transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is Monday, April 20th, 2026. And this is a special livestream episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. And the purpose of today's episode is to talk about a recent lawsuit that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an arm of the Church called Intellectual Reserve has filed both against the Open Stories Foundation, which is the nonprofit that kind of oversees and runs Mormon Stories Podcast. But also it's a lawsuit directed at me personally, which means me and my family. The lawsuit, if I can do my best to kind of summarize it, and I'll just stipulate up front, I've not read the lawsuit yet. And there's a reason why. The way that I heard about this lawsuit, it was last Friday afternoon, as my memory best holds, I'm out of town in California, and I receive a text that some Instagram posts and some videos from a well-known Mormon apologist named Jasmine Rapeli. I still don't remember how to pronounce her name, but this Mormon influencer was posting about and sharing YouTube videos about a lawsuit when I wasn't even aware that a lawsuit had been filed, nor had I had a chance to review the lawsuit. So that's how I first learned about the lawsuit. Margaret and I were out of town until literally 11 p.m. last night, and then this morning I've been in meetings with attorneys all morning. So I have not had a chance to read this lawsuit yet. But what I was made aware of, in addition to the lawsuit being filed, and seeing Jasmine's statements on Instagram and elsewhere in Jasmine's videos, was that the church had also issued a formal statement. And so I read that, and immediately I was quite alarmed, you know, shocked and disturbed, and surprised by the church's statement, because number one, I thought that maybe they would, maybe that I would have heard first from the church that I had been sued. But I didn't, and my understanding is our side didn't receive a word of the filing until something like 8 or 9 p.m. that evening from the other side. So anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is I thought that we would be notified and provided with the lawsuit, but that's not how it worked. What happened was, is what seemed to be like a social media apparatus, released statements and videos and posts across multiple channels on social media. And honestly, I tried to search the federal register for the lawsuit and it didn't show up. And so I had to go to Jasmine's YouTube video and we had to like screenshot the case number that was shown on the video to then like write the case number down to then go search for it in the database. And that's how I was finally able to obtain a copy of the lawsuit and share it with all the people on my side. So, and I'm not, you know, I'm not asking for pity. I'm just being honest. And this is just my best memory. It's all been a blur. So, if I, if I get something wrong in this episode, it's not my intention. I'm just sharing my, my best memory, my feelings, my reactions. And mostly because we've always valued transparency on Mormon Stories Podcast, we're donor supported and we feel like our donors and supporters and listeners deserve a right to know what's going on. And even though I don't feel totally prepared for today's episode this afternoon, because, you know, the church is now at three or four days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, yeah, three or three or four days to spin the narrative and to put out their side of the story. I felt like we owed at least some type of response now. And I hope to do many, many more episodes in the coming weeks, months, and years. Thank you for everyone who's joining us on the live stream. You know, some people have been generous to provide donations. We are really grateful for that. Flight Angels did a Super Chat 2001. Thank you, Teresa Palmer. Thanks for your donation. Matt Terial joined as well as Chelsea Milan and Susie Catherine 8570. Thank you for the donation. Perg5524, I don't want to bog our episode down with thanking everyone who provides Super Chats or donates. I will say at the outset that this lawsuit is going to likely cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. I'm not exaggerating. And so we have set up a legal defense fund for anyone who is able or willing to financially support us. I know I have seen several people out on social media who have asked how they can support financially. I'm just going to start with that because we are going to need hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. And I have no idea whether that's even realistic to hope for. But we're at least going to give people a chance to support if they can and they want to. So the link to support the Mormon Stories Defense Fund is mormonstories.org/legal. And you can make one-time donations there. You can make monthly donations there. You can make weekly donations there, whatever you want. I will say that those donations are tax deductible in the US. We're transparent in our finances. And my commitment is to use every dollar of those donations towards legal expenses. I'm happy to be transparent about the donations I receive and to share a full accounting of what donations I received and how they were spent. You know, whatever makes people feel good. And if we get more donations, then we end up having expenses and donors want their money back. That would be a wonderful problem to have refunding donors that want their money back. So, I'm open to whatever makes sense to those who are supporting us. We just want to be able to weather this lawsuit. Obviously, the Mormon Church is worth somewhere between $300 and $500 billion. This is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the LDS Church. They're worth somewhere between $300 and $500 billion estimated dollars. Some say the church is worth as much as a trillion dollars. We are a non-profit that brings in much, much, much less than that. We have two full-time employees, a couple of independent contractors, and so that's what we're up against, is multi hundreds of billions of dollars, multinational corporation that has the protections of a church or a religion with hundreds of millions of dollars and all its power and influence. And then there's our small little non-profit with a couple of employees and whatever donations we're willing to receive. So again, mormonstories.org/legal is how you can support us. Again, it's tax deductible. And so what I hope to do today is to at least answer some of the main questions I've been getting and to address the press release that the church put out and to share with you why I think the church hasn't been honest, or at least in my opinion, the church is not being honest, both about what efforts we made to accommodate them and then also what they asked for. I think in both instances, the church doesn't seem to be telling the truth. You know, that's what we're going to try and cover, and we'll see where we go. So where to begin? So maybe I'll just give my first best accounting of some of the main high level events. So sometime late last year, November, December, we received an email from Intellectual Reserve that basically informed us that from the church's standpoint, we had violated their trademark and their copyright rights. And they expressed concern about several things. They didn't like that one of the logos that we use is blue. We've used a gold logo with light rays for many, many years. But we also have used a blue logo that was done in coordination with a brand redesign that happened a few years back. And they didn't like the fact that we used a blue logo. They communicated to me that they didn't like the fact that we used the word Mormon in our podcast name. They didn't like it that we used it in our social media handles or on our Internet domain names. My experience and memory is that they communicated very clearly to me that they were wanting us to take Mormon out of our name, out of our Internet domain, and out of our social media handles before mediation ever happened. That's my memory and recollection. But before attorneys got involved, I began an exchange with intellectual reserve, the church's copyright folks, and I basically just said, listen, I don't think we violated your trademarks. I don't think we violated your copyrights. I think the way that we've used images, we feel like our understanding is we're using them under rare use. We see all sorts of images being used in all sorts of places by podcasters and YouTubers of all types. You just search the internet and all sorts of images are being used everywhere in thumbnails. And so that's how we've been operating. So