Heavenly fatherliness #14 - Affection for Mom

According to popular wisdom, a good father illustrates the importance of affection by professing his love for his children's mother in front of them.

Most of Christianity get's its panties in a bunch anytime Mormons suggest that Heavenly Father has a Heavenly Wife (or two). While Mormons believe very strongly in Her/Them, there's just not much of a scriptural basis to believe in a Mother in Heaven. Not that a scriptural foundation matters! The prophet could simply inquire of God to know a bit more about Heavenly Mother. We have modern-day revelation!

Instead we get decades of hearing that Heavenly Mother is too sacred to talk about (but at least the Church mentioned her in this Gospel Topics essay).

I guess we'll just have to be happy knowing that Heavenly Father loves Heavenly Mother so much that he won't give her any visibility at the moment. Is God affectionate towards Goddess? Um... sure. Of course. I mean, why should we doubt it? He's perfect, isn't he?

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father. 

"Christians" and "Mormons"

LDS Church and its members feel horrible when people (usually people claiming to be Evangelical Christian) insist that Mormons are not Christian. It's a very confusing accusation to most Mormons. Why? Because the full name of the Church is The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints! The PR department even had the "Jesus Christ" part enlarged on the Church logo just to make it clear that Mormons are all about Jesus. This isn't the Church of Joseph Smith (even though he started it up in 1830), or Brigham Young (even though there are other Mormon branch offs that the LDS Church dismisses), or the Church of Tom Monson (even though his is the only living human with any legal power to manage the organization). Mormons believe that Jesus is the Savior of the World and that this is his church!

Fundamentalist Mormons feel horrible when people (usually people claiming to be LDS) insist that polygamists are not Mormon. It's a confusing accusation to most fundamentalist Mormons. Why? Because they wholeheartedly believe in Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. How can you believe in The Book of Mormon and not be a Mormon? How can you carefully and religiously follow the examples of conjugal life as set forth by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith and not be Mormon? Why does the LDS Church get to determine what "Mormon" means and who can use it when there are so many other faith traditions that share the same history and almost the exact same beliefs?

Why don't Mormons understand how hurtful it feels to be excluded from certain beliefs simply because someone wants to take control of a word's definition and use?

And how about this fine example of doublespeak from the Mormon Newsroom's Michael Otterson? Here's his defense of Mormons calling themselves Christian:

"I submit to you that a group should be allowed primarily to define itself."

And here's his objection to groups he doesn't like defining themselves:

"Some polygamous groups use names similar to ours, as we have seen. Some describe themselves as fundamentalist Mormons. We can’t stop people from calling themselves whatever they want, but for the sake of clarity for your readers and viewers, we suggest that the term “Mormon” is not an appropriate adjective for members of these communities – as, in fact, the Associated Press style guide suggests." (emphasis added)

What the fuck, dude?