Tyler Perry
My gut instinct is to classify Deseret Nation, a group that
codes itself with the hashtag DezNat (which looks like DeezNutz lol), as a hate
group. It is certainly a fascist bunch
of right-wing ideologues wrapped in the vestments of Mormonism and pseudo-intellectualism. They view LGBT affirmation as a step toward
apostasy, and apostates are to be the most hated of all.
If I were to compare DezNat to other fascist movements, I
would say that they are looking for a solution to the “apostate question”. This is seen in the memes they share, the
comments they make, and the videos they post.
I am a little bit concerned about giving them a platform or giving
them more recognition. However, I agree with
the idea that fascist ideologies ought to be snuffed out before they have a chance
to grow, and the best way to do that is to engage with and refute those ideas
in a public space. Furthermore, DezNat
has a little under 800 likes on its Facebook page, and my blog posts tend to
get just a bit north of 100 views, so, if anything, pissing them off might just
get my blog more attention.
DezNat is the sort of group that Brigham Young would approve
of. They are opposed to Black Lives
Matter. They despise LGBT people, even
if they would cloth that hatred in the usual Mormon sophistry. Above all, they have nothing but contempt for
apostates. They feature a so-called “Apostate
of the Week” on their Facebook page, usually featuring someone with more intelligence
than the collective DezNat movement can muster, who they try to mock and
ridicule in order to feel better about themselves. I think that DezNat has a “Make Mormonism
Great Again” attitude that would like to see the church return to its 1977
state. You know, before Declaration 2
hit store shelves in a quad near you.
And the more that I learned about DezNat, the more I
realized that my gut instinct was correct.
This is the alt-right or other white nationalist movements, but with the
trappings of Mormonism. Wolves in sheep’s
clothing. For the uninitiated, like
myself just a few days ago, it can be shocking to see that such a group exists within
Mormonism. But I want to take you
through some of the beliefs and recent posts of this hate group and make a case
for why the fight for LGBTQ affirmation within the church matters.
Part 1 – On the Origin of the Fascist
To explain how the alt-right and fascism has worked itself
into the minds of some more fundamentalist Mormons, I want to tell you a little
story. I could go into the history of
how the group started and their hero worship of the Danite extremists of early
Mormonism, but Wheat and Tares already did a fantastic job of that. I will link to their article in the
references section below [1].
Instead, I want to tell you about a 16-year-old Mormon kid
with a strong conservative political stand.
He was president of his debate club, but his worldview was shaped by the
ideas of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. This young Mormon chap had a certain fire for
the Gospel of Jesus Christ that he wanted to see consume the world. And it fed into his politics. He believed that drug users were victims of
their own bad decisions alone, full stop.
He believed that abortion was murder, with possible exceptions for cases
of rape and incest. He also stood in pickets
to oppose same-sex marriage.
On his mission, he used this type of thinking to blame the
people who would not listen to his teachings, for whatever reason, on their
corrupt worldviews. He believed them to be
wrapped up in the whispers of the devil, and, having rejected him, they deserved
the punishment from heaven for their rejection of “the one true church”.
I often wonder what that kid would have become if he had
lived in the age of Twitter and Trump.
Would he have become an alt-right hardliner, sticking it to the
libtards? Would he have fallen into the
incel camps as he struggled to find success in dating? Would he have been among the first to bring
that type of thinking to a new alt-right movement within Mormonism?
Fortunately for our protagonist, he learned a lot about
other people on his mission, and, while he did hold antagonistic views at
first, he learned to see others for who they were. Though a hardline conservative who believed
that illegal immigration was morally wrong, he found it hard to square that line
of thinking with the faces of illegal immigrants who invited him into their homes
to break bread. Though he blamed drug
users for their own failures with drugs, he learned to treat people who used drugs
with compassion and empathy.
When his two years of missionary service were done, the
seeds were sown that would change his heart.
It also helps that it would turn out that he was like really
super gay. Gays are not exactly the most
welcome bunch in incel or alt-right, neo-fascist hate groups. And the rise of Trumpism in the Republican
party almost forcefully pushed him out of his old conservative ways of
thinking, into a whole new world. A new…
fantastic point of view…
The thing that scares me is that I was one gay gene away
from falling off the wagon and into the twisted morality of DezNat. Apart from the fact that this is a group that
definitely would want to see people like me wiped from existence, the thing
that I find so repugnant about the group is that I could have been any one of
them.
