Welcome and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Mormon News Podcast, brought to you by me, John Dehlin of Mormon Stories Podcast and also brought to you

Meggan Hayes [00:00:12] by Meggan Hayes of Generally Unquotable. Good morning, everybody.

John Dehlin [00:00:17] Meggan, thanks for joining us and thanks for all your hard work.

Meggan Hayes [00:00:20] Yeah, you bet. This has been an exciting week, as always.

John Dehlin [00:00:25] Absolutely. Well, really quickly you can find this podcast on all the socials and also@mormonnews.com please like, subscribe and share. You know this. This whole podcast exists because of the generous donations of our donors. If you want to see this continue, please go to MormonNews.com and donate there. And please also like and subscribe to Generally Unquotable. Now, Meggan, this is an interesting day because, as you know, as the thumbnail shows, it's got David Jordan, the church's, the LDS Church's lead attorney for the lawsuit against me and Mormon Stories podcast. And I just want to say at the outset, and I'll just ask you, did I ask you to cover this today? Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:01:20] No, you did not. I actually messaged you and said, is it okay if I cover this? You said, do you think it's news? And I said, of course I think

John Dehlin [00:01:28] it's news, and I don't think it matters. But also, like, I haven't read these slides yet. I've seen them in terms of like, oh, wow, looks like we're covering the lawsuit, but I have not read them yet. None of, I'm just going to say, I don't even know if this is a valuable disclaimer. None of this represents any official legal point of view. It doesn't represent me or the Open Stories Foundation. This is purely Meggan's analysis. And did you say rage? Like, tell me the story of what you told me when you started digging into this story.

Meggan Hayes [00:02:04] So I was watching the video and I was starting to make slides, and about three quarters of the way through, my husband came home from work and I said, donnie, get over here, because listen to this. And then I had to yell and be like, how are they saying this? And he was very patient and he sat with me and let me just get it all out.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] Well, it's interesting because, you know, on the one hand we have had a lot of people reach out and show kind support and we, we did create a legal fund and a lot of my listeners and, and viewers supported that. But at the same time, it can feel very, very lonely because day to day it's just me and Margi and, you know, we don't have, like, close friends that we're hanging around with all the time, day to day. Like, we do have some close friends, but they try and always not bring stuff up because we don't want our social stuff to always be Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:02:58] Drama. So, like, you could feel very lonely in these lawsuits, just feeling like nobody really knows, nobody really cares. And there's so much detail and nuance that even like RFM or whatever, they might be attorneys, but you have to spend a lot of time in the weeds to understand the nuances of. Of all these legal arguments. And so oftentimes you just feel like nobody's ever going to really know and understand how stupid and unfair and insane, you know, something like this lawsuit is. So it's fun to see someone that I work with actually get fired up about it.

Meggan Hayes [00:03:32] Yes. And I was fired up and then I was fired up again this morning when my husband sent me the latter Daily Saints take on the lawsuit. So. Yeah, and I've. I've got my coffee here, so I will be caffeinated Meggan today.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] Wait, who is that person on your mug? Oh, who is it? Oh, it's the Julie Beck. Is that Julie Beck?

Guest [00:03:52] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:03:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] That's awesome. Did you make that mug?

Meggan Hayes [00:03:55] I didn't. It came from an online creator who makes them.

John Dehlin [00:03:58] Oh, okay. Okay. All right, well, let's dig into it. People get mad when our openings are too long. What are the stories we're covering today?

Introduction to the LDS Church Trademark Lawsuit

Meggan Hayes [00:04:06] Well, we're going to start with the lawsuit. Have the rumors been debunked that. Then we're going to talk about some new trends that have come out from the Pew research. We're going to go to Idaho and Nevada after that for the abortion debate that is heating up. Then we're going to talk about David McConkey, who if you know anything about Mormonism, you're going to know the name McConkey and what he's been doing. And is he working at byu? We're going to have a little follow up with Susie Greco and her research and then two smaller stories at the end. One about Elizabeth Smart and her new podcast and. And then one about the f. The Mormon chants that have been happening for years against byu when they play sports.

John Dehlin [00:04:46] I love it. Okay, well, let's see how we can do and see if we can do it under two hours or if that's just a dead goal. But so the first. Yeah, the first slide you have is Church Speaks Out. Do you want to give a little background before I give a little background, too?

Guest 2 [00:05:04] David Jordan is the.

John Dehlin [00:05:05] Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Meggan Hayes [00:05:06] I put that up there because it says church speaks out. And they are so interesting did. In saying this is not affiliated with the church. This is not an official sponsor of the church. And then that. That's the thumbnail from the Keystone podcast.

John Dehlin [00:05:21] So saying David represents the church. I guess. I guess legally he does represent the church.

Meggan Hayes [00:05:27] Right, right. It was just interesting to me that they were willing to put that on a podcast that is not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints podcast.

John Dehlin [00:05:35] That's really. We all know that those, those influencers work for nonprofits that either the church gives money directly to or the church tells their wealthy donors to give money to those nonprofits that they're. They're. It's. It's. I think it's. I think it's fake. You know, I think that these are run by the church.

Meggan Hayes [00:05:58] Yeah, that's my. Yeah, I think so too. And I think maybe when we listen to some of the stuff they said it will like, at least to me, it became pretty clear that it was. They had talked about it beforehand. It was somewhat scripted and possibly, you know, the church had a lot to do with the questions that were asked.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] Still, I'm, I, I'm surprised at what made it through correlation in the case of David Snell. I'll just say a couple things really quickly. Anyone who knows anything about law knows how weird this is that we're in the middle of a federal lawsuit and the, the elite attorney is speaking up publicly, trying, trying to manage perceptions and, and in some cases, we think actually making. Giving us evidence that helps support our side of the case. Now, I'm curious, Meggan, what's your interpretation of, Of, Of David Jordan actually appearing on YouTube and speaking about this case while the case is, Is under review?

Meggan Hayes [00:07:07] Yeah, I was shocked. I was shocked when he said, you know, I saw the, the thumbnail even, and I was like, no way. No way. Because the, the church especially, I don't know, maybe since Hinckley passed, has been very careful about their online presence in that way, when they do interviews, it's with safe people, it's with people who they've vetted to. And so for this to come out, like I said, not sponsored by the church On a random YouTube channel, I thought it was quite shocking.

John Dehlin [00:07:39] Well, yeah, it's also, it's also shocking. I, you know, I. Here's a couple ways to interpret it. I don't know what's true. One is that the church is losing, and there's two things it could be losing. It could be losing the lawsuit, but it also probably more likely feels like it's losing in the court of public opinion, because my sense is that David Jordan wasn't making legal arguments here. He was making PR arguments to try and shape people's perception. And.

Meggan Hayes [00:08:16] Yeah, can I agree with that real quick?

John Dehlin [00:08:18] Yeah, please.

Meggan Hayes [00:08:19] Yes. When Donnie and I were discussing this notice, he showed up in a very unassuming way. He didn't have on a suit coat and a tie. He's wearing a collared shirt, but it's unbuttoned a little, you know, very casual. He's sitting in this. This pink background. He could be your grandpa. He's. He's speaking very softly. Like, it all came across as very much like we're. We're kind, nice people. That. That is the impression that I got when I was watching it.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] Yeah. Yeah. But also, like, he's not really speaking to the law. He's speaking to people's perception. So that's interesting. And I do think, if I had to give my assessment today, on the one hand, I'll say I do think the church is, as of today, losing this lawsuit, and I also think they're losing in the court of public opinion overall. But the only other things I'll say is that I don't think this was ever about, in my opinion, winning the lawsuit. And I. I think this was always about, in my opinion, trying to smear me, trying to silence me, bankrupt me and hobble me. And so that's why that, in my mind, that's why we were in this. We're in this preposterous situation of the lead attorney trying to manage pr, because it was always about pr, and the legal stuff is just a ruse, in my opinion. So, anyway, should we get into it?

Meggan Hayes [00:10:00] Yes, absolutely. Because I think you're going to see that that's kind of the conclusion that I came to after all of the work that I did the past two days.

John Dehlin [00:10:07] Okay, well, let's get into it. Should we play the first clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:10:10] Mm.

John Dehlin [00:10:10] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:10:12] David Jordan is the former U.S. attorney for the District of Utah, and he's the lead attorney in the church's lawsuit against John Dehlin and the Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] Okay. What are your thoughts on that?

Meggan Hayes [00:10:25] I just put that as a precursor so people would understand that's how they started the episode with his background. Just so people would know who David Jordan is.

John Dehlin [00:10:33] A couple things also people should know. He's not trademark attorney, and that should. He's not an intellectual property guy. So why would the Church put a non intellectual property guy at the Head of. It's an intellectual property lawsuit. The second thing that's interesting is he's known as the fixer. If you follow Tim Ballard really carefully, guess who the attorney was who was kind of the public face or the lead attorney on the church's legal interactions with Tim Ballard. Guess who it was.

Meggan Hayes [00:11:09] Oh, David Jordan. Interesting.

John Dehlin [00:11:11] In fact, I. I remember a video where Tim Ballard calls out David Jordan. So David Jordan is viewed. He's not Kurt McConkey. That's something that people get wrong. He works for a different national law firm, but he, you know, he does have his office there downtown, but he's known as a fixer, you know, and so he. He gets assigned these high profile, highly sensitive, volatile cases for whatever that's.

Meggan Hayes [00:11:40] Yeah, yeah, okay. That's adding to the story for sure.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] Okay, so do I play the next clip or. Yeah, okay. All right, let's play the next clip.

History of the Lawsuit and Initial Church Letter

Guest [00:11:49] There's some history before the lawsuit was filed, and it really begins with a very nicely worded letter from the church pointing out that Mr. Delin was using the church's trademarks in a way that mimicked the church's branding. And also that he was using copyrighted images, pictures that he was not authorized to use, and asking him to please stop doing those things. That led to an exchange of email communications and ultimately to a proposal by the church that the parties mediate to see if they could come to some amicable resolution of the dispute without the need for resort to the courts.

John Dehlin [00:12:40] Okay, yeah. What's your. What's your thoughts on that?

