem here? Why get why? Why stir this pot up? Why get in this fight since we should just stay out of this stuff? And I don't think we understand the consequences of, of, of staying out for one thing, because like you were saying with Hitler, the the end game, the end game of all this LGBTQ stuff is anti human.

1:17:47 Yeah. It it really is it, it's anti human. If they have their way then the earth becomes desolate. There will be no more children. Right. The human, the human race will would cease to exist. Right. And there's things that we can do to stand up for that. And so this is just a reference just to call out the black pill Doctrine Covenants, Section 101. And this is in response to the Saints being persecuted in Missouri. They've been, they've been killed, they've been robbed, they've had all this. These terrible things have happened to them. And we all know how that turned out, right? We won Missouri, right?

1:18:36 I'm head, I'm heading up to Zion tomorrow to no, it's, it's Springfield. It's not Zion. And and we didn't win. We got kicked out. Yep. But none the less, this is a revelation from the Lord section one O 1 starting in verse 76. And it's just some of it. The whole section's great. The Lord says again. I say unto you, Those who have been scattered by their enemies, it is my will that they should continue to importune for redress and redemption by the hands of those who are placed as rulers and are in authority over you. According to the laws and constitution of the people which I have suffered to be established and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles. That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity.

1:19:32 According to the moral agency which I had given unto him. That every man may be accountable for his own sins of the day of judgement. That sounds really familiar, doesn't it? Sure does. Now I'm jumping down to 81. Now on to what shall I like in the children of Zion? I will like in the month of the parable of the woman and the unjust Judge. For men ought always to pray and not to faint. Which saith there was in a city a judge which feared not God, and neither regarded man. And there was a widow in that city. And she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while. But there afterwards he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

1:20:19 Thus I will liken the children of Zion. Let them importune at the feet of the Judge. And if he heed them not, let them importune at the feet of the governor. And if the Governor heed them not, let them importune at the feet of the President. And if the President heed them not, then will I the Lord, arise and come forth out of his hiding place, in his fury, and in his fury vex the nation. And in his hot displeasure, and in his fierce anger, at this time we'll cut off those wicked, unfaithful, and unjust stewards, and appoint unto them their portion among hypocrites and unbelievers.

1:21:01 So when does the Lord come and save us? After we've exhausted all other efforts. All other efforts, right? Yep. So is hunkering down and not seeking redress or in this case, not seeking to write this, this poisonous cancer that that spreads through our our country all the time, but especially in June. Is is the Lord going to come save us and our families if, if, if we don't make a stand, if we don't exercise our own civil duties and obligations here? No, no, the the again, going back into history, it's not until the founders have exhausted all other efforts that the Declaration of Independence comes forward.

1:21:55 None, right? It doesn't come forward. It wasn't just a few years, Justin. It was decades that they were fighting this battle through the appointed channels before they called upon God for deliverance. And that came the way it did. It didn't. Start with Ron T in the harbor. No, no, no, that was towards the end. That was towards the end. And so again, I'm not saying we need a revolution. We do not need a revolution. What we need is for good men to stand up and just just say you're you're not going any further. This is the line in the sand.

1:22:38 This is where it stops. We can even be cool. You can come over for a BBQ, but maybe we just don't worship together because we don't agree, dude, we don't see, look, we don't see Catholics coming to the LDS church going you guys or Mormonism saying you guys swear papal. You know, loyalty, right? No, there's a mutual understanding. There's some respect. You know what, we can even work together on a few things. But but we hold our theology dear, right? It's. True or it's not true, Right? Right. Do we really believe it or not?

1:23:20 Yes. Are we going to let these people take it from our children? Absolutely. And that's what's at stake. It is, that's the thing, right? You might. You yourself might be grounded in your faith and your theology and your belief. You've got it figured out. You're not going to be swayed. Doesn't matter how many lesbians give talks or if they bring them into the temple or if they give talks in General Conference. You, you know what's up. OK, great. What about your? Children absolutely are. Your children going to the public school. Because here's the thing, these kids are getting it all day in public school. They're getting it all day in social media. They're getting it in their video games. Yeah.

1:24:03 And then they go to church and they're getting it there too. What do you think's going to happen to your children? Absolutely. Do you want your children to be with you in the eternities? Do you want them to be to to be a part of your eternal family or not? Because if you want them to be a part of it, we have to make a stand on this. Absolutely. Absolutely. And when we see someone stand up and, and this is something else I want to say, when you see someone else stand up, get behind them, support them like they supported Moses's arms during that battle, right? You remember the story? As long as Moses's arms were raised, they were doing OK. The arms fell.

1:24:49 They were done. Well, sometimes we have to go hold the arms of the folks who are fighting the battle. Right. Look, I'm just going to call a spade a spade. A few weeks ago I released the episode with with April to Spain, and I'm going to ask a real pointed question, which was where the hell was the church? Where? Was part of it? Was it her local ward in on it? Yes, that's. Not the woman suing her from her ward. I don't know if if that woman's a Mormon or not. I'm not going to, OK. Maybe not. Speculate on that. However, regardless where should have been the one place that she could have went, her and her family, to not just have a sympathetic ear, but to be recharged and and ready to go fight that battle again.

1:25:40 It was church. Right it. Was church, It was. The oh, you're, you're going to hang the proclamation. We'll hang it too. It was the place. Why didn't the war gather around in solidarity? Yes, it was the place they wrote the document that is known as the Proclamation on the family. Nothing. Crickets, crickets. And and look, the sad truth is a lot of this is happening in the church now because of a lack of strong leadership. There's no way around it. I don't know what else you want me to call it. It's it's weak leadership that has got them to this point. I mean if there is.

1:26:21 What do you do? So what can you do about that? Well, I if you're if you're a member, what can you do? About that, I got a few ideas, but they're uncomfortable. One is you better get used. You better start thinking about things a little bit differently, right? Just like you were saying, Justin, we probably won't win this the way we think we're going to win this, right? I do think in the end, all things are made right because I believe in the atonement. I believe in, in Jesus's saving mission, both the first and second time he comes, right?

