Welcome, Hosts, and Housekeeping

John Dehlin [00:00:03] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Mormon News Podcast brought to you by Mormon Stories Podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. And I'm here with the Meggan Hayes, generally unquotable. Hey Meggan.

Meggan Hayes [00:00:16] Good morning.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] How was Waka?

Meggan Hayes [00:00:19] Oh, it was amazing. It was amazing. I'm trying to get back to normal life now.

John Dehlin [00:00:23] Tell people really quick what WAKA is because I know that there are women amongst us who will want to know about it.

Meggan Hayes [00:00:30] Yes. So WAKA stands for women of a certain age and it's for women over 40 who have left religion and they are all over. And I flew to Utah and spoke at an event which was a weekend long camping event, but they do coffee meetups and book clubs and sewing clubs and hiking clubs and all sorts of things. So you can find them on Facebook through I think it's WAKA Worldwide. W O C A And then they'll give you a geographic specific group and get you hooked up with other women who are perimenopause or menopause. Okay. That did get talked about some, but yeah, it's just a really fun group.

John Dehlin [00:01:13] That's amazing. Well, I'm glad you had a good time. Shout out to the WAKA women. It's WAKA Worldwide on Facebook. Is that how people find it?

Meggan Hayes [00:01:20] Yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [00:01:21] Okay. So yeah, we're always about, I think the most important thing we do in the Mormon post Mormon social media world is help people find friends and community to, to do life after Mormon orthodoxy, whether you stay in or out of the church. And so I'll never pass up an opportunity to promote community. And with that I'm also going to just quickly let people know about the four Thrive events coming up.

John Dehlin [00:01:47] Thrive Rexburg is actually. Is it tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow. So if you're in or around Rexburg, Idaho, this is the first Thrive. Thrive is something that I started with my friend Clint Martin. I'm no longer on the board but I help promote it. And it's basically just an event, one day or two or three day event where you can meet others who are in or out of Mormonism, but you hear good speakers and you, you basically just get to make friends, build community in your local area and meet cool speakers. And so I'm just going to take a. I know we have a lot to cover today, but I'm just going to take a really quick overview.

John Dehlin [00:02:32] So at Thrive Rexburg, the speakers are the Brit Hartley from no Nonsense Spirituality and then there's Erica Norfeld, Nan Osborne, who's from Nan And Rod Osborne. They've been on Mormon stories. She's amazing. And Renee Peterson, they always pick really good speakers. So you can go to thrivebeyondreligion.com to register for Thrive Rexburg. It's always priced just so people know this is not a money making scheme. It's always priced at like 20 bucks, 25 bucks. Sometimes it includes a meal and all they do is pay for the venue. And usually my friend Clint eats that. The extra costs. So this is not a money making venture. Nobody's profiting.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] Oftentimes we do pay our speakers because, you know, people deserve to get paid for their work. But check out Thrive Rexburg. The next one is Thrive San Antonio. And tell us Meggan, who is speaking at Thrive San Antonio.

Meggan Hayes [00:03:25] I will be one of the speakers.

Guest [00:03:27] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:28] If you want to meet me, Meggan Hayes, go to Thrive with San Antonio on September 26th. And it's not just you. Tell us who else is there?

Meggan Hayes [00:03:37] Alyssa Grenfell, Nathan Hinckley, Meggan Connor, and Albert Fish. It's going to be amazing.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] Wait, so if it's Meggan and Meggan, then if I say the wrong word, I'll be right? One way or the other?

Meggan Hayes [00:03:48] Yeah, somebody will answer.

John Dehlin [00:03:50] That's September 26th, San Antonio, thrive. That's super exciting. And then we have Thrive Boise, which again is going to have the Brit Hartley, and it's going to have Colby Reddish, Andrew Probst, Amy Faragger, and I'm super excited. They're bringing out Dr. John Turner, historian and my co host of the Joseph Smith podcast and the Brigham Young podcast. So that's super exciting. And then the final one is all the way into next year, March 5th through 7th, a big old lineup. We don't need to really go into that, but it's also going to be a great lineup. And so you can go to thrivebeyondreligion.com and check out those events.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] So the last thing I just want to say really, really super quickly is I've been working hard to justify my role in the Open Stories foundation. And there's some new sites I want to make everyone aware of. We've now created a website called Joseph Smithpodcast.com and it's basically every episode that I've done with John Turner put into a single website.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] It's got a timeline and it's got a search feature. So the other day, literally, someone asked me, okay, with the Johnson brothers and whether or not, you know, they were trying to castrate Joseph Smith. Yeah, I'm sure Julia knows exactly what I'm talking about I didn't remember which episode John Turner talked about the alleged castration of Joseph Smith. So I just type in castrate. And here it brings up the episode and the time codes so that people can check out exactly what John Turner had to say about Joseph Smith's alleged castration. And so I just want to let people know that website exists with full sec.

John Dehlin [00:05:36] With full text search. And then we've also got, I know, I always love that we've also got the Brigham Young podcast up. We're only a couple episodes in, but. And then finally we have second class saints, second class saints.com where you can get the whole library with Matt Harris about his book Second Class Saints. Again, it's searchable. There's an amazing timeline if you just want a timeline of the Church's history with, with racism and, and people of color. And then finally, for those who love the LDS discussion series, you can now go to ldsdiscussions.mormonstories.org and again, all 83 episodes are there. You can search them, you can find the episodes, etc.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] And honestly, if that weren't enough, I hope you guys feel like I'm doing my job. I also have created a new website under mormonfaithcrisis.com which is trying to be a one stop shop resource for the beginnings of a Mormon faith crisis.

John Dehlin [00:06:39] My favorite part of this is it's based on, you know, the, the series that I did with Natasha Helfer and Margi and it's got, you know, videos of, of episodes that might help you and then why people? I, I also, I've been, I've been kind of crazy, going crazy. There's one more website I want people to know about and that's whymormonsleave.com and this is just an explanation of why Mormons are leaving the Church. It's got great statistics there. It's got stories of people that are leaving you can filter. So if you want stories of returned missionaries, if you want stories of bishops and stake presidents leaving, if you want stories of historians or cult leaders leaving, or you want mixed faith, marriage and family episodes, I'm pretty sure that your episode with your sister is going to be on this one, Meggan.

John Dehlin [00:07:37] But anyway, it's also got a timeline of the events in church history that caused people to leave the Church. And I just think these are all fantastic resources. So, you know, you may, you may or may not listeners decide that these websites are useful. I just wanted to let you know about them and invite you all to give me feedback on whether. Whether you think they're useful or how to make them more useful. And of course, I guess I don't want to neglect the fact that this podcast has a parent website as well called the Mormon News Podcast. And so if any of you want a consolidated place, not just to find this podcast and past episodes, but also we aggregate the day's news in Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:08:31] And you can find news on influencers, news on polygamy, news on financial stuff, news on abuse and crime, or even an update on my lawsuit. You can get all that@mormonnews.com so anyway, Meggan, I didn't mean to take so much time, but I think these resources could be useful to people. So I wanted to let people know about them.

Meggan Hayes [00:08:53] Sorry, I lost audio for a second, but I'm back and I love Mormon news.

John Dehlin [00:08:56] Dr. Yeah, all right. I'm sorry you're having a little bit of technical difficulties. Viewers and listeners, let us know your feedback@mormonstoriesgmail.com and also in the comments. So, Meggan, take it away. What do you got for us today?

Meggan Hayes [00:09:10] Oh, man, always so much.

John Dehlin [00:09:13] I'm confused because I was going to do an episode with Nemo last week, and Nemo's like, oh, there's not really any news.

Meggan Hayes [00:09:20] Well, I don't think he swims in it as much as I do.

John Dehlin [00:09:24] He was busy. He was a nice.

Meggan Hayes [00:09:25] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:09:26] He was a nicely.

Meggan Hayes [00:09:27] Yeah, it's okay if everyone took a break. I was in the mountains and the leaves were changing and I have no regrets. So it's all right. We'll see if we can't get caught up this week. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about a video that sky put out. He has a channel sit down with sky. And he was a little bit upset about something we said two weeks ago.

Meggan Hayes [00:09:45] And so we're gonna respond to that. We're gonna talk about a letter from Idaho that just came out from the Idaho area presidency, I believe, but I think it comes from the first presidency, likely. We're going to talk about Susie Greco, who is an LDS scholar. I believe she is still an active, somewhat believing member of the church. I don't know her full status there.

Meggan Hayes [00:10:10] And we're going to talk about Kevin Pearson, who I believe in Norway said something out there being 50 million members of the church eventually.

Guest [00:10:20] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:10:21] Which is going to be super fun. An article came out about the consequences of marriage, which it really hit home for me. So I think that one, I mean, I was getting a little emotional reading through that one because it really described how I experienced Mormonism. Then we're going to talk about some changes that have happened in service missions recently that was highlighted on the Mormon Land podcast. I also threw in last minute some clips from President Oaks speech at the Cathedral last night and so we'll do that too. And then a couple of extras at the end like I, I had it all prepared and then last night, I think about 6 o' clock I had to add in a whole bunch more things and then a few more at 6am this morning.

John Dehlin [00:11:04] You're a hard working human. So thank you for all the work you do and we want to welcome our live audience. We'll do our best to read your comments if you want to super chat us your comments. That's the best way for us to make sure and see them and include them. Thanks for everyone joining us live and for your support. All right, so let's go with the first story.

Idaho Letter and the Church's Political Stance

Meggan Hayes [00:11:26] Okay. So the Idaho Letter. I've put a little title between each one so we don't get the stories mixed up. But if you go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:11:34] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:11:35] There is a new proposition that has come out in Idaho, Idaho Proposition 1. And it is the measure seeks to change Idaho's laws by introducing a right to reproductive freedom and privacy, including a right to abortion up to the point of the fetus's ability to survive outside the womb. After fetal viability, there would be no general right to abortion except in case of a medical emergency. The medical emergency exception would expand Idaho's current life exception and, and allow abortions when a pregnant woman faces a complicating physical condition that threatens her life or health, including serious impairment to a bodily function or serious dysfunction of any, any bodily organ or part. And I wanted to read that because I think a lot of times in the news things kind of get thrown around that aren't entirely accurate. So I read that straight from the

John Dehlin [00:12:28] new measure and tell us in non legal terms what this initiative is trying to do.

Meggan Hayes [00:12:35] It's trying to allow abortions up to fetal viability, which would be

John Dehlin [00:12:43] six months, right?

Meggan Hayes [00:12:45] Well, no, it doesn't put a date. So like the person would decide with their medical provider. So if the fetus could survive outside the womb without extensive life saving measures that would, from what I understand, mean fetal viability.

Guest 1 [00:13:03] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:13:03] For some reason I saw, I saw like six months as the, the cutoff, like 24, 24 weeks.

Meggan Hayes [00:13:13] But yeah, I didn't, I didn't see a cutoff in there. But again this, this all came out last night. So I haven't studied it for, you know, two weeks.

John Dehlin [00:13:20] And so is this basically Roe versus Wade was overturned federally. And so this is progressive Idahoans trying to enshrine the right to abortion the into the constitution, the state constitution. Is that right? Okay. Okay. Okay. And so I, I think the next slide probably tells us why this is a Mormon story, right?

Meggan Hayes [00:13:45] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:13:46] All right, go for it.

Meggan Hayes [00:13:49] So the letter on the right, you'll see the whole thing. I blew up the part that's important. This is from. Yeah, the letter on the right is so small it's hard to see, but I believe the area presidency of that area. So they said two stake presidencies, bishoprics and branch presidencies in Idaho. Please read the following message in your sacrament meeting on September 20 and September 27. Idaho Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act Dear brothers and sisters, an initiative called the Idaho Reproductive Freedom and Privacy act will be on the November ballot seeking to amend Idaho state laws related to abortion. The Church opposes this initiative.

Meggan Hayes [00:14:27] Our long held stance on abortion remains clear and unchanged. See newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org Resources Topics Abortion as noted in a 2024 statement, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is neutral regarding political parties and candidates and addresses issues it believes have significant moral consequences. We join with other like minded individuals and organizations working against this initiat and encourage our members to voice their opposition to it in a respectful manner consistent with prophetic direction of always demonstrating Christlike love and civility in political discourse.

John Dehlin [00:15:04] All right, so in human terms, what's that saying, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:15:07] We oppose Prop 1, meaning the church

John Dehlin [00:15:11] is opposed to the right to abortion electively in Idaho. Is that right?

Meggan Hayes [00:15:20] Yeah. So the church allows abortion in cases of rape or incest or the life

John Dehlin [00:15:26] of the mother, right?

Meggan Hayes [00:15:27] Yes. Yes. And also if the life of the mother is in danger. But they do say to counsel with your ecclesiastical leader or something like that in the handbook. Yeah. So this one would allow abortions just a little bit beyond that, but honestly not much more than the church already allows.

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Except the church wouldn't, wouldn't be as supportive just abortion because you don't want the baby like the church. So I mean this would allow, this initiative in Idaho would allow people to say, oh my gosh, this was an unplanned pregnancy, I'm healthy, the baby's healthy, I don't want the pregnancy. This, this initiative would allow that. And that's what the church opposes. Is that, am I getting that right?

Meggan Hayes [00:16:09] Yes. Yes. So it's kind of, the church kind of is in between what a lot of States have done versus this. So like some state, like I'm in Texas and they have really shut down laws here. Like even if the health of the mother or even if rape and incest, like, there are some states that still put laws that don't allow you to do that. But, and Idaho's going a step further. The church is kind of in the middle, which I actually have been surprised by a little bit, is that they even have language for rape, incest in the, the life of the mother.

John Dehlin [00:16:42] Okay. And Meggan, I know this is a huge topic, but let's just attack it super briefly. Like, let's switch to an editorial news role. Do you have an opinion about the church's involvement in this? Do you find it good, bad, neutral? How do you view it?

Meggan Hayes [00:16:59] I mean, when I was a member, I thought it was amazing. Now I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] I mean, I don't want to share. You could.

Meggan Hayes [00:17:08] I don't, yeah, no, no, no, no. It's not that I don't want to share. I, I think that, that they're doing what they think is right. I, I don't think they find a problem weighing in on moral issues. Now, abortion has become so like one party or the other that it's hard for, I think it's hard for them to take this stance or maybe a little disingenuous for them to say this isn't us taking sides when it has become that way. But.

John Dehlin [00:17:34] Okay. Yeah, I, I think I'm probably a moderate. I, I, I believe in the right to choose. I also believe life is sacred and I just want common sense laws that find a good way to thread that needle. So I'm grateful that the church isn't more harsh and strict around abortion. But I also do think there are good reasons for allowing people to choose an abortion aside from rape and incest. And I lean towards letting the woman decide over a religious leader or a government.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:15] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:18:16] I'd be in favor of any social policies that made it so there were the fewest number of abortions as possible.

Guest 1 [00:18:23] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:24] Comprehensive sex education and, and, and economic

John Dehlin [00:18:29] policies or economic situations that, that, you know, make it so people either wouldn't get in that situation to begin with or felt comfortable having a baby because economically and for other reasons they were in a good place to do it. I don't know.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:47] Yes, yes. Safety nets for people that we don't have. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:18:52] Anyway. Okay. Well, that's fascinating. I wonder, Last thing, I wonder if it's going to cause more people to leave the church. Any thoughts on that?

Meggan Hayes [00:19:03] I would think so.

Guest 2 [00:19:04] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:04] Like people who are on the fence and are like, I'm staying at the church for the community, but now this is making it so I don't feel like I can trust my community because, you know, I'm a woman and what if I get pregnant and I need to have an abortion? And now I'm going against what. The church sent out this official letter,

John Dehlin [00:19:21] so pro choice members might not like this. So it would cut off more people on the left, maybe. Assuming this is a left, right kind of issue.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:32] Right. It kind of has become.