we didn't feel like we were really violating copyright. We felt like we were operating in a fair use. We didn't feel like we were violating trademarks. You know, we've been using the Mormon Stories name for 21 years. We started Mormon Stories in 2005. We literally went 20, 21 years without the church ever raising concern about the name Mormon Stories. We went multiple years without the church raising concern about the use of copyrighted images in our thumbnails, at least as far as my memory goes. We've got many years with our logo being blue. One of our logos being blue, we went many years with our YouTube banner and our Facebook banner and other things being a part of this website redesign. When our website redesigner did the website redesign, I believe that there were a couple places where the Christus was incorporated. I do not believe that that was done with any intent to deceive the Christus, as I have always understood it, and many other people tell me the Christus was a statue that was made by a never Mormon, I believe, decades, if not hundreds of years ago. And again, light rays was something the church expressed a concern in. We had been using light rays on our gold Mormon Stories logo for I think well over a decade, I think before the church started using light rays and its trademarking and branding, we were using light rays in our trademark and branding. But regardless, when we entered into conversations with the Trademark Office back in November, December, I just basically said, you know, we don't think we violated copyright or trademark, but we want to operate in good faith. We want to be reasonable. So tell us what changes you want us to make and we will do our best to accommodate. So I believe with the, if not the very day, I received, you know, concerns from the church. I immediately changed our logo from blue to orange. As soon as I was able, I blurred out the rays that they expressed concern with. As soon as I was able, I blurred out the Christus that they expressed concern about, even though we didn't think that was even an image that was owned or controlled by the church. Basically, I got back to Intellectual Reserve and I said, hey, what else? I feel like I've changed everything. There was one image that we used of Russell M. Nelson that they didn't like, that we used in a thumbnail, and so I replaced it. I used a different image that wasn't, by my understanding, owned or copyrighted by the church. I replaced it in the thumbnail and I uploaded a new thumbnail and I let them know. And I felt like I literally addressed every concern they had. And my memory is the response that we got was, well, we need to go to mediation and involve lawyers. And I literally sent them a spreadsheet and I said, listen, I feel like I'm operating in good faith here. Look at all the changes that I have already made. Here's a spreadsheet, I'll give you full access to it. You list every single copyright or trademark infringement that you allege, and I will change if I feel like it's reasonable. And the response I remember getting was, no, we need to take this to attorneys and mediate. So I was bummed that we couldn't just, couldn't just handle it directly. But they insisted on mediation. We thought about whether or not we wanted to do mediation, and we decided that it made sense to do a good faith effort at mediation. And so we decided to do mediation. We declined their request that mediation be confidential or private because we felt like you all, our viewers, our listeners, and mostly our donors, deserve to understand what was being demanded or asked of us. And we didn't want to be accused of secret dealings or there's been all sorts of interesting conspiracy theories about me and being a stooge for the church, about me being a mole for the church, about me being under the church's control. And so, yeah, we just declined the requirement that mediation be confidential. And then also, even though the communication I received suggested that very clearly, the top ask was to remove Mormon from the podcast name, from all our social media handles, and from our domain, and to change our name, and to stop using the term Mormon. We did just make it very clear before we ever entered mediation. And when I say we here, I'm just talking about me and the decision-makers in the OSF. So we just made it really clear that we were not open to any discussion that involved taking Mormon out of our name or changing our name in any meaningful way. So, you know, that's how it began. And before I talk about what happened in mediation, or some of what happened in mediation, I just want to sort of go back a little bit and just say, you know, there's been a lot of talk that Mormon Stories Podcast was named with an intent to deceive people. And I just want to speak heart to heart and remind everyone that in 2005, when I started Mormon Stories Podcast, I was an active church attending, committed Latter-day Saint. For the better part of those 10 years, from 2005 to 2015, when the church excommunicated me, I started Mormon Stories with the desire to provide transparency to the church's history, to its truth claims, to the ways that the church can sometimes harm people. So later I coined, I kind of summarized those intentions as informed consent. I believed that I had been misled by the church and that others had been misled by the church and that people who were members of the church or the people who were learning about the church deserve to know the truth about the church's history, about its truth claims, and about the way that it sometimes harms people. But I started it from within with the desire to help make the church better. I started with the belief that just like the church taught, that truth is the fairest gem, that the truth was sacred above all things. That was my original intention and that has never changed. In the 21 years that I've been doing Mormon Stories, my first intention and main intention has just always been transparency and informed consent and truthfulness around the church's history and its truth claims. And then the other, the second thing that caused me to start Mormon Stories Podcast was realizing that people were feeling lied to and betrayed with the rise of the internet and other books. People were being harmed by the church, that families were being destroyed, that marriages were being torn apart, that people were getting divorced, that LGBT people were becoming depressed and contemplating suicide over the ways that the church was misleading and or harming people. And that just the experience of a faith crisis could be traumatic and even deadly, but it could definitely lead to divorce, destruction of families, loss of community, depression, anxiety, even suicidality, and occasionally death. And so a second main motivation for Mormon Stories Podcast has always been to support people in faith crisis. And we've worked really hard to never push people out, to never try and get them to leave and to never advise them to leave. And I challenge any of you to find evidence that I've told someone to leave the church or even express the desire to get people out of the church, because I really don't believe that's ever been my intention. So that was the second thing. And the third thing that I hoped would happen as a result of Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation was that the church would improve, because the church impacts millions and millions of people, you know, and it's so rich, it's so powerful, the church is likely never going away. But if, you know, I or we and the Open Stories Foundation could help the church do less harm or do better, then that would be a real win for millions of people. So those have been our main goals, and I'm mentioning those because I'm going to come back to those goals at the end of today's presentation. But this idea that the term Mormon Stories was used to deceive and to manipulate people, to fool them into whatever, it's just not true. And again, I think that's most demonstrated by the fact that for the better part of 10 years, I ran Mormon Stories as an actively attending, faithful Latter-day Saint. So yeah, after I got excommunicated, sure, that couldn't not have an impact on who would be willing to interview with Mormon Stories and the direction the Mormon Stories would take. But even after my excommunication, I continued, I have continued every year to interview active, faithful, believing members of the church, apologists, faithful historians. Every year, there's not been a year that's gone by with Mormon Stories, I believe, where I haven't interviewed multiple faithful, actively attending Latter-day Saints. And I've also, you know, I constantly get thank yous from listeners, ex-Mormons, never Mormons, who thank me for the tone of Mormon Stories, because they perceive it to not be bashing, they perceive it to be fair and, you know, attempting to be unbiased. And of course, we have biases or we fall short on always being perfectly unbiased. But I would say, I don't know of any podcast or YouTube channel that does a better job of interviewing believers and non-believers, faithful historians, never Mormons, and that tries to look at all sides of an issue. So what I'll say is we entered into mediation. We had two full days of mediation. And I think what I'd like to do now is maybe read the account of the way the church characterized it the past several months. And then maybe I want to do my best to respond to it. So I'm going to go ahead and add the LDS Church's press release. And yeah, and then hopefully it'll be interesting. So this was issued at churchofjesuschrist.org. On Friday, I believe, it's called Getting It Right, Clarifying Trademark and Branding Concerns. And I'll read it and respond. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has filed a trademark and copyright complaint involving Open Stories Foundation and its Mormon Stories Podcast. The issue is not the podcast viewpoint. It is the church's use of protected names, images, and design elements in a way that are causing confusion about whether the content is official or affiliated with the church. Let me just respond to that. I can't say what the motives of the church are in filing this lawsuit, and I would like to believe that the issue is not the viewpoint of the podcast. I will say a couple of things, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even by faithful historian standards, has a history of not being honest in its public statements. Right now, I'm finishing up a 40-part series on the life of Joseph Smith with non-Mormon historian John Turner in his book, Joseph Smith, The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet. If anyone understands Mormon church history, Joseph Smith sets the tone for the church sometimes publicly, misleading people, and a couple of really prominent examples come to mind. We all know in The Church Now admits that Joseph Smith was a serial polygamist, that he married over 30 women, girls as young as 14 years old, mother-daughter pairs, sister pairs, over 10 women who were already married to other men when he married them, and Joseph Smith, Emma Smith, Hiram Smith, multiple prophets or high-level leaders of the church went on record in Nauvoo and afterwards denying that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. Joseph Smith himself denied that he was practicing polygamy. He lied to his own wife, Emma. Joseph was about 20 to 22 wives into his polygamy before he ever admitted to his own wife that he was practicing polygamy. But he also told the Relief Society in the church and the church membership broadly that he was not practicing polygamy. And in the church's publications, the church and Joseph Smith denied that polygamy was being practiced. And so that's one example. And even for several years after Joseph Smith died, my understanding is the church continued in many ways to deny that it was practicing polygamy. So the church has a history of lying publicly about things. I think that's factual. Another example of that is when women like Nancy Rigdon, who Joseph Smith propositioned, would decline Joseph Smith's advances and then tell the world that Joseph Smith propositioned them as polygamist wives. Joseph and or his associates would smear the women or the men that accused Joseph, that rightly accused Joseph of propositioning them for polygamy. Those women or men would be smeared as either prostitutes or as sluts or as harlots or as pimps or as having venereal diseases. And this is all a matter of public record. You can read about it in Joseph Smith, The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by world-class historian John Turner. So, and another great example of the Mormon Church lying is when in 1890, it promised the world that it would stop practicing polygamy in its public manifesto. And for the next 10 to 20 years, it secretly kept practicing polygamy to the point where the church needed to issue a second manifesto, saying, okay, this time for real, we're gonna stop. So, when the church says something like the issue is not the podcast's viewpoint, I would say that you have to consider the church's track record in being honest. In fact, if the church had a history of being honest with its members and with the world, I would have never started Mormon Stories Podcast to begin with. In fact, Mormon Stories Podcast was created to counter the false information that the church shared about its history and its truth claims and the way it harmed people. So, there's that. But even if you take the church at its word that the issue is not Mormon Stories Podcast's viewpoint, I do think what it doesn't mention is whether or not the church is concerned about the impact of Mormon Stories Podcast. Because as far back as 2012, 2013, my memory serves me that the church issued an internal bubble chart report naming John Dehlin and Mormon Stories Podcast as one of the top threats to the church. You know, just recently, for the first time, I believe in the history of the church, it was just reported that over the past 12 months, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an actual membership decline in the United States. And that's with a slight increase in missionary baptisms over at least some previous years. But the declining birth rate, plus all the people leaving the church, seems all the wards that have been closed, all the chapels that have been closed, all the stakes that have been closed. You know, it seems like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in decline in the United States now, in 2026, according to even faithful demographers in the church. And it's clear that in places like Western Europe and parts of developed Asia, Canada and other places, it seems like the church is in decline. And I believe that the church is in decline partly because of the internet and because the dissemination of information and truthful history and, you know, discussions about the church's truth claims and, you know, a spotlight on the church's protection of child sex abusers at the expense of victims and the church's massive wealth and its financial fraud that, you know, was released as part of an SCC judgment, you know, all these sorts of things are causing the church to be in decline. And even though it may not be my intention to tear down the church or to get people to leave it or Mormon Stories Podcast intention, you know, that's in effect what's happening. And Mormon Stories has been one of the most effective places where factual history and truth claims and, you know, child abuse and financial fraud and deception has been discussed. And so I would say it's the church that's causing the church to be in decline, but I think the church is probably very concerned with Mormon Stories' role in shining a spotlight on what the church does and says and has done and has said. And so, you know, it's just obvious that an expensive, timely, costly lawsuit, especially if the narrative can be managed, that we didn't act in, that I didn't act in good faith, that I wasn't cooperative, you know, that my intentions are to sieve, that if that type of harm to Mormon Stories Podcast and the Open Stories Foundation, and to me personally, if that type of harm could be accomplished by a lawsuit, it's reasonable to suspect that that might be something the church, you know, wouldn't mind. So I don't know what their intention is. Who knows whether they do or don't have an issue with our viewpoint. I do think they have a concern with our effectiveness. We have over 800,000 subscribers now across all our various platforms. YouTube, we just crossed 300,000 subscribers. TikTok, I think we have over 300,000 subscribers. You know, and of course Facebook and Instagram and elsewhere. So I just want to challenge that idea a little bit or at least question it. So going back to the church's statement, they're saying that it's the use of the church's protected names, images and design elements in ways that are causing confusion about whether the content is official or affiliated with the church. So this is what they're saying happened. In 2025, according to the church, the church contacted the Open Stories Foundation privately about concerns with its branding. The goal was to resolve the matter privately and amicably. The church then engaged in