These ideas spring up from a genuine desire to serve God and
to spread his Gospel. People who join
this group are not, at least for the majority of them, joining them because they
wish to harm people. However, once they
start to join this community, they find themselves uniquely welcomed. They support Trump because he’s the
Republican, and at least he isn’t Hillary Clinton, could you imagine? But they see the way that other members of the
church are critical of Trump. They know
that same-sex marriage is wrong, but all around them are Mormons who are becoming
more and more welcoming of LGBT members.
And some of them may even have friends who have read the CES Letter and
decided that Mormonism just isn’t true.
And that is a moral failing that terrifies them. If someone could go from believing that the
church is true, like they do, to believing that it isn’t, are they safe?
And so DezNat provides this useful vocabulary that helps
DezNat followers to differentiate themselves from the pack. You see, your standard, garden-variety Mormon
is called a “Mormie”, which is a play on the word “normie”, taken from
right-wing forums. Then you have your
progressive Mormons, or “ProgMos”. These
are the people who believe that the church is true, but that there are some
practices, like the lack of queer affirmation, that just need to go. ProgMos are trying to change the purity of
their beautiful and perfect church. They
are enemies to be stopped, especially before they become the ultimate enemy.
The apostate or the “exMo”.
Now, apart from the fact that all of this nomenclature just
flies in the face of Russel Nelson’s opposition to the use of the word “Mormon”,
this special set of vocabulary helps members of DezNat to differentiate and elevate
themselves above the pack. It’s this
language that makes them believe that they are superior to their Mormie friend
who read the CES letter and became a deplorable exMo who just trolls Reddit to
complain about the church. I mean, you
can leave the church, but you can’t leave it alone, right?
I believe fear is a great motivator for people in these
groups. I mentioned the fear that maybe
you could fall away just like those around you who have done just that. There is another fear, and it is one that
Trump and alt-right ideologues have tapped into: the fear of the other. The alt-right does not trust immigrants, they
opposed taking in Syrian refugees, they oppose same-sex marriage, believe in “Biblical
gender roles”, blame the Chinese for COVID-19 but also think it’s a Democrat hoax,
and they do not support Black Lives Matter.
And it takes only a few moments on the DezNat Facebook page
to come across comments like this:
This is a rather unique take on the BLM movement. Instead of the focus on the supposed Marxist
ideas in BLM, an idea that echoes Ezra Taft Benson’s opposition to the Civil Rights
Movement for much the same justification (in 1965, by the way) [2], DezNat believes
that BLM is anti-family. This is the
same sort of coded language that they use to attack LGBT people and apostates.
This type of thinking does not address the real concerns
that people who support BLM have about society.
Even if the “official BLM organization” is Marxist (not a claim that I
am agreeing with or opposing, just a premise I am willing to grant), that does
not mean that the adversity that they have faced is not real. It does not mean that the problems that they
are speaking up about are fictitious. This
type of language protects DezNat followers from addressing the concerns of the
other, because they are afraid. If you
accept BLM, like the ProgMos do, are you going to start on the path to becoming
an apostate?
Part 2 – Apostasy
Apostasy in Mormonism is a somewhat fascinating study. There are some so-called apostates who broke
off because they felt betrayed by Joseph Smith.
After all, Joseph’s polygamy was a poorly kept secret, and his affair
with Fanny Alger, a then-14-year-old girl, continues to be a sticking point for
many members and ex-members of the church to this day.
Others left because they did not accept the calling of Brigham
Young as Joseph’s successor. Many
believed that Joseph’s son, Joseph Smith III, was the rightful successor, and
this has its roots in the order of succession demonstrated in the Book of Mormon. For instance, Alma to Alma, Alma to Helaman,
Helaman to Helaman, Helaman to Nephi, and Nephi to Nephi before Jesus showed
up. Why should the modern-day church be
any different?
Other apostates broke off when the polygamy ban was released
in Declaration 1, forming the Fundamentalist sect of the LDS movement.