John Dehlin [00:19:33] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:34] And I find myself to be moderate as well on many things. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:38] Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for that, Meggan. Let's go to a very triggering episode for me, and I'm going to try and contain myself.

Mixed-Orientation Marriages and LDS Research

Meggan Hayes [00:19:46] Yes, we'll be replying to sky from. Sit down with Sky. You can go. I put the entire video in there.

John Dehlin [00:19:52] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:52] Pause it if you want. But I figured we could listen to the whole thing and then respond.

John Dehlin [00:19:56] Okay. So just to give people background, I did an entire PhD dissertation on the LGBTQ Mormon experience. And recently, a couple weeks ago, did we comment on a video Skye made? Is that right?

Meggan Hayes [00:20:11] Yeah. We were talking about Ryan and Charlie. Yes. Approaching surrogacy.

John Dehlin [00:20:17] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:20:18] And sky had made a response to that, saying that they're going outside the. The doctrine of the church. And so then we played his video and we talked about it. And then you talked about mixed orientation marriages, because you have done research on that.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] And is this clip going to be what we talked about before or his. His new clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:20:42] So he. This is going to be him responding, but he does play clips of what you said.

John Dehlin [00:20:47] Okay. And I'm just going to say what. What I feel like I was trying to say. I'll just say it, because I haven't seen this clip yet fully, I don't think. But basically, my data from my research that's been published in multiple peer reviewed journals, so the data was validated. And this is in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, it's one of the premier journals, showed that mixed mixed orientation marriages in a Mormon context failed around 70% of the time and that the LGBT people in those mixed orientation marriages had depression and suicidality and internalized homo negativity and quality of life scores lower than people who had lupus.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] And for that reason, I felt like people that hold themselves up as a model for a healthy mixed orientation marriage without explaining what the data show behind it, might be misleading people into choices that could be harmful for them or their straight spouses.

John Dehlin [00:21:56] And, and, and so instead of saying, hey, it works for me, like Joshua and Lolly Weed, where it then blows up. And, and they're coming back to me. We, we, we're probably gonna have Lolly Weed on Mormon story soon to talk about the disaster that was that, you know, that their life, when they were spokespeople for Mormon, lgbt, mixed orientation marriages before it all blew up.

John Dehlin [00:22:21] You know, I, I, my point was, if anybody's going to stand up and say, I'm in a, I'm in a mixed orientation marriage as a Mormon and I'm happy, it should have a big warning label saying, this is dangerous on average. So anyway, that's what I was trying to say. Let's. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing what I said before in your view, Meggan, is that what you heard me say before?

Meggan Hayes [00:22:43] No, because I actually included the clip of what you said. So he'll put a little bit of it and then I put the whole thing so we can go back and see.

John Dehlin [00:22:50] Are you gonna pause it or are we gonna play it all the way through?

Meggan Hayes [00:22:53] You can decide. So this is his full clip. It's just over two minutes long. We can listen to the whole thing and then we can talk about it. But if you want to pause and say something, feel free.

John Dehlin [00:23:00] All right, let's go for it.

Guest 3 [00:23:01] So Mormon stories recently despairs my marriage. And the weird thing is I actually.

John Dehlin [00:23:05] Okay, can I just stop right there? Like, I, I don't like it when liberals do this. I don't like it when conservatives do this. Do you think I attacked his marriage? Like his marriage to his wife?

Meggan Hayes [00:23:18] No, no. And that was. Yeah, that, that was part of it that I struggled with, because what were we, what we were talking about is what his marriage represents because he has put himself out as a public figure. So he is a member of the church. He's a faithful member. He has a presence online that reaches a lot of other faithful members. And he says, I'm in a mixed orientation marriage and it's working for me. That's what we were talking about, is that as a whole, the fact that he's out there and his marriage now represents something because he's put himself in the public eye. His specific marriage working for him. We didn't say it can't work for him. It doesn't work for him. His marriage is bad. He shouldn't have done it. That is not what we said.

John Dehlin [00:24:02] I think so too, and I think that's an important distinction because Julie has been in a mixed orientation Marriage. As a Mormon, I want to include her comments. And she writes, john, general statements feel like a text for people, especially in the church. And I, I get that. I get that it would be emotional for him. I just, I also think it's important to be accurate. And I don't think I ever attacked his decision or, or his marriage. I just, I think people deserve to know the data before they make decisions. For me, it's all about informed consent.

Meggan Hayes [00:24:32] Yeah. And I don't, I don't know that. I mean, I haven't listened to everything, every single thing he said, but I don't think he's putting the data out there.

John Dehlin [00:24:39] Yeah, no, well, he's, he's trying to cite a different study. So, anyway, all right, let's keep. Let's keep, keep going.

Guest 3 [00:24:45] So don't blame them, per se. So they recently did an episode about the negative response Latter Day Saints have had toward Charlie Bird pursuing surrogacy. And in it they showed several LDS creators who have spoken out about it, including myself.

Meggan Hayes [00:24:59] So this is Sky Sorensen, who is a gay Latter Day Saint. He's in a mixed orientation marriage.

John Dehlin [00:25:03] Mixed orientation marriages lead to depression and divorce and quality of life ratings lower than people with lupus. It is just literally irresponsible, I believe, for queer Mormons in mixed orientation marriages to hold themselves out as in any way role models for what people might consider.

Guest 3 [00:25:16] Now, I obviously disagree with that claim. Another study, which was more recent and was done by an ideologically diverse group to reduce bias, found a much more hopeful story. But that's probably a topic for another video. They also claimed that I have advocated for other gay Latter Day Saints to enter mixed orientation marriages, which is.

John Dehlin [00:25:36] Okay, really quick. Well, let's talk about that study. Did you look at that study? I know the people involved in the study. I'm sure it's a good study. I think Tyler Le Fever, I think that's his name, from Utah State University was involved. He is a queer ex Mormon and in the same department where I got my PhD from. So I'm sure it's a great study. I doubt it contradicts my study, but. What did you find, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:25:59] Yeah, it didn't contradict your study. And it measured some of the same things and some different things. If you go to slide nine, that's. I did a little breakdown of it.

John Dehlin [00:26:08] Okay, we'll come back to it. Because I leave this video. We'll come back to that. So anyway, about that. Okay, we'll keep going.

Meggan Hayes [00:26:18] Okay.

Guest 3 [00:26:19] Just not true. I'm actually Always very careful to say that marriage is an intensely personal decision that should be approached with a lot of care. But the weird thing is I actually understand why John would criticize my merit. He believes that choices like mine can cause harm. And presumably he worries that if people see my marriage portrayed positively, it might legitimize that path and influence other gay Latter Day Saints to make the same choice.

John Dehlin [00:26:46] Pause and say, I want to credit him for attempting to model understanding of my point of view because whether or not he barely characterized my point of view and I think he did a pretty good job. What he just modeled was, hey, I'm going to try and steel man the opponent's argument and, and, and then assess whether or not I agree with it. And I like that. I think we need more of that. What did you think about that part?

Meggan Hayes [00:27:12] Yeah, I loved it too. And actually when I've listened to his videos, he tends to be more empathetic and more kind than some of the other pro Mormon creators. Like, he does allow for other viewpoints and he really does try to put himself in someone else's shoes a lot of times and be like, well, I can see. So I like that about Sky. He does seem kind of me too.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] And the only other thing I'll say is this is a really subtle difference, but I, I, I know that, you know, when Josh and Ly Weed came out as a, as a faithful Mormon couple in a mixed orientation marriage, they would always say, we're not role models, we're not telling you you should do this, you know, and they were always careful about that. And I believe that sky is too. I don't believe I was trying to accused him of encouraging people to enter into mixed orientation marriages or holding himself as a role model per se. But the subtle point is, and this is after observing this for decades, when somebody is in a mixed orientation marriage and they're simply being a public figure, there are, they are putting themselves up as a role model, even if they're saying the words don't follow my example necessarily and you know, I'm not telling you what to do.

John Dehlin [00:28:35] They're still communicating a lot with just being outspoken. And I'm not saying that's wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with that unless you don't give people the data to know, to base their decisions on the data. Okay, Meggan, any thoughts on that?

Meggan Hayes [00:28:54] Yes, I agree. Whether sky wants to or not, or whether he's trying to or not, because he is public, his marriage is being seen by other young queer Latter Day Saints. And they are thinking, if he can do it, I can do it. And maybe not understanding how rare that might be for it to work out.

John Dehlin [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah, okay, let's keep going.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:29:21] Given his beliefs, I personally understand why he feels compelled to speak up. But I think that's what makes something else in the episode so confusing to me. Throughout the video, they return to this idea that Latter Day Saints are being judgmental by saying anything about the morality of Charlie's decision. At one point, John asks this, why

Video Clip 1 [00:29:39] are we denigrating as faithful Latter Day Saints, people's decisions?

Video Clip 1 [00:29:43] Now, in my mind, either it's inherently wrong to publicly evaluate someone else's choices or it isn't. Personally, I don't think it is. Jesus taught us to judge righteous judgment. That doesn't mean that we condemn people pretending that we know their hearts. But it does mean that we should make moral judgments about ideas and choices. And I think John understands that because he just made one about mine. The difference isn't that one of us is judging and the other isn't. The difference is what moral framework we're starting from. John believes my choice of marriage could harm other gay people, so he speaks out against it. I believe certain choices can pull people away from teachings of the Gospel.

Video Clip 1 [00:30:25] That I believe brings happiness and peace. So I speak out against those choices too. That doesn't mean that I hate Charlie or others like him or that I want to control them. It means that I believe something deeply enough that I think it's worth talking about. I'm willing to extend John the courtesy of believing that his criticism of my marriage comes from genuine concern for people like me. I just really hope that he and others in this conversation can extend the that same courtesy when we are talking about moral issues from a place of genuine belief and concern.

John Dehlin [00:31:00] All right, I'm going to not comment and let you take us through what you had prepared. And then I'll talk at the end. So I'll bring up. I'll bring up the next slide.

Meggan Hayes [00:31:11] Okay, so this was a brief overview of the study that you did. So the number of respondents, 1612. Approximately 500 were ever heterosexually married. Approximately 51% of observed divorce rate. And then 69% projected eventual divorce among mixed orientation marriages. And then it says who was surveyed. Current former LDS respondents with same sex attraction, online non random recruitment. And then the comparative findings. Same sex relationship groups. So people like men who married men or women who married women, they had lower depression, higher quality of life, less internalized homophobia. That was just a Brief. Wanted to give a brief overview of that.

John Dehlin [00:32:04] Thank you. That's really great work. You're citing my research. I really appreciate that.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:10] Well, I had to compare the two because I have heard you talk about it a lot, but I hadn't really dove into it to the extent that I did this week, so that's awesome.

John Dehlin [00:32:19] Now, the second study I don't really know much about, so teach me, Meggan.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:23] So this one had a similar number of respondents, just about a hundred more, and it had 522 who were currently in mixed orientation marriages. They call them mors. And this is where it gets interesting, because they reported that 80% of those currently in the mors were at least slightly satisfied with their marriages.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:49] So. And that's the part that I think sky kind of focused on. But then it said 28% were very satisfied. And for me, I think it's important to keep in mind that these people in mixed orientation marriages are likely in them because of a belief system that is telling them that is how they get to be in a relationship.

Meggan Hayes [00:33:15] Yeah, Right. So they possibly don't feel like there are other options for them. So they're already in these marriages. And then someone asks them, how satisfied are you? And 80% said they're. What was it? Slightly. At least slightly. Yeah, yeah. At least slightly satisfied. So I don't think it's this huge bombshell that goes against your study. I think they're actually measuring a lot of the same things.

John Dehlin [00:33:44] Hopefully, if you're in a marriage at all, you're at least slightly satisfied. Right, right. And they're saying, basically. Well, they're saying one out of five are not even slightly satisfied in their marriage. And that's terrifying.

Meggan Hayes [00:33:59] Yeah, yeah. But they're. They're still in it. They're still in it. It's actually kind of sad.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] Oh, my God. Can you imagine being in a marriage where you. Can you imagine choosing a marriage where one out of five aren't even slightly satisfied?

Meggan Hayes [00:34:17] Right, right, right. Like. Well, and if you knew that going into it, which is what you're saying is that a lot of these people don't know that part. They're looking at this, oh, 80% satisfied, and they're leaving out the at least slightly. And then what the opposite statistic of that is. Yeah, yeah. They just need to know anything else?

John Dehlin [00:34:38] I mean, I'm not seeing them addressing the divorce rates here.

Meggan Hayes [00:34:42] No, they didn't.

Guest 1 [00:34:42] I.

Meggan Hayes [00:34:43] As far as I could tell, they didn't.

John Dehlin [00:34:44] And I'm not. I'm not seeing them address what I said, which was overall high depression, you know, low quality of life for the LGBT members of the couple on average. I'm not seeing them dispute that.

Meggan Hayes [00:35:04] No, no. And I didn't see it either.

John Dehlin [00:35:06] Okay. All right, well. And studies are difficult. I don't think my study was per. Our study was perfect. But anyway, I. That. That's useful. Thank you for doing that. Meggan, what's this next clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:35:20] It was just like, exactly what you said. I just wanted to be clear about what you did and did not say because.

John Dehlin [00:35:26] Let me play it.

Meggan Hayes [00:35:27] Such a. Yeah, short point.

John Dehlin [00:35:28] Is this your clip? Is this your clip? We'll play. It is literally irresponsible, I believe, for queer Mormons in mixed orientation marriages to hold themselves out as. As in any way role models for what people should. You know, what people might consider, in my opinion, mixed orientation Mormon. Mixed orientation marriages should have a big red warning label saying mixed orientation marriages lead to depression and divorce and quality of life ratings lower than people with lupus. All right, well, that's important because we want you to be able to hear.

Meggan Hayes [00:36:09] Yeah, well, I'll just. When we turn on the videos, I'll just mute my mic, so.

John Dehlin [00:36:14] Okay. Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and jump to the next slide.

Meggan Hayes [00:36:20] So this was something else that sky said just this past week on his own page. We can argue about those conclusions and even warn against ideas we believe are harmful. So I felt like he was kind of backing up what we talked about. Like, we can talk about how showcasing a mixed orientation marriage can be harmful without saying, sky, you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. Like, we can keep those things separate. And I think he was sort of agreeing with us in that little quote.

John Dehlin [00:36:50] Yeah. Okay, so let's tell us this slide, and then I want to talk about it.

Meggan Hayes [00:36:54] This is what I. Yeah, this is what I came down to. Like, I thought about a lot. And I tried to boil it down to. John is questioning the potential consequences of presenting Sky's marriage as a model, and sky is questioning whether Charlie's choices align with his religious beliefs. So those two things to me are different, like what you're doing and what he's doing. And he was sort of making a comparison at the end of his video where he was saying, well, if we're going to judge, we can both judge. And I just think the two things are fundamentally different.

John Dehlin [00:37:29] Yeah. I'll repeat how I started. I don't feel like I was attacking his marriage specifically. And I don't even think I was attacking anyone's choice to enter into a mixed orientation marriage if they have all the data and if they want to like I'll say it right now.

John Dehlin [00:37:47] Sorry if I misspoke or misled. I I support and bless Guy's marriage. I support and bless any Mormon, LDS couple or otherwise that knowingly choose to enter into a mixed orientation marriage with all the information I believe I respect people's rights to do it. I don't judge it. I bless it. I want the best for it.

John Dehlin [00:38:13] And so having said all that, all I want is that when someone is vocal about being in a mixed orientation marriage and becomes a public figure, I think it's ethical for them knowing the data to let people have all the information to be able to make an informed choice to versus what you said even just it works for me. I'm not going to advocate it, but it works for me if they know that that it fails for 70% of the people. So anyway, anything else you want to add to that, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:38:49] Yeah, I agree and I think that's already difficult for queer folks in the church to feel like they have a choice. So I don't sky is part of helping, maybe with the informed consent, but the church itself would also need to change.