good faith mediation. So right there, what it doesn't say is that before mediation ever happened, that I engaged in good faith resolution to their concerns, asking that lawyers not be involved and that we could just talk it out. And they weren't willing to do that. They wanted to get lawyers involved immediately. So that's left out of the church's statement. So, but mediation did happen. So it says, the church then engaged in good faith mediation and proposed several options to reduce confusion while minimizing disruption. When those efforts did not result in resolution, the church filed a complaint in federal court to protect its intellectual property. All right, so I could talk in a bit about what the church asked in mediation and why I don't think what they asked in any sense could be described as reasonable or in good faith. So it says, the church holds registered trademarks and copyrights so people can clearly identify what is and is not official church communication, names, logos, and visual design elements help people know when content represents the church. This case concerns branding choices that incorporate church-protected names and design elements in ways that may lead people to believe the podcast is produced by or affiliated with the church when it's not. Well, let me just say very, very, very concretely, as soon as I knew about and was able to change many of the design elements that they were concerned about. When I was able to change the rays, I got rid of the rays. When they were concerned about the Christus being shown in a couple of places, I got rid of the Christus. When they didn't like the color of our logo, I changed the color. So why would there be a need for a lawsuit if I was changing everything that they were requesting, including updating thumbnails or any branding that included their copyrighted images? To go on, why was mediation unsuccessful? This for me is the most problematic part. The primary issue is ongoing confusion about whether Mormon Stories is affiliated with the church. I'll just say right off the top, we disagree that there is meaningful confusion about whether Mormon Stories is affiliated with the church. Even with the branding redesign that was done a few years ago, if you look at the banner, so for example, I'll pull up the YouTube banner, just as one of several examples. What you'll see in the YouTube banner is that my picture, my face is front and center, along with a bunch of people that I interviewed on Mormon Stories. So I just want the people who are accusing me or Mormon Stories Podcast as intentionally trying to confuse people. Why would I put my face, somebody that the church in 2015 issued a press release, naming as an apostate, someone who the church has excommunicated as an apostate? Why would I put my face as the largest single image on my banners? So that's the banner on YouTube, and that's been the banner since the redesign. And then if you look at the banner on our Facebook page, you'll find the very same thing. The biggest image on our Facebook banner is my picture. My picture, the picture of someone who's noted and has been named out by the church publicly in a press release as the church's number one enemy. So even if you want to cast question about our motives, I would ask you to consider why would I allow my face to be prevalent in all of our branding if I wanted to fool and deceive people about whether or not the church owns and controls Mormon Stories Podcast. I would put a picture of Russell M. Nelson or Dallin H. Oaks or Joseph Smith on the banner. But I didn't. We put my own picture. So that's one response that I have to people that want to claim that we're intentionally misleading people with our branding. The second reason that it never occurred to me that anyone would ever be confused about who runs and controls Mormon Stories Podcast is that we have the word Mormon in our name. When Russell M. Nelson, when the president and prophet of the church publicly in general conference denounces the usage of the word Mormon, the Mormon identity, calls it a victory for Satan to the entire church, when mormon.org is gutted and redirects to churchofjesuschrist.org, when all of the assets that the church owns are eliminated that include the word Mormon that I'm able to find, when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, when the name Mormon is taken out of the name Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and in all reasonable interpretations, the trademark is abandoned and denounced. When the church issues a media statement to tell the media, stop referring to our church as the Mormon Church, stop referring to our members as Mormons. And frankly, when thousands and thousands and thousands of Latter-day Saints reach out to me and say, John, stop calling us Mormons. We're Latter-day Saints. Using the term Mormon is a victory for Satan, stop calling it the Mormon Church. Using the term Mormon is the Mormon Church is a victory for Satan. When all of that happens over a multi-year period, how in my mind would I ever think that keeping the name Mormon in my podcast, along with a huge photo of my face on the banners of our social media assets, how in my mind would I think ever that I was misleading people and fooling them into listening to Mormon Stories Podcast? And I'm just telling you honestly, that thought, that possibility, it never crossed my mind because I didn't even think it would be possible for my face, my name, the word Mormon, to even invoke those concerns. But if that weren't enough, I just want anyone who's trying to be fair and reasonable. And before I do the next test, I'm just going to ask, if you value this content and you want to see it continue, I want you to know that we have set up a legal defense fund. It's mormonstories.org/legal. That is how you can support Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. I've already said this before. My understanding is that this lawsuit is likely to cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, even under the best of circumstances. So with that being true, we could use your support. So if you want to financially support us, please go to mormonstories.org/legal and you can donate once, you can donate monthly. It's tax deductible and we really could use your financial support to make this possible. So okay, the final test that I just want to ask you, anyone who wants to claim that I have intentionally been deceiving people about whether or not the LDS Church owns and controls Mormon Stories Podcast, I just want you to go through a list of our episodes and I'll just do it right now. Read, look at these thumbnails, read these titles and tell me whether you think that any member or even ex-member or never-member could ever believe that we intended to deceive people or in fact created a reasonable misunderstanding about whether or not the LDS Church runs this podcast. How an ex-Christian experiences Mormonism. Traitor in the first presidency, talking about Joseph Smith and polygamy. Graduated BYU and resigned immediately about a BYU student who leaves BYU and resigns. Joseph Smith introduces the second anointing, the biggest anachronism in the Book of Mormon. Emma goes to war with Joseph Smith over polygamy. Groomed for Mormon motherhood perfection. How Mormon moms conquered pop culture. Sham marriages in Joseph Smith's Nauvoo. Joseph Smith pursues teenage girls in Nauvoo. I would just, for anybody that makes the argument that we have been intentionally trying to fool people or deceive people into listening to Mormon Stories Podcast, I just don't think it's believable. Plus, I state my name at the beginning of every episode. Plus, I tell everybody that we're sponsored by the Open Stories Foundation in every episode. Plus, the about pages of all our assets have always included that we're operated by a nonprofit called the Open Stories Foundation, and you could donate to it. I just don't think it's reasonable, arguable or credible to make those types of claims. And so it's hard to believe that the people who are making those claims are making them in good faith. So I'll go on. So they say in their press release, the primary issue is ongoing confusion. So they say to address that, the church proposed a simple solution. Oh, a simple solution, one solution. A brief disclaimer that the podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a common and straightforward way to help audiences understand the source of content. So, and then they say, that step was not adopted. So I want to say that there are two very, very important misstatements there. They come across to me as deceptions. They feel like lies to