1) Mormons are absolutely anti-alcohol. They even refuse to eat anything that has been sauteed or flambeau in the nasty stuff, believing that one taste of “demon rum” leads to falling-down alcoholism, and they just “don’t want to go down that road.” However, Mormons run Utah’s government and make all laws for alcohol in the state, so however much they despise the stuff, they love the money that taxing alcohol brings into Utah’s coffers.
2) Which leads to the second most recognized trait of Utah Mormons: they love money. Next to the Church, they love money most of all. Anyone who’s ever done business with a Utah Mormon knows that “CYA” is the name of the game. Not only do Mormons have no compunction about screwing non-Mormons, they have been known to screw their own relatives for a buck. Utah is the “Scam Artist” capital of the world. Mormons prey on each other, using the Church (“The Prophet just bought into this program!”) as a way to take their fellow Mormons to the cleaners. And, they do it with a clear conscience! Utah is also the “Multilevel Marketing” capital of the world. Every Mormon in the state is an Amway distributor. It’s the only state in the U.S. where the “pyramid” scheme looks more like a Pentagram.
3) Mormons won’t have any part of caffeine, cigarettes or drugs, except prescription drugs like Prozac (it’s depressing to be a Utah Mormon) or methamphetamine (diet drugs are big sellers because not only are Mormon women depressed, they are fat as well – probably from a combina-tion of too many kids and too many gelatin salads). Mormon men find it’s easier to live with their depressed, fat wives if they take Prozac as well. Besides, if the prescriptions come from their friendly, Mormon physician, it’s OK to be a druggie.
4) Mormons bang like a shit-house door. Thought they are staunchly anti-alcohol, anti-drug (except as noted above), anti-caffeine, and anti-porn, they are pro-sex. Many are addicted to sex, particularly the men because procreation is first and foremost in their minds. To become a God, one must first prove one’s “virility” by having as many kids as possible in this life. Polygamy is rife, and although officially outlawed by the Church, polygamy remains a part of Church doctrine for the next life. Polygamy is handed down from the Mormon’s greatest leader, Brigham Young, who had 27 legitimate wives, tons of illegitimate mistresses and more than 40 legitimate children that we know of. Following their leader, many Mormon men get a jump-start (so to speak) on future polygamy by taking mistresses in this life and practicing on young girls, sometimes even their daughters. Teen-age pregnancy is unusually high in Utah. Child sexual abuse is unbelievably high. Large families, usually averaging seven or eight children, are the norm.
5) An estimated 100,000 polygamists live in Utah. The Church says plural marriage is unaccept-able, however it will accept all of their votes, their money, and secretly give them the nod like it’s the cool thing to do. Plural marriage is every good Mormon man’s dream life, and their guaran-teed lifestyle if they make it into the highest level of heaven.
6) Mormons take “Honor the Sabbath” to a new level. In Provo, everyone celebrated New Year’s Eve of 2000 on Saturday, Dec. 30 (a day early) to avoid bringing in the New Year on a Sunday. No July 4th celebrations on Sunday either. Many Utah Mormons won’t shop on Sunday or allow their children to play outdoors on that day. Of course, after sitting in church for three hours, there’s not much time left to do much else anyway.
7) Mormons do celebrate July 24th, the biggest day in the year for Utah Mormons. In fact, the biggest July 24th parade in the world happens in Salt Lake City every year. It’s called “Pioneer Day,” and marks the day when Brigham Young stood in Emigration Canyon and declared, “This is the place!” Actually, rumor has it that he wanted to go on to California where the farming would require less work, but he was so damned tired from crawling over the Rocky Mountains that he couldn’t take another step. So, here we are!
8) Mormons wear strange underwear called “Temple garments” because they get them when they attend the Temple for the first time and take their oaths of allegiance to the Church. These “gar-ments” are worn beneath all other clothing, including bras and normal-people underwear. They’ve even been known to keep them on while they have sex, and while bathing, leaving one leg outside the tub with the garment on, then switching sides and letting the other leg contain the garment. The garments supposedly have “magic” powers and will protect the faithful from harm, which is why you might hear the term “magic underwear” if you hang out in Utah long enough.
9) Mormons fear large bodies of water. They believe the devil lurks in them. That’s understand-able once you visit the Great Salt Lake in the summer, which reeks to hell!
10) Mormon clothes and behavior are mandated to be extremely modest. Flamboyancy and “char-acter” are admonished. You almost never see Mormons having fun. They do smile a lot, but don’t mistake that to mean they are actually having fun. They only smile a lot to fool non-Mormons into thinking that being Mormon will bring you much joy.
11) Mormons who have fun, drink alcohol, coffee or tea, or smoke are called Jack Mormons – although even the most outwardly Mormon party goer will never admit that title. Somehow, being a Jack Mormon is the worst thing a Mormon can be. So, they will say they’re Mormon, party like rock stars, but adamantly tell you that they are not Jack Mormons.
12) Mormon males can become gods when they die. Most of them act like they are already gods, sitting in judgement of everyone who doesn’t believe like they do and engaging in lecherous behavior. In spite of this, they actually believe they will go to the highest level of heaven (there are three levels, even the least of which is so amazingly good that people would commit suicide to go there). They have a hell, but it’s called Perdition. It’s cold, absolutely dark and lifeless, and you never get to see your family ever again. (Hm-m-m, some people would commit suicide to get there!)