Meggan Hayes [00:12:43] Okay, go, go to the next slide. Because I tried to outline it so I could keep everything straight because my emotions were high.

John Dehlin [00:12:50] So here we go. Give me your analysis.

Meggan Hayes [00:12:53] So in the beginning, I went back and read the first email that the Church sent. I read it probably 20 times. And the church originally requested that you remove and discontinue church trademarks, Church copyrighted materials, branding likely to cause confusion. So, you know, their specific concerns were the Mormon and the light rays design the Christus logo. The church like colors and fonts, and the church owned images. And they said, update elements of your branding to ensure viewers can distinguish your content from church content. Something that was noticeably not in the original letter was an audible disclaimer.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:13:38] So in that video, he says, you need to know the history. And I was like, fine, I'll go back and look at it. And that letter was actually fairly simple. And let me see. Okay, so go to the next slide because this is how you responded.

John Dehlin [00:14:04] It's fun to be talked about. I mean, you're using second person, but it's kind of like a third person analysis. Keep going.

Meggan Hayes [00:14:11] So in the resulting emails that he referenced, how did you respond? You blurred and then removed the Christus. You removed the light rays. You replaced and. Or removed so many images from past thumbnails and podcasts. You changed the blue logo to orange, and then you created a spreadsheet to outline further changes and said, please let me know what else you would like us to change, and we would happily do our best to comply. So go. Go ahead. Because in my mind, it feels like to me, when they originally sent that letter and then you responded in a very quickly, with a limited amount of staff, you did the things they asked you to do.

John Dehlin [00:15:01] Yeah, there are a couple things I would. I would change a tiny bit. Most of the copyright changes that we did happen during mediation. So. But. But I did. I. They. They all. As I recall, they only basically shared one image. It was an image with Russell and Nelson on a thumbnail. And so immediately I changed that. That one thumbnail, because that was the only one they gave me at the time.

John Dehlin [00:15:28] And that. That. That was surprising to me. And I, by the way, I did this of my own accord. It wasn't like I was like, you know, checking to see what I should or shouldn't do. I'm just like, all right, I don't want a lawsuit.

John Dehlin [00:15:47] I don't sue. You know, I thought, I disagree with them, and I said that to them, I don't think we're violating your copyrights. I don't think we're violating your trademarks. None of this means I'm admitting guilt, but I don't want a lawsuit, and I want to be reasonable.

John Dehlin [00:16:03] So instead of saving all my accommodations in some sort of lame negotiation, I'm just like, I'm just going to make whatever accommodations I think are reasonable right up front. So I absolutely did change the logo color immediately of my own accord, and I fixed the one thumbnail that they gave me, and I absolutely sent them a Google spreadsheet. And I said, any change you want me to make, put it on this spreadsheet. And you know what their response was? We need to do mediation.

Meggan Hayes [00:16:37] Yes. And I'm like, and what?

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Go ahead.

Meggan Hayes [00:16:40] That. That was what I saw. And that's when I started to get super angry because I was like, the first John did everything the first email outlined right away, without question, without pushing back. And the spreadsheet, I was like, he's going above and beyond what they even said. In the first email, and everyone can go read it. This is on the Mormon Stories website under the legal portion. Is that what it's called? Legal?

Meggan Hayes [00:17:08] You can see the letter the church sent. You can see how John responded. And yes, the jump to mediation in, in my mind, almost felt like it was planned from the beginning, because even though you bent over, what it looked like to me that you bent over backwards to comply, they were like, let's mediate after you said, tell me anything else like it.

Meggan Hayes [00:17:33] I have listened to so much stuff about this lawsuit, and until I really got in there and read it like that, I mean, I, I, that's the part when I started to get really upset.

John Dehlin [00:17:44] Yeah. And that's, that's my, that was my impression as well. My impression was that, that, you know, just like my disciplinary council, where it was, it was a kangaroo court, they knew what the decision was before there was ever a council.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] If I had to bet money, I would bet that mediation was always the plan. And in my opinion, mediation, in both my suspicion and what proved to be mediation, was never actually about finding a reasonable solution. My suspicion and what, what seemed to be true was that either they were going to get a ton of unreasonable demands met where they would just laugh all the way to the bank that they were able to exert their power and influence in a way that was, in my opinion, abusive, or they would just be able to say they did mediation so that then they could sue me. And that's, that's what it turned out to be. Because there, there was no reason for this to go to mediation. I feel like it was unreasonable. Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:49] Yes. And if, if anybody wants to get that same feeling, just go read the emails and that the next slide. That's all it talks about.

John Dehlin [00:18:55] Go ahead. Go ahead.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:56] Yeah. Why, why did this need to go to mediation? What was still unresolved? What specific request had you refused?

John Dehlin [00:19:02] Yep.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:03] Why? Why, when you sent the spreadsheet, didn't they just identify what else they wanted you to fix?

John Dehlin [00:19:08] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:09] And then when did the audible disclaimer become the missing piece? That's gonna, that's going to come in the future. Because that was not part of the original request.

John Dehlin [00:19:17] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, I want to, I want to respond, but also I want to follow your analysis and flow. Should we just go to the next slide? Okay. Because I want, I do want to talk about premediation, so tell me when you want me to talk about premediation, but.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:32] Oh, no, no. Talk about it right now. Talk about it.

John Dehlin [00:19:34] Okay. So. Yeah, so I was surprised that it broke down. I was really terrified about mediation and a pending lawsuit because we had just finished a really expensive lawsuit, which we won, but I didn't want another lawsuit. And we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars and all the power in the world and influence over the courts and a Utah court. So there's no world where I wanted this to become a legal matter.

Finding Legal Representation in Utah

John Dehlin [00:20:08] So anyway, and I had no idea. I. I had no idea whether I was going to be able to find good representation. People don't understand. In Utah, the Church is so wealthy and powerful that most. Most law firms do business with the Church. And what that means is when you go to law firms and say, I want you to represent me, what they always have to do is what's called a conflict of interest check. And they have to make sure that they're not representing the church. And by the way, it's really hard, number one, to find a reputable law firm that isn't working with the Church on some level or working against the Church in some way that would conflict their interests.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] But it's also very hard in Utah to find a law firm who doesn't have partners who are Mormon or owners that are Mormon or attorneys that are Mormon or that wants to take on the Church. It's very, very hard, believe me.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] And so you just go in blind, thinking, I have no. I have to. Now I have to go talk to a million law firms to try and find one reputable, one that'll take us on, and then can we afford them if they do? Because sometimes you can find law firms that will take your case, but they'll want to. It'll bleed you dry. You know what I mean? So, because lawsuits are incredibly expensive. So fortunately, we were able to find an attorney that worked for a great law firm who is willing to take this on.

John Dehlin [00:21:43] But people that think we were wanting this and seeking it and wanting attention, they just don't understand how the world works. So, anyway, I just wanted to say that the only other thing is, before mediation, there were two things I insisted. One was that there was no confidentiality clause, which I don't think mediators normally ever do. And the Church certainly wanted a confidentiality clause. They didn't want all this stuff coming out, in my opinion. But I'm just like, I'm not going to allow them to spin this. And so I rejected any confidentiality clause. And then the other thing is, I demanded. We demanded.

John Dehlin [00:22:26] I'll just say I demanded that we know ahead of time what was going to be discussed during mediation. And do you talk about that? No, no, because that would, that's one of the most outrageous things is later in the media they're like, it's not about the use of the word Mormon. It's never about the use of the word Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] But what the documents either show or will show is that they provided a list of the topics for mediation. And number one and number three on the list, pre mediation was the name of the podcast and the usage of the term Mormon in our social media handles and on the podcast.

John Dehlin [00:23:11] And that's, in my opinion, what half of both full days of mediation was all about, our usage of the term Mormon. So that's just a full on lie, in my opinion, that later they claim publicly it was never about the use of the term Mormon. That's, that's, that's just, in my opinion, deception. Anyway, did you know that?

Meggan Hayes [00:23:32] I, I didn't know that part that specifically. Right. Like they talk about wanting you to change the name, but I didn't know that part specifically. Pre mediation.

John Dehlin [00:23:41] Yeah. David Jordan provides like a list of eight bullets of what we'll be talking about at mediation. Number one and number three were all about our title and the use of the term Mormon and that they wanted to try and get us to change our podcast name and social media handles. So they're lying when they spin and say it was never about that. They're lying, in my opinion. Okay, sorry.

Meggan Hayes [00:24:07] Yeah, no, that's good. That's going to make the rest of this even more interesting.

John Dehlin [00:24:11] Yeah, so. And I'm just like, people just won't believe me. You know what I mean? Like, and then the other part about Brady is like, of course they're lying. You know, that's why I started the podcast to begin with, is because I felt lied to and betrayed by the church, you know, part of it, you know, anyway. Okay, let's go to the next video.

Guest [00:24:28] It's a negotiation. And so you may start with one position as your initial proposal, and the other side may say, no, that's not acceptable. But what if we did this and it goes back and forth. And there was a good deal of that over the course of the mediation. And some of the proposals that were made were in fact adopted by Mr. Delin. So, for example, I believe he's made certain changes to his website to remove some images that are copyrighted images belonging to the church. And he's also changed his logo, for example.

John Dehlin [00:25:10] Okay, tell me if you want me go to the next slide or if you want to Give analysis right now.

Meggan Hayes [00:25:16] Well, the reason that that one bothered me is because the logo change happened pre mediation.

John Dehlin [00:25:23] That's right.

Meggan Hayes [00:25:23] Correct. That's right. And. And in that dialogue, he's making it sound like. At least I thought so, that you didn't do that till after you went to mediation. You didn't agree that. But that was something that happened previous. And I think that's a lot of the thing that people don't understand is that there was a lot that happened before mediation, and the. The church is just glossing over that. And. And they'll keep doing it throughout the video.

John Dehlin [00:25:50] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:25:51] And throughout the. Even the wording in some of the rebuttals to what you presented.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's. That's an interesting point. The. The only other thing that I wanted to highlight, watching that. Well, a couple things. One is, you know, it's interesting. I. The. The. There. There. I could just say this. 100% honesty. 100%. This is just factual. There was never, never any direction for me, intent for me, or discussion by me to anyone about, let's mimic the church. It was literally like, john, we're trying to make your YouTube go better.

