As a kid growing up near the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, I spent most of my time plotting my escape—from childhood itself, but more specifically from a Mormon childhood in Utah. I…
Growing up in the LDS faith, my parents always dutifully had large quantities of wheat, rice, beans, and all other manner of food stored—food we never ate in our daily lives. While they rarely discussed…
When I first sidled up to Make Yourselves Gods, I did so in the spirit of the Mormon Creed: “Mind your own business and let everybody else do likewise” (Trademark: 1842). Yes, I was suspicious.…
When it comes to sacred places, I feel considerable holy envy toward the Latter-day Saints. Their sacred sites stretch across the continent, from Vermont to California. Mormons can visit their founding prophet’s birthplace, the grove…
Podcast version of this Personal Essay. Many times throughout my childhood, I heard various church members or my parents tell me that we had to choose between being Navajo and being Mormon. Our family went…
Dialogue 49.2 (Summer 2016): 45–50
“I am the mother of a queer son. I am also an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as a professor at Brigham Young University, where I teach courses in literacy education, educational research methods, and multicultural education.”
I’m an Aries with my sun in the sixth house, which means, according to astrology, that since the moment I was born, health has been my top priority. I had a hard time believing that…
A few years ago, William Logan wrote, “Poetry has long been a major art with a minor audience.”[1] We could more accurately call it a major art with many minor audiences grouped, like the poets,…
Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 201–208
“What can we do to help and make a difference in the fight for racial and social justice?” McCoy responds to the BYU students who asked these questions which he brought up in an annual MLK March on Life held by BYU was ‘stop tiptoeing around the subjects of race, inequality, and inclusion. Many well intentioned white people in this country do not understand how the deeply rooted systems of racism and inequality function.’ He encouraged people to step up and do their own part for obtaining social justice for all.
Dialogue 47.4 (Winter 2014): 79–84 One day you’ll probably hear the name Kate Kelly. And you’ll probably ask me my thoughts about her and her work with Ordain Women and her subsequent excommunication.