John Dehlin [00:39:09] What do you think about the argument that he's he and I are doing the same thing. I'm criticizing his marriage, which I wasn't doing, but he's criticizing Charlie and Ryan as two men adopting a baby. I think you've already spoken to this, but do you want to summarize whether or not those are apples to apples comparisons and why, why not?

Meggan Hayes [00:39:30] Well, and that's what I was trying to say is that you are trying to advocate for the prevention of harm. Right? People need informed consent so that we can avoid marriages that fail. Charlie and Ryan adopting a baby I don't personally believe is harming anyone. It's giving a child a loving home where they'll be taken care of. So that's why I think they are different.

John Dehlin [00:40:00] And I and I think for him to do apple and apples comparisons, he would need to have data that show that children raised by same sex couples have poorer outcomes. Because if he had data and I'm not aware of data like this, but if there were data that showed that children raised by same sex couples have more depression, more anxiety, don't do well in school, have more mental illness, then I think that's, that's that I would have the same position. I would say, okay, yeah, adopt a kid is this but, but understand that you're giving that kid, you know, lower chances of a good quality of life or mental health. I. That that would be an apples and apples comparison for me.

Meggan Hayes [00:40:46] Yes, yes. And I have looked into all the data I could find about that and the data says that, yeah, that it's not the, the gender of the parents that makes the difference, it's the other supports and love in the home that makes the difference. So they haven't been able to show that same sex couples make a harder home life for children to this point.

John Dehlin [00:41:08] Yeah, okay, I agree. And if viewers and listeners have other data that's reputable from reputable peer reviewed scholarly journals, please correct us, because I just want healthy kids, healthy marriages, healthy individuals. What's this last video, Meggan?

Queer Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Mixed-Orientation Marriage

Meggan Hayes [00:41:27] This was just another perspective from a queer Latter Day Saint. Someone who has now left the church talking about why their mixed orientation, like the idea of a mixed orientation marriage was not going to work for them.

John Dehlin [00:41:40] Okay, let's roll it.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [00:41:42] Sometimes we talk about being gay and Mormon like it's some kind of spiritual flex. Like the ability to remain in a system that does not fully affirm you demonstrates greater faith, greater complexity and greater devotion when maybe it actually just demonstrates greater cognitive dissonance. I couldn't be actively Mormon and openly queer for very long.

Video Clip 2 [00:42:07] And it wasn't because I wasn't faithful enough or I didn't have a strong enough testimony, or that I didn't try hard enough. Anyone who knew me when I was active can attest to how much I was devoted to my faith.

Video Clip 2 [00:42:21] I couldn't be gay and Mormon because eventually I was no longer willing to continue to convince myself that being tolerated was the same thing as belonging to. I wasn't willing to participate in a theology that required me to consider myself less than less worthy of love, happiness, blessings and eternal exaltation.

Video Clip 2 [00:42:45] And I couldn't keep believing in modern day revelation when the prophets who were supposed to speak for God kept getting it so profoundly wrong about queer people. I tried to pray the gay away, but that just felt like hating myself.

Video Clip 2 [00:43:00] So I tried to reconcile my faith in my sexuality, but increasingly staying stopped feeling like faithfulness and started feeling like self abandonment. I am not saying that leaving is easy or that there is one correct path for queer people to take that would make me no better than the church. But I am advocating for us to stop pedestalizing people for staying when the policy and the theology of the church has not changed.

Video Clip 2 [00:43:29] I am pushing back against the narrative that people who leave and choose queerness do so because of a lack of faith. The Worth of queer souls is great. And mine is worth more than the church could ever give.

John Dehlin [00:43:44] Wow, that was powerful. And I do think it's important to hear from people who have been in mixed Mormon mixed orientation marriages if, if you know where it hasn't worked. If we're going to hear from people like sky, who's saying it is working.

Meggan Hayes [00:43:58] Yeah. And I don't. That creator, I don't think was in one. I just think they knew as a queer person they needed to get out of the church for their safety, for their. Yeah, for their life.

Guest 2 [00:44:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:11] Well, thank you for covering that issue. I wish sky and his marriage all the best. I wish everybody Mormon and mixed orientation marriage is the best. But I also just think it's responsible for people to have informed consent and to know what they're getting into. And honestly, my, my, my take is that if a faithful Mormon couple knows the data, they're going to marry who they want to marry anyway. But I just, my ethics say informed consent anyway. Enough said.

Meggan Hayes [00:44:41] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:44:42] But Sky, Sky, I'm not attacking your marriage. Never did, never would. And by the way, any, you know, Julia, make this a clip. Any Mormon mixed orientation marriage. I'm not attacking your marriage. I revere and respect your marriage. I wish you the best. And I think you have every right to be in a marriage and I believe that you have the ability to have a successful marriage and I wish you the best. So please stop saying that I'm attacking your marriage, because I'm not. I'm wishing your marriage all the best. Okay. All right, Meggan, what's the next story?

LDS Scholar Receives Warning from the Church

Meggan Hayes [00:45:16] We're going to talk about Susie Greco, a scholar who got a little warning from the Church. Yeah. Susie Greco is a Latter Day Saint author, researcher, and advocate for survivors of sexual and domestic abuse. She holds a master's degree in theology from Harvard Divinity School and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh. Researching how religious structures and rituals can contribute to gender based violence, Greco has publicly shared her own experiences of childhood sexual abuse and domestic abuse. Her advocacy has included addressing the United Nations General assembly in 2023 and meeting Pope Francis alongside other survivors in 2022. She is also the author of the Stone Sphere, which explores abuse, trauma and institutional responses within religious communities. I just wanted to give a little background about her and then talk about maybe why she got the warning that she did. So.

Guest 2 [00:46:09] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:46:09] This next slide showcases an article that she wrote for Dialogue, a journal of Mormon thought, called Confronting Men's Violence Against Women and Girls in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

John Dehlin [00:46:22] Okay, that sounds like something. I'm gonna say something. A hot take. That's that title. Sounds like something everyone should agree with and be supportive of. And it sounds like something then that the church would oppose for some strange reason when everyone should just be supportive. But that's probably a hot take.

Meggan Hayes [00:46:41] Yeah. Well, go ahead and play. So I recorded just them reading the article from their site, so we can play that and then we can talk about it.

John Dehlin [00:46:50] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:46:51] An undercurrent of violence against women and girls. VAWG exists in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The church professes commitment to support victims of sexual abuse and its declared policy of zero tolerance, which mirrors the position of numerous religious organizations. These sentiments, while suitable for formal declarations, websites and public addresses, stand in contrast to the church's actions, which are not aligned with its professed Christian tenets. The church in actuality fails to encourage members to report abuse to legal authorities and does not train its leaders in appropriate response protocols. This article urges the church to address the existing dissonance and align its actions with the policies it has formally established and its Christian doctrines and practices. As Bell Hooks poignantly articulates, the impact of patriarchy manifested as male domination over women and children constitutes a considerable obstacle to the experience of love. Patriarchy does not align with Christ's construct of divine love.

John Dehlin [00:47:50] What, what can you summarize about what was in that article?

Meggan Hayes [00:47:54] Basically, Susie is advocating for the church to actually enforce the policies that it says are its gold standard. I mean, when it comes down to it, she says, you've, you've said all these things that you do, you've outlined this gold standard, but behind the scenes that stuff isn't happening. So let's just start doing that. Like that's what I got from this article that she read is that she just wants the church to do what it says it's doing.

John Dehlin [00:48:22] Okay, so that sounds pretty benign. So what's, what's the next clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:48:29] So she went on to listen, learn and love with Richard Osler. And there are just a couple clips because I was trying to find out why she got in trouble. Right. So there are just a couple of clips from her being on that podcast.

John Dehlin [00:48:42] Okay, let's play the next clip.

Guest 1 [00:48:44] And this leads me kind of to the core action that I call for reform. We must advocate for religious ministers to be trained in trauma, informed care and dynamics, and sexual violence in all its many forms. We also need community wide training and we must implement survivor, survivor centered protocols and dismantle the legalistic hotline system, replacing it with true victim advocacy and support. The main priority should always be the safety and the well being of victims. And we need, we as survivors and members really need to demand this of the church. And we.

John Dehlin [00:49:31] Okay, Meggan, so what's wrong with that?

Meggan Hayes [00:49:35] Well, I personally don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think she's brilliant. But I did hear her say demand in there, demand this of the church. And I was thinking, well, I don't know that the church really likes it when people try to demand it. Made me think of Sam Young. He was like, can you just stop interviewing kids behind closed doors? And they were like, no, we're not going to do that. And you probably need to get excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:50:00] Yeah, definitely. Okay, so what's, what's the next clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:50:06] It's just another clip from that. Like I was really, I read her post about getting in trouble and then I was like, well, why'd she get in trouble? So I was trying to find a reason why they might have been upset.

John Dehlin [00:50:15] Okay, let's play the next clip.

Guest 1 [00:50:18] I, I worked with Diane Rosenfeld, who is the gender violence director at Harvard Law, and I worked with David Holland and we, I wrote up this pilot project for the church to initiate reform and David Holland, because he was my stake president at the time, passed it on to higher leaders to get it to go through and it was just sidelined or stopped. And then I also met with Scott Taylor, ended up in the hands of Elder Scott Taylor, who is our area authority. And he is actually a scholar who works on sexism here in Boston at one of the universities. And he also kind of pushed it through to see what happened. And once again it was stopped. And during this time I've seen other people try to get reform initiatives to go through and they've also been stopped. And that's when I was like, wow, what's going on here?

John Dehlin [00:51:21] Okay, sounds like she doesn't know our history super well and, but I don't falter for, you know, how she's approaching it. Any comments on that, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:51:32] Yeah, I think she's just very genuine. She's been doing all the studying, she's in her PhD program and she's like, wow, the church really needs to reform. So I'm going to go through the steps that I've been taught to go through to put this information to my leaders. And I, it sounds like at first he was like, why, why don't they just want this information? Which I think is common.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Yeah. And I'll Just, I'll just say she's, she's working with Elder, you know, Jeffrey R. Holland's son. She's working with her stake president, she's working with Harvard. She's doing great research. All that makes sense. I, I, I would like to get to know her a little bit to understand whether she's understood our history at all about what gets people excommunicated and how to, and how not to affect change in the church. And I'm just going to take a second to share a resource I've already shared at the beginning of today's episode. If you go to whymormonsleave.com and the timeline, you can filter on church discipline.

John Dehlin [00:52:32] So it'll give you a timeline of all the different reasons I've put together on why people leave the church or get excommunicated. And it's, you know, polygamy and truth claims and racism and women in the church and social issues. But there's an option in their church discipline, and it's basically what gets you excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:52:52] And it's always for trying to criticize or correct church leaders. So whether it's Oliver Cowdery basically saying, hey, I caught Joseph Smith in adultery, that gets you excommunicated. It's, it's, you know, William Law basically coming out with the Nava Expositor saying, Joseph Smith's lying to you. He's practicing polygamy. But I saw that he really is practicing polygamy. That's going to get you excommunicated. You know, it talks about, you know, when the apostles didn't like the first or second manifesto because they were polygamists and they felt like the church shouldn't be backtracking on polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:53:36] And the apostles spoke out about it. You know, they got excommunicated. You know, Fawn Brody was obviously excommunicated for publishing a book on factual church history. Sonia Johnson was excommunicated for telling the church they needed to support the Equal rights amendment. The September 6th were excommunicated just for basically saying women should be equal in the church. And let's publish some history about how women used to have more power and authority in the church than they do now. Brett Metcalf and Thomas Murphy and others were excommunicated just for reporting on factual history. Same with Grant Palmer and Simon Southerton and, you know, Kate Kelly for supporting women.

John Dehlin [00:54:17] Me, Jeremy Runnels. And probably the most important one is Sam Young. All he did was say the church needs to stop having bishops interview Young Girls and boys and asking them sexually explicit questions that gets you excommunicated. And Natasha Helper got excommunicated for just advocating for healthy ethical mental health practices. And so like, on the one hand, I'm outraged and sad. On the other hand, I do wonder if she's publishing in Dialogue. Does she not know how the Brethren work Now? Is that unfair? Meggan, what do you think?

Meggan Hayes [00:54:56] No, but I, I mean, I've listened to a lot of Mormon stories and you would often talk about how there are so many people even now in 2026, who have no idea what it is that we talk about on here. Right. And so with her level of education, I would think she would have had some overlap and like you said, publishing and dialogue. But she does seem to be a little bit taken back by the, the cool reception of her research and yeah, I don't understand it.

John Dehlin [00:55:29] Yeah, I would say the sunrises, the rooster crows and Mormon leaders excommunicate people who give them public advice or criticism if it's something that they don't like, especially around things as sensitive as abuse, like you. Speak up publicly about that. As a faithful member, your membership's in jeopardy. So I'm surprised if anyone is surprised at that outcome. But maybe Susie, if you want to come on Mormon Stories and tell your story, I think we'd love to hear it. I don't mean to be assuming things. I think you and I have corresponded in the past, but let's go ahead and show her her. Her post. Do you want to read that?

Guest 1 [00:56:09] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:56:10] So she said. Two days ago, a scholar and high ranking LDS church leader emailed me with concerns about my research. The gist? My work on abuse was acceptable when it asked the Church to respond better. It became a problem the moment I began asking whether the Church's structure, policies, rituals and doctrine might help produce the conditions for abuse. His words. I grow increasingly concerned as I see you move your writing about abuse from being a concern that the Church needs to address in more effective ways to now questioning its organizational practices, its structure, its rituals and its doctrine by claiming they are the cause of such abuse.

Meggan Hayes [00:56:51] A few days before, I'd read this in Abuse in World Religions, written about Jewish communities, and posted it on Facebook. Swap a few words and it's my life quote. Further, it often seems that women are only permitted to speak when they share their testimony of victimhood and healing, but not when they seek to make changes to church structures, question policy, or lead systemic change. Close quote. This is exactly what I have been trying to illuminate this week, it illuminated itself. Excuse me.

John Dehlin [00:57:21] Your thoughts, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:57:24] Yeah. I mean, it's exactly what has happened. This is a pattern. So she might be a little bit surprised, maybe, but. Yeah, I'm. I'm not. I'm not. She. She was saying I. I was a victim because she talks a lot about her story, and I'm healing, and let's hope other people are healing. And then she. She dug a little deeper and was like, oh, wait, this. This is in the roots of the church. And we. There are some things that need to change. And that's when she crossed a line.

John Dehlin [00:57:59] Yeah. Well, I want to say two things. I want to say, Susie Greco, good for you for advocating for abuse. I think it's the Mormon Church's biggest sin. The most evil thing the LDS Church has ever done is create a system where child abuse is so prevalent and so systemically covered up. So good for you, Susie, for trying to deal with it academically and ethically and responsibly.

John Dehlin [00:58:25] And kudos to you for speaking up and raising your voice. And kudos to you for all that. And the second thing is, if I can quote Spencer B. Kimball, that story about the Native American climbing up a mountain, and he finds a snake, and the snake talks him into picking up the snake and bringing it back down, and then the snake bites the Native American.

John Dehlin [00:58:47] To quote Spencer B. Kimball, you knew who I was when you picked me up. And I don't mean that in a condescending way or a critical way, but just to remind everybody who our prophet is, let me just play a clip from the current prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that addresses the question of whether or not they welcome criticism. Here we go.

Guest 2 [00:59:13] It's wrong to criticize leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true.

John Dehlin [00:59:20] Shall I play that again? Should we play that one more time? Meggan? Let's just play that one more time.

Guest 2 [00:59:25] It's wrong to criticize leaders of the church. Even if the criticism is true, it's wrong.

John Dehlin [00:59:34] So she did wrong. Meggan.

Meggan Hayes [00:59:39] Sorry, I had to unmute. I'm getting used to this. But, yeah, it's. This is the guy who's our current prophet.

