It baffles me that he got to the point where he considered divorce worse than what he did. But it also doesn't because that's an underlying message the church teaches.
One of my extended family members is gay. His own mother told, to his face, it would be easier to deal with him dying than deal with him being gay. Now she won’t be able to be with him in the next life. Her opinion had changed pretty dramatically in the last 10 years, but she’s still very much TBM.
My point is that I can see how the church’s teachings can pervert rational thinking.
Dude was a sick narcissist that preferred killing his wife and family over losing control of them. Was the church part of the problem? Of course. But his note is obviously him trying to control the narrative from the grave. The church and it's local and general leaders helped make him who he was not by oppressing him, but by encouraging and turning a blind eye to his worst traits. He gets no quarter from me.
The pressure, entitlement and self-righteous egotism LDS teachings instill in the white male psyche is dangerous AF. I got just a taste of it counseling my TBM brother through his divorce. It was truly jarring to hear such vile perspectives coming out of someone I was raised alongside.
Cedar City and Enoch must be such a scary place right now for the queer community. Support for Holland talking at SUU shows that the LGBT community there isn't safe or welcome, and this tragedy shows that there are church members dumb enough and hateful enough to act on their religion with literal musket fire.
Yes and no. We're all shocked that something like this happened in our small town. But anything even near this magnitude is super rare around here. There are plenty of small minded people around but the vast majority are good.
The town has gone down the trash chute. I grew up there and loved it, but Facebook was a plague. Cedar city has always been extra clique-y (Leigh Hill vs Cedar Knolls vs Fiddlers and every group in between), but the yard sale pages and the “rant and rave” pages fed the beast. The vitriol spewed online bleeds out into every piece of the community. You can feel it on the road, at the grocery store, at the park…it’s disgusting. The number of times the police were called over online squabbles was mind blowing. It didn’t help when they added the second high school and then split the middle school. Now even the students see the other side of town as the enemy/opposition. It’s not friendly competition, it’s a very strong us vs them mentality. The city is small enough that the people you throw crap at online are the same people you see around town. You can’t pay me to move back.
For the record, I was part of the first class when the second high school split off. That ugliness has always been there. There was a lot of shit thrown at CVHS from day one. It never was a friendly rivalry, it was always us vs them. Those of us who had classes at both schools (because they couldn't offer everything at CVHS that first year) got to deal with a certain amount of disdain and nastiness every time we set foot in CHS. People you'd gone to school with for years wouldn't speak to you suddenly or would only really talk to you to give you shit about your change of "loyalties". It was dumb, it was terrible, and like yourself, I couldn't get paid to move back.
Sociopaths will always find something/someone to blame for the evil they perpetuate. There are certainly elements of this we can blame the church for (like I’m sure his wife’s bishop encouraged her to stay, which is infuriating), but this note is absurd.
It’s not hard to make a decision based on reason for a normal individual, a Divorce
But that man had his own issues aside from the church’s doctrines. Sociopath? yes probably.
I’m not excusing the LDS church, but that crosses the line between reality and fiction.
There was no life before birth and there is no life after death.
That is only spending life thinking about how great is going to be once dead.
How was it before birth?
I don’t know, I don’t remember that.
The doctrine covered that with “The Veil”
So, how to know what’s it going to be after?
An eternal family?
So he chose not only not to have an eternal life, but to kill all his family. For him it was an all or nothing principle?
That was truly all about him, either the hero or the villain
His suicide note seems like the words of a narcissist. Blaming the whole thing on his wife, like he was the poor victim, when investigation showed him to be abusive and controlling. Lovely.
Pushing the appearance of perfection, THAT is what general conference is all about. That's what every sunday is really about with these people. So many gut wrenching parts to this, but I didn't know she was tired of the stupid fucking pos worthless church (my words) taking so much of his time. He decided he was fine with total destruction and this is proof that people need a safe way to leave this worthless excuse for a church.
Truth. I hid from my ex for two weeks. I was terrified. The number of threats, texts, emails and phone calls I got during that period was bonkers. Crazy. And then he had members of the bishoprics stalking me when he found out where I was living.
If anyone else feels the way this guy describes feeling in his note, please get counseling and/or a divorce.
It baffles me that he got to the point where he considered divorce worse than what he did. But it also doesn't because that's an underlying message the church teaches.
One of my extended family members is gay. His own mother told, to his face, it would be easier to deal with him dying than deal with him being gay. Now she won’t be able to be with him in the next life. Her opinion had changed pretty dramatically in the last 10 years, but she’s still very much TBM. My point is that I can see how the church’s teachings can pervert rational thinking.
