People who dislike Mormons

We all know that I'm crazy, right? Okay then.

So, there are a lot of Mormons I hate. Not because they are Mormon, but because a lot of Mormon culture is stupid and backwards.

But this post is about how I hate people who hate Mormons. (Or really, people who hate anyone based off of stupid stuff like their religion, race, gender, sexuality, abilities, etc.)

For people who are living in Utah but have not lived here their whole lives, it is very easy to see that a dichotomy exists between the Mormons (who have become more intense Mormons than anywhere else) and the non-Mormons (who have also become more intensely non-Mormon because they live here). And while Utah Mormons can always be annoying, it seems like the non-Mormons are more belligerent and stupidly angry about dumb things. They also try a lot harder to be not Mormon.

We'll start off with this Facebook interaction. One of my friends posted this lovely picture of a street in Downtown Salt Lake City:

This picture isn't mine, but telling you whose it really is would destroy all anonymity ... 

In case you can't read it, one of the comments is "See how there is almost no one on the sidewalk, no cars in the VERY wide streets ... SLC is not as much a city as it is a township with a lot of Mormon money."

What the hell?!

Well, okay, the very wide streets are the fault of a Mormon. When Brigham Young, the second president of the LDS church, first started to lay out plans for SLC, he did require that the streets be big enough so that a horse-drawn carriage could make a 360 in the middle of the road, or something like that.

But seriously, even if Mormons did, in fact, fund this modern-day street (they probably didn't, unless you're counting regular taxes) - how is that a bad thing?! Why are you even complaining about a street in the middle of a busy city being wide and not very crowded?

Similar to that is a comment made on this random list of top 100 sci-fi and fantasy books, or something like that: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books

We have to add that this person tried to sound intelligent, but still made grammatical errors. :(

Okay, more ridiculousness. While it is totally fine that this guy dislikes Ender's Game (I happen to like it, but I can see why other people don't), his other comments are baffling. I sincerely doubt that most Mormons even know who Orson Scott Card is, or what Ender's Game is. Maybe a few of the older ones do, or a few who read a lot. But like any religion, or really any group of people that are brought together by something in common other than intelligence, what percentage of them do you think actually enjoy reading novels?

Sure, it was a stupid list. But I can tell you all now, as someone who grew up LDS, there is no conspiracy. Ever.

Except maybe with Desseret Book publishing novels just because their authors were LDS. Like Leven Thumps and Fablehaven. Those books suck.

Ender's Game was not published by Desseret Book, or by any publisher that would care that the other is sometimes Mormon (he grew up in Utah, but I've heard that he isn't always active). Ender's Game has also won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, two of the most prestigious awards for the science fiction genre, as well as other awards and nominations.

And to tell you the truth, out of the people I know who have read the book, only one didn't like it, and he was Mormon. He disliked it because he didn't like little children swearing so much.

So THERE.