John Dehlin [00:59:45] Yeah. Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:59:50] Oh, John, I lost audio on you again. Now, I don't know why.

John Dehlin [00:59:53] Well, I wish her well. And. And, yeah. And Meggan, if you need to go out and come back in, we apologize for Meggan's audio glitches for today. We'll get that straightened out. So let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Just because I don't want people

Guest 2 [01:00:17] to,

John Dehlin [01:00:17] to wait and I'll try and carry on the show for now while Meggan and Julie, if you need to call Meggan to, to reset her audio, Julia, go ahead and do that because I, I don't think she can hear us right now.

Dallin Oaks Speech on Religious Freedom and Civil Rights

John Dehlin [01:00:32] So, so the next, the next slide that Meggan prepared for us has to do with President Oaks's recent speech that he gave in Washington, D.C. so it says on the eve of Constitution Day, church President Dallin H. Oaks delivered a keynote address at Washington National Cathedral on faith, religious liberty and American democracy. And I'll just say it's pretty impressive that I think he's 93 or 94 years old. So I'm actually pretty impressed that he's even still able to speak publicly in any coherent way. I remember when Ezra Top Benson and Thomas S. Monson started approaching that age, they were either senile or had dementia or just unable to really function.

John Dehlin [01:01:29] So part of me wants to just congratulate him. But he, he gave a speech and you know, we do know that, that for down H. Oaks. Yes, yes, he is against same sex marriage. Yes. He's against LGBT people in the church as, as full fledged, you know, participatory members.

John Dehlin [01:01:52] He, he stands for a lot of things. He's, he stands recently for, you know, being litigious and he stands for excommunicating dissenters. That's all part of his brand and part of, you know, things that are, that are really important to him. He's less into building lots of temples these days.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] He's more into use of the word Mormon and less into shaming or criticizing people who use the term Mormon, thus the lawsuit against me. But, but we know that if he has one pet project, it's, it's, it's, you know, advocating for what he calls religious freedom. So I just gave a little summary, Meggan, of my views on what Oaks cares about most. And so I think what, what we're about to see is him talking about his favorite topic of all topics, which is religious freedom. Is that right?

Meggan Hayes [01:02:50] So, yeah, he gave an entire speech about the Constitution, but I clipped the parts that I thought were most interesting because they seemed to, some of them conflict with things that I was taught when I was a member and then also some that pertains to litigation, which I thought you might find interesting.

John Dehlin [01:03:07] Yeah. All right, so welcome back, Meggan. Sorry for your computer isn't cooperating today, but we'll get that fixed for next time. Let's play the first clip.

Guest 2 [01:03:16] More recently, I've come to understand better the distress of other minorities who feel that some of us are invoking constitutional rights like free exercise of religion and freedom of speech to deny or challenge their own core beliefs and their basic constitutional rights.

John Dehlin [01:03:39] Okay, so what's he saying there?

Meggan Hayes [01:03:42] He. It. It sounded to me like he was saying, I. I think we might have stepped on a few people's toes with some of our, I don't know, litigation or how we've tried to assert our rights as religion. And I just thought it was so interesting. I'm like, is he softening up in his 90s? Is he gonna.

John Dehlin [01:04:02] So he's saying we're sorry. He's not apologizing. Apologizing and basically saying some. We're sorry that some people have chosen to be offended by, like, us fighting same sex marriage in California or, you know, whatever. We hope we're sorry if people have felt like we've tried to trample on their first amendment rights. Is that what he's saying?

Meggan Hayes [01:04:25] Yeah, it just sounded like he was saying, I think I just noticed that maybe we've hurt some feelings.

John Dehlin [01:04:31] Okay. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:04:32] Yeah, it was just something like, I was a little surprised that he said it. Like maybe sometimes we've gone too far. And I was like, does he really think that? But this is an audience that's not over the pulpit in general conference. And I think we need to keep that in mind.

Guest [01:04:45] Mind.

John Dehlin [01:04:45] Yeah. Now, we all know we've played on the show before. He's on the record as saying we neither seek no offer nor offer apologies, so he can't apologize. So the next best thing is to give one of those really bad apologies, which is I'm sorry you chose to be offended kind of thing. And that feels more like what he just said to me.

Meggan Hayes [01:05:07] Yeah. Like we might have made a mistake.

John Dehlin [01:05:09] Maybe, maybe. But, but, but, but not by us.

Meggan Hayes [01:05:13] Yeah, but I'm. And I'm just noticing it. I'm just noticing it now.

John Dehlin [01:05:16] Yeah. Okay. All right, well, good. That's a step forward, right?

Meggan Hayes [01:05:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:20] Okay, let's play the next clip.

Guest 2 [01:05:24] What became the United States was founded and built by people of different nationalities, charities, and beliefs. Its unifying purpose was not to establish a particular religion or to perpetuate any of the diverse cultures or tribal loyalties of the old countries.

John Dehlin [01:05:48] Okay, I. I'm getting behind that. Yeah. United States wanted no establishment of religion. There's the establishment clause in the Constitution which said there won't be an official state or country religion. That. That sounded fine. What'd you think, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [01:06:05] The thing that stuck out to me is that. That is language that I don't ever remember hearing when I was a member. When I was sitting in church, they were saying the reason that God guided people to the United States was so that Joseph Smith could restore the church. So I was like, hold on. That's not. I mean, I understand what he's saying because he's talking about the Constitution. And from that perspective, however, that is not what I was taught when I was sitting in church as a kid. So. So I just thought it was funny. I was like, yeah, this is what he's saying to this audience when he gets up at the pulpit in General Conference, he's going to say the United States was founded so that the Mormon Church could flourish.

John Dehlin [01:06:44] And. And I'm just for fun, I'm going to say, do we all speak differently to different audiences depending on who we're talking to?

Meggan Hayes [01:06:54] Yes.

Guest 1 [01:06:54] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:55] So is that inherently bad per se, or are you. I don't think you're saying that.

Meggan Hayes [01:07:00] Yeah, no, I don't think it's bad. I think that he claims to be the prophet of God. One God's one true church, and do what is right. Let the consequence follow. Like, I don't know. I don't think that he believes that Jesus wants him to be a different person in different places, but I think sometimes he is.

John Dehlin [01:07:20] And if I could. If I can reflect. What I think I hear you saying, too, is I think integrity is minimizing the degree to which you have different stances or speak in different ways or act in different ways, depending on who you're with and what the circumstances are. And I think what you're saying is if he really feels that way, you think it would be useful for members to hear him and others talk that way to the membership, not just to the public.

Guest 1 [01:07:51] Right.

Meggan Hayes [01:07:51] I mean, he's not going to stand up here and say the United States was formed so that the one true church could flourish. But that is what he believes.

John Dehlin [01:08:02] Interesting. Okay, so you want him to speak more truthfully in both directions. More consistently in both directions, yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:08:12] I would think as God's one mouthpiece on the earth, that his message would likely be the same everywhere.

John Dehlin [01:08:20] Okay, that's fair. He is a prophet to the world. Right? Not just to Mormons. What do you think?

Meggan Hayes [01:08:25] Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the claim. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:08:29] Okay, let's play the next clip.

Guest 2 [01:08:31] We should be especially careful not to seek total dominance for all of our own positions. Even though the First Amendment obviously guarantees the right to exercise or practice religious beliefs, that vital right is not Absolute advocates for absolute religious freedom should yield to the reality that in a nation with citizens of many different religious beliefs or disbeliefs, the government must sometimes limit the right of some to act upon some of their beliefs when that is necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of all.

John Dehlin [01:09:18] What do you think about that?

Meggan Hayes [01:09:20] I like what he's saying, but I don't know that the church always does that. I mean, I think there are a lot of people with temples going into their backyards that would be like oaks, hey, can you maybe follow the laws of the land right here in my backyard?

John Dehlin [01:09:38] Yeah, yeah. That's a weird thing to say. When a church is worth, you know, a third of a trillion dollars, has incredible power and money. He's like, yeah, we shouldn't exert total dominance on, on the entire country. There should be at least a couple limits to religious freedom. Like I there. It's a little bit tone deaf or, or not reading the room, but I mean, I'm glad he's acknowledging there should be some limits sometimes to religious freedom.

Meggan Hayes [01:10:14] Right. He did. He used all those tiny little qualifying words sometimes. And maybe, you know, he didn't say maybe, but they just seem really wishy washy.

John Dehlin [01:10:24] Yeah, yeah. And I'll just say that I know the citizens of California who were in support of same sex marriage were totally destroyed and hurt and offended when Mormons donated $40 million and BYU students in Provo manned and woman to phone booth phone banks to call the citizens of California and to, you know, canvas citizen homes, marshaling their money and power and resources to take away same sex marriage from a sovereign state while denying that they were spending that amount of money and exerting that influence. I think that's a gross example of misuse of power and money and it's deceptive. And I wonder if he would include Prop 8 as an example where our church overstepped its bounds. My guess is he would not.

Meggan Hayes [01:11:25] Yeah, I don't, I don't think he would because he would put it under that moral heading that they, like they did with the abortion one. Right. Like we don't get involved unless it's moral and then we have to. So I don't think he would think that they overstepped. But what he was saying there, I think there would be people on the other side who would use his words to say, couldn't this be an instance where you may be overstepped?

John Dehlin [01:11:46] Yeah, yeah. All right. So I'm glad he's acknowledging there should be limits to religious freedom. I wonder how reflective he's been on the church's behavior in the past and how people have felt. And like you said, with the construction of the temples and the steeple height, whether the church in modern day is cramming its architectural preferences down the throats of local city councils against their own zoning laws, which I think it's pretty obvious they're doing, or in my case, they're, they're cramming their marketing and copyright assertions down the throats of what I believe is free speech. To be able to continue using the name Mormon in my podcast that I've been using for 21 years, I, I think that's another example of them unduly and unfairly exerting their power and money and influence to, to control what he says is a sacred right of freedom of speech.

John Dehlin [01:12:52] And I think, you know, I, I, of the two of us, the Mormon Church or Mormon Stories, and the Oba Stories foundation, we have the American Civil Liberties Union on our side and we have the Electronic Frontier foundation on our side, calling out the church for being litigious in ways that use its power, money and influence to silence and bankrupt and intimidate the free expression under the guise of trademarking copyright law.

John Dehlin [01:13:22] I think he needs to look in the mirror a little bit because, I don't know, he's being as reflective as he could about the thing that he says we should try and strive for.

Meggan Hayes [01:13:34] Yes. And that was the sense that I got is that he's saying these things and they sound great. And his speech was very welcoming and very, you know, let's invite everyone and let's be behind the Constitution. But it didn't seem very reflective. And I don't know that he was thinking about his own history in the church, being a leader for as long as he's been one.

John Dehlin [01:13:56] Yeah, okay, interesting. Let's keep going.

Guest 2 [01:14:00] The goals of both sides are best served by resolving differences through mutual respect, shared understanding, and good faith negotiations. Unfortunately, a major way that contending parties pursue unity is not through peacemaking, but through litigation.

John Dehlin [01:14:24] Okay, I'm all of a sudden triggered. Why, why are you laughing, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [01:14:31] I know sometimes I laugh when I'm uncomfortable. I can't believe he said that. With the amount of lawsuits that the church is in currently and ones that they have pushed for, he's like, we need to just have a discussion and find a way to agree and we shouldn't be doing litigation. And there was a lot that he said around this. But for him to say that when they're currently suing the Open Stories foundation and John Dehlin. It seemed like quite the statement.

John Dehlin [01:15:04] Yeah, like, I. If the church, if the church really felt like Mormon Stories, the Open Stories foundation had violated its copyright stuff and its trademark stuff. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna comment on this just for a second. Forgive me. Hopefully you knew that I'd be doing this.

John Dehlin [01:15:22] That's partly why you chose the clip. As far as copyrights go, we've been using the church's copyrighted materials under what we believe is fair use for a long, long time and longer than before the rebrand that happened in. In fall of 2022. And they never said a word.

John Dehlin [01:15:42] So if, if they really felt like we were violating their copyright, why did they wait until, you know, late. Late 2025 to bring it up as an issue? That's not good faith. They. They've known, I believe, about our use of their copyrighted images for a long, long, long time.

John Dehlin [01:16:07] So that's not, in my opinion, that's not good faith. Also, as soon as they complained about our use of copyrighted images in our thumbnails and in our banners, guess what? We changed them. We changed them. So before they ever chose to sue us, we had changed every single image that they didn't like, even though we still felt like we were using them under.

John Dehlin [01:16:34] Under fair use. So to me, that's not good faith. And then secondly, as far as trademark goes, we, you know, they. They said that, you know, we. We would not. One of the reasons they sued us, they said, was because we wouldn't adopt disclaimers. Well, guess what? We've always adopted disclaimers. And in our mediation, we adopted more disclaimers. And then when they sued us, they came out with a press release saying they wouldn't adopt disclaimers. And so that's one of the reasons why we had to sue them. That's not mutual respect.

John Dehlin [01:17:13] That's not good faith. That's not peacemaking. That's lying and smearing us when we were actually being peacemakers and we were actually operating in good faith by making changes that we didn't have to make, but we wanted to. To avoid litigation.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] So that's deceptive. Also, you know, this. This recent, you know, incident of them using this Tommy Tomsters clip to claim that Tommy somehow was deceived into thinking that Mormon Stories was run by the Mormon Church. He never said that. They misquoted him.

John Dehlin [01:17:59] They deceived people by using his quote in this legal context. And they went further to say that I admitted to deceiving people into believing that Mormon stories was run by the church when it's very, very clear, if you listen to the whole episode, and thanks to Julia and analyzing Mormonism for bringing this out along with Nemo and RFM and others, it was very clear that I never admitted to deceiving people, that Mormon stories was run by the church. I never said that. I never believed it. I never tried to do that, and Tommy never said it. And then for them to release that as evidence that Tommy was deceived into thinking Mormon stories was run by the church and that I intentionally admitted to deceiving people that Mormon stories was run by the church, that's all deception.

John Dehlin [01:18:46] I believe it's misleading and deceiving people. That's not mutual respect, and that's not peacemaking, and that's not good faith negotiations. So. And again, when the church files dubious trademark extensions, which we're. Which we're contending in, in our countersuit, there's just so many ways the church has been deceitful, in my opinion, and has. Has misled people and has tried to bankrupt, I believe, and smear my reputation through this lawsuit. I. I just don't know how he.

John Dehlin [01:19:27] How he lies with the straight face. And I. I don't know. Do I have to believe he just doesn't know how bad the lawyers are, misleading and deceiving people? Like, I don't know. I'm. I'm. I can't say I'm speechless because I'm ranting, but, Meggan, help me out here.

Meggan Hayes [01:19:45] I. I was thinking a lot of the same things, like, does. How. How does he do this? Does he not know what's going on at Curtin McConkey, which I can't. I mean, he is quite a bit older, and our memories maybe aren't as good when we're older. I don't want to be ageist, but, like, I'm 45, and mine's not as good as it was when I was 25, so how much can he know? And if he does know what's going on, which I think he likely is, at least in the loop, poop. How does he get up there and say this and have this whole audience of people who are just nodding and believing him because they don't know the backstory?

Meggan Hayes [01:20:27] If people aren't. I mean, you've been national news, but a lot of people aren't paying attention to Mormonism, and so they're thinking, this guy has been in the law for a long, long time, and we should just listen to and believe him. But yeah, he's saying good faith negotiations and not litigation over this pulpit while behind the scenes there's a lot of litigation going on and could have been prevented with actual good faith negotiations.

John Dehlin [01:20:56] Yeah. The other big lie I believe they've told was that, you know, they keep saying it was never about Mormon. We never had a problem with his use of the word Mormon. And yet pre negotiations, that was the first and the third item that they listed as the intent for mediation was our usage of the word Mormon in our title. And I would say half of the two full day mediations were spent in my opinion or my memory, them trying to get us to change our name. So again, super deceptive.