1:27:01 But that doesn't mean that nothing's required of us. And so, look, I've had talks with family members about this very thing. Get your kids out of school, get them out of public school. There's nothing there. There's nothing there. Get and and gather around like minded people. I'm not saying move to a compound. What I am telling you is you might want to take a look at where things are still normal and then head that direction because things are getting extremely abnormal. And when you find that spot you draw a line in the sand and you protect that like a bulldog.

1:27:41 And when the time comes, you say the things that have to be said, no matter how uncomfortable they are. That I think right now is is our best hope. And then support the people who are going out. Maybe you throw a couple of bucks at their GoFundMe page to pay for the attorneys, right? Maybe you hang the proclamation in your front yard. But something do something. So I you can get them from her. She's selling these banners, you can get them. Yeah. And and here's the thing, we we always are looking for the big task, right, The heavy lift. And we feel like if it's not the heavy lift, we're not doing anything.

1:28:30 Well, you know what if 100 people lifted 100 lbs each, it's a lot of weight that gets lifted. So all you got to do is just do your part. Just stand up. Well, that's exactly what it says in Mosiah, right? Equal. Part. But you still, but you got to carry that part. There's a piece of that that that you're incumbent upon to carry. So. There's a there's a bigger there's ultimately here a bigger picture that I'm kind of concerned about and it's not just this pride month in L GB TQI think it's kind of the collapse of of Western civilization. And there's a funny theme behind all of this. When you look at whether it's the climate change cult or you look at the LGBTQ movement, you look at the the medical. Can you even call it medical malpractices going on in in the world globally.

1:29:32 Interestingly, these all some reasons seem to focus on ending human life, stopping human life. When you look at the LGBTQ stuff, right, that's a ultimately that's a, that's a, it's a, it's a dysfunction. And I don't mean that in a, in a, in a. Derogatory. Derogatory way, but the function of your sexual organs and sex is to produce children and if that if you've got same sex attraction and that's all you're into then that they're dysfunctional, right. You cannot reproduce. This is the most basics of biology the you know, mesos hierarchy of needs. This is this is kind of kind of down there. He he's got that down there with like, you know, food and water. Right.

1:30:24 Reproducing is a biological urge and all animal, well, most animals. You know what's interesting? Actually, do you know where? Do you know what animals don't have a natural biological urge to reproduce? Animals in captivity isn't that interesting? It's like you let those tigers run loose in the Sahara and they're they're going at it all, all the time, but you put them in a zoo and suddenly they're not interested. There's a lot of interesting parallels there. Yeah. I, I want, I want to stop here for a second and explore this a little more because I have something else I want to pull up here and take a look at because no, you're good. Because I think, I think this is important. When you were in the church, Justin, do you remember the cycle, what the name of the cycle was in the Book of Mormon where they would be really righteous, then they'd get unrighteous.

1:31:25 Do you remember what they called that? If they call it the repentance cycle, right, The pride cycle, the pride cycle, OK, there you go. It was the IT ends with the repentance. OK. Yeah, the pride cycle. In in the Book of Mormon, when Lehigh's having his vision, Do you remember what Lehigh said about it? This comes from first Nephi chapter 12. I can't, I don't have the verse right here. Here it is. It's verse 18 and the large and spacious building which thy father saw is vain imaginations of the pride of the children of men not unfamiliar. If we go to Proverbs 1618, he says this.

1:32:11 Let me get down there. Pardon me, should have had this ready. A little more pride go. He says imaginations. Right, right. Like, huh, Like maybe we're trying. We're trying to make, we're trying. Society's trying to normalize this, and it's not. OK. It can't be normal. You can't have a society and have this become mainstream and and majority. No, you don't have a society anymore. You don't have people anymore. No, no, absolutely not. And, and so we see this come up over and over and over again. And the, you know, it, it says in Proverbs, pride goeth before the destruction.

1:32:54 It's funny that they latched on to the one thing that the Scripture seems to point to over and over and over again. What's Lucifer's ultimate, ultimate sin that gets him cast out? It's the pride of his heart, right? I no, no, no, no. I want the glory. OK, now I want to share something with you here. Beware of pride. Was that? Who was that? That was one of the greatest talks. Yeah. Ever heard in the church? Was that was that? Hacker. I can't remember. Can't remember. I can't remember. We wear a pride though. Fantastic classic talk. I want to share. That printed in a binder. Absolutely. It was a great talk. I want to share something here real quick and I want you guys to remember this scripture that's written in one of the epistles by Paul, I think, where he says we fight not against flesh and blood, but against Thrones, principles and municipalities.

1:33:45 OK? Meaning that these are spiritual things. And to illustrate this point, I'm going to share this real quick. This comes from, I found this a couple years ago, about 3 years ago to be exact. This comes from the Utah Pride Festival in 2022. The Satanic Temple of Utah was performing ritualistic unbaptisms performed that booth by an ordained minister of Satan. Why is it they feel so comfortable in that environment?

1:34:26 Last time I checked, the Church of Satan doesn't have a missionary arm. I mean, you remember the last time the the guy, the the, the elders from the Church of Satan knocked on your door, right? Right. But here they get very bold. They get very bold. Now you brought up the idea of and I would I would encourage everyone to screenshot this. This is one of those things that you're probably going to want to show your kids at some point of what what we were up against. But I think it's it's it's gross beyond all measure. But here's my point.

1:35:11 These this battle we're engaged in, it's an ancient battle. There's nothing new here, right? We can look back at all the deities that came from Canaanite gods and even Greco Roman traditions and we can start seeing some of this, right? If you were a priest or priestess of Ishtar, one of the things you were want to do was to change your gender. Yeah. You know, want to take a guess on when their their their major month of celebration was the June. It would have been the modern equivalent of June. If we look at at ballism right you, you mentioned the climate cult.

1:35:58 You know what, you know what the practitioner practitioners of ball would do if they were in a mild drought as an offering to ball. They would turn part of the field back. Ferrell again. And then the final step is when or the final two steps are a ritualistic orgy that happened in in the forest. We hear it a lot in the Old Testament about, you know, the forest or in the trees becoming a common negative connotation. It's because that's where the ritual orgies were performed. It was Woodstock. It was Woodstock exactly. And then what happens when you have that kind of free love society going on? Justin, you're.