Rebranding Efforts and Banner Changes

John Dehlin [00:26:35] You know, we need to fix your banner, and we need to do a rebrand because we're trying to make your YouTube channel thrive because Covid happened and we weren't doing events. And so I put my focus on YouTube. And so, you know, consultants, contractors wanted to judge up the YouTube channel and eventually our website.

John Dehlin [00:26:59] So I don't tell graphic designers what to do. I'm not a graphic designer. I gave no direction about color. I gave no direction about anything. They just said, we want to do this. I said, go do your thing. And they did what they did.

John Dehlin [00:27:13] There will not ever be anything found, because nothing existed because there were never any conversations ever about mimicking the church or what color I think should be used. This was just contractors, independent contractors doing their graphic design 1000%.

John Dehlin [00:27:32] So there was never an intent, an intent to copy the church, and there was certainly never any intent or direction by me to copy the church. So I don't even know. Like, I'm not even sure that Christus that was in the banner was copied off of the church's logo.

John Dehlin [00:27:49] It very well could have been copied off of the actual Christus that is not owned by the Mormon Church. That's not even an LDS or a Mormon thing. But I don't know because I had no involvement in it. But also. So anyway, I'm not even sure he's right.

John Dehlin [00:28:08] And we certainly never conceded that that Christus violated their trademark or copyright or even came from their logo. I think there's a decent chance that didn't come from their logo and that it came from the actual Christus itself.

Meggan Hayes [00:28:23] I actually wondered that when I was looking through it. I was like, but we all know that the church didn't make this Christus in the first place. They're borrowing it from somebody else.

John Dehlin [00:28:33] Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know what went through the mind of the person that did the graphic design for this. What I can say for sure is it's obvious that the point of the banner wasn't to confuse people. You know, why do I need to tell you, Meggan, why it's obvious that that banner that included the Christus wasn't trying to confuse anyone?

Meggan Hayes [00:28:53] Well, your face was on it.

John Dehlin [00:28:54] The word Mormon's on it, and my face is on it. And who else's face is on it? Like 15 of the top, most highest profile apostates in the world. It's like Kara Burrell, John Larsen, like anybody that has a brain.

John Dehlin [00:29:13] If we were trying to deceive people that you. That our YouTube channel was owned and run by the church, which is what a trademark lawsuit is about, why would it contain the word Mormon? Why would it contain my face as the most prominent image? And why would it contain 10 of the big Nemo, Samantha Shelley, John Larsen? Why would it contain Margi, 10 or 15 of the most well known apostates on the planet if that was the intent it makes. And David Snell and Latter Daily Saints and David Jordan don't have the integrity to either think that through or acknowledge it because seriously, Meggan, put on your journalistic hat. How much sense does that make?

Meggan Hayes [00:30:02] It makes no sense. I, when I was a very, very active Mormon, well, before I left the church, I knew exactly who you were. Like when, when was ordained women happening. 2014. Yeah, yeah, 2013. Somewhere in there. Yeah. And I, and I saw a video of you online, and my sister and I. My sister in law and I sat down and, and talked about how the light had left your eyes like that. And, and I was, I was a Relief Society president at the time. Like, I knew who John Dehlin was.

John Dehlin [00:30:34] Yeah. The only other thing I want to say is what, what, what felt deceptive to me about their talk about mediation. They're like a mediation is always two sides. That's in my view, that's deceptive because my memory is. I went into mediation saying, we don't have any requests.

John Dehlin [00:30:56] Leave us alone. Is our request. Tell us what you want us to change was our only request. It's almost like they wanted people to think that we both went in with terms and we both went in with requests, and so they had to make unreasonable requests, and then we would make unreasonable requests and then we'd meet in the middle. But it's not like we were saying, put a disclaimer on your podcast that mentions us.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] You know what I mean? Rename your stuff. No, we had zero. As far as I remember, we had exactly zero requests going into mediation, and never once was it discussed in any serious way, anything. We were just like, leave us alone. That was our terms. That was our starting point.

John Dehlin [00:31:46] And then it was an 800 pound gorilla threatening a multimillion dollar lawsuit to try and force us to make completely unreasonable, outrageous changes. And I would add, with no foundation. No foundation.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:03] Yeah. That adds some much needed context because, yes, like I said, he's sitting there with his little unbuttoned top, and in his kindest voicing, we negotiated back and forth.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] And that, to me, that was deceptive.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:16] Right, because what would your request have been?

John Dehlin [00:32:19] Just like I said, we had none. Yeah. In fact, the only request was that it's not confidential so that we could talk about their. And I'm surprised how coercive and bullying they were knowing that there was no confidentiality agreement, honestly. But they're shaped. It feels like they're shameless and there's too much hubris, you know, because I don't think they're managing this lawsuit very well. Anyway, let's go to your next slide.

The Church's Attempt to Control the Word Mormon

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:32:48] Okay.

Video Clip 1 [00:32:51] John de Lynn and many others have placed a very heavy emphasis on the idea that the church is simply trying to control the word Mormon and who can use it and who can't. In fact, I have a quote here from John de Lin's video. He's talking about mediation.

Video Clip 1 [00:33:10] He said, 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. My memory is that they asked us to agree that they own all the rights to the word Mormon and to its usages.

Video Clip 1 [00:33:37] Is that accurate?

Video Clip 1 [00:33:38] It's not accurate. So let me give you some examples. There's a somewhat popular TV program called Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. You've probably heard of it. I've not seen an episode.

Video Clip 1 [00:33:52] Yes, I'm vaguely familiar with it.

Video Clip 1 [00:33:55] All right, think about that for a minute. Church has not Written a letter to Hulu saying you're infringing our trademarks.

Video Clip 1 [00:34:04] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:34:07] okay, Meggan, that.

Meggan Hayes [00:34:10] That one made me upset because there a question is asked and David Jordan doesn't actually answer it.

John Dehlin [00:34:20] So how so?

Meggan Hayes [00:34:21] So if. Go to the next slide. So your quote basically said during mediation, the church asked you to agree to never initiate another Internet project using Mormon. And as you remember, the church claimed rights to the word Mormon and its usages. And David Jordan says it's not accurate, but then he just starts talking about Mormon wives. It's like he doesn't want to discuss what was that? He. He could have said, no, we didn't do that. No, that's not what we requested. And instead he just says it's not accurate. And then he pushes the focus to Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which is not really what he was being asked. So it just. Just the. The smoothness of the language and the way he didn't really answer the question, but made it seem like it's just crazy that people bring it up in the first place.

John Dehlin [00:35:20] Yeah. Okay. Well, what's crazy is that we have the bullet points that David Jordan shared pre mediation, and then we have the mediation agreement that came out of the two days of mediation, and so we have the receipts. I haven't shared it yet, but we have it. And, you know, I don't know when and where or if, when or where we will share all that, but I think the truth is way more closer to what I said than what he said.

John Dehlin [00:35:53] My memory is that absolutely they wanted us, if it was going to settle under mediation, that I would. As I recall, I had part of it was, John will never, ever seek a trademark for Mormon stories or any of the other channels that he has. That's my memory. I'm not a lawyer, so I may have my memory wrong, but that's how I interpreted it, that we can never pursue a trademark, that we can never challenge any of their trademarks. Right.

John Dehlin [00:36:25] And that my memory is that they wanted me to agree to never, ever have another project again on the Internet that used the term Mormon. Now, I don't know how they cut my comments and what I actually said. Of course, there are some usages of the term Mormon that they may choose not to pursue. Right, right.

Meggan Hayes [00:36:48] But that. That has nothing to do with what they asked of you. They could ask it of you and not ask it of secret lies of Mormon wives.

John Dehlin [00:36:54] Exactly, exactly.

Meggan Hayes [00:36:56] And. And I don't know, they're just trying to move the focus. They're not saying, no, we didn't ask that of John. What they're saying is, no, we didn't ask it of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. But I don't care whether they ask Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I care whether they asked you to do it.

John Dehlin [00:37:10] Yeah. And are you going to talk about the Mormonized waiter? Because I want to address that point they made. But if you're going to talk about that later, I want to address that now.

Meggan Hayes [00:37:17] You can address it now. Because the other one we're going to talk about is Bad Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:37:20] Yeah, it was such, it felt like such a disingenuous argument to say, you know, see, we don't go after secret lies of Mormon Wives. So we don't try. And that's proof that we don't try and control usage of the word Mormon because we don't go after them. What's wrong with that logic? And you're. I don't want to. People are telling me, stop putting Meggan on the spot and asking her pop quizzes. It's condescending and looks like a power play. I'm not trying to do that. Do you want to share a reaction to that question about what's wrong with that comparison?

Meggan Hayes [00:37:54] Well, like I said, like, okay, first of all, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is a national, if not international show. I mean, I don't know how far it goes outside of the US with hundreds of millions of dollars in lawyers and power and, you know, also a backing by TV stations that the church might have stocks in. I don't know. So them not pushing against Secret Lives of Mormon whatever. And, and not. And them suing you. Those are two totally separate things. Like, okay, so you, you didn't fight someone who might be an equal opponent. Good for you. You'll only go after the little guy.

John Dehlin [00:38:45] Exactly. Yeah. Like, like that was the whole point of the Electronic Frontier foundation, you know, that's why, by the way, did David Jordan ever mention the ACLU or the, the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

Meggan Hayes [00:39:01] I don't know that he mentioned them specifically. I think they did say that there were groups that had joined, but I've listened to so much in the past two days, I don't remember.

John Dehlin [00:39:08] I don't remember either, but I don't remember that being substantially discussed. But those groups are highly reputable. The ACLU and the EFF are highly reputable. They don't just, we didn't, we don't pay them. We don't request, as I, as I understand it, we don't request that they be a part of, you know, that's Just something they decide based on their interests and their beliefs and their values and convictions about the law. And if they join, you're just lucky they join.

