Well three weeks after my article the letters keep pouring in. One person even calls for my resignation over the issue:
Bigot View
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I enjoy your paper and read it every week. But I felt the last religious section, where you rate churches, was a very bigoted view of church doctrine by an ex-Mormon who seems to have an ax to grind (“Sheep and Goats,” July 28). It seems you have never put down any other church’s doctrine. But last week you did. The article was filled with misrepresentations of the church and things taken out of context. So in the future, please tell the truth, and if anyone wants information on church doctrine, I will send you a Book of Mormon and church literature.
James Sindar
Escondido
Pointless
I found it quite amusing that so many people felt they had to complain about the July 28 “Sheep and Goats” column. I can understand the one letter by someone who’s never read the Reader before, but assuming the other people have looked through the paper more than once before, they all sound pretty stupid. Every single “Sheep and Goats” column I’ve ever seen in the Reader has been the same: a description of whatever church is the focus for that week. It’s pretty much an advertisement for the church disguised as an information piece. So the focus of his church is against Mormons. If you don’t like that, don’t listen to his radio show, as that’s all he’s got anyways. There’s no point in railing against the Reader for printing the information in the first place.
Jonathan
North Park
Ignoramus Pastor
Re “Sheep and Goats,” July 28.
What were you thinking when you published this abomination? I have waited a week before writing this, to give myself time to cool down. These articles have always been informative, up to this time, and then you give this ignoramus a pulpit to spread his garbage. I couldn’t believe you could allow such a muckraking article to be published in your publication. Please replace Mr. Drew Goodmanson immediately with a rational, sensible columnist who knows how to properly report on denominations in a proper manner. He has completely lost his credibility. As for “Pastor” (ha!!) Carlin — what a loser!
Name Withheld
by Request
San Diego
Mormons In Denial
Name Withheld’s indignation regarding Mormon beliefs was laughable (Letters, August 11). “Christ is the center of our religion” is but one example of Mormon silliness. I’m sure Jim Jones in South America claimed similarly. Polygamy was never sanctioned by Jesus. King James: Mark 10 verse 6, “But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” Mark 10:7: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife.” Please note “wife,” not “wives”!
Name Withheld obviously is not knowledgeable about tenets laid down by Mormon cult-manipulating nabobs and is probably one of those Mormons in denial who don’t know about Arizona Strip polygamy, as well as that practiced in northern Mexico. Visit Colorado City, Arizona, or check out Nixon Springs and dry farmers in that little piece of religious insanity north of the Colorado River and south of St. George, Utah. If you are not a “fundamentalist Mormon,” you won’t be any more welcome than a Christian in Iran. This area is a real polygamy hotbed, pun intended, within our United States, one which has yet to be properly addressed on a state or federal level. But then, we have terrorists taking top priority but not for the last 100 years. Despite Latter-Day Saints’ church elders’ pontifications to the contrary, polygamy in Arizona Strip gets a little wink and no intervention by leaders, who officially denounce it but could stem this often pedophilic behavior. Hmm! If they were Roman Catholic priests, well, who knows.
Name Withheld might also like to address other “News of the Weird” things such as crotchless men’s underwear. Oh well, you get this picture, or perhaps you wouldn’t want to envision that one. Do I sound like a former Arizona Strip Mormon? Quite possibly.
Usually, I sign my name, but to honor anonymity of Name Withheld, I sign,
Name Withheld