1:36:47 Going to have a lot of unwanted pregnancies. Oh, right. And guess what the final solution was to whatever was afflicting folks who were wrapped up in ball worship? You'd sacrifice your kid? Mollock Worship. Yeah, Mollock worship. Yep. And so this is an ancient, ancient battle that we're engaged in. There is nothing new here. The only thing that's been done is they change the packaging for modern consumption. That's it. That's it. The the priests of Ball no longer wear red robe or black robes. They now wear lab coats if they're into abortion. They now wear Pixie wings in their underwear in a Pride parade.

1:37:32 It's no longer Ishtar worship. It's just pride. But this is an ancient battle that we're that we're engaged in. I'll give you the screen back now. Yeah. Well, you know, if you, if you will look at a snapshot of the world today, it's funny. We think we're so enlightened. We think we're so smart. We've got science today. We've got science. We can't be fooled by this stuff. You mean Doctor Fauci? Well, it's just, how are you know, you know, the Rick and Morty crowd, You know, we're so smart now. Religion's so dumb and we're so smart.

1:38:13 Well, why are we doing the same Dang things these ancient cults used to do if we're so much, if we're so enlightened? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's absurd. And all of these things converge. The abortion issue, another one. What do all these things have in common? Death. Yep. They all the common denominator in all of this is death, ending human life, thwarting God's plan and I have the theory on this actually, I think Satan lost. The war is over. Christ's victory at the cross put a permanent end to any hope of victory that Satan had. Unless, unless the whole earth can be wasted at Christ's coming.

1:39:05 If we are all so wicked that when Christ comes the whole earth is burned, there is no Millennium ring. Right. And there's no work for the dead for the I mean, you know, I've, I've done my genealogy and a little bit of work for my dead if you know, a few generations back, but I'm no, I'm nowhere near Adam. We all got a lot. We've all got a lot of of of work for the dead to do during the Millennium. Absolutely. But. There'll be no Millennium. Nope. So this is this is the Hail Mary of all hell being thrown at us right now, I'd say even more than even in ancient times, because we now have also, in a sense, re erected the Tower of Babel. Yep.

1:39:54 We have a homogeneous society, even even in far Asian different, you know, corners of the world in Africa and Asia and South America. Modern culture and ideas have permeated everything. And we're all kind of linked together. And as goes Western civilization, as goes the world at this point, absolutely Western civilization is going to commit suicide. Satan wins. He can still eke out a measure of victory if he can pull that off. And I think he's throwing everything he's got at it from all of these different angles. And that's really what we're seeing. And and we can see that to a certain degree, He's really winning.

1:40:41 Birth rates across the globe are plummeting. In some countries, like South Korea, it's it's, it's almost, it's catastrophic. I think by the year 2070, their population is going to be nearly half of what it is today. Could you imagine what the world would look like with half the population in your city? Imagine half the people are gone. How? How would things function? They don't. I mean, if you don't have replacement rate, you're done. You're done. You were telling me about Korea. Yeah. It's tragic what's happening in Korea. Their replacement rates now is like .7 or something like that .7 children, they're cooked.

1:41:23 And and you know, there's, there's a lot of people that are optimistic about this. Well, mankind will adapt, will adapt. It's not going to, we're not going to, we're not going to do this for ourselves to extinction. We will adapt. I wouldn't be so sure. One of the biggest arguments that of adaption is, well, we've got AI now, we've got automation, we've got robots and AI and we don't need to as big of a population. We'll just have the machines and the computers do everything. And so even if the population's small, we'll still have everything we needed more. Well, that's probably what you should be the most afraid of.

1:42:06 You remember when I said about the the animals in captivity? Yep. Yeah, some reason the more enslaved you are, the harder it is for people to be incentivized to want to reproduce even if they want to. So let's say assuming that you're fertile, you've avoided the medical and food poison and all this kind of crap and and you're heterosexual still. You've avoided the furries, you've avoided the the trans, you've avoided the LG, you know, the lesbian and gay stuff. You've dodged those bullets. You actually met a a member of the opposite sex and were able to develop a relationship. In this day and age where people don't see each other and face to face anymore.

1:42:54 Everything's done through computers. Assuming you you get through all of that well, are you going to have a family though? Are you going to have children? You get married, OK, but are you going to have children? Are you really going to do that today? It's it's a hard thing to do. Yeah. It's a really hard thing to do. I saw an estimate online saying that the expected cost of a child, not including college education over, you know, basically from, you know, from being born or conception to, to, to becoming an adult and going off on their own is $250,000 per child.

1:43:37 I don't know whose children those are. I'm not making that kind of money. Right. And I'm doing it just, and I'm and I'm, I'm getting by just fine, but that kind of messaging is out there. Those ideas are out there. It's infecting our culture. And I'll be honest, having children is a sacrifice. It is a hard thing to do. If you go back and read the proclamation to the family, though, you'll see that this is, this is fundamental to the gospel. This is fundamental to God's plans for us on this earth, is that we reproduce. It's so important. It's so important that God has built it into us. Such a strong biological desire for this that we have to depend on him spiritually not to get overwhelmed by it, to not take it too far, to not turn into animals. But Despite that, in this day and age, we don't, we don't, we're not having children anymore and it's getting these, these numbers are getting hard.

1:44:38 And I kind of can't understand why. I think it's the, it's the enslavement aspect. It's the biggest cause more than anything else. It's we are animals in captivity. We are losing our, our freedoms. We are lose, losing our sovereignty. We're losing our opportunities. Housing has become really impossible for young couples now. The idea of owning a home is not on the table. So, so they rent, right? Well, do you want to have children if you're renting a house? Or do you want to have children if you own your own property? Right. That makes a huge difference here and things are hard right now. The economy is not good, the economics aren't good, the political landscape that's UN good. There's a lot of uncertainty.