John Dehlin [01:21:27] I just think he's the worst example of ill intended malicious litigation and then smearing and maligning people in the press with, with lies and deceptions. And it just, it in a way I'm sickened and angered and in a way I'm really grateful that this lawsuit, you know, with my, the work, whatever work you and I and others do today in 2026, I love them giving us a fresh current example of their what I believe to be ill intended litigiousness and public smearing and maligning and deception because we can refer to the September 6th and von Brody and, and Bill Real and Natasha. But people can say well that's just in the past. But you know what? It's not. They're still doing all this in 2026.

Guest 2 [01:22:25] Yes.

Meggan Hayes [01:22:26] And when it comes down to it, he is the prophet. The, the buck stocks stops with him. I mean the, whatever's going on in the church, he is ultimately responsible because he's the one who talks to God or claims to.

John Dehlin [01:22:42] And, and he or you have an example in 2026 of him lying and deceiving people and being maliciously litigious in my opinion. And, and, and lying about it publicly and anyway, let's play the last clip. Sorry, you got me riled up. You knew that would happen.

Meggan Hayes [01:23:00] I'm sure I did.

Guest 2 [01:23:01] The history of the so called Utah compromise. The issue there was a Salt Lake City ordinance on housing and employment first proposed in 2009. This was a head to head conflict between the free exercise of religion and non discrimination. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and non discrimination advocates. Adversaries in that contest reached out to each other and participated in negotiations. One side obtained significant legal protection from discrimination in employment and housing. The other side gained protection for religious freedom in its most sensitive areas of church employment and student housing. The win win Outcome could not have been obtained without the balancing of interests made possible by the dynamics of a legislative process.

John Dehlin [01:24:10] All right, Meggan, what do you think the Utah compromise. The church should. Is trumpeting its, its, you know, moral, positive actions.

Meggan Hayes [01:24:20] What do you think he's calling it a win win. But when I think about it, what the church won there was the right to discriminate.

John Dehlin [01:24:28] How so?

Meggan Hayes [01:24:30] Because now they can not allow people in their housing or employment at their church run universities however they want to. You know, if they don't have a temple recommend, they can just kick them out and they can say that they don't have a temple recommend for all sorts of reasons. I mean, it gives them this overarching power within their facilities to kick people out with almost reckless abandon. And that's the win win. Is that so they let people, LGBTQ people have fair access to housing and employment, except they can be discriminated against if they're at byu.

Meggan Hayes [01:25:22] And that's what he's calling the win win is you can have rights, but you're not going to have those same rights when you come to us. And that was the win for him. And I just think that's, I'm certain it did not feel like a win for the people who the church retained the right to discriminate against.

John Dehlin [01:25:40] Yeah. And I, you know, I would, I would say, you know, I don't, I'm, I'm not currently like friends with Troy Williams and you know, some of the people that were involved in that compromise. And I'm sure there are LGBT Mormons that are grateful that the, you know, Utah passed laws to prevent the ability to kick people out of their houses or to be fired, what, from their jobs for being gay. There's part of me that thinks that's magnanimous like that. That should just be the law, period. And the church shouldn't get credit for being a decent. For supporting just basic civil rights. But Meggan, how about counter. There probably be LGBT Utahns that are grateful that those laws were passed.

Meggan Hayes [01:26:25] Yes. I think it's the bare minimum and it was better than what was previous. So a baby step in the right direction, but definitely not the best thing that could be. I mean, Oaks is all for good, better, best, right?

John Dehlin [01:26:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is bittersweet because what he was clearly advocating for was for the church and for BYU to be able to fire people and, or kick students out of BYU if, If the church doesn't like their behavior. And that's what you mean by the right to discriminate. Right.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:27:07] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:07] Yes. They won the right to continue discriminating because they were already doing that and then they were afraid if a law passed that those rights would be protected, that on BYU campus they would still have to follow that law. So they protected their right to continue to. To discriminate.

John Dehlin [01:27:22] Yeah. Let's play a super chat because we got one. Jcvq2cs wrote, Tommy doesn't say he is looking for faithful content. Okay, so this is back regarding the lawsuit and. And the use of the Tor's comment by the church deceptively to try and bolster their point. The JC writes, Tommy doesn't say he is looking for faithful content. He says he is looking for Mormon content. Delin's confession. Self mocking. He named it Mormon Stories because it is about Mormons. How clever. Sue for defamation. John, I saw you clap when I read that comment. Is that because you know this commenter?

Meggan Hayes [01:28:07] No, I was just saying a super chat.

John Dehlin [01:28:09] Oh yeah, yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:28:10] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:28:11] Thanks for the super chats. They help pay for Meggan and her great work. She deserves to be paid for her labor. It also pays for Julie and Brooklyn and me. So we love the support. You can also support Mormon News by the Mormon News podcast by going to mormonnews.com clicking on the donate button, becoming a monthly donor, and we'll make sure that we continue to provide great content. And Meggan is the reason this podcast exists. Okay, well, I was going to ask this final question. Why does Oaks deserve a national platform? Why does he deserve to speak at, you know, the National Cathedral? If this were David Miscavige of, you know, Scientology or whoever the pro president is of the Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, do they ever get a public sermon at the National Cathedral with all the national press there, how do we make sense of this?

John Dehlin [01:29:10] In my opinion, he doesn't deserve that platform because he's, in my opinion, abusing and lying and deceiving in the areas that he's lauding. That's my opinion. But what do you. What do you think, Meggan? You may feel differently.

Meggan Hayes [01:29:30] I saw something when I clicked on the video because the. The church clipped the portion, just the portion where he spoke and they put it on their own YouTube channel. And in the description it. Some said something about they did this in. I should have clipped that but in partnership with BYU Broadcasting or something. So it led. It made me think maybe they were part of the behind the scenes that allowed him to get in to this speaking role. I have to go look it up more. But yes, I think a lot of it is just that he has this huge history with the law.

Meggan Hayes [01:30:03] But he has been an apostle for what, 40 years. So all of his direct law experience outside of being an apostle was 40 years ago. So I just find it interesting that people still prop that up. I mean, I know he's been doing a lot of legal stuff for the church since he was an apostle, but he hasn't been consorting with people outside of the apostleship for 40 plus years on a. On a major scale.

John Dehlin [01:30:34] The only way I can make sense of it is this. The church has a lot of money and power. And because it has so much money and power, like Scientology is worth a couple billion. The Mormon church is probably worth 300 billion or more. So money talks in society today. Power talks. And somehow the church bought. Just like the church bought the support of the NAACP recently, the church can buy a platform at the National Cathedral, especially under a Republican administration. No shade on Republicans, but I'm just saying I'm sure Republicans in D.C. are going to be more willing to spotlight the church because I think the Republicans would view Mormons as generally being very supportive of the Republican administrations.

John Dehlin [01:31:22] But I don't know how else to make sense of it. I personally don't think Dallin H. Oaks deserves a national platform at the National Cathedral. But money and power talk. Okay, one more super chat. Michelle, your Bell 17 writes great topics. Enjoying the chat today. Thanks to all the women in unseen labor that goes into these stories along with John. Yeah, Meggan, you're a superstar. And Julia, you are, too. All right, let's go to the next next slide. What is it, Meggan?

Church Claims 50 Million Members and Elder Tour of Europe

Meggan Hayes [01:31:51] 50 million members. John, get excited.

John Dehlin [01:31:54] All right, tell us more. I'm dying to hear. I don't know anything about the story,

Meggan Hayes [01:31:58] so this is not a news piece from the actual story that we're going to be talking about because I couldn't find one. But In June of 20 this year, in June, June 23, 2026, the church published an article saying Elder Cook and Elder Gilbert minister across the United Kingdom. And then Elder Kevin W. Pearson was also there. He's in the area presidency of that area. And then more recently this month, that same threesome, Clark or Cook, Gilbert and Pearson, also did another tour in Europe, but the church has not published anything about it. So I just wanted to show this picture. It's this same group, Cook, Gilbert and Pearson.

John Dehlin [01:32:42] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:32:43] And they did some sort of fireside. The church has not talked about it at all, but somehow a video from it has gotten out and we can listen to what that Video says.

John Dehlin [01:32:52] All right, let's play the video.

Guest 4 [01:32:56] In General Conference, the Lord is answering the questions of our time. You might consider reading President Oak's most recent conference talk and asking yourself this question. What question is the Lord answering for me through President Oaks talk? Unless we believe all that God is currently revealing, we will also eventually fall away. We're just, what, less than a month away from October General Conference. Can I invite you to go back and reread the messages from the First Presidency and the Quorum of the twelve from April conference and then prayerfully prepare for all that God will yet reveal through his prophets, seers and revelators in October.

Guest 4 [01:33:47] Now, brothers and sisters, we believe that God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. If we're going to be prepared for future revelation, then we need to embrace current revelation. It will be necessary for the Lord to reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God in preparation for the coming second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the church moves from a 18 million to a 50 million member church, there will necessarily be things that the Lord needs to reveal to his prophets, seers and revelators. We would do well to pray that we will be prepared for future revelation pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

General Conference Revelation Claims and the Second Coming

John Dehlin [01:34:30] All right, Meggan, I want to start with you telling us what you thought was interesting. Who is that? That was Pearson.

Meggan Hayes [01:34:36] Yes, he's in the area Presidency for that area.

John Dehlin [01:34:40] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:34:40] So I saw this clip on probably, I don't know, four or five of the pro LDS channels that talk about the second coming a lot. And they were just losing their minds over this revelation that they're going to be 50 million members of the church. And so I was like, we just need to highlight it really quickly. I also thought it was super interesting that he just kept saying at general conference where we, that's where we get revelation. That's where we get revelation. And yet the leaders are now saying, anything from a past conference, you probably need to take with a grain of salt and just do the most current one.

Meggan Hayes [01:35:18] So it's like we have to be really excited about the current conference, but as soon as it's in the past, we might need to disavow some of those things. So just listen to the current one. Plus there's going to be 50 million members soon. It was just a lot of people were getting really excited about it, so I thought we should all just be aware.

John Dehlin [01:35:37] I love it. Okay, I'll give my take. Thank you for your take and for, I think That's a useful clip. I, I, you know, I, I don't want to be petty or nitpicky and I don't want to be always negative about the church. So I really am trying in these, in these shows with you, Meggan, as I know you are too, to just try and be, you know, neutral and fair and balanced and look at everything from both sides. So I do think it was a little weird. He says we have to believe everything or we will fall away. Like that's a little bit axiomatic or self evident.

John Dehlin [01:36:10] Like, yeah, if you fall away, you don't believe things anymore. I don't know if I'm misquoting him, but that felt like an obvious statement to me. Isn't Pearson sort of known for saying really controversial, polarizing things in like area conferences? Hasn't he said some pretty shocking things in the past?

Guest 1 [01:36:27] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:28] Was it, wasn't he the one that said that you don't have the choice to serve a mission? You already made that promise or covenant when you were 8 years old. Isn't he the guy that said that?

Meggan Hayes [01:36:38] I'd have to look it up. I can't remember. I know what you're talking about, but

John Dehlin [01:36:42] viewers and listeners need to correct me if I'm wrong. But my memory is this is the guy who got up in like an area conference or state conference and told the young boys and girls, you don't get to choose when you're 18 whether or not to serve a mission because you made your baptismal covenant at 8 and in that baptismal covenant included, I guess, the commitment to serve a mission. So decision made, go serve your mission. I think that's him.

John Dehlin [01:37:08] And yeah, Julia's confirming that that's him. So I mean, that's a horrible take. And that's kind of who this guy sometimes is. So anyway, he's, he's a problem. So I'm glad you're spotlighting him just really quickly. You know, he does talk about the need for us to follow prophet seers and revelators. I, I have a hard time with them calling themselves prophets.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] Only because of how the church taught me to think of the term prophet. I was taught to think of the term prophet as what? Meggan, how were you taught to think of the term prophet?

Meggan Hayes [01:37:45] Well, that they speak to God and so what they say comes from God, whether by the voice of my servants or mine own voice. It is the same. Something like that.

John Dehlin [01:37:55] Yeah, yeah, that they talk to God. And I think a prophecy, when I think of the word prophet, meaning they kind of predict the future. Right. I don't know. And, and, and that they produce revelations. Right? That, that like Joseph, oh God's giving me a revelation, I'll share it with the church and we'll canonize it. And I just don't know how many revelations have been received since Joseph died. A couple maybe.

Meggan Hayes [01:38:23] Mostly policy changes is what they call them now.

John Dehlin [01:38:26] Reversals. Right. Like the official decorations were kind of like, okay, we didn't let black, black people have the priesthood and go to the temple, but now we will. Or oh, we used to practice polygamy but now we're not. Other than that, have there been many new revelations?

Meggan Hayes [01:38:40] No. No. When you go to General Conference, you just hear the same things you've always heard spoken by someone different who quotes people from the past.

John Dehlin [01:38:48] And like you said, they're telling members now that oh, just listen to General Conference. And those are prophecies and revelations. But like you said, if they can just overwrite what somebody said 10 or 20 years ago like with, like with you know, black people being fence sitters or you know, whatever the, you know, or the temple ceremony or whatever the changes are. If you could just discount the past General conference statements of prophets, seers and revelators, like the entire general discourses with Brigham Young and his Adam God theories or his blood atonement theories, then is it really prophecy today that we should be listening to and obeying?

John Dehlin [01:39:30] Like if I remember who was actually thinking, I would feel really confused about when do I really obey a modern prophet versus just take their current comments in General Conference as opinions or just manifestations of their, of, of the influence of modern day times on them. Does that make sense? Is that being petty or unfair?

Meggan Hayes [01:39:57] No, I don't think so. Because they are confusing. They, the, the members are confused because when they say profits don't age like old cars, you need to listen to the current profit, then what does that say about whatever I've been doing for the past 10 years that I heard in general conference 10 years ago?

John Dehlin [01:40:13] Like earrings. Oh, sorry, keep going.

Meggan Hayes [01:40:16] Yeah, but then they do qualify it with the prophet won't lead you astray. So if you're following the prophet and you do something wrong because the prophet said to do it. Yeah. Jesus gives you a pass.

John Dehlin [01:40:29] Yeah. So I'm thinking of like don't, you know, prophet said don't watch our movies or don't women shouldn't have multiple ear piercings or tattoos are bad or, or them keeping caffeinated Coke out of BYU's or you know, cannabis is Terrible. Or drugs are bad, like, or in the past they've said women shouldn't work outside the home. Or, you know, contraception's evil. Like, there's so many things that were condemned by prophetsters and revelators in general conference that now the church has totally changed its policies. So how do you know right now?

Meggan Hayes [01:41:05] I read this book where this guy tried to live all of the different things that you're supposed to if you read the Bible, I think a year of living biblically or something, and eventually he was like, you can't do it all. And I feel like Mormonism is the same a lot, a lot of times because they start to contradict each other.

John Dehlin [01:41:20] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:41:20] So it get really hard to do everything they said because you would be contradicting a past prophet with the previous one.

John Dehlin [01:41:25] Yeah. Well, let's jump to the 50 million number. So, Meggan, did you hear him making a prophecy? Like, I prophesy as a, you know, prophet, seer and revelator that the church will reach the 50 million member mark. Am I being too strict there?

Meggan Hayes [01:41:42] No, I, I didn't hear him saying thus saith the Lord, which is, I think, what people kind of try to narrow it down to now so that they can leave things out as policy. However, the church says milk before meat, and they're always promising the meat. So the members who are just desperate, just desperate for the meat are like, this is the meat. And they're so excited.

John Dehlin [01:42:03] Yeah. And so you're saying a lot of faithful Mormons, maybe in the prepper kind of community, were taking that as a prophecy of church growth?

