{"id":101654,"date":"2023-09-06T13:34:31","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=101654"},"modified":"2023-09-07T14:28:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T20:28:57","slug":"sigh-cody-wyoming-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/09\/sigh-cody-wyoming-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Sigh. Cody, Wyoming. Again."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Gilbert<\/a>
The Gilbert Arizona Temple is a magnificent and very visible structure, nearly ten times the size of the proposed Cody Wyoming Temple. \u00a0(LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The adventure begins: \u00a0Our movie crew heads out on Friday. \u00a0They will start filming for Six Days in August<\/em><\/a> at Upper Canada Village, in Ontario, \u00a0on Monday, 11 September. \u00a0After that, if plans hold, activity moves to Genesee Country Village in upstate New York on Monday, 25 September 25. \u00a0Following that, there will be several days of filming at the LDS Motion Picture Studio during the first half of October.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pleased that we\u2019ve come this far. \u00a0I still need to raise a significant amount of money for post-production (e.g.. editing, music, sound-sweetening, etc.), as well as for publicity and the like \u2014 and I really, really dislike begging for money \u2014 but the game is afoot!<\/p>\n

(Just to keep the record straight: \u00a0I will not earn a single cent from this film project. \u00a0Some of my critics like to fantasize about the vast sums that I accrue from apologetics \u2014 the estimates occasionally reach into seven figures \u2014 but, like the overwhelming majority of those who are involved with the Interpreter Foundation, both my wife and I are unpaid volunteers. \u00a0I earn exactly the same hourly rate from my work with Interpreter that I earned from serving as a bishop and from teaching Sunday school. \u00a0Heck, to make the parallel even more complete, we\u2019re donors<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
The Phoenix Arizona Temple (LDS Media Library) is one of the three temples in the Greater Phoenix area. The other two are in Mesa and in Gilbert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newly up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0Women in Ancient Israelite Temple Worship<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>was originally presented by Camille Fronk Olson on Saturday, 5 November 2016, at the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s 2016 Temple on Mount Zion Conference. \u00a0You can now watch the video or listen to the audio at your convenience and, of course, at no charge.<\/p>\n

\"Tucson<\/a>
The Tucson Arizona Temple (LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still seeing claims on the Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods Facebook page<\/a> (hereafter, POCN) that the Cody Wyoming Temple represents an attempt by LD$ Inc. to dominate the \u201cskyline\u201d \u2014 yes, that is the word that has been used (think of Manhattan, or of Paris) \u2014 of Cody, that it will loom over the city, that it will be inescapably visible from everywhere in town, that it will replace the surrounding mountains or hills as Cody\u2019s distinguishing feature, that it will block out the night sky. \u00a0One of the reasons that I suspect disingenuousness on the part of at least some of the temple\u2019s opponents is that the claim simply, objectively, demonstrably, irrefutably doesn\u2019t pass the smell test: \u00a0\u201cCody WY Temple views from town.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

There are more than a few participants at POCN who aren\u2019t disingenuous at all<\/em>, of course, whose derogatory, even nasty, comments about Latter-day Saint beliefs, history, and practices, and, yes, sometimes about Latter-day Saints as people, are overtly anti-Mormon. \u00a0Some \u2014 not bothering with details about lighting or traffic or the height of the temple spire or the siting of the temple in a particular residential neighborhood \u2014 \u00a0openly declare that the temple shouldn\u2019t be permitted in Cody at all. \u00a0One even announced that no temple should be allowed in the state of Wyoming.<\/p>\n

Others are very slightly more subtle, complaining about the existence temples they\u2019ve seen while traveling through such places as Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Oakland, St. George, and even Afton, Wyoming. \u00a0One gets the impression that these folks wouldn\u2019t object to Latter-day Saint temples being built (if building them is absolutely unavoidable) so long as they\u2019re isolated on remote desert islands or at least several miles removed from paved roads or any human population.<\/p>\n