me, although I don't want to say what anyone's intention is. And I want to withhold judgment as to, you know, as the evidence ends up showing. But let me address the two. The first is that A, this claim that A, simple solution was proposed. A brief disclaimer that the podcast is not affiliate with the church. What I want to address is what they actually, some of the things that they actually asked for in mediation or before mediation. And so I'm going to list some of the things that I recall them asking for. So I recall them asking for us to remove the name Mormon from our name. They seemed to pivot from that later, but they asked for that. I remember them asking for us to take the word Mormon out of our internet domains and our social media handles, or at least saying that that was what they intended to ask for. When we got into mediation, they ended up asking for a list of what we felt were outrageous and unreasonable requests. Some of them included asking me to literally agree to never initiate any project ever again on the internet that used the word Mormon. So if I wanted to create a Mormon news podcast or a Mormon pop culture podcast, I had to sign an agreement that I would never ever again create any project on the internet that used the word Mormon. My memory is that they asked us to renounce any rights to trademarks for Mormon Stories, Mormon Stories Podcast, and to never file for trademarks. So they wanted us to promise we would never ever attempt to trademark our names and to renounce our rights to any trademarks, and my memory is that they wanted us to promise to never challenge any of their trademarks even if we felt like their trademarks were inappropriate. That was asked of us. My memory is that they asked us to agree that they own all the rights to the word Mormon and to its usages, which in effect would be renouncing our own rights. They asked us to change not just the color of our logo, they asked us to remove Rays from our logo. We've been using Rays on our logo for at least 10 or 15 years. And just to kind of show you that so that you understand, here is the Mormon Stories logo with Rays. We have been using Rays for a long, long time. And I believe that we've been using Rays longer in our branding than they have. That's my memory, that's my understanding. But they asked us to agree to never use Rays when we were using them first. And then they asked us in mediation to change the words on our logo and to change the name that we put on our logo. So if we were not going to agree to what they wanted, which was to take the word Mormon out of our logo, they wanted us to change the name on our logo to ex-Mormon Stories Podcast with Dr. John Dehlin, or post-Mormon Stories Podcast with Dr. John Dehlin. And they went as far as to tell us that the font, the font size for all the words in that renaming had to be the same. So it couldn't be Dr. John Dehlin in small font size. It couldn't be post or x in small word size. All these words had to be in the same font size, ex-Mormon Stories with Dr. John Dehlin. Imagine a logo with eight or 10 or 15 words on it. It destroys the value, I believe, of the logo, not to mention the aesthetic and the recognition and the appeal. So that's what was asked of us to change the name of the podcast and to create a logo that would be destructive to our brand identity. And that was misdescribing what our podcast is all about. We're not ex-Mormon Stories. The stories, we have faithful Mormons, we have non-believing but still attending Mormons, we have inactive Mormons, we have all sorts of Mormons. And so they were wanting us to change our name, damage our brand and damage our logo. You know, we were fine taking the Christus out if they felt like that was a problem. We were fine removing copyrighted images and we did. But when they write in their press release, that the solution that they requested was simple, a brief disclaimer, they are grossly, in my opinion, misstating and understating what their actual asks of us were. And I don't know their intention, but what the results of that misleading statement, and I have the receipts to back up everything I'm saying right now. So if and when the time comes, I will share it. But the end result of them putting out a press release, claiming that this was their quote, simple solution to just put up a disclaimer, is to make me look unreasonable, to make me look like it's my intent to deceive, and that I want people to be confused. And that, hey, if I had just added a simple disclaimer that they asked for, then everything would have gone away. But they, in my opinion, are misleading the world about what they actually asked for. So that's the first, what I think is a gross misleading, and I would say deceptive representation. The second part of that is when they say that step was not adopted. So they're saying that all they asked for is a brief disclaimer, but that that step was not adopted. That, for me, is an outrageous, egregious, deceptive and unreasonable claim. So let me just show you the receipts. If you go to our YouTube channel, what you'll see is that we adopted at the, we adopted in our description their request for the disclaimer. It's right there in the disclaimer. Mormon Stories is not affiliate with, endorsed or sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's there in YouTube. If you go to our Facebook page, it's there, right there, visible to everyone, right there on the Facebook page. Mormon Stories is brought to you by The Open Stories Foundation and is not affiliate with, endorsed or sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you go to the bottom of our blog, on every page of our blog, you can see that we added the disclaimer, Mormon Stories is not affiliate with, endorsed or sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There's other places where we incorporated that disclaimer, but that's not what they wrote in their press release. They wrote the dishonest, I believe, I feel, statement that this resolution was not adopted. But it's actually more complicated than that. My memory is that they also wanted us to not only provide an audible disclaimer at the beginning of every Mormon Stories episode from now until the end of time, at the beginning of every episode. I believe, my memory is, is that they also wanted it to be repeated multiple times in each episode, where I would take breaks regularly throughout the episode and again, provide the long, awkward disclaimer. I just think that their statement was incredibly deceptive and harmful. What I've seen it result in is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of faithful Mormons accusing me of not acting in good faith, of not accepting a really reasonable offer. And it's clear that I have the intent to deceive and fool people because I wouldn't even adopt a disclaimer that was very reasonable to adopt, which I did adopt. So that's the main concern that I have with their public statement. So we have put together a statement that we've wanted to try to start providing to media to address some of the concerns. And I want to let you all know that we'll provide a link to this statement in the description of this episode for people to consult with it. But what I would do is like, I would like to read from it now, but also let you know that in the description of this episode and on our blog and elsewhere, we're going to be linking to this statement so that people can refer to it. Here's the statement. So what I'd like to do is just read a few of what we've said. So on trademark infringement, we disagree that there's any trademark infringement. I've been using the Mormon Stories name for my podcast for more than 20 years without any objection from the church. Plus, the church has taken great efforts to distance itself from usage of the Mormon name in prophetic statements, its media guide, its own SEO and marketing. In fact, over the past several years, I've been constantly reminded by the LDS Church members that any usage of the word Mormon is a victory for Satan. So that's our response to their claim of trademark infringement. On our willingness to cooperate, I'll summarize. Immediately after the church raised concerns, we voluntarily made changes to accommodate them despite our disagreement with their position. Among other things, we changed the color and style of our logo, removed three years worth of images from our homepages and thumbnails, altered the description of the podcast, and added the church's preferred disclaimer language to the podcast description on every platform. The lawsuit came as a surprise given how cooperative we have been at every turn. On the church's