The General Handbook has a fairly specific description of an
apostate. In November 2015, that
description included those who had entered a same-sex marriage. That policy was rescinded in 2019. The current definition of apostasy is someone
who “engages in:
- Repeatedly
acting in clear and deliberate public opposition to the Church, its
doctrine, its policies, or its leaders
- Persisting
in teaching as Church doctrine what is not Church doctrine after being corrected
by the bishop or stake president
- Showing
a pattern of intentionally working to weaken the faith and activity of
Church members
- Continuing
to follow the teachings of apostate sects after being corrected by the
bishop or stake president
- Formally
joining another church and promoting its teachings (Total inactivity in
the Church or attending another church does not by itself constitute
apostasy. However, if a member formally joins another church and advocates
its teachings, withdrawing his or her membership may be necessary.)” [3]
This begs an interesting question. Am I an apostate?
In 2005, John Dehlin, a graduate of BYU, began the Mormon
Stories Podcast as a means of sharing questions and concerns about church
history and doctrine. He appeared to have
started the movement as a means of combatting his faith crisis. Almost 10 years later, however, John Dehlin
was excommunicated for apostasy, even though he protested the charges to the First
Presidency [4].
If John Dehlin is an apostate, then what am I?
I have not tried to lead people out of the church, but I
have openly criticized church teachings and policies. I suppose if a stake president wanted to
excommunicate me, this blog would be all the evidence he would need. But is it possible that there is one stake
president who would excommunicate me for apostasy and another who would seek a
lesser disciplinary action? If that is
possible, how are we to know who the apostates really are?
Just who is the other?
Part 3 – Homosexuals and Apostates
I noted earlier that the alt-right and fascists are obsessed
with this fear of the other. They use
coded language to identify an in-group, and anyone on the out-group is part of
the collective other. They are grouped
into sub-categories, and then the worst of the worst, the group that you blame
for all of the problems that your in-group faces, is the group you target the
most ruthlessly. It helps if the Overton
window is shifted so that that group is generally seen as contemptuous by the
average citizen, “normie” in alt-right circles, “Mormie” for DezNat.
Apostates are certainly enemy number one for DezNat, but they
have a fear of homosexuals as well. They
are the sorts of people who believe that there is a gay agenda, and even though
they are completely right about that, I mean I got mine laminated after the
first meeting I attended, they are wrong to think that that agenda includes
them.
Honestly, my gay agenda just says that I need to do the
dishes. I had to go to the not being an
asshole agenda to find the plan to fight back against DezNat.
This is a group that believes that BYU, the seventh-most
LGBT-unfriendly university in America [5], is somehow being taken over by homosexuals
and apostates. This is the university
that just took gay students on an abusive roller coaster of near-acceptance
before ripping the rug out from under them in February 2020. This is the university that DezNat is afraid
will be lost to them.
Part 4 – Making Headlines
Like I said at the beginning, I only recently learned about
DezNat. This is hardly a comprehensive
assessment of the movement, and, if my efforts here support the countermovement
for stopping these guys, I will continue to write about them.
What brought the group to my attention was an article in ABC
4 News from Utah that managed to make its way into newsfeed from an ocean away [6].
This petition was started by Hanna Seariac, who is not a part of the DezNat movement and has denounced them, and Tristan
Mourier, who made waves when he decided to shout The Family: A Proclamation to
the World at BYU students protesting the abovementioned abuse of LGBT students
at the university. I am not doxing these
individuals, nor am I advocating any harassment of them whatsoever. Neither of those acts would be ethical or
productive to the dialogue. I name them
because the ABC 4 News article names them.
They chose to make themselves known.
And just a little bit of scrolling through the DezNat
Facebook page will help you to find them as well. DezNat has sought to use Hanna as a figurehead, despite her objections to many of the group's actions and views. Again, please do not use this information to harass
them. They may be engaging in extremely
harmful behavior, but they are victims of a far-right ideology that has been
imposed on them by circumstances they are not in control of. They can choose what to do with that, and, I would
contend that they have made poor choices so far, but I happen to know someone who
was like Hanna and Tristan who is now fighting back against those ideas. I am much more interested in working to help
Hanna and Tristan become allies in this fight.