Without any reason being given (though I can guess) and without any announcement, I was blocked from POCN at least two or three weeks ago. \u00a0That\u2019s their prerogative, of course, as long as they don\u2019t pretend that they don\u2019t do such things, or that POCN constitutes a representative sample of public opinion. \u00a0I have plenty of things to do. \u00a0Moreover, I have a platform here<\/em>, and I\u2019ve used it: See, in chronological order,\u00a0\u201cA small tempest about a small temple in Cody,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cIn the world after the Fall,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cOnce More, on the Conflict in Cody.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAn Update on the Continuing Crisis in Cody, Wyoming,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cPeggy Brown, Dale Brown, and the Cody Wyoming Temple,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cMy Last Comment on the Temple in Cody? (Probably Not),\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cMy last post on the temple in Cody? Maybe, for a while at least,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cWhat if Sacha Cohen were to visit Cody, Wyoming?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the participants on POCN claim to object to non-residents of Cody \u2014 such as I \u2014 commenting there. \u00a0I can understand that, I suppose. \u00a0But the standard isn\u2019t consistently applied. \u00a0So far as I can tell, the objection is only deployed against non-residents who dissent from opposition to the temple. \u00a0Peggy Brown<\/a>, for example, who continues to post on POCN, seems to run her anti-Mormon and anti-Muslim activities \u2014 and possibly anti-Bahai activities, as well \u2014 with her husband, Dale, out of Prosser, Washington.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll also mention Richard Lyons. \u00a0He is a lawyer here in the Phoenix area, apparently a formerly active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> who has now appeared on POCN as a critic of the Church and an adversary to the construction of the Cody Wyoming Temple. \u00a0I\u2019m hoping to get him to expand upon something that he wrote on POCN:<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel Peterson heard you speak live more than once. Your blog post about this is pretty awful.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would like to know what it is about my \u201cblog post\u201d \u2014 as indicated above, I\u2019ve actually written eight<\/em> of them prior to today\u2013 that is \u201cpretty awful.\u201d \u00a0I\u2019m genuinely curious. \u00a0I\u2019ve taken, I think, a pretty moderate and reasonable position on the Cody matter, and would like to know where, if anywhere, I\u2019ve gone wrong on it. \u00a0I\u2019m not permitted to comment or to respond at POCN, so I post my invitation here.<\/p>\n

And, impishly enough, I admit that I\u2019m curious to know, if my<\/em> post is \u201cpretty awful,\u201d whether Mr. Lyons implicitly recommends his own POCN comments as models of responsible and higher-quality civic discourse on the topic:<\/p>\n

\u201cCody residents are getting off easy when it comes to unwelcome Mormon neighbors. Back in the day they\u2019d already have married all your daughters and raised a standing army.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely bigoted against people who think they know God\u2019s will. Because I used to be one.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, I may be biting off more than I can chew, because Mr. Lyon appears by his own estimation to be a very formidable individual. \u00a0As he says of himself on POCN:<\/p>\n

\u201cI served a mission. I know LDS history and theology better than just about anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Scottsdale, Arizona<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

P.S. \u00a0There is massive indignation and no little theatricality on display right now over at the Peterson Obsession Board regarding my mention of Peggy Brown and Richard Lyons above. \u00a0One POB poster laments that he knows nobody who is more dishonest and angry than I am, and expresses astonishment at the personal demons that torment me. \u00a0They plainly compel me to intrude into the carefully protected personal lives of private people who seek only quiet anonymity.<\/p>\n

Well, let me explain how I identified the shy, retiring, and very private Peggy Brown. \u00a0First, she posts her attacks on Latter-day Saints and Latter-day Saint beliefs under her own name. \u00a0And she continually posts photographs of her picketing activity outside of various Latter-day Saint temples. \u00a0So I Googled her, and I found that she and her husband have been the focus of a number of newspaper articles and even, it seems, government and legal actions related to their ministry (or whatever it should be called). \u00a0Her hometown was identified in at least one of the newspaper headlines about their anti-Mormon and anti-Muslim ventures.<\/p>\n

But how did I track Richard Lyons down? \u00a0I\u2019m an imcomparable, relentless, and dedicated sleuth but, for my closest friends, I\u2019m willing to disclose my fiendishly cunning methods. \u00a0(I\u2019m confident that nobody else will ever expend the time or the effort to do what I do, it being so very difficult.) \u00a0I clicked on his name as it appears in his posts on the Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods Facebook page, where he comments as \u2014 cue drum roll \u2014 \u201cRichard Lyons.\u201d \u00a0Instantly, up came not only his profession, but the name of his law firm (which I didn\u2019t share), where he earned his degrees (which I didn\u2019t share), his high school (which I didn\u2019t share), where he lives (which I didn\u2019t share), and where he\u2019s originally from (which I didn\u2019t share). \u00a0Altogether, it may have required as much as two seconds. \u00a0His having once been an active Latter-day Saint and the rest I cleverly derived from his own self-description on POCN.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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