Eh. They're wacky and this is a wacky thing to do, but isn't it better to just ignore them? It's not like their goofy posthumous baptisms are hurting anybody.
It's not ALWAYS better to just ignore people like this, especially when you can have fun at their expense. I've converted five people already. And like you said, it's not hurting anybody.
I wonder how many conversions it would take to make the dead Mormon population gayer percentage-wise than the population at large? This may be one of the best and highest purposes for crowdsourcing. WHEEEEEE!
Wait, since only Mormons can do the posthumous baptisms, shouldn't only gay people be allowed to use this site?
I've only been reading Dan Savage for a few years, ever since I first caught him in the Reader. I like his columns, he's rather witty and his mainstream advocacy is fairly second to none - at least as far as keeping the under-40 crowd who sadly don't seem to know any better in line is concerned. He also gives good advice and lays down the well deserved beating or two when they're called for. I also think he has done a world of good speaking out about bullying, not just in regards to how severely lopsided it is towards the LGBT community, but in how bad it is in this country in general. What I'm saying is, I like him and his writing and I like what he stands for and I believe he is net good, which makes the fucking Andrew Meyer/failwhale waitress scandal a few months back bother me even more. I'm sorry, I realize this is probably inappropriate to bring up here, and I really don't mean to shit up your thread, Jerri, I guess I just feel the need to see if I'm letting something small slightly ruin Dan and his work for me or if I should actually be bothered by what he did. In case anyone doesn't know, the short of it is that a guy named Andrew Meyer went into some random bar, got an admittedly awful waitress and he left her a bad tip with a note that pointedly said "Lose some weight, fatass." She went on a Facebook crusade name-and-shaming him to all her eight trillion friends - except she got the wrong guy (and they actually started harassing him). Now, the matter should have died down there. Facebook drama being what it is and all, I mean, you can accept that kind of junk. But then Dan entered the fray and did something he knows he shouldn't have done, being an advocate against bullying/cyberbullying, by posting this: "And that's not a crime, of course, and you're probably weren't the only person to stiff a bartender in Seattle this weekend. But you were the only who wrote this on your credit card slip: ~ I'm sure there's another side to this story—maybe you felt your bartender was rude? rude enough for you to stiff her and attack her for her looks?—but however many sides there are, however rude a Capitol Hill bartender can be, I shouldn't have to tell someone who works at freaking Microsoft about social media. Bartenders can toss shit up on Facebook too. It's true! And your receipt is all over Facebook. As is your full name, your photograph, your phone number, and the name of your employer and the name of your frat. All shit this bartender's angry friends dug up on Facebook. Now bar owners and bartenders are talking about posting your picture at the doors of their bars and 86ing you, Andrew. ~ You might want head over to Victoria's Facebook page and, I dunno, apologize already. Just blame the booze, Andrew." Note that, after being called out on how inappropriate that post was, Dan had it removed from the Stranger's website completely (apparently the Stranger has put it back up in the archive, here), it's only available via text on the internet. He posted a fairly half-hearted apology/non-apology here. Naming and shaming - fine. I understand that. Even insinuating that the service industry might should probably band together and ban the guy for being a jerk? Okay, sure. But suggesting that he be outed in full name, photograph, phone number, employer's name and the name of his frat (and thus where he lives)? All for calling a girl fat? This is the same Dan Savage who would go absolutely ballistic - and absolutely rightfully fucking so - if someone did that to a college kid for being weird or gay or black - but because he was an asshole it's suddenly okay to go on a witch-hunt (and, at his not so subtle behest, his readers did)? And when he has that explained to him, and has it further explained to him that the pissed off waitress fingered the wrong guy in the first place, that's the best apology he can come up with? It's put a slight damper on reading Dan Savage these days and he was always my favorite part of the Reader. We all fuck up, but that showed some egregious decision making (and I'd know all about egregious decision making!).
That's what put a damper on reading Dan Savage for you? Not the biphobic and transphobic shit he's said in the past? Savage is a funny guy, but I don't think you get to be a 'LGBTQ spokesman' when you are openly contemptuous of the B and T.
To the even slightly religious non-Mormon folks it would be incredibly insulting don't you think? Agnostic and Atheist people may not care but there is likely a majority of people who would be damn upset if someone converted their dead family member.
If you don't believe in Mormonism, you don't believe this ritual has any power, right? So what's the big deal?
Oh. Well yeah, I mean... fine. I already said it's fine if people want to do it. I'm confused, are you trying to nail me here?
For Jews who lost a relative to the Holocaust, it's a little alarming to discover that some wide-eyed, well-meaning weirdo decided to baptize Aunt Ruth and Uncle Eli sixty years after the Nazis killed them.
Why are you and Dan specifically calling out Holocaust victims? Does being posthumously baptized by Mormons bother their families more than other non-Mormon murder victims? Was Hitler Mormon?
Probably because it's a very obvious example that has been in the news now and again ever since it became pretty public knowledge that they were doing it twenty years ago. Reaction was strong enough that church leaders promised to cut it out in 1995, though they didn't. A few years ago Mormon and Jewish leaders got together to form a group that stop it from happening any more. And then earlier this year some guy found out his grandfather had been added to the Mormon geneological database. So I'm picking it because it's a very easy, very accessible example of the practice. Also, I was specifically answering extarbags' question.
Anne Frank for one: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/mormons-posthumous-baptism-anne-frank_n_1292102.html I find the practice highly offensive.
This is pretty amusing. Using the power of this amazing web site, I have personally turned my great-great-grandfather gay. So that he will have a partner from the appropriate cultural milieu I have also turned Martin Harris gay. He can thank me later.
Dan Savage has a lot of bigoted opinions about people who aren't white middle-class gay men. That aside, I think it's kind of problematic whenever people play into the idea of being gay being a pejorative. Seriously, this isn't helping.
Jerri 1.0 used the phrase "humorless lesbian" to jokingly describe herself ONCE, and suddenly that's all she was. She got a bad rap.
Let's not try to rewrite history, here. I like jerri 2.0 so far, but jerri 1.0 was about as interesting as a dead Mormon.
It's more a concern with Mormons creating historical data that's blatantly inaccurate and the worry that their records might someday be treated as truth. They y maintain one of the primary genealogical databases in the world and they're using that position to retcon the world Mormon.
I seem to recall a section of the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA was devoted to computer terminals with access to the Mormon genealogical records. That always seemed strange that a part of one of these state park museums was devoted to that. It turns out that museum isn't a state park thing, it was founded and run by the Freemasons. I've been there a number of times. I've seen exhibits on WWII posters, folk art, and the traveling collection of things left at the Vietnam War Memorial there. I don't recall anything ever saying it was associated with the Freemasons, but now if you go to their website, there it is right at the top. Perhaps it's part of the general "coming out" of the Masons to not hide their involvement, I don't know. Additionally, I can't find any record that the Mormon genealogical database was ever a part of that museum. I can understand that the whole thing went online, so there's no longer a need for the kiosk type of access there, but it's like it was never a part of the museum.
I worked with microfilms of 17th century French parish registers that were made in the course of the Mormon baptism project. From the point of view of historians needing (the original) records, that sort of thing is actually convenient - it was on microfilm instead of sitting in a basement somewhere on paper. That said, historical convenience isn't really the issue, it's more religious people and other religious people offending one another and/or coming to mutually inoffensive arrangements.
I'm going to pseudo-amend my earlier post. People actually have tried to rewrite history. Some efforts that we know of would have succeeded if not for extremely diligent fellows going "What the fuck?"
