Mormon Church Wants Gays To 'Stay With Us:' VIDEO

The Mormon Church today unveiled a website dedicated to starting a "discussion" on gays and lesbians within the church, or as they say, people with "same-sex attraction."

"When people have those (same-sex) desires and attractions, our attitude is, ‘stay with us,’” Elder Todd Christofferson says in a video on the site, "Mormons and Gays."

"Here more than anywhere, it’s important that there be love, that there be hope. We want to be with you and work together," explains Christofferson. But what he and his peers do not want is same-sex marriage or even same-sex sex.

"Though we don’t know everything, we know enough to be able to say that same-sex attraction is not itself sin," he said. "The feeling, the desire is not classified the same as homosexual behavior itself."

Not surprisingly, the site features more than a few testimonials from people who claim to have "found" a heterosexual life after fighting those aforementioned same-sex attractions.

You can watch the church's official video introducing the site AFTER THE JUMP.

Towleroad Guide To The Tube #1243

SAVAGE: FRC tries to paint Dan Savage as a bully.

FLATTERY: An elephant has learned to imitate his keepers and "speak" Korean.

WHAT IS LOVE?: Openly gay Mormon Josh Weed discusses his and his wife's sex life.

'SIDE EFFECTS': Trailer for new Soderbergh film starring Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

Watch Mitt Romney Get Angry While Explaining Mormonism: VIDEO

Mitt Romney has studiously avoided getting into the specifics about his religion while on the campaign trail lest he alienate evangelicals still wary of Mormonism.

That all changed during what became a heated exchange during a radio interview in which Romney, apparently upset by an outsider's misunderstanding of Mormonism and its relationship with abortion, starts laying it all out, and gets quite angry in the process.

Watch it unfold AFTER THE JUMP.

'Mormon Missionary Positions' Are Surprisingly Complex

Via Copyranter comes a few pages from a field guide of Mormon Missionary Positions. Or, rather, the Mormon missionary's potential positions.

See a few more AFTER THE JUMP.

Inside a Nutty Secret Mormon Temple Ritual (aka Mitt Romney Believes This): VIDEO

A hidden camera video purportedly shot inside a secret Mormon Temple ceremony and meant to expose some of the nutty traditions of Mitt Romney's religion appears to be going viral via Reddit.

Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP...

For the first time in the 170+ year history of secret Mormon temple activity, those activities have been captured on film with a hidden camera.

Watch with your own eyes the sworn oath, known as the "Law of Consecration," that US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has raised his arm to the square and vowed to obey, an oath that requires faithful Mormons to consecrate 100% of their current AND FUTURE time, talents and everything they will ever be blessed with, to the Mormon church and its goal to achieve a worldwide theocracy headed by Mormons.

Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP...

In related news (via jmg), here's a truck sitting outside the site of tonight's presidential debate in Boca Raton:

News: Orionid, DADT's Legacy, Adele's Son, Ireland

Tonight is the best night to see the annual Orionid meteor shower.

The group American Atheists are taking on Mormonism's membership clauses. The church responded thusly, "This group seems not to know that there have been black members of the Church since our earliest history, and there are many faithful gay members of the Church today." Black men simply couldn't be ordained as lay priests until 1978.

Police in Brookfield, WI, are looking for Radcliffe Haughton for his alleged role in the shooting at a spa today. Seven people were shot, three have died and police are disarming explosives Haughton reportedly left behind. [Update: Haughton was found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.]

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Madonna's Erotica, a review of what it's all about.

National Organization for Marriage operative Frank Schubert's anti-equality crusade is big business: "Schubert collected $958,594 for his anti-equality work in North Carolina earlier this year. In the four marriage ballot states, Schubert has collected $967,567.88 in Washington; $492,680 in Maryland; $303,307.69 in Minnesota; and $200,043.46 in Maine. While these funds are likely used to pay for advertising, it’s unclear what percentage is lining Schubert’s pockets."

Full trailer of the Osama bin Laden flick Zero Dark Thirty.

Adele welcomed her first child this weekend, a baby boy. No name has been released.

SNL takes on the second great presidential debate.

An interview with Australian electopop band Van She.

Bureaucratic legacy: Servicemembers Legal Defense Network will spend the next few years removing "dishonorable discharge" and other DADT labels that remain on the records of servicemembers kicked out for being gay.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights and the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson are trying to stop a right-wing lawsuit that wants to overturn California's ban on "ex-gay therapy" for minors.

More on late Sen. George McGovern's ahead-of-his-time politics, from Bruce Miroff: "Mr. McGovern’s 1972 campaign is indelibly associated with the mass movements of the late 1960s — the antiwar movement above all, but also feminism and the nascent movement for gay liberation. As a son of a Methodist minister, growing up in small prairie towns during the Depression, he was an unlikely spokesman for the political and cultural aspirations of an emerging 'counterculture.' ... His sense of fairness and tolerance made him open to new cultural forces alien to his upbringing, even when some of their issues — especially abortion — left him uncomfortable."

In case you were wondering, Ted Haggard, the right-wing pastor caught with his pants down in 2008, has shifted gears and now believes that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

"Is Obama the 'wrong' kind of Christian?"

As you probably guessed, Paranormal Activity 4 won top slot at the box office with $30 million.

The marijuana legalization fight faces some key votes next month: "Voters in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon are set to vote Nov. 6 on whether to legalize and tax marijuana sales, raising the possibility of a showdown with the federal government, which views pot as an illegal narcotic."

Irish Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore reiterated his support for marriage equality at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association conference: "As I have stated elsewhere, the right of same-sex couples to marry is not a gay rights issue, it is a civil rights issue, and one that I support."

The CrossPoint Church in Hutchinson, Kansas, booted long-time congregant and band member Chad Graber because he's gay. "He switched from struggling with his sin to embracing it," said senior pastor Andy Addis.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/21/3876912/church-cites-scripture-in-barring.html#storylink=cpy