misleading and damaging public statements and coordinated media campaign, in the church's public statement and in its coordinated media campaign with Jasmine Rapeli and many others, the church claimed, quote, the church proposed a simple solution, a brief disclaimer that the podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a common and straightforward way to help audiences understand the source of content. That step was not adopted. That's the church's statement. Our response is that statement is false and damaging. And then we include in our statement, the descriptions of the podcast on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, that clearly show that the church misled the public and its members about what we were willing to do. We weren't willing to read their disclaimer audibly every 10 or 15 minutes on the podcast. Guilty. But who does that? Is that a reasonable ask? We don't think so. The next statement is a coordinated media disinformation and smear campaign question mark. It was somewhat disturbing to see that Jasmine Rapeli and others had already released statements and videos about the lawsuit literally before I even knew I was being sued. We were unable to even locate the lawsuit until we found the case number on Jasmine Rapeli's already released YouTube video. Since then, I have been receiving and encountering violent and hateful messages from faithful Latter-day Saints who were given the false impression by the LDS Church's misleading media statement and their coordinated media campaign, including Jasmine Rapeli and others, that I was not willing to incorporate a disclaimer into my channels, that I was not cooperative in the mediation, and that thus my intent must have been to deceive. And I included in an instance of the violent language where a faithful Latter-day Saint writes, Dehlin did this on purpose and has been writing the coattails of the Church long enough. I hope he gets crushed like a cockroach, like the cockroach he is. So let me repeat that. A faithful Latter-day Saint, because of the Church's press release, wrote on the Internet, I hope John Dehlin gets crushed like the cockroach he is. And that's just one example of the violent and hateful rhetoric that Latter-day Saints have been sharing on the Internet as a result of the Church's misleading statements. So what I'm going to ask all of you is, anytime you see comments from Latter-day Saints or from Church YouTubers, from apologists, please screenshot those defamatory or incorrect or violent or hateful comments and email them to me at mormonstories.gmail.com. And we are going to keep a long library list of all of the comments that are violent, that are harassing, that are defamatory. And we would request that all of you, please help us in the collection of defamatory, of violent, harassing and hateful messages from Church apologists, from Latter-day Saints, from commenters. We really need your support on this. We can't have eyes and ears everywhere. There's forums that we are not members of. And so please, please, please, wherever you find a hateful, violent, defamatory comments or video statements or audio statements, please record them, copy them, if it's legal to do so and share them with us at mormonstories.gmail.com. On market confusion, we disagree with their allegations of confusion. Again, I've been operating the podcast under the Mormon Stories name for more than 20 years, without any objection from the Church. My face, my name, the Open Stories Foundation's associations with the podcast are in virtually every episode and on every web page and a part of every podcast episode. If anyone scrolls through our thumbnails and titles, it is impossible, I believe, to believe that we are owned or sponsored by the LDS Church. Anyone who claims that, I don't think, is operating in good faith. On copyright allegations. Regarding the copyright allegations, the Church never objected to our use of images from General Conference or other images relevant to the opinions and commentary on our podcast. Before November, December, I cannot find one instance of the Church ever objecting to how we use their copyrighted material. Why did they go years and years and years and not send us a cease and desist? And why have they allowed so many other creators to do the same? Despite that, in response to their recent requests, we agreed to remove the images they identified from our website, channels and podcast thumbnails. At every stage, we have been cooperative and respectful to the Church's concerns despite our disagreement with their claims. Our graphic designer has been asked to be extra careful that we never violate the Church's copyrights. And as soon as we are informed of any unintentional copyright violations or alleged violations, we replace the images as fast as we can. Finally, on the disclaimer issue, we have operated the podcast for more than two decades without any kind of disclaimer and without any meaningful confusion, especially with any confusion that the Church objected to or that apologists that we know of objected to. We didn't feel any disclaimer was required, but in the spirit of cooperation, we adopted one in our podcast description. The Church wanted us to make the disclaimer more prominent, so it was essentially the primary thing anyone sees in our branding, and I would say here in our podcast episodes, and we felt like that was unreasonable. We do not want our primary message to be about what we are not. We have operated for a very long time promoting who we are and what we are. We have voluntarily adopted changes and taking actions beyond what the Church could compel via litigation in a good faith effort to cooperate. It appears our efforts were not good enough for the Church. Again, we were surprised to see this lawsuit following our extensive cooperation. And then the last thing we have on that little white paper is instructions on how to donate to our legal fund, which I'm going to have to keep asking because my understanding is that this lawsuit stands to cost us at minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars and potentially between two and three million dollars. So if you are in the financial position to support us, you can go to mormonsstories.org/legal and donate. Donations are tax deductible. My understanding is they're confidential. And we will do our best to be transparent in our finances. I am willing to commit that the donations will go towards legal expenses. And if at the end of the day we have more donations than legal expenses, I will refund any donor that wants their money back, as long as it's not more than what our expenses were that we incurred. So those are the main things that I wanted to say in terms of our response to the church and its statement. I still haven't had a chance to read the actual lawsuit. There are a few final things that I do want to share today as we close. So I want to call you back, and this is important, because I want to talk about the opportunity that we have as Mormon Stories Podcast listeners, as Latter-day Saints. By the way, can I mention that I have had many faithful, believing, orthodox Latter-day Saints reach out to me to express how angry they are, that in their opinion, the LDS Church is seeking to silence people's First Amendment rights. Believing Mormons, many believing Mormons that I've communicated with, are interpreting the Church's actions as bullying the little guy, trying to silence its critics, trying to stifle free speech, and many believing Mormons have reached out to me claiming that it's their perception that the Church is trying to use their vast wealth, their money, and their power to bankrupt the Open Stories Foundation, to drain our resources, to take us off our mission, and to harm us, and most importantly, to silence us and to silence free speech. So it's not just listeners and viewers and never Mormons, it's active believing Mormons that are interpreting it this way, especially when they see how deceptive it appears the LDS Church has been in its public statements. And we plan on sharing the receipts to show how deceptive we feel like their statements have been. So anyway, what I want to talk to you all about really quickly as we close is what the opportunity here is, because while we don't want to be sued, while we don't want to waste our time doing this, while we don't want to have to spend donations on legal issues, while all we want to do is create great content to support informed consent and faith transitions and to help improve the church. Here's what the opportunity is, or here's what the possible outcome is from this lawsuit. And I just want you to think