DiaBLOGue

Balancing Acts

When Catherine opened her eyes on the Saturday morning of her daughter Kelly’s baptism, she recognized that the day ahead was going to test her endurance. Not only did she have to clean the house…

I Will

Bitter herbs and tears 
Mulch, water the spiritual 
Roots of human neuroses 
Surely God sees through 

Palm Sunday

“We Mormons lack ‘joy in the Lord,’” Bishop Lewis told his counselors and the ward secretary at the start of bishopric meeting on Palm Sunday morning. They listened attentively. “The name of Jesus is the…

Hemmed In

Above, the divorcee 
with the baggy eyes and bleached hair
draws an evening bath. 
The dull pat of bare feet 

Male-Male Intimacy among Nineteenth-century Mormons: A Case Study

Dialogue 28.4 (Winter 1995): 105–119
This was a prelude to his book-length treatment Same-Sex Dynamics in 19th C. America: A Mormon Example, that looked at “intimacy” broadly defined, before the rise of homophobia in the post-WWII period. It is a fascinating study of changing norms and practices that once allowed for a huge range of bonding practices between people of the same-sex. Quinn himself had come out in the course of researching this article and the book a few years before, and this work remains influential.

The Unexpected Choice

“Mrs. Greer, you must abort your baby.” The words wrapped me in horror. They offered a solution worse than the problem could ever be. I had cancer, now I was pregnant, and Dr. Krueger wanted…

A Killing Frost

When the cold front came, all the leaves went limp.
That was that—no more white flies on the patio,
one bloom still curled tightly in its calyx, 
its promise of color fading. Yet there’s nothing