Meggan Hayes [01:42:11] Yes. Yeah, it was posted all over that subset of Mormons Facebook pages, YouTube channels. And I actually wondered how they got this clip in the first place, because it is not published anywhere. Like, were they watching a live stream? And it was just strange to me that it even existed.

John Dehlin [01:42:27] Well, I'll just share with people because I'm old. I have a little bit of memory that some people might, might not have. When I was growing up, there was a sociologist named Rodney Stark who made this prediction and I'll just read it. Sociologist Rodney Stark, who was never Mormon, predicted in 1984 that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would become a major world religion with 64 million to 267 million members by 2080.

John Dehlin [01:43:00] And I think, you know, more provinces and revelators got really excited by that prediction and started publishing, you know, and speaking to the membership and saying, we're going to adopt the globe with temples and, and we're Going to consume the whole earth and the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, the prophecy of Daniel and all that.

John Dehlin [01:43:22] And I think in modern, the past 10 or 20 years, because of the rise of the Internet, I think Mormon church leaders have realized that they need to be really careful because the Internet is making it so the church is not growing like Rodney Stark predicted that it would. And so on the one hand, I think Pearson and others need to be careful about prophecies like 50 million. On the other hand, we've talked already about baseball baptisms and developing world baptisms in Africa on past episodes. It is not far fetched for the church to be able to get a statistical growth that statistically says 50 million just by third world or Latin American or African baptisms alone.

John Dehlin [01:44:10] But the question is, does that mean there's actually 17 million button seats now? And if the church comes out with a number of 50 million in 10 or 20 years, will there be 50 million buts in seats then?

John Dehlin [01:44:27] I think that those are totally different questions and I, I just think it's deceptive. I think we've covered it already. Meggan, isn't it deceptive for the church now to claim 17 million members?

Meggan Hayes [01:44:38] Oh, absolutely. And actually the next tiny little story we're going to talk about is showing some of that. It's just the what they say and what's actually happening tends to be very different along lot of times.

John Dehlin [01:44:50] Yeah, because, because we know the church is shrinking in the United States, literally shrinking even with birth rate, it's shrinking even in Utah it's barely growing and it's closing wards and, and stakes in chapels all the time. Every month there are stakes collapsing ward ward buildings being sold off in Utah. And so if the church is closing wards and stakes in Utah, it's not going to be growing in, in the western developed world and it certainly isn't in western Europe and in, in the developed Asia. And the only place it's statistically growing is in Latin America, the Philippines and Africa.

John Dehlin [01:45:33] And retention rates are, are probably going to be very, very, very low, like under 10%. So anyway, I, Pearson is probably not doing the church any favors by throwing, throwing out that 50 million number and it's or the 17 million number and I think it's probably deceptive. But anyway, any other final comments on that Meggan, or should we jump to the next slide?

Meggan Hayes [01:45:58] Yeah, go ahead and go to the next slide.

Temple Utilization Rates and Tracker Data

John Dehlin [01:46:00] So take us, take it away.

Meggan Hayes [01:46:02] This was brought up, I saw it on the Mormonish podcast with Rebecca Biblioteca. There is a group of folks who've come out with a temple tracker.

John Dehlin [01:46:13] I can't wait. Okay, what is it?

Meggan Hayes [01:46:16] So it, it's@fuller consideration.com. everyone should go there. I played with it for far too long yesterday. It's a live temple tracker. So what it does is it they have access to somehow the number of sessions that are available, the number of sessions that actually go, how many people show up, and so that they can show you a live tracker of what the current utilization is for any temple. So I pulled out the Houston, Texas temple, because that's the one that I would go to if I wanted to go to the temple, and I could go to the temple. And right now the utilization is at 47%, which I thought was interesting because they're planning a second temple for Houston, but this one's only not even getting used at 50%. John, are you muted?

John Dehlin [01:47:07] Yes, thank you. I, I, I have a bit of a cough, so I've been muting myself. Forgive me. And also we've got a very important viewer listener who's texting me behind the scenes. And he also gave a super chat. Patrick Brady wrote a great episode. Again, John and Meggan, Dan and I particularly enjoyed the conversation about mixed orientation marriage. I think we're going to have Patrick Brady on soon on Mormon Stories podcast, and his story is going to blow people away. But he writes, thank you for the super chat. He also writes so much truth to what you both shared. So thank you both. So thank you, Patrick, for the super chat and for the comment. Going back to this slide, did you tell us where that 47% utilization rate came from? Because I'm guessing the church isn't going to be publishing those numbers.

Meggan Hayes [01:48:00] So they said everyone should go listen to the entire episode on Mormon. It just came out this week, but from what I understand, they said that they have someone on the inside who is giving them those numbers. So these numbers are accurate. And it is. They show the utilization of every temple that is currently open and doing sessions.

John Dehlin [01:48:21] Okay. And so the point of this slide is, Meggan, that that the, the Houston, Texas temple that was built decades ago is only at 47% utilization. And so that for you, what, that begs the question that they shouldn't be building more temples in Houston? Is that the point you're making?

Meggan Hayes [01:48:42] Well, I just, I thought it went along with the 50 million members thing. Like they're saying, I mean, they're, they're closing down meeting houses, but they're building temples as this show of what they can do. But these temples aren't even being used. So even temples are not a good indicator that the church is growing.

John Dehlin [01:48:59] Okay, okay. That, that's, that's a fair point. The, the construction of Mormon temples is an indicator how much money the church has and where it's investing its construction budget. And also I would say where it wants to place its emphasis on. On member obedience and member commandments, which is on temple work. It's not in any way a manifestation of membership growth. It is a manifestation of its growth of wealth. Right.

Meggan Hayes [01:49:38] Yes, yes. However, if you go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [01:49:41] Okay, I'm there.

Meggan Hayes [01:49:43] This is another tracker. So every. I think everyone would now know about the. Oh, yeah, go back to that one. The controversy in Fairview, Texas, where they were like, we want to build a temple. We want to build a super huge. And we need it. These are some of the stuff that was said. A church spokesperson said since that time, church membership as well as population in Dallas Fort Worth has quadruple. Quadrupled. We still just have one temple. A church member said, some days we can't get in because it's too full. And an official church statement, Dallas Fort Worth church membership quadrupled since the Dallas temple's 1984 dedication. Well, John, what is the utilization of the Dallas, Texas temple according to that source?

John Dehlin [01:50:31] And you know, again, I'm just trying to be fair. We have to assume the source is valid and the numbers are valid. What it's saying is that there's a 49% utilization rate in the Dallas, Texas temple. And what. To be fair, what I don't know is whether that number is accurate or where it came from.

Meggan Hayes [01:50:50] Yes. So go to fuller consideration. They talk about the accuracy. They said it was within. They were. They said they were fairly sure that within 5% they were accurate.

John Dehlin [01:50:59] Okay. And, and so, so, Meggan, just for fun, can I give my. My fair. My best reaction to this argument?

Meggan Hayes [01:51:08] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:51:10] So number one is I, I would want to understand whether the number is accurate. Number two is, you know, the first and the third quote here, that the membership or the population, that the membership in the Dallas Fort Worth area has quadrupled since 1984.

John Dehlin [01:51:28] I believe that statistically that might be true. That there are four times as many members of record in Dallas in 2026 than there were in 1984. I don't think that's necessarily false. But, but they're not telling us the active membership, which I think would be more fully honest, and then the church member in the middle. Some days we can't get in because it's too Full. I think that's possible that there are days in Dallas where Even at a 49% utilization rate, let's just say on Saturdays or on certain evenings when all the wards are all trying to do temple night at the same time, it can be true that the temple utilization rate is at 49% overall, but that also there are certain times or instances where members can't get in because it's too full. Is that fair or not fair?

Meggan Hayes [01:52:21] No, that's absolutely fair. I just think from an outsider's perspective, they would possibly think this temple is overflowing all the time, and so they really probably just need another one, which I think is kind of the picture they were attempting to paint without saying that, because they obviously know what the real numbers are. So if ours aren't accurate or if they're even close, the church does absolutely know what the utilization of every single temple is. So it just was striking to me. The picture that they're trying to paint versus what if these numbers are accurate, what we are seeing in real time,

John Dehlin [01:52:57] Especially if that justification is used to exert undue influence on forcing local city councils to accept construction plans that violate their city codes. That's inappropriate use of statistics. I will say I'm going to challenge this argument that some ex Mormons sometimes have, which is Mormon church, you shouldn't be building temples in cities where the current temples aren't fully utilized. And I don't think that's something that we should be saying as ex Mormons, because, number one, the church gets to build whatever buildings it wants to build. And number two is if the church wants to take the approach of, yeah, we want to build more temples, because we think the closer the temples are to people, the more they'll use them.

John Dehlin [01:53:52] I think they have every right to do that. So I. I don't like the argument that a temple in a given city isn't fully utilized, so the church shouldn't build a second one. I don't think that's necessarily reflecting the church's own priorities and how it values temple construction. Does that make sense?

Meggan Hayes [01:54:11] Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I just don't like it if they're trying to use the argument that the temple is over for flowing to bludgeon themselves into a religious freedom argument. Yes. That's. That's where it crosses the line for me.

Guest 2 [01:54:23] Cool.

John Dehlin [01:54:23] Well, that's a cool story. So. And I'm sure I'm not. I'm not casting doubts upon the Fuller Consideration.com website or the Temple Tracker. I'm sure it's really cool. I'm glad they're doing it. Rebecca wouldn't cover it if it weren't credible, as far as I can tell. So check it out everybody. And I'm really glad this story is being covered. So good work again as always. Meggan, let's go to the next story.

Pressure to Marry Young and Women's Roles in the Church

Meggan Hayes [01:54:49] So this one is an article.

John Dehlin [01:54:54] Oh my goodness. We've got four minutes left.

Meggan Hayes [01:54:58] What do you want to do, John? Should we skip quick?

John Dehlin [01:55:00] Let's do it quick.

Meggan Hayes [01:55:01] Okay. So this woman just talked about her experience in the church of marrying very young and feeling like she lost herself in the process, which I think is super common among women in the church. So her name's. Yeah, Monica Packer. She said says Monica Packer had a life changing realization at age 30. I recognized I wasn't a person anymore. She said that in my pursuit of being a good mother, I had lost Monica.

John Dehlin [01:55:27] That happens a lot. All right, let's keep going.

Meggan Hayes [01:55:29] A Latter Day Saint mom of five who followed the path laid out by her faithful family and friends, Packer got married at 21 and had her her first child at 25. After getting her bachelor's degree, she wanted to pursue a PhD but didn't because she felt like she couldn't do that and have a family. So what is being asked of LDS women marry younger, have more babies. The policy change was minimum mission age for women lower to 18. President Dallin H. Oaks said he hopes the change will lead women to marry earlier. And this is what Monica says I just keep coming back to regardless of when women get married in the church, if they had more of an opportunity and a right to be a human in their family. She said, that's, I think, the real question. And she brought that brought up a point that I hadn't really thought of.

John Dehlin [01:56:15] And I imagine you have strong feelings about this. Meggan, let's keep showing the slides and then I'd love to hear your comments on how it affects you personally.

Meggan Hayes [01:56:26] Okay. She then talked about the Relief Society when it first began, how they had a lot more autonomy. They had co op businesses, they had safe baby milk centers, they had childbirth supplies and hospital and medical training. And today they have bishop storehouses, family services, church wide social services, and women and children's health initiatives. But it's a lot more whole church centered versus women having autonomy and being able to bring those things specifically into their individual congregations, families and relief societies.

John Dehlin [01:56:57] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:56:58] And then she said if the church really wants women to get married younger, if they want them to go on a mission at 18 and meet their significant other and get married. Then they need to start having supports in place, childcare, financial help and access careers. Workforce reentry programs for women who have children and they want to get back into the workforce. They need to talk a lot more about safety and domestic violence and they need to have education in mothers groups. So the church is telling women, marry young, don't pursue your career or put it off or get a degree and then go back into the workforce later.

Meggan Hayes [01:57:32] But they are not providing the supports in 2026 for women to be able to do that because the world has changed so much. So her point isn't, Dallin, you're wrong. It's, that's fine. Dallin Oaks, please provide us the supports we need to stay humans and separate people in our relationships and have kids and work if we want to work.

John Dehlin [01:57:56] And I'll just tell you and Julia, we're going to go over two hours because I'm not going to cut short Meggan's good work. So Meggan so thanks audience for, you know, being flexible with us as we try and manage time and optimum programming. But Meggan, this is too important of a topic to rush through. Plus you've got more slides. So we're going over two hours today. Meggan, I imagine this is something you personally feel very comfortable about. Do you want to share your personal perspectives as someone raised Mormon as a woman and a mom?

Meggan Hayes [01:58:29] Yes. So I was raised that I should get my degree in case something were to happen to my husband as a backup. So when I went to school I was doing pre med at first and then I scrapped that because I realized that it would be really hard to be a stay at home mom and use a medical degree, at least in my mind that that wasn't going to work. So I changed my degree. And then I got married when I was 20 and had six kids in 10 years.

Meggan Hayes [01:59:01] And my marriage was really hard. And so I did lose myself. I gave up so many parts of myself to be a really good mother. And then there was a point in time when my husband and I were separated.

Meggan Hayes [01:59:18] And during that time I took some time away from the family to start figuring out who I was. And it was super hard for my kids because I had never not been the person who was there doing everything for them all the time because I hadn't modeled to them that I was a separate person with my own needs.

Meggan Hayes [01:59:38] And so it was a very tumultuous, very, very difficult time for them for me to not be in that role that I had always been in. So I Very much understand losing myself into what the church told me to do as a mother. Like the church approved way to be a mother and how it's just, it wasn't healthy for me. And I think that's why a lot of women are leaving the church right now, because they're my age and they did that same thing.

Meggan Hayes [02:00:09] They went through all the church prescribed programs, they became mothers and then they got into their 40s and their kids are starting to get a little older and they're like, who am I? I don't even know how to pick out what I want for breakfast, let alone what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Because I have had one focus. And not all these women leave the church, but a lot of them do because they're like, I don't know that I chose any of this. And I love my kids and I am super grateful for every single one of them. I do think that I am not someone who would naturally have six kids. I think my band, my bandwidth might have been one or two. So I'm doing my very best.

John Dehlin [02:00:53] Margi says the same thing.

Meggan Hayes [02:00:55] Yeah, I'm doing my very best with six. And I think my best isn't really enough for six kids and I fall short all the time.

John Dehlin [02:01:03] Thank you for being, sharing your personal perspective on that. I think that's really important. And it's not just why. Let's just say middle aged Mormon women are leaving. It's probably why young Mormon women are choosing to leave before they even get married.

John Dehlin [02:01:24] Because they're just not seeing a realistic and attractive future for them in the Mormon church, especially given the church is governed by patriarchy and they're literally second class citizens in the church in 2026. You know, for all those reasons and like the idea of in this economy, stay at home moms, like, I know it's possible, but I just, I wonder, I would love to see a chart of by age, by cohort, the, the, the percent of married couples that are able to have a non working outside in the home mother and still make ends meet. And my guess is that the younger the cohort of the couple, the lower the percentage of couples where the woman is either wanting or able to not work outside the home.

John Dehlin [02:02:29] I think it's just more and more expensive, less and less even a possibility. And that's in the United States. Forget outside of the United States. I don't think there's anything wrong with the church saying, hey, we think the model of a mother staying home with the kids and not working is a great model for those who can do it. I don't think there's anything wrong with the church saying for those who want that and can do it, great, but for it to be, like, emphasized as the preferential way, I think I'm with you.

John Dehlin [02:03:05] It's just a tougher and tougher sell. And so, Meggan, was this a story that was recently shared on kuer? Is that why we're talking about it today? Today?

Meggan Hayes [02:03:15] Yes, Yes. I was trying to rush, so I left that part out.