John Dehlin [00:39:39] And I don't know what conversations did or didn't happen between us and them, but. But what I'll say is the EFF's main point is, and was that too often wealthy, powerful institutions use trademark law as a way to silence and bully people, and they do it to the little guy. That was the whole point. So, like you said, the fact that the church doesn't take on who owns Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, ultimately it's Hulu.

Meggan Hayes [00:40:11] And who owns Hulu?

John Dehlin [00:40:12] It's Disney. So the fact that the church would selectively choose not to sue the Hulu and Disney is not, in my opinion, an example of their magnanimity of a willingness to be open and flexible and supportive of people wanting to use the term Mormon. It's a business calculation based on how much it'll cost them, whether or not they're likely to win, whether or not they're likely to back down, whether or not it'll backfire from a PR perspective or. But what it seemed like David Jordan was trying to communicate there is that it's a sign of magnanimity and maturity and openness. And I just don't think that's true.

Meggan Hayes [00:40:59] No, I don't think so either. I think it was very calculated move. They don't want to be the person who goes up against Disney.

John Dehlin [00:41:06] Yeah. Because it could backfire spectacularly, even worse than it's backfiring. Imagine if they sue, if they're getting this backlash off of suing an two employee nonprofit. Imagine what the backlash would be if they tried to take on Disney and Hulu and the secret lies of Mormon Wives.

Meggan Hayes [00:41:25] So

John Dehlin [00:41:27] that felt really disingenuous, honestly.

Meggan Hayes [00:41:31] Yeah, I'm laughing because the more we talk about it, the more absurd it sounds.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] No, this is. I swear, as brilliant as your analysis is, it would take days to cover all the insanity and dishonesty and inconsistencies I think, in this lawsuit. So, anyway, I'm so grateful to hear your perspective, Meggan. It's amazing. So let's go to the next slide.

Meggan Hayes [00:41:55] Okay.

Guest [00:41:57] At one point in the mediation, we suggested maybe a dozen different ways to add words to the title Mormon Stories that might mitigate the risk of confusion. We said, why don't you call it Former Mormon Stories? That will certainly mitigate the risk of confusion.

John Dehlin [00:42:21] All right, do you have a slide or do you want to talk to that?

Meggan Hayes [00:42:24] Oh, I have a slide. You can go to the slide because there were a couple things that stood out to me and I'm going to give credit to this. The first one that's at the very top from Donnie when we were listening to this. So. So when you started Mormon Stories, John, were you a Mormon?

John Dehlin [00:42:40] Yes, for 10 years. For 10 years I was an active attending, semi believing member, not necessarily in the Church of Truth Claims, but just trying to believe in God, trying to believe in some form of Jesus, trying to believe in some sort of divinity of the Church and frankly, trying to help the church get ahead of the Internet crisis that I knew was coming. Go ahead.

Meggan Hayes [00:43:06] Right, well, and, and why, why did you stop being a, you know, active?

John Dehlin [00:43:12] Because they excommunicated me.

Meggan Hayes [00:43:14] Right. So that wasn't even your choice. And, and if you'd started Mormon Stories and called it Former Mormon Stories, that would have been the most ridiculous thing ever. Because you were a member.

John Dehlin [00:43:21] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:43:22] And that was something that Donnie brought up. I was like, hey, that's a good point. So. Yeah. Then the rest of the slide is, is an analysis that you actually ran. So Mormon Stories interviewees, 63.8% roughly, are minimum. Right. Are inaccurate.

John Dehlin [00:43:38] This, this is sort of like a. Yeah, like a Claude analysis. And just to be clear, we're stripping down all of Mormon Stories episodes. Not, not, you know, LDS discussions, not history stuff, not new stuff of the long form interviews that we see as the meat and potatoes and Mormonism. How. What percentage of the interviewees of our long form interviews can we detect as still members and. Or actively attending semi believing or pimos, basically. Go ahead. I'm just making clear.

Meggan Hayes [00:44:12] Yeah, no, that was good. So 63.8% inactive or ex Mormon, 18.5% actively attending at interview time, and 17.8% are unclear. So calling it.

John Dehlin [00:44:25] That's a rough estimate. That's a rough estimate.

Meggan Hayes [00:44:27] Yeah, just a very rough estimate. So it would not make any sense to call it former Mormon Stories. It just does.

John Dehlin [00:44:36] It's one in five today. Today it's still one in five. Yeah, yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:44:41] Yes. So it would not be accurate. It would not describe what it is that you were doing. It would not describe the people who come on your show. They wouldn't describe themselves that way. It doesn't make any sense for you to put X or former or anti or any of those qualifiers that they possibly wanted you to put.

John Dehlin [00:45:01] Yeah. And that's when I realized in mediation they, they weren't operating in good faith because think about it, asking an organization to change the name of their product like, call it not Pepsi, Coke, call it not Mormon stories. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They're acting like it's a small thing to just change the name. And by the way, I thought, didn't they also say that it was never about the use of the word Mormon? But if that's true, why did they get me to. Why did they spend half of two full days of mediation, by my estimate, trying to get us to change the name? Like, can anyone see that? That's speaking out of both sides of their mouth?

Meggan Hayes [00:45:42] Yes. Yeah. And. And the more I think about it, the more this looks like the church under Russell Nelson abandoned the word Mormon. And then they realized that the Internet didn't, and that when people then searched it, they were no longer finding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They started finding Mormon stories because you never abandoned the word Mormon. And they were like, oh, no, the SEO is not good anymore. The Internet is favoring the word Mormon. And we've taken it out of 90% of our online communications or whatever it is. It's starting to look that way to me the more I look at it.

John Dehlin [00:46:29] In my opinion, this is all about members watching Mormon stories and them wanting, not thinking that it's run by the church. Nobody is going to look at me and my beard or me Dr. John de Lynn, or hear Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:46:48] Nobody's going to think it's run by the church. No active, faithful member, or if any, very, very few. And if very, very few, it's going to take them two minutes to look at the title or the thumbnail or hear how we talk about it to know it's not faithful, let alone run by the church.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] So what the church doesn't want is it doesn't want its. Its members listening to Mormon stories, in my opinion. And so it wants to poison our brand, poison our name, poison the well so that members won't be curious and listen. And I just think I, you know, it's not that I'm trying to deceive people, but. But I'm also, I like. Would the church begin any of its podcasts by saying it's not Mormon stories? Would the church put not Mormon stories, the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Saints, on their name? It's true. Like David Jordan goes on to say, it's true. Why doesn't he just say it?

John Dehlin [00:48:00] It's not true. And you don't. Nobody spoils their, Their, their name or their brand to, to showcase somebody else. Nobody does that. So it's an unreasonable request. But also the point you're making here is it would be misleading and inaccurate to call it former Mormon stories, ex Mormon stories. And the only other thing I just want to say is you can find me saying in 2005, 2006, that I think of the term Mormon as a cultural term that's a broadly encompassing cultural term. And you'll even find me saying early on, if I ever get excommunicated, if I'm ever not a Mormon again, I'm still going to call myself Mormon. So that's not deception if I'm saying the quiet parts repeatedly and out loud from the very beginning anyway.

Listener and Community Reactions to the Lawsuit

Meggan Hayes [00:48:51] Yes, no. And that as someone who was an active, faithful, believing member for 37 years, I raised all six of my children in the church until we left in 2018. I have had my children come to me trying to do school projects where they have to talk about their culture. And they're like, mom, what is our culture? And I'm like, our culture is Mormon. That's the only thing I can think of because that's all we did for so long. It's not just you, John. There are many of us who no longer attend church and our culture is Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] Yeah. And I agree. I agree that Mormons, that there are some Mormons confused about how to use or not use the term Mormon. But I don't think that's my fault. I think that's the church's fault. If the church had embraced the term Mormon and consistently embraced it and not abandoned it and not denounced it, we would be in a very different position right now.

John Dehlin [00:49:58] I don't think that would weaken our claim to it, but, you know, there wouldn't be so much confusion on the parts of the members. But this is a natural evolution of a maturing church. Jews had to go through this. And there were times when Jewish and still this exists, where Jewish people would have battles about who's a Jew and who's not a Jew. But nowadays, there's this joke in Judaism that I've heard. What do you call an atheist Jew that eats bacon and doesn't go to temple?

John Dehlin [00:50:33] The answer is a Jewish, and there's no yes, you'll find. Or ultra Orthodox Jews that try and tell a descendant of the Holocaust who's secular that they're not Jewish. But no reasonable person is going to tell a secular Jew who's atheist that doesn't go to temple and eats pork. No one's going to tell them they're not a Jew because Jewish culture has advanced to where that's part of the general understanding that Judaism is both a religion and a culture, and Mormonism is the same. Mormonism is lots of churches and a big, broad culture that encompasses a lot of things. And it's no one's fault. It's just that it's growing pains, honestly, on the part of the membership and, frankly, of the church.

Meggan Hayes [00:51:25] Yes. And you got caught up in that.

John Dehlin [00:51:28] Yeah, but never have I intended to deceive or confuse members or anyone. That my podcast was run and owned and operated by the church. And I don't think you'll ever. Anyone will ever find any evidence of that, ever.

Meggan Hayes [00:51:46] No. And they're going to say something that there is evidence, but they're not going to show us any either.

John Dehlin [00:51:50] Yeah. All right, let's go to the next slide.

Meggan Hayes [00:51:53] Mm.

Guest [00:51:54] Then we shifted gears in the negotiation and said, well, perhaps the confusion can be mitigated by an appropriate disclaimer. The proposal we ultimately made was, all right, just put it at the beginning. At the beginning of each podcast. It'll take you five seconds to say it in a podcast that's two hours long and it's truthful in every way. And put a written disclaimer on your website or wherever you have a written version of your podcast. And ultimately, the mediation failed over the whole issue of disclaimers.

John Dehlin [00:52:36] All right, Meggan, what's your response there?

Meggan Hayes [00:52:39] There are so many reasons this bothered me, but the number one. One that I've been saying since the beginning of today is that in the original letter, you seemed to have complied with their demands and been more than willing to comply with their demands. And he is sitting here making it sound like you pushed mediation because you wouldn't comply. And then once you got into mediation, you had these unreasonable demands, of which you likely had very few demands when you came in. Just the, you know, not keeping it private and leave us alone.