13) While you may respect Mormons for believing in their religion, the church doesn’t respect you for what you believe (or don’t believe). If you live in an LDS neighborhood, but you’re happy with your own religion, no one will talk to you. Oh, they’ll bring over the requisite gelatin salad, and ask the requisite “Are you LDS?” And for awhile they’ll try to convert you. When that fails however, you are ostracized. Your kids can’t make friends, and you will be isolated from the community. It’s an insider community where everyone gets it but you, the outsider. And, they’ll feel sorry for you because you can’t get into “Mormon heaven,” practice polygamy and have any real fun in the next life.
14) Only “worthy” Mormons get to go into the temples. While most other religions offer sanctity in their church, the only real sanctity can be had in the Mormon temples. Non-Mormons are never allowed to go into the temple. If your son or daughter is getting married there, but you’re not worthy, you can’t attend the ceremony. And who determines whether or not you’re worthy? A bishop who is probably just as “unworthy” as you are, but keeps it under wraps. Only worthy males may participate in the “blessing” of a newborn infant or the baptism of a child at age eight. Getting “worthy” and staying “worthy” is an obsession with most Mormons.
15) Mormons baptize the dead. They do this in special ceremonies in the temple. If your family is Mormon but you decide this particular religion is not for you, when you die your family will have you baptized Mormon anyway. You will then be counted as an active member. All of the Founding Fathers of our country have been baptized into the Mormon Church, so no one is immune from this practice.
16) Mormons have secret names, passwords and handshakes whose purpose is to get them into the highest level of heaven. You can’t get in unless you know these. It’s a very exclusive club.
17) Most people know that Mormon boys go away on a “mission” for two years. What people don’t know is that when you send an 18-year-old boy out of the country with a head full of strange brainwash, he will most likely open his eyes. Imagine believing all of this crap until you’re 18, then get sent to Germany to convert this beer-loving people! After making a bunch of fascinating new friends and having to resist the temptation of alcohol, Oktoberfest comes around and you learn that beer tastes pretty darn good! Many discover that other things are pretty darn good also, such as masturbation and even real sex with a girl (or sometimes a fellow missionary will do). Former LDS men say they believe the dropout rate is about three out of four.
18) Girls don’t need to leave the country to go on a mission. Their primary mission, as far as the Mormon church is concerned, is to find a good Mormon man (preferably a returned missionary) and marry him so that she can be saved in the highest level of heaven. (Mormon women can’t go to heaven on their own, they need a man to get them there.) Many Mormon girls marry at the age of 18 (or get pregnant at age 15). If by some strange circumstance a Mormon girl doesn’t marry by age 22, then it’s okay for her to go on a real mission, where she just might meet some boy, convert him and then marry him. Many Mormon girls don’t do any of this. They just figure out the whole thing in a big crock of shit and run away from home.
19) In the 1850’s President Buchanan and federal officials feared the Utah Territory would become a theocracy in which church and state were indistinguishable (so that happened). In 1857, Buchanan sent an army into Utah to take it away from Brigham Young. In full-scale rebellion against federal authority, Young told the Mormons to kill anyone threatening. This lead to one of the largest massacres in U.S. history. Ever heard of it? It’s called the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Over 120 men, women and children were traveling west from Arkansas through Southern Utah when a group of Mormon men, disguised as Indians, came out of nowhere and executed them. Historians retain the skull of an eight-year-old boy with a large bullet hole in it. For years, Mormons blamed the Paiute Indians in the region for this dastardly deed, all the while the real culprits lived their “righteous” lives in peace.
20) Mormons have no sense of humor about the negative aspects of their history, including the fact that their founder, Joseph Smith, was involved in things like table-tipping, gold digging and other areas of “black magic.” The church authorities have been on a campaign for almost two decades to suppress this part of its history, which led to the unfortunate incident of Mark Hoffman, who blew up the wife of a business partner and nearly blew himself up in downtown Salt Lake City over some “historical” documents that proved Joseph Smith was a fraud. The documents turned out to be fake but this was discovered only after church authorities paid Hoffman hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them out of the hands of anyone who might use them against the church. Yes, Mormons will go to extreme lengths to patrol the earth and eliminate any painful or humorous information. They believe that theirs is the one true religion, and that Mormons will one day rule the world in a Theocracy.
21) Mormons believe that their religion is over 2000 years old, and that they are a part of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. They claim that the Book of Mormon proves that the “Lost Tribes” of Israel came to the Americas some 4,000 years ago in a submarine-like boat, and that God made the skin of the wicked brother red to tell him apart from the good brother, who remained white. (God needs to color-code us to tell the good from the bad?!?!?) However, there is no archaeo-logical evidence anywhere on the planet that the Mormon religion was around before 1830. Nor is there any evidence to substantiate the “Lost Tribes” coming to America story, in spite of years of attempting to find various Book of Mormon sites by archaeologists from BYU. In fact, most recently, through BYU’s world-renown DNA laboratory (which recently helped date the Dead Sea Scrolls), it has been proven that Native Americans are not Jewish after all! Alright already!! Native American peoples are actually linked to peoples of the Northern Asian region, who most probably came to this continent via the land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. Duh!
22) Mormons like the Bible. In fact they like it so much they advertise their church on TV by offering to send you a free Bible if you call their toll-free number and leave your name and address. (They used to offer a free copy of the Book of Mormon, which they claimed was more correct than the Bible because the Bible has been tainted by centuries of various translations, etc. Now that the Book of Mormon has virtually been proven to be fiction, they’ve decided they’re safer to give away Bibles.) One word of warning: DO NOT CALL THE TOLL-FREE NUMBER, that is unless you want missionaries on your doorstep each and every week for the rest of your natural life, asking, “Would you like to know how you can be with your family forever?”
23) There are lots of really cool Mormons who don’t fit so neatly into this biography. Park City is the best place to find them.