After spending four days defending his fake apology for the LDS Church’s past racial ban as “satire” or a discussion starter, former Mormon Jonathan Streeter issued his own mea culpa Tuesday.
“I caused tremendous pain for black Mormons who have patiently waited for so long,” Streeter wrote in a letter to The Salt Lake Tribune. “I am deeply sorry.”
LaShawn Williams, a member of the grass-roots Black LDS Legacy Committee, noted the prankster did not, to her knowledge, offer his contrition personally to black Mormons.
After all, they were the ones — men and boys, women and girls — who were barred from the Utah-based faith’s all-male priesthood and its temples from the mid-1800s until 1978, when the prohibition ended.
Streeter, who lives in Texas, launched his deception May 17, the day LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson and top executives from the NAACP issued historic — and real — statements about working together to promote civility and racial harmony.
The hoaxer posted a document on his website that purported to be from the church’s governing First Presidency, falsely quoting Nelson as saying, “I offer a full unqualified apology for the error of racism which was taught from this office and in the tabernacle and over the pulpits of our churches the world over.”
At the time, Streeter said he initiated the ruse as a way to “start a conversation” about what he sees as the Mormon church’s need to apologize for its past.
Continue reading at The Salt Lake Tribune