Hanna and Tristan’s petition is a pointless media stunt, and it has the unfortunate consequence of inspiring their DezNat peers. BYU’s
policies are already sufficiently anti-queer and anti-apostate without needing
any help from additional sources. If
they manage to get the needed signatures, which, to date, it does not appear to
have done so, what policies would BYU actually change? Would the Honor Office expel apostate
students even more? Would it force LGBT students
to be even more in the closet?
But this isn’t about logic or rationality. This is about fear. DezNat is afraid. They are afraid that the homosexuals and the
apostates are going to come for their way of life. They are afraid that the fabulously gay grad
students are going to change their beloved BYU forever. Worse, what happens if the gays and apostates
get their way, and the temple starts to have gay sealings? What will happen then?
Part 5 – Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and the Handmaidens
In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, we follow
the story of the handmaid Offred, who is given to a faithful man in the fictional
nation of Gilead, a theocratic dictatorship born of the ashes of the fallen American
Republic. I am much more familiar with
the Hulu Original series than I am with the novel, so, when I refer to The Handmaid’s
Tale, it will be to the show, not the book.
Clear? Sorry to all you book
lovers out there.
The imagery of a handmaid has been used in recent protests
of abortion bills and of Brett Kavanaugh.
I am a fan of the protests since it speaks volumes using a simple image
from a popular series. The political
discussion around the show, especially in the age of Trump, is fascinating.
I, however, find the religious aspect of the show even more
interesting. As someone raised in a high
demand religion who would either have to flee to Canada or be placed in a labor
camp or be executed simply for who I am under such a regime, it fascinates and
terrifies me to see those ideas justified with scripture.
Before the handmaids are ritualistically raped, a scripture
is read to justify the act, and a prayer is uttered. “Blessed be the fruit.” “May the Lord open.”
The story of Jacob and how his children were conceived serves
as the primary justification for the plight of the handmaids. Religion is used to justify rape. Religion is used to justify bigotry. Religion is used to justify murder.
Perhaps you think that such an ideology does not exist in
our world, or, at least, not in America.
Those sorts of ideas are Islamic and fundamentalist, right?
Perhaps you have heard of the Make America Straight Again
conference that was held in Orlando in 2019 on the anniversary of the Pulse night
club shooting? If not, I will include a
link to Jimmy Snow’s Pumpkin Saga, which is my favorite exploration of
that event [7]. The summary is that a
group of right-wing pastors decided to hold a conference to affirm their belief
that queer identities are invalid. They held
it on an auspicious date in an auspicious location. There was purpose in their hatred. And they used religion to justify it.
How many steps are they from Gilead?
Worse still, they intend on hosting a second Make America
Straight Again conference in October this year.
The hatred has not subsided.
How many steps are they from Gilead?
So, when members of DezNat put together a petition to create
an artificial controversy to leverage their religion to express their hate of
gay people, why are we surprised? Why
are we surprised that a religion that has spent decades denying queer
identities now has an infestation of alt-right bigots in their ranks?
How many steps are we from Gilead?
Part 6 – Affirmation Matters
If you are one of those that DezNat would label as a Mormie,
I am hoping to reach you with this article.
The ProgMos and the exMos are already on the anti-DezNat bandwagon. They see them for the threat that they
are. You, however, might be thinking, so
what? This is a relatively small group
of weirdos that is at least defending the church. I mean, they might be a bit overzealous, but
yeah, I agree, the church is often under attack and persecuted by the world. I believe that marriage is supposed to be
between a man and a woman. And Russel M.
Nelson is definitely a prophet. So why should
I care about a small group of zealots that is going to support my beliefs?
Honestly, I understand why you would think that.
Except, you are not one of them. You are part of the collective other. Right now, DezNat has its attention focused
on apostates and homosexuals. They routinely
attack progressives, hoping to eliminate progressive movements in the church. If they succeed at that, you will be the next
on their hit list. They are not fans of
you either.
Because you are not as zealous as they are, you have the
potential to become an apostate, and that makes you dangerous. You are not their enemy today, but you will
be the enemy tomorrow.
And you can choose to try to handle this situation with
appeasement, like Neville Chamberlain tried with Nazi Germany. Or you can recognize this threat for what it
is, a threat against you, and a threat against people that you care about.
Before I came out to my family, I often heard comments about
how it would be hard to have a gay member of the family. I heard comments that were not meant to hurt,
but they did. They made me afraid of who
I was, and they made me resent that part of myself that was different.
