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Racial Issues

RiseUp Podcast – Freetown Movie – Interview with Garrett Batty and Melissa Larson

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Click here to find showings of Freetown at a theater near you.


Films have an impact on how we view the world. But in some cases, films have an impact on the way the world views us. Freetown is the latest film from Garrett Batty, the director of The Sarratov Approach, With this film, the film makers wanted to help the world to see the power of faith with the story of young missionaries in Africa who had to trust in God, and teach the gospel, while their lives were being threatened in the midst of a bloody civil war.

In this episode of RiseUp, we interview Writer and Director Garrett Batty about his work with the film, why he included topics like race and the priesthood, as well as the impact films like this can have on the way individuals throughout the world and their perception of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We also interview Melissa Larson, the screenwriter of the film about what it meant to take a real life story of faith and hardship and translate that to the big screen.

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Troy Wynn on O’Donovan’s Soapbox

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[editor’s note: Troy Wynn is a doctoral student studying physics. He runs Some Mormon Stuff which is a “blog about Mormon history, its people and beliefs.” He has done several well-researched articles dealing with racial issues in the LDS church, including one that addressed Lawrence O’Donnell’s charge made the height of the Romney campaign that Mormonism was pro-slavery. Troy has been invited as a guest blogger to do a series on interracial marriage and to provide a critique of Connell O’Donovan’s seminal work on the topic. Previous discussion can be found here at FAIR and at the Juvenile Instructor blog.]

In his paper titled “LDS Historical Rhetoric & Praxis Regarding Marriage Between Whites and Blacks,” Connell O’Donovan asserts that Brigham Young’s fear of black sexuality was the reason he prohibited black-white marriage and instigated the priesthood-temple ban, and that Young’s resistance to black-white marriage must be seen within the context of his own marital experimentation which at that time was receiving scrutiny via the press and the Massachusetts State Supreme Court. He then lists several topics of discussion, such as, examples of inter-racial marriages in LDS history, the fruition of anti-miscegenation laws under BY, statements about black-white marriage from the Deseret News, and eventually how LDS leaders abandoned their restrictions against black-white marriage. Or, as O’Donovan puts it, “unnecessary restrictions on the boundaries of love and marriage.”

His paper also demonstrates that LDS feelings at one time were deeply hostile to black-white marriage and that many Latter-day Saints believed black-white marriages would never be permitted, etc. [Read more…] about Troy Wynn on O’Donovan’s Soapbox