A Recent Experience

I had an experience the other day that I thought I’d share. I was in the local library, in the video section, looking around, and I couldn’t help but hear the conversation of this couple, who where probably in their late 30’s. They were looking for videos to check out, and (the man I presume to have been) the husband, picked up a copy of ‘Rain Man’ said he thought it was good and recommend they check it out. The wife dismissed this saying that she found the movie ‘kind of annoying’, and continued poking about for something to rent. I believe there was a little more conversation after that point, but I don’t recall any specifics other then that the women came across in an off putting manner, maybe she was just feeling particularly grumpy that day.

Anyway’s, after a short time they’ve both made their selections and head to the ‘audio/visual’ desk to check out their choices. I guess they may have been returning their previous rentals at that time (though maybe they had turned them in before they went looking for new selections), but the women in a very clear voice complained to the attendant that there copy of ‘Temple of the God Makers’ was bad. She said that they’d checked the tape, cleaned there VCR, and done everything they could have done to make it play clearly but it wouldn’t, she attributed this to presumed heavy use of the tape. The attendant must of communicated that there was really nothing he could do about that, because the women excused herself and quickly hunted down the shelf where the videos on Mormonism are kept. She simply skipped over the less sensational titles, and grabbed the one remaining anti-Mormon film there, I believe it was called ‘The New Mormon Challenge‘. It was as if she was determined to go home with something negative to watch about Mormonism, all the while having been pretty negative herself (largely by way of vocal tone and general demeanor).

This whole exchange upset me, and in fact I was rather surprised that it did, I thought I had gotten over such things by now. It may have just been that combination of the women’s general pissyness and air of superiority that set me off, but it also brought me back to something that I had noticed before. About half a decent sized shelf at the library is held over for video material related to Mormonism. It seems that every time I’m there most of the ‘anti-material’ is checked out, and from what I’ve gathered from the different remaining anti titles I’ve glimpsed over the years, it makes up about half of the collection. The other half is mostly church produced videos that sit there alone, undisturbed, continually unused. Even the PBS materials on the Church, or the episode of Biography on Brigham Young, mostly serve as sentinels marking the location of this section, situated between ‘Cults’ and ‘Quakers‘. It just seems that most of those who look into the church look only so far as will confirmed there pre-dispositions about it. This is particularly disturbing to me because all of these people live and work besides Mormons everyday, as Ada county (where Boise’s at) is about 20% LDS. The fact that so many of my non-Mormon neighbors are so seemingly willing and eager to believe the worst about my religion, and by extension myself, just makes me kind of sad. I mean couldn’t they afford to look at other sides of the issue? Any thoughts?