I visited the Millennial Mormons Facebook page during a lull at work today, and was interested to read the comments on one of their recent posts, “Millennial Mormons Should Support Syrian Refugees“. It was a very reasonable, Christ-like, brethren-backed post by Millennial Mormons, so it was surprising seeing so many church members taking issue with it in the comments section.

“How about I bake some cookies for ya’ll. only 2 will have rat poison in them. But you go ahead and eat em anyway, k?” said one lovely commenter.

Millennial Mormons (sorry, “Morms”, thanks to the church’s crackdown on people using the word “Mormon” in unofficial content) responded, “We are talking about people with families, not cookies with poison. And we have the support of the church on this matter.”

A great response, I thought. But the anti-compassion police weren’t having any of it. “The church is so wrong on this matter,” chimed in someone else. “We could be taking in terrorists and they could be blowing up the temples.”

Ah, the temples. Our top priority. If they blew up, how would people be with their families forever, right? Never mind the fact that living and breathing families here on the Earth at this very moment are at risk of dying because of violence and poverty in their home countries.

Fallacies from those who opposed Millennial Morms abounded for the rest of that comment thread, and it was clear that MM wasn’t going to get through to these people. (Did you know that data found on Buzzfeed can never ever ever be trusted regardless of the original source because Buzzfeed is ok with pornographic content?)

As MM continued to fight for the side of Christ, politically conservative internet warriors remained unmoving, with rhetoric about “finding another way” (please, give us your suggestions). One person simply said that they “don’t think it’s worth the risk”. For who? Who is more at risk here? (This girl also showed zero knowledge about the screening process for refugees, highlighting how little people feel the need to research before offering their opinions on sensitive issues.) The many statements about “helping people but not by letting them in” weren’t, I feel, made by people who will actually do anything to help.

Multiple people claimed MM was unrighteously using the “WWJD trump card”. Don’t you hate when people use the “be kind to others trump card”? Those bitches.

I have to admit — while I usually agree with commenters who say Millennial Mormons is too contentious, the fact that people were finding perfectly reasonable comments from MM “contentious” on this post was insane to me. Hopefully they don’t deter MM from continuing to take a more civil approach.

Other, more mild commenters seemed to take issue with Millennial Mormons discussing politics on a religious platform. (The irony is thick.) Despite the fact that MM was simply going off of a statement issued by the church itself, it was apparently “too political” of an issue to post about. Tell me, refugee-phobes, was it the implication that Christ would want to help desperate, impoverished people that you found too political, or the fact that the church dared issue a statement about the situation? Because either way, you’re in trouble with the God you claim to believe in.

It’s interesting — despite this obvious lack of support for the brethren from some church members, I’m yet to see a blog post rebuking people for not being faithful enough to trust them. Apparently it’s only gay marriage that is important enough to follow the brethren on — you’re free to ignore their counsel and think whatever you like in a typical Good Samaritan-ish dilemma. Forget about the judgment and unkind words that flew around toward people whose hearts were hurting over the new baptism policy for the kids of gay parents.

What we’re seeing here is classic cognitive dissonance between conservative Mormons’ ideas on politics and the church’s counsel. You have to minimize or dismiss one, and some are choosing to follow the Republican party, it seems. This is fascinating to me as a formerly devout member of the church, because I would never have valued my prone-to-weakness political ideas over the counsel of “inspired men of God”. I mean, come on — if you think the church is true, who’s more likely to be wrong?!

I’m all for people thinking for themselves and not being sheep to LDS leaders, but it’s depressing that this is the issue they care enough to oppose them on — an issue the church is approaching with love and compassion that I believe/hope comes from a really heartfelt place.

“We need to protect ourselves,” said one commenter. It’s like I’m listening to Christ himself weigh in on the issue. Have fun living the Law of Consecration.

Things Mormons Should Research

The refugee vetting process in the United States

What Europe is and why it has looser borders

The New Testament

“14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet”

The so-called “other options” you feel are readily available for these refugees

How to implement these elusive other options



