Dad. Teacher. Husband. Gay. Word-Lover. Actor. Social Justice Wizard. Nerd. Ex-Mormon. BSA abuse survivor. UVU grad. Raccoon. Napa. Enchiladas. X-Men. Outdoors
Los Angeles
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A random unattended 7yo at the park told me and my son that gay people are the devil and are going to hell. My son scoffed, but the boy said it was true because God said so. I told him parents made up God to make their kids do what they want. His eyes got so big.
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Well that didn't take long. We decided to take a trip on Amtrak with the kids for spring break. 9 hours into a pleasant ride, a man was suddenly standing next to me, shouting across me at my 6yo son, "Remember what I told you. They stole you. They're pedophiles." ๐งต
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I'm sorry but if you teach your kids to hate I'm going to teach them to disobey you.
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To be clear, as much as we need people standing up for us in such moments of confrontation, we need allies to shut down this rhetoric everywhere it rears its ugly head anywhere, especially when we're not there. Don't vote for them or support their art or avoid confrontation.
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We all know where that comes from. So thanks to Fox & Murdoch, JK Rowling & Marjorie Taylor Green, to the senators & priests & everyone else who harms kids & thinks it's politically expedient to project onto gentle families like mine to stir up their lucrative culture war. [8/10]
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They're asleep now. They asked if we'll see that man again & I said probably not him, but men just like him. But we'll be stronger each time. And most people aren't like that guy. I hope this was true. Please help us protect our families, friends. We feel so outnumbered & tired๐
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I asked my son if he'd seen the man before. He said the man had confronted him when we let him go to the bathroom alone, which he'd been so proud to do @ 1st but too afraid to do again after. Yet *we're* the groomers. ๐ฃ I'm livid & ashamed that I didn't notice something was up.
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It was suddenly no longer an absurd, abstract attack in an online comments section or a distant legislative session. These horrors were being screamed @ my sweet bewildered son, who's worked so hard to process his grief & control his feelings, who only wants love & safety. [4/10]
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This man was clearly angry at an unjust world; we have that in common. He's clearly not receiving the resources he needs. We've dealt with this brand of terrifying homophobic stranger before with our son. But "pedophiles" and "rapists" were new in the mix, at least out loud. 7/10
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The kids cried for almost an hour. We got cookies & processed their emotions while the train waited at a stop for the police. They wanted to be away from windows so they wouldn't see him again. They wanted to practice screaming loud enough for help to come. I want to scream too.
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I stood between the stranger and my son, whose life has already been so hard, who carries traumas larger than his whole small, fierce frame. I was immovable. "Get away from my family." [2/10]
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I grabbed the kids and moved them to another car while my ferocious husband went into papa bear mode and shouted the man away from us. Eventually the conductor arrived and the man lost his focus on us. [5/10]
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"Family!? That's not a family! You're rapists. You steal black & Asian kids." My son and my 5yo daughter were both now openly crying, petrified. He yelled right at them, unmoved: "These guys aren't natural. Homosexuals are an abomination. They steal and rape kids." [3/10]
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Forgot my lunch today, so I ordered Uber Eats and my driver's picture popped up and tell me why it's my COWORKER who's allegedly here right now clocked in and now I have to face him to get my sandwich and he will know I know he's double dipping
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Thank you. โฅ๏ธ A lot of people nearby sent sympathetic looks or later told us sorry that happened which is nice (?) but they all just sat with their heads down while it was going on. I get how disorienting it can be, but we really need to be better at taking action for each other.
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Grateful for the outpouring of love & support in the last twelve hours. I don't think I'll ever be able to read all the comments and messages, but I'm reacting to them en masse and feeling love. Going to talk to a few reporters (!) and then go relax with the family on vacation.
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Are you kidding me. They need to pay teachers more. Lunch period is almost over, what am I going to eat!!
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Letitia Wright shared an anti-vax video. Gal Gadot openly supports the IDF (the people bombing Palestine). Armie Hammer has been accused of rape and cannibalism.
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I am alive and now I just have that awkward anticipation of our first interaction on Monday. Did he even recognize my first name? Does he know I know? It's a mess. Do I just laugh?
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Oh he chickened out. Took my food and just drove away.. Now let's see if he's bold enough to look me in the eye at work in Monday.
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"Just because something makes you feel good doesn't make it right" is something I was taught in church, but strangely never ABOUT church.
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School is over and my progress report grades are in and I'm driving through the CLOSEST place. My blood sugar is like
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The trolls in the comments saying we deprived our son of a mother have my blood boiling even more than before. His mother DIED, and we were there to hold him and cry with him and help him process his grief and it's one of the hardest and most important things I've ever done. ๐ก
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I worked at a residential treatment center for at risk teenage girls, and it was just like Holes. I think it could definitely work. I was a little skeptical of gender-reversed Lord of the Flies, and then The Wilds was amazing.