1:45:29 There's a lot of all this. There's all these excuses not to have children, but the fact of the matter is it's not going to get easier. No. Next year it's going to be even that much harder to have children. The year after that it's going to be that much harder. And as things like a robotics and AI and these government, this is the WEF puts it, you'll owe nothing and be happy and like it and like it. You'll own nothing and like it, yes, and you will not have children. Who wants to have children if you own nothing? Right. When you look at the advances of of civilization, there is something to the curse of Adam, right?

1:46:16 That we and we understand this. I think as men, maybe more than maybe some of the women understand it. Men need opposition. We need resistance. If there's not something to push against as men, we kind of, we kind of fall apart. We atrophy. Our muscles do that. But it's not just muscles, it's, it's everything. That's why that's why men are into sports, because it's a, it's a game and that's important to us, though. It's an important game. It's like. Competitiveness. It's competition, yeah, and we need that. And. But if you remember, when Adam's cast out of the garden, he's cursed. What? How is he cursed at the ground will no longer just bring up fruit and and food and and instantaneously, but he'd have to labor by the sweat of his brow. He'll eat.

1:47:06 He shall eat his, you know, he shall eat his bread. We have to work. What happens when that work goes away? What happens when that resistance is gone and we live in a society where you don't have to work. We've got AI and machines or we've got immigrants. If the liberals have their way, we've got we've got other people. There's no more resistance and we're no longer men. And if we're no longer men, we're no longer raising families. And if we're no longer raising families, it's the end of civilization. You know, it's imagine just what would people do if they didn't have to labor and everything they need need was just automatically given to you. They'd probably just Jack into a computer all day. Yep.

1:47:52 The end. The end. Yep, Yep. You know, a couple things you said, I think here worth exploring. And one is you, you use the term the the the world will be left desolate. In the Old Testament, the sin above all of their sins was called what the abomination of desolation. I can't think of a more apt description for what we're facing right now. Declining birth rates. You know, we we're there. We're, we're there. The other thing I, I, I want to relate something to you that, that I was just talking with a, a guy who's in his late 20s, early 30s, if I, if I'm not mistaken, still lives in Utah. Good dude.

1:48:42 But he was talking to me and he was like, we can't do it. It's like, what? What do you mean? He's like, I make about 35 bucks an hour. It's not a bad wage, right? You're not going to be a millionaire, but that's not a bad wage. Like when I first got out of college, I literally made like, I want to say 10 bucks an hour as a surveyor, right? I mean, like, it was it, but we always had enough to get by. This pork guy, he's like, I can't even afford to buy a home. My wife has to work just so we could make ends meet.

1:49:25 And if we have any more kids, we're going to have to look at daycare and that's going to eat into it. I'm going to say something here and I don't want this to be the ending. I I want to make sure people understand that because there's some hope here. But I do believe we're in, we're in the last stages of empire collapse. I, I think we've arrived and we're going to have to start looking at doing some unconventional things. And so I, I mentioned to this young guy like, look, then move, get out of Utah. I got out of Utah, right. I couldn't afford it either. I get it. Get out.

1:50:05 Get out of. I couldn't either. I got. I got out of Idaho. Right, right. I was like, get it, get out of there. And he's like, I can't. I was like, what do you mean you can't? And we talked about it. He's like, Oh, well, well, maybe I could, right? But you're going to have to start thinking outside the box. Maybe you don't live right next to your family anymore. Maybe you got to move somewhere that you never thought about moving before, and you got to really work hard at finding the beauty in that place. But there are still places where you can make it. But you got to be willing to do something. And yet you can't. You can't sit in the same place and just assume that it's going to get better because I don't think it is. I think the big metroplexes are cooked right. Unless you're a tech bro pulling down to 50 a year. Good luck.

1:50:54 Yeah. Good luck. But I felt for him, Right? But right. And and you mentioned the animals in cages. He sounded like an animal in a cage. He's stuck. He can't go anywhere. He's a slave to the job he has, which he really doesn't like, but he's kind of there because he can't do anything else that's going to make that amount of money. If he makes a change living where he's living, it's absolute financial ruin. All these things are coming like every bad check that we've ever wrote it as people, they're coming due right now. They're all about to hit the bank and we have a severe lack of funds to cover our our rear end on that, on that check that we've we've wrote.

1:51:39 So I'm not the scholar here, but there was a, there was a revelation given by John Taylor, no, no, given by Wilfer Woodruff that Wilfer Woodruff received prior to his great compromise. And in that revelation, I don't know word for word, but I know in that revelation he is told that he is to make no deal basically with with the government or compromise with the government on the issue of plural marriage and that if he did that God would support. Them. God would sustain his church there. There was a promise in that revelation as well. Now, we don't know what happened.

1:52:20 We don't know what we don't know what would have happened if that had gone the other direction, right? We don't know for sure that that God would have had his back. Maybe God would have let the church be annihilated. I mean, who knows? But that's not the God I believe in. I'll tell you that much. I believe in a God that will support his people. In the very end of the first chapter of the Book of Mormon, Nephi says he's going to show unto us that the tender mercies of the Lord are all are over all those whom he have chosen. And what makes you chosen? Well, you choose.

1:53:02 It's self selection. If you're going to, if you want to serve the Lord, you are called to the work. Right. Is is God going to have our back? I'll tell you when I was married, and things weren't even nearly as bad back then. But when I got married, I didn't have a job. Right. But I had absolute faith I would find one because I believe in a God that wants me to have a family, that wants me to be married and support a wife. And lo and behold, I've engaged, and a couple weeks before we're married, I get a call out of the blue from somebody completely out of the blue from some guy I'd known from years before saying, hey, how you doing? Long time no see.

1:53:49 I'm like, yeah, I remember working with you once as a kid and kind of interning. And he's like, you still do computer stuff? I'm like, yeah, oh, there's a guy in my ward who's looking to hire a programmer. You want to meet with him? All right, sure. And next thing I know, I've got a job, I wasn't even looking, and the Lord dropped it into my lap. And I'm not saying that's going to happen for everybody, but what I believe, I believe in a God that supports his people when they choose to do the right thing, when they put God first, when they put his Kingdom before their own. And God's Kingdom is in your family.

