Escape from the Zion Curtain
For most of my life I grew up in Utah. I couldn't wait to leave. I started looking at out of state colleges when I was 9, trying to decide on a foreign, exotic locale that was free from the prying, exclusive eyes of our Mormon neighbors.
No offense meant, but you people are mean and exclusive when you get together as a group. Growing up in Utah, living as a "minority", made me realize that pluarlity is a good thing.
The problem with Utah is there exists an unspoken caste system between the elect, the chosen, and the gentiles. The elect are the power elite (legislators, Church Hierarchy, prominent business people - usually a combination of all 3), the chosen are the faithful Mormons who exist to serve only their community, the gentiles are comprised of everybody else.
The insitutions which enforces and imprints these ideas is the public school system. In elementary school there is no rigid separation except that Non-Mormon members may be excluded from participating in activities with their Mormon friends (i.e. if you are not a member of our church you cannot join this Cub Scout Group, etc.). Thus the foundations are laid for the exclusion of non-Mormons from participating in social circles.
Junior high school cements the exclusion and separation. You see, attached to every Junior and High school in Utah is a little nonconspicous building called a seminary. During school hours Mormons are "released" from regular school in order to attend seminary. If you don't attend seminary, you have an immediate label as being an outsider. As well in junior high school every single one of my Mormon friends stopped associating with me on a social basis.
Now that you have a background you might understand why at age 9 I started looking for a college as far away from Utah as I could get. My one driving force in life became the idea "I'm getting off this merry-go-round."
The straw that broke the camels back and finally made me make a permanent split with that great state was this:
I was sitting in a bar having a conversation with a guy. He wasn't drinking, at least not that I could tell, but he started telling me about how he had a gay identity and surrounded himself with the lifestyle, but did not commit acts of sodomy as he was part of the chosen and had to transcend earthly temptation.
The next day as I shuffled through the holy garments laying on the floor next to the bed, I made a decision:
"Goodbye, Utah...Hello, Lousiana!"
No offense meant, but you people are mean and exclusive when you get together as a group. Growing up in Utah, living as a "minority", made me realize that pluarlity is a good thing.
The problem with Utah is there exists an unspoken caste system between the elect, the chosen, and the gentiles. The elect are the power elite (legislators, Church Hierarchy, prominent business people - usually a combination of all 3), the chosen are the faithful Mormons who exist to serve only their community, the gentiles are comprised of everybody else.
The insitutions which enforces and imprints these ideas is the public school system. In elementary school there is no rigid separation except that Non-Mormon members may be excluded from participating in activities with their Mormon friends (i.e. if you are not a member of our church you cannot join this Cub Scout Group, etc.). Thus the foundations are laid for the exclusion of non-Mormons from participating in social circles.
Junior high school cements the exclusion and separation. You see, attached to every Junior and High school in Utah is a little nonconspicous building called a seminary. During school hours Mormons are "released" from regular school in order to attend seminary. If you don't attend seminary, you have an immediate label as being an outsider. As well in junior high school every single one of my Mormon friends stopped associating with me on a social basis.
Now that you have a background you might understand why at age 9 I started looking for a college as far away from Utah as I could get. My one driving force in life became the idea "I'm getting off this merry-go-round."
The straw that broke the camels back and finally made me make a permanent split with that great state was this:
I was sitting in a bar having a conversation with a guy. He wasn't drinking, at least not that I could tell, but he started telling me about how he had a gay identity and surrounded himself with the lifestyle, but did not commit acts of sodomy as he was part of the chosen and had to transcend earthly temptation.
The next day as I shuffled through the holy garments laying on the floor next to the bed, I made a decision:
"Goodbye, Utah...Hello, Lousiana!"
posted by Abe Froman at 1:15 PM
2 Comments:
You did not! YOur mother reads this! See, they were right, you corrupted one of their own.
You forgot to mention you are automatically a sinner when you are not Mormon, period, end of story.
Yeah, me the sinner is the one who drove the drunken bishop's granddaughter home after frat parties, with gentile boyfriend following behind so she could have her car home as well.
Ah well, I can't pretend I live in a vacuum.
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