about this as you consider whether you want to support us. And there are various ways you can support us. But here's the opportunity. Again, the number one, would you call this how we're going to make lemonade from the lemons? How we're going to turn this bad thing into something good? If you remember, our first goal at the Open Stories Foundation and Mormon Stories is informed consent. We want there to be transparency for Latter-day Saints and for Mormons and for the rest of the world. This lawsuit is going to bring more viewers, more listeners, and more awareness to Mormon Stories Podcast. And separate from whatever light gets shown on the church, what information gets revealed about the lawsuit and the church's tactics and its misinformation, number one, the opportunity or the lemonade from this lemon is that it's going to help more people learn about Mormon Stories Podcast and gain more information. So in that light, I want everyone to know that we did an amazing series on Mormon Stories Podcast called LDS Discussions, where for like 60 plus episodes, we examine LDS Church truth claims from as objective as a position as we can. Check that out. I just am finishing a 40-part series on the life of Joseph Smith called the Joseph Smith Podcast with John Turner. Check that out. We've interviewed many former bishops and many former victims of child sexual abuse, and we've covered child sexual abuse. If you're new to these issues, check that out because you'll learn more about your church or about the church. We talk about the second anointing on Mormon Stories Podcast, the super-secret ordinance that primarily wealthy, connected Mormons get to receive. Where they're promised that unless they kill someone, they're going straight to the celestial kingdom. Check that out. If you're new to Mormon Stories Podcast, because of this lawsuit, we invite you to check out our catalog. We are not trying to take the church down, but we are trying to give you truthful, factual information to help you make informed decisions. The second way that this lawsuit could be helpful is that it is going to shine transparency on how the church uses the legal system and attorneys to pressure people who aren't in power, to pressure people who don't have as much money, to pressure victims of sexual abuse, to silence victims. What potentially we all might be able to witness from this is in slow motion with the full spotlight how the church uses the legal system and its money and its power to silence and intimidate and hurt and bankrupt people. And that goes to our mission of informed consent and transparency. So that is not what we want, but that is a natural outgrowth. And that's why you may consider supporting us in this effort. And there are a few other ways, important ways, that we are going to need your help. The second thing that's going to happen is that certainly the church is going to be accelerating the number of people who question the church, lose their faith in the church and or leave the church. Just like Prop 8 caused people to leave the church in mass, just like the November 2015 policy, implemented by Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks, caused people to leave the church in droves, just like the reversal of the November 2015 policy caused people to leave the church in droves, just like the Gospel Topics Essays have caused people to leave the church in droves, just like the church's racism and sexism and homophobia have caused the church to leave in droves, just like the church's excommunication of Sam Young, who protected children of Natasha Helfer Parker, that advocated for ethical mental health practices, Bill Reel and Jeremy Runnels and Grant Palmer, who advocated for transparency in the church in the September 6th, and D. Michael Quinn, and so many, Fawn Brody, so many heroes that tried to help improve the church or promote transparency and honesty and historical truth in the church. Just like all those excommunications caused people to leave the church in droves, this lawsuit is likely going to cause people to start questioning and doubting their church and to consider leaving it in droves. It is likely gonna accelerate the very problem the church claims to be trying to solve. And so ironically, the world is gonna need Mormon Stories Podcast more during and after this lawsuit than it ever did before. So that's another reason to support this lawsuit and to support Mormon Stories Podcast because if you're thinking about people leaving the Mormon church, it's possible that you ain't seen nothing yet as a result of this lawsuit. So that's a second reason to support us. And the third thing that you could get from this lawsuit, the lemonade that this lawsuit might make, is that we are going to help improve the church. Because to the extent to which the church bullies and manipulates and silences people, to the extent to which the church uses its wealth and its power to lie and hide and deceive and coerce and punish and bankrupt people who are telling the truth and trying to help the church get better, the church will likely, hopefully, learn from its mistakes and maybe do that less in the future. And maybe there will be less child sexual abuse cover-ups by the church's law firms in the future. Maybe less perpetrators, like Wade Christopherson, will be protected at the expense of the victims. So it's not an accident that two of the three members of the first presidency are attorneys. And it's not an accident that the most prevalent occupation of the Quorum of the Twelve or the Quorum of the Fifteen is attorneys. It's not an accident that the church's leaders of their historical department are historians, or are attorneys, sorry. So it's not an accident that the church's lead historians are attorneys, because the church uses the law system to silence and punish and coerce and hide, sometimes, the harm that it causes. That's what I believe. That's sometimes what I witness. And again, it's no accident at all that the current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an attorney. And I don't think it's, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that we're being served this lawsuit under the administration of a president and prophet of the church who is an attorney. Again, I'll just end by saying there's various ways you can help. You can donate to mormonstories.org/legal. Please donate and support us. If you're an attorney and you know a lot about trademark or copyright, we are putting together a team of attorneys to respond to the likely army and legion of attorneys that the church is, has, or will be assembling. So email me at mormonstories.gmail.com. If you are an attorney who is willing to work pro bono, for this lawsuit, and we will add you to our team, even if you've already reached out to me already about this lawsuit, please reach out to me again, because I want to make sure your name and your qualifications get passed on. If you're an attorney and you want to work on this case, please include your background and experience in trademark and copyright, and whatever else can help us know that you're available and helpful in this type of case. Again, anytime any of you witness violent comments, false comments, defamatory comments, harmful comments, malicious comments by Latter-day Saints, by faithful Latter-day Saints, by apologists, or video episodes, or audio episodes, you know, anywhere in forums, please screenshot the harmful comments, the defamatory or violent comments, and share them with us. Please download the video, the TikTok, the Instagram, before it gets deleted. Screenshot stuff and send it to us. And we will use it to help, you know, with our situation. We think that that could be really helpful. Yeah, and then just like and comment on our episode. Share it. Please be our informers. So whether it's on the Deseret News articles, or the Sully Tribune articles, or in the comments of YouTube episodes by apologists, or Facebook, or Instagram, or TikTok episodes, please share the truth. Please inform members about what's really going on. Please talk to your family and friends. Refer them to this episode. Refer them to the link of the statement in the description. I'm sure we'll be expanding on that statement. We'll probably provide our own frequently asked questions document. And I also plan on doing more episodes, hopefully with Colby Reddish, hopefully with Radio Free Mormon, hopefully with others. I plan on doing more commentary analysis. So, you know, please stay tuned for that. And then I also just want to say, you know, Bill Real, Radio Free Mormon, and Rebecca Biblioteca of Mormonish, and many other, you know, Nemo