I want to believe you don’t know what DezNat is, despite the many news outlets that have reported on them.
Here is an article from the Salt Lake Tribune: “In the past two weeks my life has been threatened over and over and over and over,” said one recipient of #DezNat wrath, Billy D, a former Latter-day Saint who, fearing for his safety, asked not to be further identified. “I have barely eaten in the last 10 days.”
Here’s more information from The Daily Beast: “I am ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED of #deznat,” the post read. “I feel like it’s only one meltdown away from being the one who ends up killing someone like me.”
These DezNat folks adore you. They believe they are doing your work. Is it true, then, that your is to terrify LGBTQ+ folks? Is your work the destruction of lives? Is your work rooted in judgement and anger?
That’s not what I was raised to believe.
As the prophet, you have the ability to ask this online militia to step down. According to them, you have the power because they claim they will always follow the prophet.
I have to ask, though, I know, as prophet, you’re also the chairman of the Board of Trustees of BYU, along with Dallin H. Oaks, who has also had a lot of things to say about LGBTQ+ folks.
I know BYU receives federal funding and that part of that federal funding is Title IX protections against sexual and gender-based harassment. So, it would seem, as chairman of the board of trustees, that you have—at the very least—a legal obligation to protect LGBTQ+ students from harassment on campus. And yet, you are strangely silent when it comes to the DezNat movement.
The optics are not good, friend.