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This has even more of our story from last night, plus one damn adorable picture.
buzzfeednews.com/article/salโฆ
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Amtrak just upgraded us to roomettes on the way home on Friday, which I'm mostly glad about so we can just travel without seeing anyone else and the kids don't have to be in the same space where the trauma happened. Thank you, @amtrak, this makes us feel much less stressed.
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Kelly didn't say multiculturalism. She said clean toilets. We offer much more than that. We understand what she meant and we understand the bias that leaked through in what she actually said.
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Ha, yeah, I went through a few phases of not knowing how to feel about it afterwards and at the moment I'm at "tired of the bullshit and I can serve it back." ๐คฃ
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Tonight I tucked in our sweet 5yo for what was probably the last time. Tomorrow she has court and is expected to return to live with her mom after 20 months with us. We're a mixture of completely devastated and heartbroken but also so honored to have been part of her journey.
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She also volunteered to continue to be of help and testify if needed. This world is better when you look for the good, isn't it.
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That's what I was going to do. Just pretend nothing happened. But then he stole my sandwich! I'm not telling the boss, but I definitely told Twitter
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Another passenger found me reached out this evening to let me know that in the chaos I may have missed that other people were being verbally supportive. I think this may be right. It was a scary situation, and I don't know that there is much more done could have done. 1/3
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I told him the people on the Internet were loving him and he asked if he could make a video, so here you go
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Sorry to all my awesome new followers are going to be so underwhelmed when I resume tweeting dad jokes and Marvel movie reactions and criticisms of the conservative church I grew up in.
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She also was the one to contact Amtrak police. My feelings of being alone & frightened were real feelings, but just as the response to my account has shown, they were only feelings. There are far more kind people than scary ones, and I appreciate this reminder from all of you.2/3
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TW sexual abuse
When I was at BYU I had a bishop's wife sit me down in the chapel and tell me that since I was "same sex attracted" I should consider marrying a faithful woman who had been sexually abused so that our desire to have sex with each other would align.
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They want us to be afraid, but there's too much joy to be had in this world. Headed back home on the train, living our lives, and focusing on the good. Thank you @amtrak for your compassionate response, and thank you all for your kind words. Feeling loved.
ALT Our adorable 6yo son, clapping and dancing on the train
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I see you, Latter-Day Saints with your rainbow flag emojis, pronouns, and "Ally" and"BLM" in your profiles. This thread is for you.
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Breaks my heart that the church keeps trying to blame my parents for my leaving. I know my mom takes that garbage to heart.
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This reporter was able to get confirmation of the incident from Amtrak, and has updated it to include this apology, which made me unexpectedly emotional this morning.
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"since you don't want to listen, we'll have to just go." Never occurred to her that *she* could listen.
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Woke up this morning to find little guy asleep on the floor next to us. He said he was very brave and went to the bathroom by himself in the night but then he was to scared to go back to bed, and he didn't want to wake us up. ๐ I'll never not be furious about what happened to us
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I'm not sure what will happen next with our little family, but I do know that I've never done anything more meaningful than be a foster parent. The lows can be pretty low, but in between, in these quiet happy moments, my heart soars. ๐ค๐คโฅ๏ธ๐งก๐๐๐๐๐จโ๐จโ๐งโ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฅน
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Mormonism built a whole religion and culture around the idea that you can mystically tell whether something is true and good by how it makes you feel and then they can't figure out why their members won't get vaccinated.
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This entire high school class I'm subbing kept talking about the "Republican flag" and turns out they were talking about the Confederate flag
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I just paused at the midpoint and have been laughing for 20 minutes about you warning us you were just going to be getting angrier and then the jump cut to you in the Porg costume. You run the most delightful Youtube account. Thank you.
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Home Safe. Some kind neighbor left this on our front door. The kids are ecstatic. #loveislove and we're feeling it tonight.
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The sad consequence I didn't foresee of Lindsay leaving is that the goblins think this will work on everyone now. I hate this.
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We got the official word. Will be saying goodbye tonight. Hopeful that we'll be able to remain in her life. Thank you all for your kind words. Going to be sad for a while. Right now I'm dividing all the children's toys like a divorce court and how is this real
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As I was tucking her in I was about to try to say something meaningful when she grabbed me around my neck and held on tight and said "I always wanted a dad like you." I cried all over my glasses lenses. I always wanted a child like her, too, and I'm so grateful I got to have her.