1:54:30 Your family is God's Kingdom. God wants you to have a family. And if you're going to put God first, then go ahead and back God into a corner and see if he won't bless you. Make. Try the Lord. Make him bless you if need be. I don't mean that in a science seeking way. But if it. Truly came down to the point of the church was going to be forced to allow gay marriage in the temple or something like that, right? If it really, really ultimately came down to it, there is no way of stopping it.

1:55:12 Fantastic. That means the Lord's going to have to intervene. Yep. What? What is it that said in the Doctrine and Covenants when you do as I ask? How's that phrased? Oh, I just blanked on it. I had it and I missed it. When you do, when you keep the commandments, and I'm paraphrasing out, the Lord is bound to follow through. Look, I believe. If you don't, then you have no promise. Right. I believe in a God who's very consistent. I have no time for an inconsistent God, right? And there's too many miracles in my life and other people's lives that I've seen that would suggest he is anything other than what he said there in the Doctrine and Covenants. Right.

1:55:58 So yeah, it's hard. The world, things are hard right now. They're absolutely hard. They are going to get harder. It's not going to get easier. Right. And so if the Lord's calling you to have a family, but you don't think you can do it, test the Lord. Try the Lord. The birth rates in Utah plummeted as well. Yeah. Significantly, and in Utah and matter of fact, proportionally in Utah, it's fallen the most. Right. Because Utah used to be like 6 or 7 and and now we're more like just the rest of the country, just doing a little bit better, yeah. And you know again. And what does that mean, right? What does that mean? Part of it's probably this LGBT, LGBTQ, pride stuff. But that's not all of it.

1:56:46 There's the health effect, there's the health stuff, there's the economic stuff. There's. All of these things weighing and I understand how difficult it can be to, to have faith, but you put God in the, you obey God's commandments and put yourself in a situation and the Lord has to bless you. He's promised you that he will. The Lord will find a way to open the door, Whatever it, whatever it takes. There are ways of doing it. And yeah, you might have to think outside the box, but I mean, if you think about it, we are wealthier today than than than than humankind has ever been in, in the history of civilization. It's, it's just absolutely insane. You know, our great, great grandparents were living in one room cabins with 12 kids and and they got by somehow they didn't have fire.

1:57:36 I mean, they didn't have electricity. They had fire. They didn't have electricity. Right. They didn't have Internet, they don't have smartphones, they don't have, they didn't have any of that stuff. And you can say, well, times have changed. We've lost a lot of those skills. Well, that's true. We have lost a lot of those skills and times have changed. But if you're willing to make those sacrifices, I, I guarantee you it is my, it is my personal testimony because I've, I've lived this, that the Lord will find a way to open the doors so that you can keep his commandments. You got to be like Nephi. And that includes having a family, but that also includes standing up. The Wolves. Right, right.

1:58:19 And this is the month of wolves. It, it really is, you know, back to, to having a family. When I had first gotten married to Amber, I was put in as ward mission leader in the ward I was living in. And Bishop, old school Bishop, good man, good man. I remember we had to, to, to go on a visit to somebody and give a blessing. And he called me up and said, why don't you go with me? I'm like, cool. Yeah, no, certainly I looking back, I know what he was doing. He was like, yeah, kids should probably see how this is done sort of a thing, right?

1:59:01 But we had a conversation in a car and he he was like, it was on the way home from the hospital. We had to drive all the way to Boise and we were about 45 miles from Boise, so we had a good hour drive, right? And he was talking to me and he's like, well, how's married life, young man? I'm like, oh, that's great. You know, my wife's awesome, blah, blah, blah. And he goes any kids. And I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm nervous. He's like, what are you nervous for? I'm like, I'm poor. I'm in school, I have work and, and you know, even my church callings and stuff. And he's like, let me tell you something. He said there's very few things in life that's worthwhile doing that you can't do while you have kids. And you will never regret having your kids. You will regret focusing on your career more than having a family.

1:59:56 And I guess that would be my recommendation, right? Damn the consequences. If you got to move, move. If you got to do something different, do something different. There is a ton of places still out here in in in America. Where you can go find an affordable way of life Now you're going to have to put some things on the altar. You're not going to be right next to your favorite dining spot anymore, and you won't have all the conveniences of everything being close. But the trade off is. Well worth it SO. You bring up something. I actually have a bit of a theory on this. I think one of the reasons a lot of marriages are failing in modern times is because we don't have enough tribulation. Things have gotten so Dang convenient that we're so bored that our marriages are falling apart. Right.

2:00:53 Because in my experience, it's the trials that will either destroy a family or make a family. Absolutely. And when we don't have trials, when you don't have those, those when you, when you, when you avoid the uncomfortable to the point where everything goes numb, you're lukewarm, you got nothing left. There's nothing there. I think most marriages failing today are failing because because of a lack of position and trial. The other part of this is how you handle it. And you know, in olden days when you when you when you were facing a crisis, you solved that by rallying the family. Right.

2:01:36 Your crops fail. Your field fails. There's a bad harvest. Things don't go your way. And you got to get together with your wife and your children, and you got to make a new plan and you got to figure something out. And that brings a family together. What do we do today when we have a problem at work? Because I'm more off work in my job, my wife's off work in her job, our kids are off being educated by somebody else. And if any of us have problems, what do we do? We isolate even further. Yeah. And I've got this problem at work. Let me let me rally my no, no, no. It's push my family away. I've got to really focus on this. I've got to get my Co worker involved. I gotta get this guy involved and I've got to. And we solve our problems by pushing away from our families now.

2:02:26 But I think that's actually at the core of marriage failures. We don't have enough real problems and therefore we get bored and we make up crap. Well, look, I'm, I'm going to be I am so getting banned. I'm going to say this. I think what we're experiencing with the LGBTQ wave that's that's hit our shores is a product of life is too easy. And let me explain here before someone, before someone yells at me, Justin, what's the one thing they say that is arson?