I have said it before in other essays and conversations with
friends, I am one of the lucky ones. I
survived. Odds are, you have an LGBT
member of your family too. With the
advent of the internet, you may even have a member of your family who is moving
toward apostasy. Will you choose to hate
them? Or will you choose to love them?
If you choose the former, then you will be welcomed into
DezNat, but you will be all the worse off for it. But if you choose to love them, you will be
hated by DezNat, and you will probably be saving a life. Your affirmation of queer identities is not
about what you believe or don’t believe.
It isn’t about your faith. It is
about saving the lives of those who are most vulnerable.
Affirmation matters because DezNat and other alt-right hate
groups are going to try to tear people they hate down, and if we are divided
against each other, they just might succeed.
And lest you forget, they hate you too.
Because you are the other.
Part 7 – Token Racism
Wheat and Tares discussed the question of racism in their
post about DezNat, but this is the one area where I have to disagree with their
analysis. DezNat is not overtly racist,
but they support racist ideas. For
instance, they use a hashtag, which Wheat and Tares notes as well, Brigham Young
Did Nothing Wrong, or BYDNW. Brigham
Young was a well-documented racist. It
is so well-documented that it is hardly worth getting into the weeds on to
prove [8].
Furthermore, as I stated previously, DezNat hates Black Lives Matter. But I don’t think that that alone captures their growing racism. No, if I wanted to do that, I would point to a meme like this:
DezNat may not have created the meme, but they shared it to
positive reactions on their page. In case
you were not aware, the Confederate flag is a banner that was used by traitors who
fought to uphold the racist institution of slavery in America.
DezNat does not engage in racial identity politics, not yet
anyway. However, they espouse ideas that
are related to those movements. For now,
I will label this as “token racism” and bookmark this point for future edits as
the movement evolves.
Conclusion
DezNat is a hate group that has taken root inside the Mormon
movement. It wears the vestments of
Mormonism, but they are ravenous wolves.
If you are not a member of DezNat, they hate you. That hatred is focused on apostates and
homosexuals for the time being, but they will come for you if the opportunity
presents itself.
This is a group that is, like other alt-right movements,
motivated by fear. They are afraid of
people like me. Personally, I find that
entertaining and empowering. However, I
am concerned for the well-being of others in similar positions. DezNat members, because of their fear, are
prone to attacking people on social media.
Similar groups have stolen private information of their supposed enemies
and published it online. This is a group
that sees people like me as less than human.
Are there some who are in it as part of some sort of
joke? Probably. But when their Facebook page features video
footage of a masked man burning a pride flag, images of a masked man wielding
dual bowie knives, and memes that show their absolute hatred for apostates and
homosexuals, you have to wonder how anyone ever thought the joke was funny.
References
[1] https://wheatandtares.org/2020/08/08/deznat-and-the-latter-day-saint-vigilante-tradition/?fbclid=IwAR0PUvETdiFIrdl3-JmRdRnvW5Mj0qQOl9xqDMB9I0GkKgzS2tdfwyl-mXY
(retrieved 11 August 2020).
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zywvEpT6dow
(It’s long, but the Red Scare and the association of the Civil Rights movement
with communism is present)
[3] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/32-repentance-and-membership-councils?lang=eng#title_number30
(retrieved 11 August 2020)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dehlin
(retrieved 11 August 2020)
[5] https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=lgbtq-unfriendly
(retrieved 11 August 2020)(down from #2 a few years ago, so maybe DezNat should
be worried…)
[6] https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/byu-students-start-petition-to-bring-university-back-to-christ-centered-education/amp/
(retrieved 6 August 2020)
[7] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToJ7-8RNgMPkYbGIJISJxFXyZQt9M95V
(We still don’t know if Pastor Tommy McMurtry is sexually attracted to
pumpkins, but it is the top recommended search when you Google him)
[8] https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Was_Brigham_Young_a_racist%3F
(retrieved 11 August 2020) (Plot twist, I cite FAIR Mormon! And just scroll
down a little bit to get a second witness to the idea that Benson considered the
civil rights movement a communist plot!)
In addition, this is Hanna Seariac's message to me on the subject of DezNat:
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