Meggan Hayes [00:53:14] And that you were just so unreasonable that you wouldn't do what they wanted you to do. Like, it just. This is the part where I started to get so incensed because I'm like, does he not remember the original letter they sent out? Has he not read it? Does he not understand that John went through all of these things and was being very amicable during this?

Meggan Hayes [00:53:35] And then he says the mediation failed over whether or not you would put a disclaimer at the beginning of your thing? He's trying to simplify it down to this one thing. Like, John's so unreasonable because he won't just say he's not affiliated with us. And I don't want you to say that I think like we've talked about, it'd be ridiculous. However, there was a lot of other stuff that happened outside of that, and that's really what was bothering me. Like if when they send out the original letter, they had actually meant it, I think it would have stopped after that original email because you of your own accord, changed the logo, started going through, you know, did the copyrighted image. You weren't trying to pick a fight?

John Dehlin [00:54:19] Yeah, no, I was not. I was trying to avoid, I was literally trying to avoid expensive litigation and be reasonable. But yeah, let's cover your slide and then I want to respond.

Meggan Hayes [00:54:33] Okay. So the mediation failed over this. Like, that's my big question. Mormon stories had changed the logo, removed the Christus, changed the color and branding, added a written non affiliation disclaimer, and

John Dehlin [00:54:45] then the remaining dispute, don't forget, don't forget, changed over a hundred, if not over 200 thumbnails, removing copyrighted material, every single thumbnail for the, over the past three years that we could find that used copywritten materials I instructed to be changed. So that's, that's a lot of time and money we spent changing over 100, if not over 200 thumbnails to apply with copyright. I'm just, I'm not trying to nitpick you, but that, that was a big part of it.

Meggan Hayes [00:55:20] So anyway, yeah, well, that's. I know. I'm glad you can add it all in because like I said, there is so much information. Yeah, Please, please fill in the blanks because I don't want that to be missed. You, you and your other staff worked very hard.

John Dehlin [00:55:35] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:55:35] To try and do what the Church wanted you to do. And they're trying to boil it down to the remaining dispute, the disclaimer where and how often the church says its final proposer will proposal was one verbal disclaimer at the beginning of each episode, plus a prominent written disclaimer on the website. According to the Church's attorney, the mediation ultimately failed over this one issue. I just think it's, it's their trying to boil it down to one thing and, and make it look like you're just being totally unreasonable. And I don't, Yeah, I don't, I don't like that. I don't like that. That actually just got me fired up.

John Dehlin [00:56:10] Yeah. And it's super. I, I think it's super deceptive and, and untrue and unfair in the sense that, you know, I, I'll just say it, that for me, the biggest problem was this Felt like the church holding its money and power is a gun to my head and saying, ha, ha, you're small. You have to do what we say or we're going to make your life really miserable. And this is where I think the church made a miscalculation because I do operate on principle.

John Dehlin [00:56:48] And there was no way I had a confidence I was going to survive this or even win. In my mind, it was absolutely and still is a possibility. I could be totally bankrupt and have to shut down Mormon stories or change the name or engage in expensive lawsuit lose, and then have to either shut down the podcast or change my name. That's all was in my calculation and still is. But what they don't understand is I, there is a part of me that operates on principle and a pretty big part of me. And structurally, their mistake, if they wanted all the, you know, if they wanted more accommodations, was not just asking nicely from, from, from the beginning.

John Dehlin [00:57:33] Now they did ask nicely from the beginning, but then I engaged them in good faith and then they, they ghosted me and said, let's mediate. And, and I'm like, what? Why? I'm changing everything. Like, why? And so, and then it was, do, do a huge list of completely outrageous, unreasonable things. And all of them, or here's a lawsuit. And literally the mediator, they, they printed out, I think, a 40 page lawsuit that they gave to the mediator to say, John, if you don't, if you don't acquiesce to their demands today, they're going to file this probably tomorrow. You know what I mean? And that's, and I'm just like, I'm not going to cave to coercion like that.

John Dehlin [00:58:18] I just won't. And so that was the problem. And so even with this disclaimer, I literally, I'm sitting there, I open up YouTube studio. I'm like, what disclaimer do they want? And I read it and I'm like, that's reasonable. Now, could I have held that decision until we make some sort of bargain? Yes, I could have. Like, I'll just wait and then I'll have my acquiesce, you know, my moments of acquiescion. You know, they'll drop some of theirs. And then at the end I'm just like, all right, I'll do it. So I literally open up YouTube studio. I paste in the disclaimer, I open up, you know, I go into the blog and I paste in the disclaimer, I go into, you know, wherever else, Instagram or Facebook, wherever I can I'm just pasting in the disclaimer, like, okay, that's reasonable.

John Dehlin [00:59:06] I'll do it. You know what I mean? I did. I was really. It was disappointing that David Jordan and it's not his job to do this, but did I get any credit for that? No, I got the opposite. Because once they filed the lawsuit, do you know what they said? Do you remember what they said about the disclaimer?

Meggan Hayes [00:59:25] Tell me. I don't remember exactly.

John Dehlin [00:59:28] The press release that the church puts out and Jasmine Rapely and all the other people mimicked it in my memory was he wouldn't even adopt a disclaimer.

Meggan Hayes [00:59:39] Well, that's the horn they're still tooting

John Dehlin [00:59:42] is like, I adopted the disclaimer. I just wouldn't do the verbal one at the beginning of the podcast by force. And so anyway, keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Meggan Hayes [00:59:54] Well, no, and. And that's. They talk about. They're trying to make the disclaimer at the beginning sound like them just bending over backwards to help you because that their original request was that you say it every 10 or 15 minutes. So they come in, they make a request that you do it every 10 or 15 minutes, and you say, that's unreasonable. And then they say, we are such good people. We'll just make you say it one time. No, you're the one who started this in the first place. And it didn't even start with your original letter. When you sent your original letter, you didn't say anything about a disclosure that wasn't the original complaint. And now you're bringing it up as if it's the only thing you've ever wanted. And you're so nice to want it.

John Dehlin [01:00:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what it was, what I felt like, what I felt like was, number one, they were comparably abusive in the changes they were wanting. And I could go into it. There's more. I felt like they were outrageously unreasonable and bordering on coercive and abusive with their threats and. And with the changes they were asking us to make.

John Dehlin [01:01:04] And then even after I, you know, gave them my final terms at the end of mediation, I'm like, all right, the. This is the final terms we would accept. I would accept no negotiation beyond that. Then they sent us a mediation agreement afterwards. Fortunately, that had all the outrageous demands included. And I don't even know that I have the original version. I don't know. But I just said that I can't, even if it were true, that they would end if we adopted an audible disclaimer at the beginning. I don't believe it's going to end there.

John Dehlin [01:01:44] I don't believe that that's. They're going to stop at that. And I just, I lost all belief that they were operating in good faith and that I could trust them. And so it, and so, yeah, it failed because of how they handled premediation. It failed because they, how they handled mediation. And it felt because at the end of the day, I had zero trust that they had good intentions and were operating in good faith. That's why mediation failed.

John Dehlin [01:02:14] But also they have no standing to ask for us to include an audible disclaimer because we've been doing this for 20 years. So why should we make that change if they have no grounds to ask for it? And it's not because we're wanting to deceive people.

John Dehlin [01:02:37] If they promise to start all general conferences with this is not Mormon Stories podcast, I would be willing to start all podcasts with this is not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But just think about how outrageous that is.

John Dehlin [01:02:52] They would never agree to that. Why should we? Coca Cola doesn't start their commercials with we're not Pepsi. Chick Fil A doesn't start their commercials by we're not kfc. Why should we have to start our podcast with we're not the church unless we have to. And there's no reason why we should because we've been doing this for 20, 20 years.

Meggan Hayes [01:03:12] Yeah, and. And they're acting like they're being just so wonderful and reasonable, but they don't want it to be balanced. Yeah, they don't want it to be balanced. They want you to do what they say.

John Dehlin [01:03:24] It was coercive and in my opinion, legally abusive. And that's why it failed. Not because we wanted to keep deceiving people. And that's hard about the apologists. The church is the world class leader in deceiving people for 200 years. And then apologists are their tools of deception.

John Dehlin [01:03:47] So it's just really bizarre land to have them accuse me of being deceitful. That's like the hardest, probably the hardest part of all this, Meggan. And I'm just. You're being my therapist in a way. That's the hardest part, is that they are the masters of deception with 200 years of deception in terms that really, really hurt people. I started this podcast in response to their deception, to feeling deceived, but also with love for the church and the Mormon people and trying to help there be less deception and ironically help the church be less deceptive and help there be more honest and open dialogue.

John Dehlin [01:04:29] And so what they now want to do is, is, is. Is accuse me of intention, intentional deception. And it's. That's really hard to swallow, honestly.

Meggan Hayes [01:04:40] Yes. Being. Being misunderstood. Being totally and utterly misunderstood in a very public way. That's, That's. Yeah, it's excruciating. It's excruciating to watch them sit back in this way and be so congenial. And it's just fine. And, and we're, we're doing our best. And meanwhile, all of this context, all of this is going on and you. I, I can say this like, John, you've saved people's lives. You've saved people's lives. And for them to want to tear that down is irresponsible.

John Dehlin [01:05:25] Thank you.

Meggan Hayes [01:05:26] Yeah, it's just irresponsible.

John Dehlin [01:05:28] Yeah. And you know, for me, goal one for them is to smear my reputation and to use their money and power and their apologies to just smear and denigrate me. Because I think what they, what they're realizing is if they don't attack me, then members end up listening to me. So, so if they could. So I think they had to make the calculation we'll keep, and I don't know if it's a correct one, but by starting this campaign under the guise of a lawsuit with the actual intent of smearing and damaging John's reputation with the membership to make it less likely that they'll watch or listen to Mormon stories, will.

John Dehlin [01:06:18] Will lose less members in the long run and potentially damage his reputation so much that he'll be less effective. Maybe. Or maybe that won't work. The Streisand effect is telling me that they're just giving me free marketing and making it more likely that members are going to end up listening to Mormon stories, because that's just kind of how the world works. But who knows? Maybe. Maybe in the end, less Mormons will end up listening to Mormon stories. And I don't care because I just want the people that want it needed to listen. But that's their calculation.