2:03:09 As your typical hetero white male, it is you stand on so much. You stand on so much privilege, so much privilege, but you got them. And be like, you know what? We've got so much privilege, we can't even be the victim of racism or anything like that anymore. Right. But how privileged do you have to be to be able to ride down Main St. in your underwear wearing Pixie wings, declaring who, what kind of, you know, gender you want to sleep with or changing your gender, right? I think especially the trans movement is because there's not enough natural struggle anymore.

2:03:53 And humans are whether whether you're a God guy or whether you're someone who believes in evolution, the one common denominator there is we were built for struggle, right? Exactly. Goes back to Adam. We we were born for struggle and when we don't have that struggle we tend to get pretty self-destructive. Just like you were talking about. We make. Up stuff, we start making up problems. We start making up problems because we're wired that way. Now that can be you. You don't. You don't need to go seek out immense struggle, but go to the gym, right?

2:04:34 Do hard things. That's where growth happens is doing the hard things and you do that and all of a sudden life gets way easier. Guy that I know, his brother was a Bishop in the LDS church. And this was just recently and he said he had kids coming to him all the time going. I got high anxiety. I've got I'm depressed. I've got this, I've got that. Well, he had a brother who was a a rancher down by Nephi. And so he would say, yeah, go work with my brother and they'd work for his brother for and get paid, right. It wasn't like it was slave labor. He'd go out there and work for his brother for a week. I'll be darned if things didn't just clear up, right? I mean, some we are built for struggle and we need the struggle in order to grow.

2:05:23 And when we don't have the struggle, we invent things subconsciously for struggle. You know, I want to add something to that. This is this is the the gospel according to me. But nonetheless, I had AI had a revelation once because I found myself struggling a lot in life at various things, struggling to find a wife, struggling to just just all kinds of stuff, right? Struggling to find self-confidence in myself. At a certain point though, I had this, this revelation that if you're struggling, that means that you're doing it right. That means you're working you.

2:06:10 That means you are over the target. You are going in the right direction because the path of least resistance is what leads to hell. Yep. If things are easy, if you're not struggling, if things are fine and dandy and you don't have a problem or care in the world, that's when you really need to be worried. And that's the thing, I don't know anybody who I consider a great man who doesn't struggle. They struggle all the time with all kinds of things. It's true, the struggle that we become strong. And I think that's what I believe. It's Moroni. Or is it Mormon and never remember? I think it's moron.

2:06:56 I writing in the Book of Mormon where he talks about the Lord making weak things become strong because he's like, I can't write. I can't do this. I'm I'm not strong like I the Nephites are so good at speaking and we can speak so well and the spirit's that bang and and it convinces people's hearts. People are going to look at this book and they're going to mock it. They're going to laugh because I can't write with the same spirit that I can preach. And the Lord comforts him and says, Hey, and I give unto men weaknesses. God gives unto men weaknesses so that we turn to God. And in that struggle, in that wrestling, like Jacob wrestling with the Angel or the Lord, depending on how you understand that verse, that is how we find the the divine within us.

2:07:48 That's how we achieve our potential as sons and daughters of God is through the struggle. And so if you're struggling, that's OK. That's normal. And sometimes I feel like, especially in the LDS church, people put on a mask of, hey, I'm not struggling because if I was struggling, that means I'm a bad. I mean, I'm not a good Mormon. I'm not, I'm not worthy of, of this. The gospel is not working for me. No, it's, it is working. That's, that's how it works. It is through the struggle that we become strong. That is how the Lord tempers us and refines us and purifies us. And so struggling is not a bad thing. Giving up is a bad thing and avoiding the fight, avoiding the struggle is a bad thing.

2:08:28 That's that's where, that's where you have problems. That's where things go wrong. And that's ultimately where things really fall apart. Just because you're struggling doesn't mean things are falling apart. It might feel that way sometimes, but it's not true. It's when you stop struggling. It's when you give in. That's when things are falling apart, when you feel comfortable, when you're at ease. Absolutely, absolutely. And and so as, as times continue, as we, as we struggle against this, I want to, I want to say one more thing. There is joy even in the struggle. I've come to learn that over the last few years, I have never been as busy as I am right now.

2:09:12 My schedule is not a schedule. It's a collection of tasks that is slowly accumulating to overtake me. Somehow I'm keeping my head above water. But there's joy in that look when I go to bed at night. And I've said this about both Amber and Tanya, and I really mean it. They are my solace, right? I'll, you know, at night, I lay down and they are absolutely my solace. But there is a quiet joy that comes from. Yeah, you know what? I worked my rear end off this week and I'm now tired, but it feels good because I got stuff done.

2:09:53 I struggled. There is joy in the struggle. And even as we struggle against this right, against this stuff coming for our kids, there's a certain quiet joy that can be found because I think it's just you. You know you're engaged in a good cause and you're doing what's right. So just because you're you're struggling doesn't mean it's an absence of joy. In a weird way, sometimes we can enjoy even that. Absolutely. So along those lines, you know, we might not be able to fully win this battle or win this war, but we can win battles and battles matter because we're we need lives are at stake. Souls are at stake, right?

2:10:43 But the first thing we need to understand is what we're really dealing with. I'm going to share my screen again if that's all right. Absolutely. All right, so this is my attempts at at A at AI. Nice. But this is what this is what we are facing. Let's not. Yes, that wolf is a victim too. And that wolf is a creation of God. It doesn't mean we feed our children to it. Right. It doesn't mean we invited into our home to or invited into our chapels or invited into and I'm talking about individual people that I'm not talking about shunning people.

2:11:26 I'm saying beliefs, right ideologies and fine. If a, if a lesbian woman wants to associate with church, great. Maybe she'll fill the spirit and repent. That could be great. That could be fantastic, but you don't invite her to speak, right? And if she does and she says something about her gay marriage, then you go up there and, and you reaffirm the, the importance of the sanctity of, of, of marriage. And does that. Person is a is a victim too and they need to hear those messages. Not it's OK, we affirm you this is a safe space for you. They need to hear you can come back. There's always a the, the door is always open.