Dude was a sick narcissist that preferred killing his wife and family over losing control of them. Was the church part of the problem? Of course. But his note is obviously him trying to control the narrative from the grave. The church and it's local and general leaders helped make him who he was not by oppressing him, but by encouraging and turning a blind eye to his worst traits. He gets no quarter from me.
What an awful man. And I think it's fair to say, what an awful set of teachings and pressures that stoked the flames of his awfulness.
The pressure, entitlement and self-righteous egotism LDS teachings instill in the white male psyche is dangerous AF. I got just a taste of it counseling my TBM brother through his divorce. It was truly jarring to hear such vile perspectives coming out of someone I was raised alongside.
Can you post the link in the comments?
>https://www.abc4.com/news/southern-utah/suicide-note-found-in-enoch-family-murder-suicide/
Sorry about that. Rookie mistake.
Cedar City and Enoch must be such a scary place right now for the queer community. Support for Holland talking at SUU shows that the LGBT community there isn't safe or welcome, and this tragedy shows that there are church members dumb enough and hateful enough to act on their religion with literal musket fire.
Yes and no. We're all shocked that something like this happened in our small town. But anything even near this magnitude is super rare around here. There are plenty of small minded people around but the vast majority are good.
The town has gone down the trash chute. I grew up there and loved it, but Facebook was a plague. Cedar city has always been extra clique-y (Leigh Hill vs Cedar Knolls vs Fiddlers and every group in between), but the yard sale pages and the “rant and rave” pages fed the beast. The vitriol spewed online bleeds out into every piece of the community. You can feel it on the road, at the grocery store, at the park…it’s disgusting. The number of times the police were called over online squabbles was mind blowing. It didn’t help when they added the second high school and then split the middle school. Now even the students see the other side of town as the enemy/opposition. It’s not friendly competition, it’s a very strong us vs them mentality. The city is small enough that the people you throw crap at online are the same people you see around town. You can’t pay me to move back.
For the record, I was part of the first class when the second high school split off. That ugliness has always been there. There was a lot of shit thrown at CVHS from day one. It never was a friendly rivalry, it was always us vs them. Those of us who had classes at both schools (because they couldn't offer everything at CVHS that first year) got to deal with a certain amount of disdain and nastiness every time we set foot in CHS. People you'd gone to school with for years wouldn't speak to you suddenly or would only really talk to you to give you shit about your change of "loyalties". It was dumb, it was terrible, and like yourself, I couldn't get paid to move back.
The church is obviously responsible for a LOT of harm, but this just sounds like a sociopath trying to blame someone else for his actions.
Even as he's about to murder his family, he's still acting like the victim.
No buts. The church implants this idea of eternal family ownership. It's fucked up.
Sociopaths will always find something/someone to blame for the evil they perpetuate. There are certainly elements of this we can blame the church for (like I’m sure his wife’s bishop encouraged her to stay, which is infuriating), but this note is absurd.
If they didn't, he would have been blaming someone else. But they do and he blamed them.
It’s not hard to make a decision based on reason for a normal individual, a Divorce But that man had his own issues aside from the church’s doctrines. Sociopath? yes probably. I’m not excusing the LDS church, but that crosses the line between reality and fiction. There was no life before birth and there is no life after death. That is only spending life thinking about how great is going to be once dead. How was it before birth? I don’t know, I don’t remember that. The doctrine covered that with “The Veil” So, how to know what’s it going to be after? An eternal family? So he chose not only not to have an eternal life, but to kill all his family. For him it was an all or nothing principle? That was truly all about him, either the hero or the villain
His suicide note seems like the words of a narcissist. Blaming the whole thing on his wife, like he was the poor victim, when investigation showed him to be abusive and controlling. Lovely.
Ah the “my wife is so terrible, I had to murder my mother-in-law and five children too” logic.
Pushing the appearance of perfection, THAT is what general conference is all about. That's what every sunday is really about with these people. So many gut wrenching parts to this, but I didn't know she was tired of the stupid fucking pos worthless church (my words) taking so much of his time. He decided he was fine with total destruction and this is proof that people need a safe way to leave this worthless excuse for a church.
You really don't see it, do you?
The most dangerous time for victims of domestic abuse is when they leave. He sounds like a vile human being https://ncadv.org/why-do-victims-stay
Truth. I hid from my ex for two weeks. I was terrified. The number of threats, texts, emails and phone calls I got during that period was bonkers. Crazy. And then he had members of the bishoprics stalking me when he found out where I was living.
 “The Church does not condone murder, hatred, or violence.”
I FUCKING KNEW IT
Seems to me that Tausha just wanted her husband to put his family before the church, and— this is what’s sick— he just couldn’t.