John Dehlin [01:06:52] But in my opinion, goal one is to smear and damage my reputation, silence and bankrupt us and me. That's my opinion. And the second is to make it so members will be less likely to ever. To ever listen. And just think about it. Like, I'm sorry, thank you for letting me talk a little bit about this. Like, when they decided on my birthday, August 20th, that they wanted to do their first real press release audibly, their press release guy goes out on temple square grounds and does like a one minute throwaway garbage press release that said almost nothing.

John Dehlin [01:07:30] Every single media outlet was drooling to cover it and was before I even knew that there was going to be a press release and that they were going to file that day. I had six media outlets asking me for a comment. I'm like, I haven't even seen what they're filing. But they all knew and they all wanted to comment because they drool over anything the church wants to say, even if they say nothing and even if it's lies. And that's part of the imbalance here is that so many media outlets don't care and don't really want the full story.

Power Dynamics and Legal Pressure on Mormon Stories

John Dehlin [01:08:06] And if I'm willing to make myself endlessly available to go in depth, they don't care. But if the church, because it's wealthy and powerful, wants to make a throwaway, deceptive, one minute stupid video comment with a press release, they're falling over themselves and drooling to cover it on every nightly news channel. And it's bizarre land. But it just reflects the imbalance of money and power. Even though I have a decent sized audience that I'm grateful for it. The balance of media and money and power alone is ridiculous.

Meggan Hayes [01:08:45] Yes, yes. Well, and it's interesting that the church by doing this is admitting a little bit that despite all of the money that they have and all of the influence that they have, the truth that happens on Mormon stories is still bothering them. Like they can't, they can't out truth you. So they're trying to out money you out litigate me.

John Dehlin [01:09:15] Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thanks for your patience. Really quickly, a couple super chats have come in. Kyler Pope writes, we love you, John. Thank you for the super chat. Paula Clifton writes, contribution to the legal fund or Tylenol for the headache from the profit seer and litigator. Paula Clifton. Thank you for the super chat.

John Dehlin [01:09:38] And then Ry the guy writes, so in other words, you'll never make them happy and they'll just keep moving the goal posts. Thank you for the super chat, Ry the guy. And then I was there. 13 writes, the only audience that can't see through the LDS Church or David Jordan or apologists are members. A shrinking audience.

John Dehlin [01:10:02] Normal people really don't have a hard time seeing what's going on. And the church is increasingly seen as disingenuous, poorly run corporation. So that's. I was there. Thirteen's feedback. Thank you for that. I thought I saw one more super chat possibly from oh, from Jared Jones. Jared Jones also gave a $100 super chat donation. Thank you, Jared, as well for that.

John Dehlin [01:10:37] Yeah. And, and, and also, like so many believing Mormons allege that I'm doing this for that I'm loving it, that I'm loving the attention of this and that I'm turning the lawsuit into a grift to make more money. I'm not going to profit from this lawsuit. This lawsuit will be a net in my prediction is it'll be a net revenue slash sustainability loss. But it's on principle that I'm fighting it. So anyway, thanks for being patient, Meggan.

Meggan Hayes [01:11:10] Absolutely. Now, this is important. It's important because this, this lawsuit is not just about the words on the paper. These are real people's lives. It's your life, it's your family, it's your loved ones, and it's the people who have come to your podcast and decided to keep living their lives. It's not just John de Lynn. So it's really important. It's really important that we talk about the words on the paper and the effect that it's having on the greater community.

John Dehlin [01:11:41] Yeah, yeah. And we've thought about, like, sometimes we've thought, oh, maybe we do want to settle, maybe this is too much. But then we think about, what about Radio Free Mormon? What about Mormon ish? What about Mormonism life? Like, wasn't it interesting that he. We're going to talk about this, that he mentions, like Mormonish David Jordan mentions Mormon ish or secret lies of Mormon wives or bad Mormon saying, see, we don't go after everyone, but they do. They went after Bill Real, they went after Radio Free Mormon, they did go after Bad Mormon, which we're going to talk about. And they will go after others. And part of our reasoning for fighting this is and always was this isn't just about us. This has very important implications for the ecosystem, for the community. And if we allow them to bully us, I think it sets precedent for others as well. So.

Meggan Hayes [01:12:37] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:12:38] All right, let's go to the next clip.

Guest [01:12:41] It's important for you to know this as well. We recently filed our answer to Mr. Delin's counterclaim. And in the introduction to the counterclaim response, the answer to the counterclaim, we made it clear what our proposal was that was on the table when the mediation ended and we renewed the offer. Now, I think that's critical. We said this was not only the offer, then it's still open, it's still available. If you would like to accept it now and include the Verbal disclaimer and make a written disclaimer that people can actually find and see on your website or other pages where you advertise your podcast will dismiss the case.

John Dehlin [01:13:31] What are your thoughts on that?

Meggan Hayes [01:13:33] Okay, go. Go to the next slide. Because as I went back and I was reading that, that they actually filed their counterclaim. I think it's called the. In the very first paragraph, it says from the beginning. That's the quote that stuck out to me. It says, the church has tried from the beginning to persuade defendants to clarify on their website and podcast that they are not affiliated with or sponsored or endorsed by the church. But the original letter did not ask for a disclaimer. The original letter wanted you to change and remove branding. The later proposal during mediation was to add written and verbal disclaimers like, this has changed.

Meggan Hayes [01:14:10] It's part of the sign to me that from the beginning, from the actual beginning, the church always wanted this to go to mediation. They always wanted it to come to where it is, and they wanted it to be much bigger than one letter that they sent that you complied with. That is what stuck out to me.

John Dehlin [01:14:26] Yeah, that's definitely not true. The other thing I. I just want to emphasize. I'll share. I'll share our YouTube. They wanted us. See. See the banner at the top? What they wanted us to have see. See where it says new videos every week.

Meggan Hayes [01:14:48] Mm.

John Dehlin [01:14:49] What they wanted us to do was to use large bull. This is my memory. This is my interpretation of what they wanted. We spent time in mediation with them proposing that in that blue space on the banner below, new videos every week that we put the disclaimer there. That on our core branding and same with our Facebook banner looks very, very similar. And my memory is. And I'll just. Just to be obnoxious, I'll put that up as well. So here's our Facebook banner, right? We spend time in mediation where they're saying in that lower right hand corner of your Facebook banner, we want a broadly visible, colorful, bold disclaimer on the banner itself.

Meggan Hayes [01:15:49] Can they find any other business, like you said, any other business that in their core branding? The very first thing, when you go to any of their pages that had. Would have something like that.

John Dehlin [01:16:01] But he's not admitting that, right?

Meggan Hayes [01:16:04] No, no.

John Dehlin [01:16:05] And what they're going to say is, oh, you know, you have to. In negotiation, you have to start out with extreme requests and then you settle on something. But what's not fair about that is they start out with, we're going to sue you into oblivion with the two to $3 million lawsuit or. And here it is. And let me wave it in your face or make a bunch of super unreasonable demands. And, and so I, you know, I don't know. I don't know what else to say about that. But, but that they. And by the way, like, even the text, even, even just the text disclaimers, are you aware of people putting text disclaimers at the beginning of a description of their website or of. Of their product?

Meggan Hayes [01:16:57] No, because like you said, it would be absurd at the beginning. Right, right. It would be absurd. It would be absurd. I, I now want to go and just look at other non profits that are similar and, and see if they have disclaimers about what they're not affiliated with.

John Dehlin [01:17:17] Does. Does Mormon Land Podcast start out their podcasts with a disclaimer that they're not affiliated with the church? Maybe they do. I don't think they do.

Meggan Hayes [01:17:28] I'm going to have to go check, but I don't think so.

John Dehlin [01:17:29] Does the Mormon Land Podcast have a banner with the disclaimer on the banner? Do they even put a disclaimer in their description at the end? How is Mormonland Podcast different from Mormon Stories? It Isn't that a perfect example of their intentions? That they're not asking of Mormonland what they're demanding of us under threat of a lawsuit?

Meggan Hayes [01:17:57] That would be a much more accurate comparison than Secret Lives of Mormon Wives for sure. I'm going to have to go look at that and make myself a little note.

John Dehlin [01:18:05] Yeah, and interestingly, that comes up later, in my opinion. Another example of deception on their part. Right? Yeah, they invoke that example. So anyway. All right, let's go to the next clip. Let's, let's see. I think I took off the.

Meggan Hayes [01:18:33] You pulled up Facebook me.

John Dehlin [01:18:38] That's.

Meggan Hayes [01:18:38] All right.

John Dehlin [01:18:40] Wait, is this okay? Is this it? Okay, here we go.

Evidence of Brand Confusion and Church Claims

Guest 2 [01:18:44] What evidence of actual brand confusion has your team been able to uncover?

Guest [01:18:53] So certainly we've had comments from multiple people over the years leading up to this litigation where they've reported to us. I thought this was in some way affiliated with the church, somehow sponsored by the church.

John Dehlin [01:19:15] Interesting. What's your. Why was that interesting to you? I know why it's interesting.

Meggan Hayes [01:19:21] I was laughing at that part because what evidence do you have? So much. We're not going to show you any of it, but we have so much. It's one of those instances where I think the church is like, when we say something, people who believe in us and are already supporting us are just going to trust us.

John Dehlin [01:19:39] And.

Meggan Hayes [01:19:39] And it just drives me crazy because this isn't the only time they do this. Like, they just put something out there. They don't show evidence. It reminds me of when they said all the stuff about Beau Oiler, that he was lying on soft white underbelly. And then they present this evidence, but it's just text on their website, like, how do we know? How do we know? I want. I want documents. I want original documents. I want screenshots of these comments. Like, I want to see this. That's the type of digging that I do when I'm looking for something is I want to go to the original source. And for him to just say that it means nothing to me.

John Dehlin [01:20:18] Yeah, yeah. It's also. This is one of the nuances that people just don't understand. Let's just say every single person in the world came to Mormon Stories thinking it was a faithful podcast. Everyone in the world thought, oh, Mormon Stories is the most faithful podcast in the world because of its branding, and then learned that it wasn't a faithful podcast, and they said it was because of the branding.

