Saturday, March 10, 2012
Turning dead Mormons into gay mormons
Posted By Stephen Dark on March 10, 2012, 1:45 PM
With the recent controversy over Mormons performing proxy baptisms for dead Jews, a website devoted to "converting" dead Mormons into gay dead Mormons has emerged, adding an intriguing twist to one of the more hotly debated aspects of Mormonism.---
The Deseret News and its sister pub Church News have both trumpeted the LDS hierarchy's message -- also read out at ward houses last Sunday -- that proxy baptizing of non-relatives is forbidden. But members still do it anyway. Both Anne Frank and Taliban-slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were baptized by Mormons against church policy.
Members are supposed to baptize only dead relatives -- who can decide in the next world if they want to embrace this offering -- but both the baptisms for Frank and Pearl, according to the Times story, which you can read here, were done by a church member who broke with LDS Church policy to achieve his ends.
So, according to The New York Times, Anthony Hecht, chief technology officer for Seattle alt weekly The Stranger, has taken the unusual route of setting up a website where you can get a little cosmic payback on behalf of the memory of those folks Mormons have chosen to baptize posthumously into their own faith.
AllDeadMormonsAreNowGay.com offers the unique opportunity to either enter the name of a dead Mormon or have one chosen for you. When you hit enter, "Hey, presto," they convert permanently to the joys of being gay.
The website's blurb notes that, "Sadly, many Mormons throughout history have died without having known the joys of homosexuality. With your help, these poor souls can be saved. Simply enter the name of your favorite dead Mormon in the form below and click 'Convert'! Presto, they're gay for eternity. There is no undo." There is a disclaimer that Holocaust victims are not eligible for conversion.
I clicked on the button that selects a dead Mormon to baptize. It kicked up Helen Reed. I hit the convert button and up popped "Converted! That's all there is to it! Happy trails, Helen Reed!"
The author of the site claims 600,000-plus unique hits. On the face of it, it seems like a jovial example of otherworldly tit-for-tat, but at the same time, like everything else involved with this strange practice of extending missionary work to the afterlife, it leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.
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