John Dehlin [02:03:17] But yes, you didn't, and I'm sorry for rushing you and I'm glad we're going back to make sure and cover it. Okay, so I'm glad this is covered on npr. Ku. It just goes to show the importance of public radio and public television. I love the history on the Relief Society and, and how the, the church. You know, we often tend to think that the church or, or history gets more and more progressive over time, but the truth is, in the LDS Church, women have lost rights over time, not gained rights over time.

Meggan Hayes [02:03:53] Yeah, they used to. Yeah, they used to give blessings. They used to give blessings and they used to be healing blessings. Yes, yes. And a lot of it was around birth. I mean, they did it for everyone, but a lot of it was around childbirth. They had these like, very loving and community, centered on their connection and they were all there for each other. And.

Meggan Hayes [02:04:17] Yeah, it doesn't function that way anymore. When, when correlation happened, it stripped a lot of that away and it put all the power with the men and the women lost a lot of the, the supports that were in place where they felt like they were allowed to support each other in those ways. Well, and I think that's partially too why the young women are leaving, because good for them. They are not willing to lose themselves to become what the church wants them to be. And I think that's amazing because I let the church chip it away, chip away at me for 30 plus years.

Meggan Hayes [02:04:53] And they're not willing to do that. And a lot of people in the church are scared because they're like, oh, therapy is getting these women out. And I think part of that is true because when I went to therapy, I learned that it was okay, that I had needs.

Meggan Hayes [02:05:05] And the young women who are leaving now in their teenage years, in their early 20s, already know that it's okay if they have needs. And I just think that's phenomenal.

John Dehlin [02:05:16] Yeah. Yeah. And if the church doesn't, doesn't get on top of this and find a way to message it's I think it's, I'll just say, here's my advice. Mormon Church. I think I've been right about a few things over the past 21 years. So take this for, with a grain of salt, just have a mixed message. Say, hey, stay at home, mom can be great. If that works for you, do it.

John Dehlin [02:05:45] But also for the couples that can't do that or don't want to do that, that's great. Both are great. And, and women, we're going to give you more power and authority in the church so you don't feel like second class citizens.

John Dehlin [02:06:01] And they can invoke our history and say there's precedent for women having more power and authority in the church and we're just gonna. God told us to take to, to implement the November Policy before. God told us to take it away.

John Dehlin [02:06:17] God told us to take away rights for women and then give it back. Like they've done it with the November policy. Why can't they do it with women?

Meggan Hayes [02:06:27] Yes. And when, when I was a Relief Society president in Alaska, I had a gal in the Relief Society who had a baby and she was struggling with postpartum depression and psychosis and she needed a lot of extra help. So I sent out a thing to get her meals, not just for a few days, but I sent it out to the whole community. It was a small community, everybody knew her and got her meals for like six, six weeks. And I had someone else in the Relief Society presidency complain to me that we were only supposed to do three days and why are we going beyond that?

Meggan Hayes [02:07:00] And I was like, why aren't we just supporting each other? I don't. The church has regulated so many things that it sometimes takes away people's ability to just support each other in a very natural way. But she was like, well, this is the policy. And I'm like, I don't care. We're just going to support this woman.

John Dehlin [02:07:19] Yeah, I love, I know we rushed through it, but I, you know, the church has, you know, $300 billion worth of assets and all the money and real estate and cash and bonds in the world. What a great potential use would be for the church to start providing childcare for working moms. What a great calling. What if one of your callings was ward child care specialist, and you and other women in the Relief Society were paid by the church to provide healthy, paid childcare on church premises? And then that would be a service to the working moms that want or have to work. What a phenomenal idea. Meggan. I think that's groundbreaking.

Meggan Hayes [02:08:10] Oh, yes. And I've talked about this before. Stop selling off these church buildings on the Wasatch front and in Washington, open them up as child care centers. Child care is so needed because all these people who maybe didn't plan to go to work now, or just this new generation of people who. More people have to work. Childcare is so needed, and the church could fill that need with plenty of education and training, and they have the facilities.

John Dehlin [02:08:44] And I freaking love this idea of a career counseling center where not just fathers and providers can get career support, but working moms or moms who want to reenter the workforce. Or frankly, Mormon moms that got divorced because they got married too young now have to provide for their kids because their husband took off and they have no education and no career experience and then need a job. What if Mormon dying Mormon chapels were repurposed also into career centers to train divorced Mormon moms to. To gain skills to then enter back into the workforce. And what a phenomenal service that could be. And also, I remember, like, CAPSA in Cache Valley, a crisis shelter for women who were escaping domestic violence.

John Dehlin [02:09:42] What if there was a housing for women and children escaping domestic violence? What a great use of dying ward chapels and stake chapels. And again, how about mental health services or community support groups like, Man, Meggan, that's gold.

John Dehlin [02:10:03] These recommendations you're providing and that this KUER Report are providing, those are golden suggestions for the church. And they're constructive. They're constructive. We're not just nitpicking.

Meggan Hayes [02:10:18] Yeah, yeah. Like, part of being a young mom is the loneliness. So we were always trying to organize, let's, you know, meet on Tuesdays at the church and let our kids write. You know, I was in Rexburg and I was in Alaska, and it was cold. And let's meet at the church on Tuesdays and let our kids ride their little tricycles in the gym for an hour.

Meggan Hayes [02:10:39] But that. That's the. That's the bare minimum. And sometimes we couldn't get keys, and sometimes they didn't want to let us in because a priesthood holder couldn't be there. And that the church could do so much more when it comes to supporting young mothers, because they say they want young mothers, but they're not providing the support. Support to make that a reality that actually enhances the young mother's lives. Like, we want you to become a young mother. Good luck. You're on your own. We'll bring you three days of meals if you have a good Relief Society president. And then you better figure it out from there. No, they could be providing so much more.

John Dehlin [02:11:14] Well, what the church often does is it takes 20 to 30 years for it to pay attention to what smart, caring people are telling it. And so hopefully this and our show and the KUR report and others, people's work will eventually lead the church leaders to take its trillion dollars by, you know, the next 20, 30 years and apply it in, in some of these meaningful ways. And I'm sure they're worried about lawsuits and liability, but hello, insurance. Like you can, like if daycare providers can figure out insurance policies, Mormon Church, you could figure out insurance policies that indemnify you and protect you from, from liability.

Meggan Hayes [02:11:58] Right, exactly. I mean there are already programs that allow women, well, anyone that allow people to do this in their homes so the, the church can get the coverage that they need. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:12:11] Yeah. All right, well, we've got about 10 more. 10 more minutes. Let's keep going. I'm glad we're not cutting short your good work. So what's the next story?

Service Missionaries in Salt Lake City

Meggan Hayes [02:12:20] This is a couple who did a service mission in downtown, what they called inner city Salt Lake for 12 years. And they talked about it on the Mormon Land podcast on that the Salt Lake Tribune puts out.

John Dehlin [02:12:36] Okay, what'd they say?

Guest 1 [02:12:38] This?

Meggan Hayes [02:12:38] Yeah, this is the couple. Former Utah Democratic state senator and two time U.S. senate nominee Scott Howell and his wife Linda spent roughly 12 years serving as LDS Service missionaries. Their work focused on practical assistance, teaching self reliance workshops, addressing homelessness, connecting vulnerable people with care, and helping individuals with specific needs, including obtaining dentures for a church member. So that was just a little bit of background before we dive into what they said on the podcast.

John Dehlin [02:13:04] Okay, let's go to the next clip. Oh, we just want to listen to the next clip. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [02:13:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:09] Okay.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [02:13:12] Why did you want to become service missionaries? What prompted you to do it? We were not prompted. We were called by our bishop. And so it was a complete surprise. We were not anticipating this. And Scott, maybe you can share your thoughts on what happened.

Video Clip 3 [02:13:29] She likes to do that because I was the gospel doctrine teacher up in our man Olympus stake and we had apostles and gas in the ward and they'd come to Sunday school and I was on cruise control. It was the greatest calling to be the gospel doctrine seeker, a teacher. And then one day out of the blue, the bishop called us and said, we really need to talk to you. And he said, we would like you to be inner city service missionaries. And I said, well, what's that? They said, well, you'll leave our ward and go to a ward where you're assigned through the mission. And great bishop. And he said, it's about a one, maybe two year assignment and we really need your help. So we got done and we went home and I said, linda, they're trying to get rid of me. This Democrat.

Video Clip 3 [02:14:21] Got to get him out of that classroom.

Video Clip 3 [02:14:22] Yeah, get him out of that classroom. This Democrat is in there teaching and people like it. And it was a shocker, Ruby, to me. I really did. And I said, Linda, I don't think we should do it.

John Dehlin [02:14:38] Okay. Yeah. Meggan, tell us why you shared that clip and what your reactions are to it.

Meggan Hayes [02:14:46] I just didn't realize that service missionaries could be a calling. I had no idea. I thought it was similar to when you put in. I mean, and maybe it's just changed over the years, but I thought service missionaries, where they volunteered, they filled out the paperwork and then they were given a service mission because that's what they requested. I didn't realize that you could go into your bishop and think you were going to get called to be in the Sunday school or something and then end up doing a 12 year service mission.

John Dehlin [02:15:13] Interesting. Yeah. And I think I, my guess is part of that is the, the church doesn't, you know, the church has been seeing a decline in the number of members per capita that want to serve missions and it looks bad if the number of full time missionaries is in decline. And so as the number of young men choosing to serve missions declined, then they opened it up to women and then they lowered the ages for both, and then they lowered the ages again. I feel like they desperately want to keep the number of missionaries out in the field up and growing if possible. And so kind of like almost coercing members into missionary service might look good statistically. I don't, I'm just, I'm reacting cold here. How does that sound?

Meggan Hayes [02:16:08] Well, right. He even says, I didn't want to do it. And then his wife talked. His wife ends up talking him into it. So I don't. He, he was, they were shocked and he was like, yeah, I don't really want to do this. And his wife was like, well, let's just give it a try. He actually says he enjoyed it in the end, so he was glad he listened to his wife. But yeah, it, it definitely wasn't something they were seeking out.

John Dehlin [02:16:27] I do think it's. This is something progressives and liberals in the church for decades have been telling the church. Proselyting stupid. The missionary program is problematic. Turn it into a Service. Turn these into service missions. It'll be way better for the community and for the church. Can we applaud that?

Meggan Hayes [02:16:45] Absolutely. I have a nephew who went on a service mission. The way he talked about it, I was like, if every missionary did that, I would donate to that mission fund.

John Dehlin [02:16:54] Interesting. Very cool. All right, let's play the next clip.

Guest [02:17:03] But it didn't go for two years. It went for 12 and a half years. It's like going on a mission. You have to turn in your weekly report.

John Dehlin [02:17:13] Oh, my gosh. Twelve and a half years. I mean, I guess if they want to do it, there's no problem with that.

Meggan Hayes [02:17:18] Yeah, it just. That was the part of it that. Where it just sounded very corporate. He's like, you. You know what you got to do. You turn in your report. So this is a Vol. It's a volunteer position that they didn't even volunteer for. They were called to. And then they're filling out weekly reports. I was just like, wow, A lot went into that when they said yes to that calling, that most people say yes to a missionary calling after they've already asked for it.

John Dehlin [02:17:41] Yeah. All right, let's play the next clip.

Immigration Restrictions and the Service Mission Program

▶ Video Clip 4

Video Clip 4 [02:17:45] How has the program changed over.

Video Clip 4 [02:17:48] Over your 12 years?

Video Clip 4 [02:17:49] Well, just recently, they made the change that they have asked the missionaries to avoid anything to do with immigration, which is a big change.

Video Clip 4 [02:18:00] Now, this has just happened within the last. So we've been released probably two months. And we just got a call from one of our missionaries and they said the worst thing happened today. What's that? Well, they told us that no more. You can't work with helping on immigration.

Video Clip 4 [02:18:19] And they were part of a organization the church had. I can't remember the name of it, but that was the word that came down. So you're going, why? And I kind of figured this out finally in my heart of heart. I think that some of our elected officials went to the church and said, you better be very careful about this, or you could have an audit done on everything. And I. To me, they made a wise decision in saying we're not going to do this because that. I think if we had an IRS audit, a deep one, that that wouldn't mean a lot of consequences for the church.

John Dehlin [02:19:08] Okay. Yeah. And that's. That's some pretty big news that I. That I remember hearing about last week, which is new news service. Mormon missionaries don't help members with immigration. Right.

Guest 3 [02:19:24] Or.

John Dehlin [02:19:24] Or other people with immigration.

Meggan Hayes [02:19:27] Yeah, yeah. They're. They're telling him hands off now. Like, he talks about a Guy who specifically changed his direction of career after he, I think, hit retirement age, specifically so he could go back and be a service missionary that helped members with immigration.

John Dehlin [02:19:46] Yeah. And what do we think about this, Meggan? What do you think about it, that change?

Meggan Hayes [02:19:54] It's just another one of those areas where I know the church says that we need to live within the laws of the land. And there he's. He's saying. His guess is that they're afraid that the government would come down on him, down on the church, if they were supporting immigration. But how do. How does God's one true church balance that with. Do what is right, Let the consequence follow. So it.

Guest 1 [02:20:16] It.

Meggan Hayes [02:20:17] It's kind of a balancing act.

John Dehlin [02:20:19] It's changing because if it used to allow it and now it's not. Why. Why the change?

Meggan Hayes [02:20:25] Because, well, he said they were afraid they'd get an audit.

John Dehlin [02:20:27] And I. I mean, okay, how about Devil's advocate? The United States government right now is really clamping down on immigration, illegal immigration. And the church. If I were the church, I wouldn't want to get in trouble with the federal government.

Meggan Hayes [02:20:45] But, but remember, do what is right. Let the consequence follow. It just. It. They set up these rules, and I followed that to a T when I was a member. Like, I would stress about the tiniest little mistakes that I made.

Meggan Hayes [02:21:00] But if you look at it. If you look at the church as a corporation, it all makes sense. And I know I've said this a million times, but it doesn't. It looks more like a corporation than a church, and a corporation wouldn't want to push back against a government who they thought might audit them. If Jesus was really in charge of the church, what would he have them do? I don't know, but I feel like helping the marginalized and those who are struggling would be at the top of the list, even if they had to push back against a government a little bit. And I don't.

Meggan Hayes [02:21:34] I don't even. I mean, I don't know that they were doing something that the. That's illegal. I don't think they were. I think it's just doing something that maybe the current administration doesn't care for. I don't. I'm not. I don't. I think what they were doing was legal. I think they just don't want to be on the side of the current administration where they could get further legal pressure or get an audit.

John Dehlin [02:21:56] Yeah. Yeah. The question that I have is to what extent is the church concerned about its more conservative sort of MAGA members? Because What I hear is that the, the very Republican sort of MAGA conservative Mormons are just looking around their wards and anytime they see an immigrant or an illegal immigrant or someone who they suspect might be an illegal immigrant, they're like, let's call ice. Let's get these illegals out of here. Which is not how the Mormon Church, in my opinion, was 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. You just love the members of your ward and we're glad they were there. And you certainly wouldn't want to turn a former ward, a current ward member, into ICE if you suspected that they were illegal.

John Dehlin [02:22:46] But I'm guessing that there's some of that going on now, especially in Utah and Idaho and Arizona. And so I wonder if the church is just like with the anti vaxxer MAGA Mormons and the backlash the church got when Russell M. Nelson supported masks and vaccines.

John Dehlin [02:23:02] I wonder if the church is maybe caving or cowering a little bit to the anti illegal immigration MAGA Mormons along the Mormon, you know, the Book of Mormon belt.

Meggan Hayes [02:23:16] Yes. And actually they did talk about that a little bit because they said in the congregations that have a lot more people who were born outside of the United States and now live in the United States, they said those people get leery to ask for help because they're afraid they'll get sent somewhere and then ICE will be there. So now they bring all of the resources just to church on Sunday. So on the stage in the back of the cultural hall, there will be just food and clothing and all the things that they need and they just share amongst each other because they're having problems being sent to any other resource because they're afraid.