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When I first saw Wicked as a gay Mormon, I so identified with Glinda, trying to align myself with power/change the system from within. Years later I was Elphaba, outcast and furious and trying to burn it down. This time? 1/2
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Once ordered a frappรฉ from the Orem, Utah, Burger King, and the wide-eyed cashier looked around, learned forward, and whispered, "do you know it has coffee in it?"
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I don't know how to teach my high schoolers CRT when the discussions go like this:
Me: Today we're talking about the constitution. Who wrote the constitution?
All students: Slave owners!
Like what do I even do with my lesson plans after that?
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I definitely gasped when we were on the news tonight, even though we knew it was coming. This whole thing has been very surreal, but we know it's important for people to see what's happening. @NBCLA did such a respectful job with this interview, thank you
nbclosangeles.com/on-air/la-โฆ
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My mom's in the hospital with a probable stroke and they don't have any open ICU beds because these fuckers were afraid of a little shot and I can't imagine ever healing from this cultural divide
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The first step in being an LDS ally is to stop paying tithing. The church has accumulated exorbitant resources and they have used many of those to fight against rights for queer people around the world. If you give them money knowing they will use it to harm us, you're no ally.
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I've seen two other visibly queer families on this train, and we've all just looked sympathetically at each other. We know the dangers in this world. But they're also all decked out in rainbows and that makes my heart beam. They'll never stop us. Our hearts are iron and sunlight.
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This is possibly toxic but it is not grooming. As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse I'm BEGGING people to let grooming mean the very real and important thing it means.
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For the record we don't favor our son over our daughter or anything. It's just that he's adopted and she's currently a foster child. Because we don't have the same rights with her, you won't be seeing her face or name in this space but we love her to pieces.
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My son's kindergarten teacher was wearing a shirt the other day that said "No one is illegal on stolen land" and nothing could ever convince me to move back to a red state
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And we're proud of her mom for putting in the hard work. And we're excited for whatever the future may hold for this incredible, hilarious, ingenuous, artistic, kind, creative soul.
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My heart is breaking for the trans children, for Ukraine, for this beautiful world. Why can't we do better?
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I called something a "tender mercy" to another Ex-Mormon tonight and our never-mormon partners asked if that was the Mormon euphemism for the female orgasm. So
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When I was a closeted gay Mormon teenager, we weren't allowed to watch Friends because a local leader, Dr. Parkinson, said at stake conference that the inclusion of a same-sex wedding in one episode was evil. We were obedient. I later learned the truth about Dr. Parkinson. (1/3)
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I've now been an English teacher for exactly 5 days and I've already subjected them to The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. This has been a long time coming.
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"But if I don't pay tithing, I can't have a temple recommend!" Sucks, right? We know all about not being allowed in there. Which brings me to my next point: Don't enjoy the benefits of the church that are denied other people based on their gender or orientation.
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Was thinking about a memory from high school that illustrates the kind of racism I experienced constantly in the Mormon church that white people might miss. I was friends with my stake President's son, and got invited to spend a weekend at a rented cabin with the family.
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"businesswoman" oh man I think she just helped me figure out why I hate her music. Not once did she talk about making an artistic choice. Just responding to critics and making choices based on money.
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PSA the Mormon Church does not have a monopoly on that feeling you know as the Holy Ghost. They want you to believe that so you stay, but I bear my testimony every good thing you found at church can be found elsewhere, without the parts that make you sad or uncomfortable
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Why did you decide to defend someone making sexual comments to a child. You could have did against that or just moved on, but you chose to do this. Pretty sus
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Some people say I only post about Mormonism but one time my buddy Evan and I convinced the worker at the movies to fill a large popcorn bucket with root beer and we decided we had to finish it during the movie and we chugged it and Evan got carbonated diarrhea, is that better
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We've worked together a year or two. Friendly but not first name basis. Will be awkward now
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Thank goodness my kids have *two* dads. Great thinking, @MikeLeeforUtah
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Today we went swimming & had a great lunch out. Tonight we picked up a pizza and had a little celebration with her at the park, then came home and stayed up late with all four of us playing the new Ninja Turtles game. As much as the sadness is looming, we had a joyful family day.
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Do you ever think about the idea that Mormons are encouraged to only express sunshiny feelings and avoid negative ones so that it's harder to leave when fellow Mormons all seem so much happier than ex-Mormons (who are allowed to express anger and sorrow)?
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I'm 40. We had OJ, Rodney King, Princess Di's death, Waco and the Oklahoma City Bombing. That all feels so small now. Culminated in Columbine. I was 20 when 9/11 happened and I feel it has ramped up ever since.
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Exactly. And the difference is they got award-winning Broadway songwriters. They need to go back to that
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