the Mormon, and Alyssa Grenfell and others, many of them are supportive of what we're doing and are going to be talking about this lawsuit and the situation. And some of them are going to be doing content, I'm sure, based on their analysis and their review of the documents. So check out, I think right now, in 10 or 15, maybe 30 minutes, Mormonism Live or Radio Free Mormon are going to be talking about the lawsuit and others. And so please check out their content as well. Please support them. And again, please follow and check out what we're doing. I just want to say, when I say we, the main people that I'm talking about when I say we on Mormon Stories Podcast, the first person I mean when I say we today, when I say we is Margie, my wife. I apologize to Margie that sometimes I get so animated that I forget to mention her by name. She is my co-host. She is my best friend. She is operations manager for the Open Stories Foundation. She has supported and guided me throughout all of what I've done for the past 21 years. And she is supportive of me in this. And she is with me every step of the way. And so when I say we, throughout all this episode, the first person I mean is my dear wife, Margie. Margie, I love you. I'm grateful for you. I couldn't do this without you. You are wise and thoughtful and strong. You are an asset to this organization. And I'm so grateful to have you at my side. So I love you. Thanks for your support in this. I love you. When I say we, I also mean my board of directors, Clint Martin and his wife, Jenny, our other board member, Jennifer Tomchak. I mean members of our staff, Julia and Brooklyn. I mean Mormon Stories donors in the Open Stories community. Those are the main we's and all the people who have ever told their stories on Mormon Stories Podcast or supported us in all the different ways, past staff members included. Those are the we that I mean first and foremost in today's episode and going forward and in the future. Yeah, so I just wanted to make sure and state that and thank everyone who's made this possible so far. And then finally, I just want to say that just heartfelt, heart to heart, hosting Mormon Stories Podcast and leading Mormon Stories Podcast has been the honor of my professional life. It's been one of the greatest honors to help support people in faith crisis, provide people with information, help people wake up from feeling and being deceived, help them take control of their lives, whether they stay in or out of the church. I've never cared. I've never had a desire to take people out of the church or to keep them in. I just want people to be able to make educated, informed decisions. So to that extent, running Mormon Stories Podcast has been the honor of our life and my life professionally. Obviously, being a husband and a father has been the great honor of my life. And I also have to throw a thank you to my children and extended family for all they've done to support me because they are my main why in life. And they have experienced pain and discomfort because of everything that we've experienced over the past 21 years. And so I want to send out love and gratitude to my children, my parents, my siblings, and my extended family as well. Thank you for enduring that. But so that's my personal why. My professional why is this. And it's been a great honor to host and lead Mormon Stories Podcasts at the Open Stories Foundation. I will say, cross my heart, scouts honor, arm to the square. I have never intended to intentionally deceive people that we are a podcast runner sponsored by the church. And even more, I have never intended Mormon Stories Podcast to hurt the church or take people out of the church. I've only desired to give people informed consent to support people in their faith transitions and to try and make the church better. And I'll go to the grave feeling clear in my conscience that those have been my intentions. If this lawsuit bankrupts Mormon Stories Podcast, if this podcast makes it so I have to take Mormon Stories down, if this podcast, they're coming after me personally, they've named me personally in my family in extension, but by naming me personally in the lawsuit. And obviously the church could sneeze and bankrupt the Open Stories Foundation. So if it is that my family gets bankrupt, if it is that Open Stories Foundation is bankrupted, if it is that I have to stop doing this and take it down, I feel like standing up for truth, standing up for honesty, standing up for informed consent, standing up for transparency, standing up for the marginalized and the abused, standing up for the way the church harms people, but also standing up for trying as a fellow Mormon culturally to help improve the church. I feel that's the type of stuff that the church taught me to be and to do. The Mormon Church taught me, do what is right, let the consequence follow. The LDS Church taught me, oh, say what is truth, tis the fairest gem. So everything that I've done, I will go to my grave knowing and believing and feeling like was coming out of my Mormon upbringing and with a desire to not only benefit and bless the Mormon people, but also the LDS Church and the greater humanity. And, you know, we could have settled, we could have signed a harsh and unreasonable mediation agreement with a gun to our head, but we just decided that that would be a sacrifice of our ethics and of our values and of our mission and of our responsibility to you. And so we're rolling the dice. We feel like we're on very firm ground legally. We feel like we're on very good solid ground morally and ethically. Financially, you know, we, you know, we could be swamped very easily by the church. In terms of the church's power and influence in the legal system, we could be swamped and buried potentially very easily. But again, the church taught me to have courage and the church taught me to do what is right, regardless of consequence. The church taught me to stand up for truth, to stand up for the marginalized and stand up for the Mormon people. And that's what we, meaning Margie and Clint and Jenny and the board and the staff and the donors, that's why we're fighting this lawsuit. So I want to invite you all to support us if you feel like it. You can donate to mormonstories.org/legal if you want to support it. And again, all the other ways. I also want to, you know, just say thanks again for supporting us in all the ways. I want to thank all the other channels, Radio Free Mormon, Mormonism Live, Colby, Nemo the Mormon, Alyssa Grenfell, Mormonish, all the other TikTok and Instagram channels that I don't have time to mention. I want to just thank everybody who've reached out to support viewers and listeners and friends. Former staff, Maven even is here moderating our comments today. Shout out to Maven. I want to thank everyone who has reached out with their heartfelt support. Let's do this. It's a crazy thing to stand up to the LDS Church with its $300, $400, $500 billion in assets and all its power and wealth. It might seem like a crazy thing to stand up to them and to fight for honesty and truth and transparency and to fight against harm and misperceptions and misinformation. But I think it's the right thing to do. So that's what we're doing. This is a transparency report. I hope you've enjoyed it. I really hope you can support us if you can. And if you can't, that's okay. We'll keep doing what we do for as long as we can. And we'll see how it all ends. But regardless, this has been the professional honor of my life to do Mormon Stories. And I'll keep doing it until we're forced to stop, either legally or financially. So, love you all, be good to each other, be kind to each other, do what is right, let the consequence follow. Thanks again for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Again, it's mormonstories.org/legal to donate, the links are in the description. Our statements to the media are also linked to in the description, we'll be updating them over time. Your super chats here are useful. Donations here are welcome and welcome as well. I really apologize I wasn't able to give shout outs to all the donors for today. I hope you can understand I was too busy trying to say everything right and correctly and I didn't have time to call out all the super chats, but they're very much appreciated. Be good to each other, be kind to each other. We'll keep you updated in the days, weeks and months ahead and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast brought to you by Dr. John Dehlin of the Open Stories Foundation and not by any other entity. Love you all. Take care everybody. We'll see you again soon on Mormon Stories Podcast.