Originally Posted by Tarquin
Originally Posted by Dutch
Originally Posted by cumminscowboy

Sadly some non members feel like we ostracize them. This is against our teachings if this happens. Our teachings teach people to fellowship and help all. I think it happens because nearly everyone you live around knows each other and sees each other at least weekly. Of course you act differently to those you know verses don’t know. I think that is what non members see and it’s not intentional.



That's probably the truth. It's also the truth that a co-worker's high school senior, a starter as a sophomore and junior, was benched by the new mormon coach in favor of a "promising" freshman who happened to be mormon. There's the official line, and there's the real world. I would NEVER have raised my kids in a predominantly mormon community. They would have been ostracized, if not by intent, by reality.

Like other people, there's good and bad LDS members. And like any other group of people, they can get very clannish, even mob like.

Funny story. First time I came into the town of Grace, ID, my FIL and I went to town for lunch, sat down in the little local restaurant, and when the (young) waitress came to bring the menu, we ordered a cup of coffee. Without missing a beat, she said "the smoking section is on the other side". For many behind the Zion curtain, the world is black and white. Either you're LDS, and OK, or you're assumed to be a coffee guzzling, smoking, boozing womanizer that kicks the dog, tortures the cat and hates kids, his mother, and apple pie........

People aren't wired to see shades of gray. Either you're with us, or you're against us. Friend or stranger. Black or white. Republican or Democrat. When one group gets to be dominant, that tendency tends to have ugly repercussions for the minority.


Isn't Pocafella a predominantly Mormon community??


Probably about 30 some %. University town, historically a little more industrial than the rest of South East Idaho. Everybody knows what everyone else believes, and there's not much "attempts to convert" going on.

When I say "predominantly". I'm thinking of the smaller rural farming towns, which can be upwards of 90% mormon. Heck, where I farm, even the Mexican farm hands go to the LDS church. Just a matter of convenience, at that point. At that level of LDS membership, the church becomes the center of everything, boy scouts, social activities, everything. The fair is organized in church, that sort of thing. Again, not out of malicious intent, but because the good, upstanding citizens with a civic bent are in church together for three hours every Sunday, and that's where the vast majority of networking takes place. But if you have kids that don't go there, they will simply be left out (unless they are targeted for "recruitment", at which point there will be a very deliberate effort to include them..... until they make it known they aren't interested in becoming a member. At which point they are dropped by their "friends", at the direction of their parents. ). Again, not out of malice, at all, but that's just the way it works, and it's incredibly tough on especially young kids.

The same thing goes for trying to run a business that is built on relationships. Don't start an insurance brokerage in a predominantly mormon town unless you are a mormon. It's just not going to go well because you will be excluded from the primary networking system in the community, and there's not a Lion's club or Rotary you can join to make up for it.

Sic Semper Tyrannis