John Dehlin [01:20:46] That's not trademark violation, right? It has nothing to do with whether people think it's pro church or anti church, whether it's faithful or not faithful. And this is the sleight of hand that the church and its apologists, I believe, are doing. The only thing that's illegal, that violates trademark is if people think that the podcast is run by, affiliated with, or sponsored by the church. And if you go and read the comments, in my opinion, that they provide as evidence of confusion, there's at least two or three big problems with them. One is that they all come after the church announces its. As far as I know, they all come after the church has announced that it's suing us.

John Dehlin [01:21:36] So after we've already made the changes, right? After the church has signaled to believing members and loyalists that they're suing us, it comes after that. Right? Most of them come from faithful apologetic channels and websites. That's not unbiased.

John Dehlin [01:21:57] How do we know they're not just, like, doing the church's bidding or just following the church's lead? But then the third thing is, almost none of them say, we came to the podcast thinking it was the church's podcast or run by the church, if they mention confusion at all? Do you have an impression for what they say?

Meggan Hayes [01:22:19] They say, we thought it was going to be faith promoting, and then we found out that it wasn't. That's what I've seen every time which

John Dehlin [01:22:27] is not trademark violation. Which is not illegal. The other thing is it. But I did not see any non members. Comments from any non members. And then also he says that they've got some collected for three years. To your point, why didn't they share that evidence? And then how long have they had that? And why did they sit on it? And if they've had that for years, why didn't they challenge our trademark when they first got that information? In our opinion, in my opinion, I should say that may be why they haven't shared that evidence, because it would. Let's just say three years ago they started getting complaints about trademark confusion. Why didn't they reach out to us then? Why did they delay?

Meggan Hayes [01:23:23] Right. Why were they sitting on it? What, what moment were they waiting for?

John Dehlin [01:23:27] And, and there's a very important legal principle that's one of the foundational principles that we're relying on, which is called latches. And latches is this idea that if a corporation or an entity knowingly doesn't enforce a trademark for three, four, five years, let alone 10 or 20, if they knowingly don't enforce a trademark and they let someone build up their brand, build up their reputation, build up their momentum, it's then, it's just not fair to then go back after they built up all that goodwill and reputation to then tell them they need to change, they need to do it within a reasonable time of when they knew.

John Dehlin [01:24:12] So if David Jordan got information two or three years ago, or if the church got that information two or three years ago, why did they sit on it? When did they know? And guess what we're going to ask in discovery, I believe we're going to ask for all that communication and that'll, you know, it'll be interesting to see if the church tries to hide it, they try to destroy it, if they try and lie about it. But that's going to be useful information. I believe, in the lawsuit.

John Dehlin [01:24:42] Yeah, I think, and I think my opinion is that's why they're not. That's why they didn't provide that as evidence. They only provide stuff that came after they had announced they were suing us. Wow.

Meggan Hayes [01:24:56] Yeah. That's so interesting.

John Dehlin [01:24:57] That's, that's just the, the details that it's just too much for people, you know?

Meggan Hayes [01:25:02] Right, right. Because it is, it is a lot, it is a lot like that little nuance between. We thought it was the church versus we thought it was faith promoting. Those are two different things. But it's really hard to, to put a finger on that nuance, you know? And so, yeah, you really have to listen and keep learning. Keep learning about it.

John Dehlin [01:25:22] I'm gonna ask Julia while she. What we're gonna do is we're gonna break this up into two parts.

Meggan Hayes [01:25:28] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:25:29] We'll do my. We'll do Cover my lawsuit and then cover the rest. So I'm gonna ask Julia to make one or two thumbnails really quick that we can use one's about the lawsuit, and then we're gonna stop this right before two hours, and then we're gonna finish and cover the rest of the story later.

Meggan Hayes [01:25:43] Perfect.

John Dehlin [01:25:44] If that's okay. And you'll get paid twice. All right, so.

Meggan Hayes [01:25:50] Okay. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:52] So let's go to the next. Let's go to the next

Guest [01:25:56] story. Or if people just use their common sense and they say, okay, I see this blue circle. It's got these light rays in. Has the word Mormon stories in it. And the words Mormon stories don't suggest anything about non affiliation. If anything, they suggest affiliation to just a common person seeing those words. If you see the words bad Mormon, you're not thinking, oh, I bet that's affiliated with the church. Probably being too specific here.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] Oh, my gosh, I'm so upset. But tell me why you're upset.

Meggan Hayes [01:26:42] He gives it away, that last little. And that's why I left that little last clip in there. He says, I'm probably being too specific here because the church went after Heather Gay. They went after her for using the term bad Mormon because they said it was causing confusion.

John Dehlin [01:26:56] That is so deceptive that he doesn't acknowledge that the church. As I understand it, Heather Gay filed for a trademark, and then the church had it invalidated. So he did go after Heather Gay before she could ever sell merch. They just killed it before she could even start, as I understand it.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:16] So how deceptive is that?

Meggan Hayes [01:27:18] I know. Well, and I. I am just flabbergasted that he brought that up. Like, I feel like this podcast episode on Keystone was planned. I don't think that he was taking these questions out of the blue. That's not something the church tends to do. Why would he bring that up in that way? Why would he bring it up saying bad Mormon doesn't cause confusion? That it. I. When I heard him say that, I was like, I cannot believe he just said that.

John Dehlin [01:27:50] My opinion is he did not do the lawsuit any favors by. By this. Which I. Which again, fits. If they didn't care about the lawsuit to begin with because they've got more money than God. And I don't think this was ever about winning the law. I don't think they wanted to lose the lawsuit, but I don't think this is primarily about the lawsuit, or he wouldn't have appeared and he wouldn't be saying these types of things, or they would have been more careful about what they released. But would you believe that the Heather Gay stuff wasn't what made me mad, even though it's totally deceptive in my opinion.

John Dehlin [01:28:23] And mis. And how can the one hand he's saying the Mormon Stories logo suggests affiliation and then turn around and say it's not about usage of the word Mormon and we're not trying to control the use of the word Mormon. First of all, which is it? Is it that we can't use the word Mormon or that we can. But if it is that the word Mormon suggests affiliation, then stop saying it's not about they're trying to control the use of the word Mormon. It is. But that's not all. Secondly, if they've denounced the use of the word Mormon, called it a victory for Satan, abandoned the trademark, and have told all their members not to use it, how is it suggesting affiliation to keep using it? What would suggest affiliation would be. If I change the podcast to LDS Stories or LDS Church Stories, that would suggest affiliation.

Meggan Hayes [01:29:20] Yeah. And it's not just the members that they wanted to stop using it. They have a whole page on their website that says, if you are a member of the press, here's how you should refer to the church. We do not use the word Mormon anymore. They have a whole outline. It's not just members.

John Dehlin [01:29:35] Using the word Mormon suggests non affiliation. That's what using the term Mormon does. Yes, it suggests not it. It's. It loudly shouts non affiliation to the world and to the membership. And that's, you know, that's why I was fine. I'm like, great. When President Nelson abandoned the trademark and the term and the usage, I'm like, great. I've always thought the term Mormon referred to the culture and the church has been ambivalent about it. Now they're making it clear I'll keep using it because I've always considered Mormon to mean the culture. And now that the church is demonizing it, in my mind, there'll be less confusion. And that was fine with me. If I wanted to create confusion, I would have immediately changed the Mormon Stories name to Latter Day Saint stories.

Meggan Hayes [01:30:26] Yeah. But I didn't, because that doesn't describe the culture in the way that we lived it.

John Dehlin [01:30:32] And it doesn't describe affiliation. And it certainly doesn't. It doesn't denote church ownership, and it certainly doesn't communicate an intention to deceive on my part.

Meggan Hayes [01:30:47] No. Right, right, right. Yeah. If. If your entire intent, like a lot of the apologists are.

John Dehlin [01:30:56] Yeah, go ahead.

Meggan Hayes [01:30:57] Was. Was to deceive.

John Dehlin [01:30:58] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:30:59] What you did would have been counterproductive.

John Dehlin [01:31:03] Yeah, yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:31:04] When, when, when the prophet came out and said, don't use the word Mormon in not so many words, you would have been like, oof, okay, if I want to deceive these people, I got to do what the prophet says.

John Dehlin [01:31:15] Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, which is it? David Jordan, you want to control the word Mormon or you don't. It is about changing the title in the name or it's not, you know, Anyway. Okay, next clip.

Meggan Hayes [01:31:29] This is from Heather Gay. I talk about my experience firsthand, and it's obviously causing a lot of uproar and problems because I am now being sued by the church. Once I set out to trademark all of this stuff for Bad Mormon, and the book's been getting a lot of buzz. You know, New York Times came out, spent the day with me, did a full photo spread. So that was huge. Yeah. And like all the TV shows are featuring me. I'm the number one book right now in religious leaders biographies. But we've been in the top 100 since it got released. I'm sure it's all pre sales.

John Dehlin [01:32:05] So tell us how the Mormon Church, legal disputes, and Bad Mormon are all converging. When Heather decided she wanted to write a book, we filed for. For a trademark. And I was not expecting any. Any opposition, but the church, Mormon Church filed an opposition to block the Bad Mormon trademark, claiming a likelihood of confusion with a Mormon name. Okay, Meggan. Yeah. That's the receipts, right?

Meggan Hayes [01:32:33] Yep. That goes against what David Jordan just said. He said if you hear the term Bad Mormon, there's no, there's not going to be any confusion. Well, the church was arguing the opposite just a few years ago.

John Dehlin [01:32:45] And of course, we're all hoping that Heather Gay will reapply for the trademark and use that as evidence, but I don't. Who knows if she will?

Meggan Hayes [01:32:53] I will be first in line to buy a shirt. I'm not kidding.

John Dehlin [01:32:57] Me too. Me too.

Meggan Hayes [01:32:58] So I'll need one of everything. Heather, please, please put it all out there.

John Dehlin [01:33:01] Absolutely. So this slide.