2:12:08 You're you're welcome to come back. But more importantly, we don't feed our children to the wolves. Absolutely. And so we can actually win battles. And we are at a very special moment in time, I think right now where we have a limited window, a very limited window, but a window nonetheless to start pushing back. Yep. To start driving in some steaks and I, I shared an analogy with you when I was talking on the phone the other night. During the Korean War, the, the communist North Korea was backed by China and they had a, a ceasefire or a kind of a peaceful agreement with the South for over a time as they were trying to decide what to do with the country.

2:12:54 And you have the Western backed South Korea and you have the communist Chinese, Russian backed North Korea. And while they're trying to figure out what to do with the country that the communists decided we're just going to take it all. And they launched an attack. They marched into South Korea. They pushed all the way down to the city of Pusan. They'd taken over the entire country, but there's one little city on the tip of the peninsula. And then MacArthur and, and these allies arrived and they joined the South Koreans and they fought back and they pushed back and they pushed the North Korea all the way back up to the original border.

2:13:35 And then they kept going and they pushed them all the way back up to the border of to the border of China. And at that time, MacArthur was like, let's do this. Chinese are the ones really, he knew that the Chinese, the communists are who are really fighting right now. And MacArthur also knew that these communists are going to be a problem, just like Hitler was a problem, these communists are going to be a problem too. If we don't do something about Mao, there's going to be problems. So MacArthur, General MacArthur wants to push into China because the he had the momentum going. They were already pushing.

2:14:18 And there's, there's a certain momentum that you can get and, and all kinds of things. You see this in sports all the time too, right? And when the momentum's going, you don't call the time out. The opposing team might, but you don't call the time out. No, no. When you're on fire, that is not what you called. Well, the, the, the politicians called a time out. They told MacArthur, you're not going into China. Just stop right there and just keep fighting there. And so they kept fighting there, and eventually the Chinese just overwhelmed them and they pushed MacArthur and the Allies all the way back down. Actually, it was Aun at that point. There's Aun, but it was mostly the Allied countries, right? Push them all the way back down to where the original border was.

2:15:05 And that's where it remains to this day. Yep. And MacArthur was absolutely convinced that we were completely ready to go. We could have had World War Three and won it a generation ago. Right. And we? Wouldn't be dealing with Russia and China in this, in this communist threat that's re arisen in our day. If, if if that had been dealt with, Korea would have been a free country for into complete country. Those families that are that are separated wouldn't have been separated. A lot of good could have happened if that momentum had been kept going. And so there is a certain there's a kind of synergy to momentum.

2:15:46 And right now, right now there's a bit of synergy happening. So share a few things here. This is the University of Utah. On the right, we have EU monument, I guess in front of the college as it was last year and the year before that and the year before that and the year before that. On the left, we have what it looks like today. Yep. No left is 2005, right's 2004, three, two and one. Notice anything different? 2005 or 2025? I mean 2025, sorry, left is 2025, the right is 2024, three 221.

2:16:33 Pretty stark, right? Yeah, and only once. They didn't change. They didn't wrap it in in pride colors this year. University of Utah didn't wrap their U in pride colors this year. Interesting, huh? Yeah. Well, here, look at some more stuff. These are some signs. We've got the Apple logo, and there there's their Twitter profile icon. In 2004 and 2005. We got Apple, we got IBM, we got HP, American Airlines, Paramount, Vogue. Did you know that the Boise Pride Parade got they they decided not to do it because it lacked funding this year?

2:17:19 Really. Well, who's funding? Who's funding it? Oh, I'm guessing these guys. On the left and then all of a sudden it got way unpopular to do that. Yeah, Now the other thing you see on this one, this is in that video game area I was talking about. You got Nintendo, Bethesda, Xbox, PlayStation, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Naughty Dog. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think these companies are our allies now. Right. No, they're just, they're, they're reading the tea leaves, right. And yeah, what they need to do in order to keep the shareholders happy. Don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Right.

2:18:00 And they know that right now it ain't blowing that way. And so they've got their normal logos up. They did not. They did not have their normal logos up last year. Yep. But down here in the corner, there's a few that still are. Those are now the outliers. It's like those guys didn't get the memo right? And they're the laughing stock of social media because they're the only ones. They're the only ones who stuck the Pride for a Pride flag on their company logo on Twitter. Yep. And now instead of everybody canceling these other companies for not doing it, they're mocking these companies for doing it. And then this is this is one of my favorites because I hate Target, but.

2:18:47 Target. We got last year and they've got their pride section hashtag take pride and all this rainbow colored children clothing because who wouldn't want to dress their children? Well, I'm not going to say that I don't want you to get cancelled off YouTube that quick. It might be too late though, either way. It might be. It's OK, it might. Be too late, we might have blown it. It it's not my first time so. Either way. You say that and I see that meme of the the guy with the new surrounding this your first time right? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Oh yeah, we're synced up there. Yeah, so you've got the pride display on the top.

2:19:30 That was last year and then this year you got red, white and blue as far as the eye can see, not a rainbow insight target. You know, and again, to your point, it's not like the attitudes changed inside the building. What did they see? They saw an election that quite frankly was a mandate, right? And and their understanding, oh, we're on the wrong side of this. And so for the benefit of profits and shareholders, we better do an about face. But make no mistake, once they feel like that momentum has changed, they'll go back, right and back to what you had quoted out of Mosiah about each man has a responsibility.

2:20:22 We now have momentum on our side. And it doesn't matter who's in office, OK? Every politician is a chameleon. Every politician will adjust the colors to whichever ideology is most prevalent. So just because this happened right now is not victory. It's a battle that's been won, but it's 1 battle. The other thing I'll say, you talked about having small victories. I don't think they're small. And let me explain that in this case, Justin, I don't think it's overstating to say that we're fighting for the souls of men and women. Absolutely.

2:21:07 What does God say in the Doctrine and Covenants about the worth of one soul? Yeah. If you bring unto me, save it be 1 soul. Imagine the joy in the hereafter. Right. So and what if that one soul is your own grandchild? Right, right. Or even if? How? Many souls, is that now? Right, exactly. And and so these things we do here, when we stand up, they reverberate throughout the eternities. Yeah. And and I think that's important to keep in mind. I don't think in in this instant, I don't instance, I don't think there is a small victory. I think they're all large victories because we're the the stakes are so high to God because God loves his children. Right.

