![\"Temple](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/04\/logan-temple-768086-gallery.jpg\")
<\/a>(Photo from LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> is being held up right now more or less as a foreign object of horror and ridicule in the Hulu\/FX miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven<\/em>.\u00a0 Not for the first time \u2014 think of such cultural monuments as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s A Study in Scarlet<\/em> and Zane Grey\u2019s Riders of the Purple Sage<\/em> and the 1911 Danish silent film A Victim of the Mormons<\/em> \u2014 and certainly not for the last.\u00a0 \u201cIf the Mormon church<\/a> is unhappy with me for doing this,\u201d says Dustin Lance Black, a disaffected ex-member of the Church who was a writer and co-producer for the HBO television series Big Love<\/em> and who wrote and co-produced Under the Banner of Heaven<\/em> \u2014 \u201cthey have themselves to blame.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And it seems that we continue<\/em> to invite such treatment, and to bring it on ourselves:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFreddie Highmore, Maisie Williams Unite for \u2018Manacled Mormon Case\u2019 Adaptation \u2018Sinner V. Saints\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been struck by some of the language characterizing this prospective new effort by London-based WestEnd Films:\u00a0 \u201csure to entertain,\u201d \u201ca pleasure,\u201d \u201ca riotous journey,\u201d a \u201cwitty script,\u201d \u201cthis crazy, colorful film will surprise and delight audiences worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Please note, too, the frequent appearance of the word comedy<\/em> in articles about the new venture:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cCannes: Maisie Williams, Freddie Highmore to Lead Manacled Mormon Comedy \u2018Sinner v. Saints\u2019: From \u2018Fleabag\u2019 director Tim Kirkby, the film is based on the real-life story of an eccentric MENSA beauty queen who abducted a Mormon missionary in the 1970s.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Deadline<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cWestEnd Films Boards Maisie Williams & Freddie Highmore Comedy \u2018Sinner V. Saints\u2019 \u2013 Cannes\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Bollywood Hungama<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cGame Of Thrones star Maisie Williams and The Good Doctor actor Freddie Highmore to lead true crime comedy Sinner V. Saints\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Winter is Coming<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cMaisie Williams to star in new comedy and Apple TV+ thriller series\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAccording to Deadline<\/em><\/a>, Williams\u2019 project with Highmore is a comedy series called\u00a0Saints V. Sinners<\/em>. It doesn\u2019t sound like a comedy, does it?\u00a0 Well, it is; it\u2019s based on the true story of the \u201cmanacled Mormon\u201d sex scandal from the 1970s. Deadline\u00a0<\/em>describes the show thusly: \u201cAn eccentric MENSA beauty queen goes to extreme lengths to stop the Mormon church from stealing away her sexual obsession: a Mormon missionary.\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019ll readily admit that Joyce McKinney, the, umm, protagonist of the story, is extraordinarily weird.\u00a0 I suppose that makes her funny, in a sense.\u00a0 But Hanna Seariac<\/a> raised a really important point in a Facebook post a couple of days ago that I\u2019m going to quote here \u2014 I hope that she won\u2019t mind my doing so \u2014 because I\u2019m not sure that people who aren\u2019t signed up for Facebook can access it.\u00a0 (Yes, I\u2019m that social-media illiterate.)\u00a0 Here is what she had to say:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m highly uncomfortable with the story of a man being raped and kidnapped being told in a comedy. Sexual assault and rape are not funny, they are serious crimes with horrific consequences. It seems very irresponsible to put this story in a comedy.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Imagine if the comedy were to be about a young woman<\/em> being accosted, threatened with a gun (that the gun ultimately proved fake doesn\u2019t significantly affect the point), chloroformed, kidnapped, tied to a bed, and raped.\u00a0 Just imagine.\u00a0 But, of course, it\u2019s funny<\/em> when the victim is a man<\/em>.\u00a0 And especially so when he\u2019s a young, sexually repressed, religious fanatic Latter-day Saint missionary<\/em>, the kind of dim-witted na\u00eff at whom we\u2019ve laughed for years in the stage-musical version of The Book of Mormon<\/em>.\u00a0 (At least two of the articles that I\u2019ve seen about the new film project describe the missionary victim in the \u201cManacled Mormon\u201d story as a nebbish<\/em>.\u00a0 The word is Yiddish, and it denotes a man who is weak, timid, or ineffectual.)\u00a0 One might almost be tempted to say that such a person really has himself to blame.\u00a0 Kidnapping and sexual assault are comic in such cases, right?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Perhaps, of course, the young elder desperately needed to be initiated, to be made a real man.\u00a0 About a decade ago, I was at the closing dinner of a large conference, seated with people that I didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 The middle-aged woman to my immediate left was thoroughly inebriated and very loud.\u00a0 When she discovered that I was from Brigham Young University, she launched into a tirade about my religious beliefs.\u00a0 Fortunately, by this point everybody else at the table at wandered off somewhere else.\u00a0 The woman was particularly incensed about a recent visit that she had made to Temple Square, and by the sister missionaries who served there as guides.\u00a0 Their \u201cfake, plastic smiles\u201d infuriated her.\u00a0 What they needed most, she told me, was to \u201cget laid.\u201d\u00a0 She went on and on in that vein, shouting to make herself heard over the din of the large crowd.\u00a0 Eventually, I left, too.\u00a0 And I soon found myself in conversation at the back of the hall with Steve Forbes<\/a>.\u00a0 I counted it a pretty good trade.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here are some items that might provide at least some initial food for the thought as the new comedy Sinner V. Saints<\/em> moves toward production:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Prison-Rape Double Standard\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhy the double standard when the rape victim is male?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDouble standard seen when boys abused by women\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDouble standard: Society views female predators and their male victims differently (video)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFemale sex offenders reveal cultural double standard\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe Disappointing Double Standard Of The Female Predator\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n