BIG week in Mormon news. The Church releases a quite frank and shockingly open video about temple garments and robes. This was surprising for many given the transparency of it all, but it's a very positive move to control the discussion about what happens in a Mormon temple. It's all over the Internet, anyway, right? Better to get ahead of the story. This is also a reminder to us that the temple is quite sacred, but we can be more open about certain aspects of it and not treat every subject as taboo.

The rumor mill is swirling (mixed metaphors?) about possible changes to the temple wedding process. Indeed, as has been discussed before, a change might be on the horizon to require American Latter-day Saints to be married civilly before having their temple sealing. This would be for a number of reasons, not least of which could be the effect of legalized gay marriage on how non-profit churches perform weddings. But there are many factors at play here, so listen in to hear is hash it all out. All the bases. This is like a baseball game with ten bases instead of four, and we cover all of them. There are six shortstops on our team.

Related stuff: an Idaho couple could apparently face criminal prosecution for refusing to marry gay couples at their wedding chapel. There's a BIG distinction here, though, in that they run a for-profit enterprise.

Blaine Maxfield, the chief information officer of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gives a keynote at the recent LDS Tech conference in which he as much as says that 36% of the Church is active. But that's not all! Then the article about it was pulled. THEN the article came back, minus any of the, erm, "troubling" bits. Unfortunately, our cache of it has since been updated, but we talk about the details in the episode.

Can Mormons be liberals? A click-baiting author wants you to think about it..

Also, Church leaders in Seattle take some very proactive steps and hold a conference for LGBT members. This sort of outreach is what's needed, folks. We're all learning as we go. And to those who say that changing with the times is a sign of weakness or capitulation, was Peter totally perfect from the get-go? Hardly. We will always learn and change.

Other news: a woman is shot near a church building in South Salt Lake; two brothers randomly meet in Atlanta; the Muppets will be singing with MoTab this Christmas; Church members in Lebanon are aiding Syrian refugees; 2 Mormons have died of Ebola; and a petition at BYU to have a "real" building named after a woman.

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Clicks:

* Peggy Fletcher Stack says no change to temples and references TWiM without naming us, even though she wrote about this same issue in February.

* Idaho couple faces jail - and likes it

* Temple garments video

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