2:22:00 So ultimately, if I go back to the Korea analogy, I don't know why, I guess I've served a mission in Korea. It's partial, partial to history. Let me go back to that Korea analogy. Ultimately, the communists are going to overrun the land and we're going to be huddled in Pusan waiting for General Jesus Christ to come and save us. We know that's how this is going to end. But in the meantime, in the meantime, what if we could have a a Demilitarized Zone? Right. What rather than let this what if instead of this just being a this year of of a of a pride fatigue, this becomes the new standard.

2:22:44 This becomes the new line in the sand. We push back and we're going to hold this ground as long as we can, as long as we absolutely can. Isn't that worth it, dude? Isn't that worth the fight? And it's not just, it's not just pride. This isn't the only thing we're facing, right? This is a symptom of a much bigger problem. But we're winning in other ways as well. There's other small victories that are actually huge, just to name a couple of them. And I, I actually was, we were discussing this once, you know, Pornhub is just pulled out of France. Nice they.

2:23:24 Pulled out of France because France required age verification. They've also pulled out of multiple states here in America. Yep. I don't know if they're in Utah or not. That's But see, there's a there's a fight right there. If you want to fight, get your legislate if it hasn't already. Get your legislators in Utah to pass a law that requires age verification for pornography peddlers and Pornhub will pull out of your state because they would rather not do business in your state than not be allowed to peddle pornography to minors. Right. And and. Look. That's such a small thing just to verify your age, right? And so there's no other reason other than they're going after kids that that would be such an issue that they'd want to pull out of that state, right?

2:24:13 Right. It kind of reminded me when a bunch of these LGBT people were really upset when they passed the death penalty for child predators in in Florida. And they're like, they're coming after us. I'm like, wait, what are you saying? What do you mean they're coming after you? That that is akin to me. Anymore. That is akin to me coming home from work and my kid turns around and goes, I didn't steal a cookie. They're like, I didn't ask bro, but now you got to ask some questions. Yeah, exactly. So Pornhub, we're winning against the fight against pornography. We're having actual wins. You thought that you thought that war was passed. No, it's not passed. And there's things that we can do about it. We can still stand up against this women's sports. We've had a lot of victories in women's sports recently. And you know, some of that might be just temporary political stuff, but we make sure that we are heard that this is what we expect.

2:25:10 And we're not going back to that again. We're not going to let boys beat up girls and, and, and in sports. And we set that standard. And then the other one in the UK, they recently, I think it was the all I thought their passports or something like that. No more, no more. You know you're male, female, and then it's what you were born as. Right. Radical. I know you know radical, right? Radical. Your government identification identifies your actual sex, not your imagined sex. Strange. Strange, Yeah. But regardless that that that's the that's a victory.

2:25:52 There are victories to be had. There are battles to fight that can be won. You don't have to go out and martyr right now. And so I would just encourage anybody listening find, find your fight. If it's not pride, that's fine. So find something, find something because like you were saying, Dave, this is an ancient battle and this is this is the last iteration of it. This is the last cycle happening right now and the other side's pulling out everything that it's got. Yep. I mean, just think about Justin. Was there ever a time in your life that you thought you would actually see in Utah? A flyer for the Church of Satan to do unbaptisms during a gay pride festival.

2:26:39 No, but you know what? In 2004, I would never have believed that in 2005, the UT, the UTA will not appear at Pride. Right this year. Yeah, and guess why they pulled out funding. Yeah, they're. Saying for other events, they're still going to be there and you can use your ticket to the event as your transit token as well. But they're not doing that with your Pride tickets. You got to pay. If you want to ride transit, you got to pay. Why? Because the Pride organization didn't pay, the UTA include that with their tickets. They don't have the money, right?

2:27:20 They don't have the money. And and this is. Yeah, and that's the thing, making a stand can be that simple as I'm not going to go shop at Target because they have pride section in June. Yep. And vote with your dollar. I'm not buying my kid a new Nintendo Switch. The new Nintendo Switches came out and you can create a me that's body type one or body type 2. Nintendo won't say boy or girl on the on their new children's console. They won't say boy and girl. It's body type A and body type B. I'm not buying it.

2:28:02 Right. I, I, you know, I grew up with Nintendo. I've got this very powerful, strong nostalgia that was that was my childhood. Right. And I have been a fan of theirs ever since. And this is the first generation of something new they're putting out. I will not participate. Yeah. Just off the table not doing it. I'm going to say something else here because you alluded to this. Sometimes it's as easy as saying, you know what? We're not going to target today. We're going somewhere else. Sometimes your absence speaks louder than your presence, right? And I, I want to be careful how I word this because because we do need to engage.

2:28:47 However, there's nothing wrong with selectively engaging. So if you don't play the game and you only come out for that one fight you feel like God's inspiring you to come out for, it's OK, It's all right. But sometimes you can win with your absence and that can speak louder than anything else. And we shouldn't be afraid of that either, right? That's one of the easier things that we can do. I'm just not going to participate, right? It's hard. It's hard to win a game if you don't have an opponent sometimes. And I think I think that's that's also worth worth remembering. But well, dude, good stuff.

2:29:29 Anything else? Well, I think we got into it and even more than I was expecting, so. Yeah, no, we we absolutely got into it really good. Again, these are ancient battles that we're fighting. This is an ancient war. This is the ancient of all wars. Things have changed, but the only thing that's changed is the packaging in which death is peddled to. You understand? I'll death and understand this as well. We're showing that we can win, right, that we can win some battles, but we got to seize the momentum now and we can't let it go.

2:30:12 And we we have to keep pushing on this or just like you pointed out with your analogy of Korea, we'll be, we'll be in a world of hurt. But dude, that was good, good stuff. I appreciate you coming on. Thanks. It's fun to have you here. All right, we'll talk to you next time. Bye everybody. You're listening to the Norman Renegade podcast.