John Dehlin [02:23:54] I like this comment from Census Gary. Helping immigrants is legal even if they are undocumented. I mean, Jesus commanded it. Right. Like it's, it's not just legal. It's like one of the main things Jesus talked about. Am I right?

Meggan Hayes [02:24:10] Yes. And I think the church has always been actually pretty good about dealing with immigrants and not dealing with. I just feel. So anyway, supporting immigrants and refugees.

John Dehlin [02:24:23] Yeah, it's not just legal, it's what Jesus commanded us to do. All right, let's play the next clip.

▶ Video Clip 5

Video Clip 5 [02:24:30] One other change that I think happened a few years ago is they had

Video Clip 5 [02:24:35] a.

Video Clip 5 [02:24:37] I think the missionaries were willing to help in most aspects of when people would call and have a need, but they came out with a program, the Self Reliance Plan, where the missionary has to sit down with that person or family and they have to answer specific questions and fill out all of this paperwork before they are going to get any assistance. And I think it's because the church didn't want to just be giving away money, but they wanted to make sure

Video Clip 5 [02:25:13] that

Video Clip 5 [02:25:16] there was a real need. And were there other sources? Could they go to their family before they came, the government before they came to the church?

Video Clip 5 [02:25:26] We had one ward that probably gave out between eight and $10,000 a week. And the bishop had no regrets because we were trying to counsel with him and he said that these people are going to die and I can't do that under my stewardship. But I think that caught the eye of the leadership up the change and all of a sudden there was this new direction that I think it's, you get 5,000 for rent and then the state per year, per year, then the state present intervenes and. But again, this, these are just been. And Peggy, back to your question. These have just been things that have happened in the last couple of months since we left.

John Dehlin [02:26:16] All right, Meggan, thoughts on that?

Meggan Hayes [02:26:19] I think it is wise to, to have ways to decide how money goes out to people because of course there are people who abuse systems that are meant to help. However, having been on the receiving end of that, it felt very demeaning in the way that it was done. And I think part of that happens because when you have missionaries and, and bishops and volunteers who are going through all of this paperwork trying to decide if someone needs food or clothing or, you know, their power bill paid, these are people who are likely not trained to support someone who is in that situation.

Meggan Hayes [02:27:02] So, you know, I had six kids in 10 years. I was mo. I was a stay at home mom and I always worked part time from home. So we struggled. And when we would go in, sometimes the bishop would be like, money. If, if it's money that you need, that's not an issue. We'll just get it. And other times they would come to our house and they would look through our cupboards and they would want to see a full accounting of our bank account. Like, ooh, it looks like you bought a Coke at the gas station last time you got gas. So I don't think we can help you.

Meggan Hayes [02:27:33] You know, like, they would get very nitpicky about us. If we, if we wanted food, that did we spend an extra dollar here and, and $2 over there. So I think when it's untrained lay volunteers who are trying to help people navigate through these very traumatic situations, it can become harmful really quickly.

Guest 2 [02:27:57] Yeah,

John Dehlin [02:28:00] fascinating. This is, this is a really important story and I think the immigration topic is really important. I'll just say I'm for legal immigration, and I'm for compassion and love and support for immigrants. I'm. I feel kind of moderate on that issue.

Meggan Hayes [02:28:20] Yeah, I. I read a book once years ago about a fellow who. His family came over the border, they were undocumented, and how they survived in the United States until some of them, you know, when children were born, they ended up getting documented. And just like, reading that whole story and the compassion and the empathy that I felt for them, and then also worked with people who would admit to me that they were undocumented and just hearing their stories and I.

Meggan Hayes [02:28:52] It's hard for me to look at a human and say, you don't deserve to be here. So that. That one is a struggle for me because if I look at it as a whole and, like, do we need to have organization and we need to have rules? Absolutely. But then when I look and it's my neighbor and it's the person who I talk to on my lawn or whatever, then I have a really hard time saying, I deserve to be here and you better get out of here.

John Dehlin [02:29:13] Yeah, Yeah. I should clarify. I'm pro immigrant, I'm pro immigration, and I don't judge people that come here outside the law if they're desperate or just want a better life. I think that's how most of our ancestors came here.

John Dehlin [02:29:27] And so I just think we need to have the best laws as possible, the best compa. The best enforcement of laws as possible, and the best compassion. And I've always thought it was weird that businesses could hire illegal people who aren't documented and they didn't get in trouble, but then undocumented people would get in trouble. I'm like, punish the businesses for giving them jobs if you're going to be consistent, but don't, like, give the businesses a pass and then just punish the workers.

John Dehlin [02:30:01] Like, if anything, change the laws. If you're going to let businesses employ undocumented people, then create a pathway for them to be citizens, but don't let the businesses off who are creating the jobs that make the people want to come here. That doesn't feel right to me either.

Meggan Hayes [02:30:20] No, I. I worked at places where the day before someone would get noticed that they were going to stop by the next day, and then it would be me and just a few other people who showed up for work the next day, and it would just be a ghost town in there because they knew that immigration was coming through.

John Dehlin [02:30:35] Yeah, that's. That. That doesn't feel right. All right, let's play the last clip for this story.

Guest [02:30:38] Our service missionaries actually took over the whole financials of the church, and it was a test, and they did all the checks. They did all of the interviews, and that really took a lot of load off the bishop. When we took that over, some of our missionaries would come back and say, oh, I'm the most hated person in the ward. And I'd say, why? And they'd say, because I denied them, because they didn't fulfill what they were supposed to do, like clean the chapel or something like that.

Meggan Hayes [02:31:14] All right, Meggan, this is one that I also had personal experience with. So when Donnie and I were living in Fairbanks, he was working full time, and I was working full time at night. And we had just. I mean, a move to Alaska is very expensive. We just moved there, and we need a little extra help. And so we went into the bishop and he said, yeah, you know, money's not a problem. We can help you with this, this, and this. And then he called us back in the next week and wanted us to go do a bunch of different service things in exchange for the money he'd given us.

Meggan Hayes [02:31:47] But, Don, we were both working full time when we had six kids at home. We were fulfilling our church callings. And I was like, we don't have anything else to give. If you can't help us monetarily without strings attached right now, then I guess we're just going to get our power turned off. I don't know what to tell you. And so it. That clip was a shock to me for two reasons. Because they have service missionaries dealing with the finances of the church. He said they took over the whole thing. And I don't know what he meant by that, but maybe just the humanitarian or the.

Meggan Hayes [02:32:17] The welfare portion in their area. And then those people were hated because they were denying someone assistance, because that person wouldn't come clean the church. And, like, I want to know the background. Was it because that person's already working three jobs? What's going on here? Because bishops were given instruction to have people give back so that they just didn't give money. But sometimes that's just not realistic.

John Dehlin [02:32:42] Yeah. Great analysis. Thank you, Meggan. What a great, important story. Thank you for covering it. We've got a couple minutes left, and I have to bail for an interview I've got in a few minutes. Let's go ahead and cover these last couple stories. Take it away.

LGBTQ Campus Rankings and Final Stories

Meggan Hayes [02:32:57] Yeah, these ones are quick. So a report was put out with the least the most and the least friendly universities for LGBTQIA plus folks. And in the list of the 15 worst universities, there was one of the. Oh, so, okay, yeah, let's go to this one. So this is how the universities were ranked. It wasn't just campus policies and services like professionally staffed LGBTQ centers, gender inclusive housing, written protections for trans students, insurance covering gender affirming care, chosen names and pronouns, and official records. It also weighed the community supports around those universities. So the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index score. Are there nearby LGBTQ venues and is there a local PFLAG chapter? So that's how they ranked the universities. And in the bottom 15, at number 10 was Brigham Young University, Idaho. It got a score of 0 out of 100 in the study.

John Dehlin [02:34:03] Tied for worst.

Guest 1 [02:34:06] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [02:34:07] And then this is how all the BYU's ranked. How did all three BYU score? BYU Hawaii 2.3 out of 100, BYU Provo 0 out of 100, and BYU Idaho 0 out of 100. So all three earned zero points for campus policies. The only reason BYU Hawaii got some is because there were community supports surrounding BYU Hawaii.

John Dehlin [02:34:31] Yeah, and I think that's an important thing to share. If you're LGBTQ, think twice about going to be any of the BYU's. Honestly, I. They're probably LGBTQ students. There certainly are BYU students who are LGBTQ plus, and I'm sure there are some that enjoy it. Just like sky has a great marriage, you know, or says he loves his marriage.

John Dehlin [02:34:52] But at the same time, people should just know this is important because what, 10, 15% of Mormon youth are LGBTQ in some way? Sometimes people give me a hard time on this new show. They're like, too much LGBTQ coverage, John. And I'm like, I see your point. And we're talking about 10, 15% of our population. And then if you count all the people that are family and friends and loved ones, it's kind of an important topic, and it's also a defining topic for the church. Hemorrhaging in 2026. So there are all sorts of reasons why this is actually a very important topic to cover. Plus, these are humans who we should all care about, and a lot of people in my immediate family.

John Dehlin [02:35:33] But anyway, I think that most importantly, LGBTQ students who are LDS should know that BYU is probably not a safe place for them. And so knowing about these types of rating services can be helpful in helping them make an informed decision.

Meggan Hayes [02:35:51] Yes, informed consent. That's what we want.

John Dehlin [02:35:54] All right, Meggan, final story.

Meggan Hayes [02:35:57] This one was just fun. It's about Good Friday. So go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [02:36:01] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [02:36:03] John Hilton iii, who I believe works at byu, he said, incredible. The church just announced a paid Easter holiday to be observed on Good Friday. Church offices will be closed on Good Friday. The announcement included the statement, we hope this time to focus on the Savior's life will allow members of the workforce and their families to accept the First Presidency's invitation to seek Jesus. Hopefully other employers will also acknowledge this sacred time and allow. Allow for. Allow employees time to worship with their families.

John Dehlin [02:36:35] I'm sorry, I switched that on you.

Meggan Hayes [02:36:36] That's okay. I always have it pulled up, but I just like the church trying to be more mainstream Christian. It just makes me chuckle every time they come out with something that's like, holy Week, Good Friday. And I'm like, I never heard that term when I was growing up, but it's sure very prevalent in Mormonism now. And now they. They get the day off from work.

John Dehlin [02:36:55] Yeah. And there are all these topics, like when the church allows shoulders or the church makes the temple ceremony less violent, where ex Mormons always have this conflicted response. It's like, on the one hand, I'm salty and grouchy because that wasn't the Mormonism I grew up on. On the other hand, hooray. The church is making positive changes overall. Putting our own, you know, experiences aside, is it good that the church is becoming more mainstream Christian, in your view? Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [02:37:24] I actually think there's some really beautiful rituals that come with Holy Week and Good Friday and that I didn't know about and started to learn about as I was leaving the church. So if the ritual is bringing them together in. In more ways, giving them more connection, and. And I've seen them bringing in people from other faith communities and having services around Easter where they're combined. I think that's great.

John Dehlin [02:37:49] I love it. All right, well, before we end, we've just got a minute left. I think it's significant. Jacinda Ardern was the prime minister of New Zealand, kind of a global leader, especially during the time of COVID Very popular, very effective leader. And she was an ex Mormon by the time she became prime minister, obviously. I've always wanted to interview our Mormon Stories podcast. That hasn't worked out yet. I hope someday it will. And I've always been waiting for her to talk about her Mormon faith. And I got peppered with notifications that recently she was interviewed and she talked about it. So I'm just going to play this clip really quickly because I think it's newsworthy. To hear the former prime minister of New Zealand talk about losing her faith and leaving the church.

Guest 1 [02:38:37] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [02:38:37] Your politics were in the progressive realm. Yeah. What happened when those two sides of your life. Right. I think the technical term is cognitive dissonance. You know, I existed with that conflict for quite a long time, and that was possible for a while, but I was always aware of the fact that here I was in my 20s, campaigning for civil unions, campaigning for our LGBTQ+ community, and on Sunday, I was going to a church that didn't believe in that, and something had to give. And in the end, I made the decision to leave.

Guest 1 [02:39:17] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [02:39:18] When that moment happened, the blow up, and yet it wasn't. It wasn't.

Guest 3 [02:39:23] It wasn't.

Meggan Hayes [02:39:23] It was my internal experience externally. I wasn't cut off from anyone. I feel very lucky. Not everyone has that experience.

Guest 3 [02:39:33] But.

Guest 2 [02:39:33] But my.

Meggan Hayes [02:39:33] My family were very kind. You were still a practicing Mormon.

Guest 1 [02:39:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:39:40] I'll just say really quickly for me, number one, she's a legend. She's. I'm proud to be a fellow ex Mormon and Mormon, and I'm proud to, you know, that she can represent us. I love it that she's talked openly about her faith. I love it that she's being an advocate for a marginalized group and a harmed group within the church. And. And. And again, I'm glad she's able to illustrate if. If an issue like LGBT stuff is enough to make one of the most prominent Mormons in the world leave it. That explains why we cover LGBTQ stories on the Mormon News podcast. Meggan, anything you want to add?

Meggan Hayes [02:40:21] I.

Guest 1 [02:40:23] She.

Meggan Hayes [02:40:23] She's just a badass. I love Jacinda Ardern. She has a book that came out recently, I Believe Believe, a biography about her life that I would love to read. And I'm glad she's speaking openly about her experience, because that will help a lot of people feel totally normal for having similar experiences of cognitive dissonance and thinking. I'm advocating for this on one side, and then I'm showing up at church and hearing the opposite. What am I going to do? And for some people, leaving is the right thing. And. And that's okay. And she's been very successful and. And has lived a very glorious life outside the church, even though prophets have said, where will you go? Well, she went straight into awesomeness and advocating for marginalized groups.

John Dehlin [02:41:10] Yeah. Beautiful. Well said. I should also mention that recently Ken Jennings was interviewed on Is It Kamau Bell's podcast, where he talks more about his faith and his trans advocacy. And again, if Ken Jennings, one of the most famous Mormons in the United States and the world, is talking about transgender rights and how he differs from the church on women's rights and transgender rights. Again, it's why we cover women's issues and transgender issues, because they're newsworthy people. So don't email me and comment. Why are you talking about women and LGBT people? Because it's newsworthy and it's affecting the church, and it's one of the main reasons the church is hemorrhaging.

John Dehlin [02:41:56] So, anyway, really quickly, everyone, if you value this program and you want to see it continue, please go to mormonnews.com you can get the latest episodes. You can also get the latest in Mormon News, and there's a little donate button that you can click and become a monthly donor to this show.

John Dehlin [02:42:19] And you can support Meggan and Julia and Brooklyn and those of us who are trying to share with you the news. You can email us@mormonstoriesmail.com with your feedback. We love your comments. Please, like, share and subscribe this episode. And also please support generally unquotable Meggan, do you want to promote your stuff really quick?

Meggan Hayes [02:42:39] Yes, I am generally unquotable and I have YouTube, Patreon, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. And I do shorter news segments five days a week, sometimes more. And so if this is really long for you, you can go to my channel and listen to a very short version five days a week. And maybe I'll kind of fill in some of the things that we don't get to cover here. Just because Mormonism never disappoints, there's always more news to report on.

John Dehlin [02:43:07] Beautiful. Well, you do great work, Meggan. Thank you so much. It's an honor for me to appear with you each week, and people are loving this series. At least that's the feedback I'm getting. And you're the reason it's certainly not me.

Meggan Hayes [02:43:21] I think we make a good team, John.

John Dehlin [02:43:23] I agree. I agree. Well, thanks for all you do, Meggan. Thanks for Julia for all she does behind the scenes. And Brooklyn, thanks to those of you who donated today, the super chats, and for all those who commented. Thanks to Trevor for moderating in the comments as well. And thanks to all the news sources that provide the news. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again, hopefully next week on another episode of the Mormon News Podcast. Thanks, Meggan. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.