Meggan Hayes [01:33:04] Yeah, this was just. I went back and looked at the filings when the church opposed bad Mormon in 2023. So the church's trademark filing argued one confusion two, bad doesn't fix it because the church teaches that bad people can repent. And three, false connection capitalizes on the fame of the Mormon marks. And then the quote was, applicants mark was adopted with an intent to cause confusion, tarnishment, and dilution and to FL falsely suggest a connection or affiliation. Likelihood of confusion is not diminished by applicants use of the word bad.

John Dehlin [01:33:36] I want to use the F word. There they are. Really? Seriously? Not only is that totally contradict what David Jordan just said, they're speaking out of both sides of their mouth. But. But she called it bad Mormon intentionally to cause confusion. That bad Mormon was part of the church and sponsored by the church. That's just outrageous.

Meggan Hayes [01:34:00] I know, I know. Like, I. And the contradiction of hearing David Jordan say this and then going back and looking at the actual verbiage, like, you people say this phrase, but you can't make this up.

John Dehlin [01:34:14] They have to be able to afford smarter, better consultants and lawyers. And I'm sure David Jordan's amazing. I'm sure he's just serving his client. I'm not saying he's not amazing, but this is not intelligent propaganda. I mean, maybe it's great propaganda, but it's not. It's not effective lawyering, in my opinion, because he's contradicting himself. And now it can be used as evidence. And all the receipts are there. How is this smart lawyering? And again, I'm not saying he's not a smart lawyer. I'm saying the church is not effectively demonstrating how to manage and win a case effectively. Which again, suggests it was never about the lawsuit to begin with. It was never about legal stuff to begin with. That's what they're. They're. I think that's what they're proving.

Meggan Hayes [01:35:14] I agree.

John Dehlin [01:35:15] I was suspected. And that's why mediation fell through, because they never wanted mediation to work.

Meggan Hayes [01:35:19] Well, that's why mediation happened in the first place, because when they sent the original letter, that was not. They knew.

John Dehlin [01:35:25] Yeah. They just kept moving the goalpost. Moving the goalpost. How much can we get from him, you know, oh, wow, he made more accommodations. Well, let's. Let's see if we can get more, you know, and that's why I didn't believe they would stop. I did not believe they would stop at an audible disclaimer. I just. I did not believe that.

Meggan Hayes [01:35:41] No, no. And now, now they're saying it's. It's all about the disclaimer.

John Dehlin [01:35:45] And I was going to do three and four and five days of mediation. That. That's expensive. You know.

Meggan Hayes [01:35:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:51] Time and money. So. All right, let's do the next clip.

Guest 2 [01:35:56] And I saw his defense in a way of that.

John Dehlin [01:36:01] Why would I put my face, someone who's noted and has been named out by the church publicly in a press release that as the church's number one enemy. 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?

Guest 2 [01:36:27] And it kind of presupposes. Well, you're assuming that people know who you are and people know that you're an excommunicated former member. To people who are not familiar with. With the content, they don't know that that's. They. You just look like a normal guy.

Guest [01:36:41] I can just tell you this. Before I was engaged to help with this case, I couldn't have picked Mr. Delin out of a crowd.

John Dehlin [01:36:50] Okay. Why was that interesting to you?

Meggan Hayes [01:36:54] I just. People who were so involved in the, in the church and the goings on in the church, claiming that they don't know who John Den is to me is wild. If you go to the next slide, there's just like a few, few national headlines that feature said John De Lin. So the, the one in the upper left hand corner is the, the slide that I think was that used at a Training for leaders or a. Yeah,

John Dehlin [01:37:18] it was an internal slide where the church named me as one of their top enemies. And so all the leadership internally, as I understand it, the major leadership were trained ordain women. John de Lind, Emmer snuffer. We were named as enemies of the church internally. Was given all over. Anyway, keep going.

Meggan Hayes [01:37:38] Yeah, you, you have an IMDb page which. And you have what you're known for there. I mean that's, that's pretty public there. You've been in the. The New York Times, Time magazine, the jubilee episode that has. I can't see that because it's too small, but like millions of views.

John Dehlin [01:37:55] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:37:56] I mean you're. You've not been hiding and they can claim that they don't know who you are. And maybe he really didn't, but people know who you are.

John Dehlin [01:38:04] Well, that you know that. Okay, so here's where, believe it or not, I may disagree with you a little bit or agree with him. Like he used lawyerly words. What he said is he couldn't pick me out of a crowd, so he could still have heard about me and known about me, but not really ever watched or listened to or really be able to know My face. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:38:24] I think maybe that's true, maybe it's not. What I have covered on Mormon stories a million times is that the bubble is real and the church is so effective at terrorizing members to not look at anti Mormon materials or even critical materials or even non correlated materials.

John Dehlin [01:38:41] People reach out to me every month in 2026 saying they were a bishop or they were stake president and they had never heard of Mormon stories until they did. So in that sense it's true, but it's not true because I'm deceptive.

John Dehlin [01:38:56] It's true. And it's not true because my name hasn't been out there. It's true because the church is so effective at this is mind control, cult, high demand religion stuff. It's true because the church has been so effective at controlling the sources of information from the members and terrorizing members to be terrified to never ever look at critical material.

Meggan Hayes [01:39:22] Yeah. And I agree with that. And I've seen that. And the most interesting part to me was that he personally said he couldn't pick you out of a lineup. And maybe he really couldn't. It just was a little bit shocking to me that that would be the case considering his affiliation with the church and, you know, your national newsworthy excommunication and those things. I do think there are still run of the mill members who have no idea who you are or what it is that you do.

John Dehlin [01:39:53] Oh, I would say it's the overwhelming majority. I'd say even in the US maybe a fourth of the members, you know, know who I am and 3, 3, 4 don't. But I would say they, maybe they're doubling the number of Mormons that know about me through this lawsuit.

Meggan Hayes [01:40:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:15] Which I don't know if, I don't know if that's smart for them.

Meggan Hayes [01:40:19] Probably not.

John Dehlin [01:40:21] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:40:21] If their goal is to get less people to listen. Because if it's like me, I'd be like, well, I'm gonna listen because now I need to know what that's about.

John Dehlin [01:40:29] I mean, yeah. Like so much so so many people tell me nowadays I hated you. You know, my spouse listened to you or my sister or my friend or I heard about you and I thought you were evil. And then I started listening and realized you're fair and you're balanced and you're just helping people speak the truth and you're trying to help people. I'm so sorry for how I judged you. So like they're putting people on the road. They're intentionally and maybe unknowingly putting people on the road to learn more about Mormon stories than me and to eventually potentially become fans of the show by doing this possibly.

John Dehlin [01:41:08] I don't know that that's for sure. So, anyway. So anyway, we'll see. But yeah, so I. I'll have to take him at his word. I. I met. I met Garrett Gong at a Cafe Rio once, and this. I. It was weird because I think I went there with Tyler Glenn. This is back when Tyler Glenn and I were hanging out. The lead singer for Neon Trees. And if I remember right, it was Tyler Glenn and I, and we went to Cape Rio at downtown Salt Lake, and Garrett Gong was like, in. In the line to buy, like, Cafe Rio, and I went up and shook his hand, and he genuinely acted like he had never heard of me.

John Dehlin [01:41:52] And I. It wasn't like, I'm like, of course he would have heard of me, but I would have thought he would have heard of me. And just because I'd heard of him and, you know, whatever, but he acted like he hadn't. And it's very possible he hadn't. I. I assume that most people have it, that the overwhelming majority of Mormons have it. Anyway. All right, let's do. Let's do the. Let's do the next. Next clip.

Potential Consequences of Losing the Lawsuit

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:42:16] What would the consequences be for the Open Stories foundation for Mormon Stories podcast if they lost this lawsuit? Like, are we looking at the end of Mormon Stories as we know it, if they should lose?

Video Clip 2 [01:42:30] Well, of course, that's up to a judge and a jury ultimately decide to decide if. If we can't resolve it by settlement. But there are a number of options that are open. Juries also have the right under trademark and copyright statutes to award damages.

Video Clip 2 [01:42:49] So the church isn't looking for damages at all.

Video Clip 2 [01:42:52] It's certainly nothing that we've asked for to this point.

John Dehlin [01:42:57] Okay, they haven't asked for damages. What were you going to say?

Meggan Hayes [01:43:02] Oh, well, not. Not to this point. Not to this point, John. They could.

John Dehlin [01:43:06] I. I think they have. My memory is in their filings. They did ask for what are called statutory damages. So I, I think he might be lying there, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna go check to make sure.

Meggan Hayes [01:43:20] Yeah, I just. The. David, the, the interviewer was trying to. I mean, he was asking what. What's the end goal of this? What's. What could happen? What could the ending be? And I think David Jordan was like, you know, we just. The courts, and we don't really know what's going to happen. Like, it just. It's just externalizing the fallout from this, where like the whole time he's trying to present that the church has been magnanimous, that they've just been wonderful and they don't have control over what happens, and they just, you know, they're just hoping for the best. Like, it, it just bothers me. It bothers me because this is what the church does it.

Meggan Hayes [01:44:08] On the outside, it looks so shiny and wonderful and happy and joyful. And then there's this. There's this rot on the inside, this harm that's happening. And if you just put on a shirt, a shirt and tie and they're just a button down shirt, and you show up in a podcast and you speak kindly that that rot doesn't exist. But it does. It does. And the more they try to cover it over, like the, the more aggravating it becomes.

John Dehlin [01:44:35] Yeah, was the, was the next slide you had with Brian Hales the next point, or was it following this?

Meggan Hayes [01:44:44] So the next two slides are my conclusion and.

John Dehlin [01:44:48] Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, let's. Let's go to it and then I want to hear your conclusion.

Meggan Hayes [01:44:53] Yeah, so what in the church. Go back to that one.

Guest 2 [01:44:56] I see it.

John Dehlin [01:44:56] Okay, wait, wait, wait.

Meggan Hayes [01:44:57] Okay, yeah, go. Go back to that one. So what in the church counts as a lie? That's what that previous slide asks. And I've been. Yeah, I've been digging through the fair conference that just happened a month ago or so ago, and Brian Hales said this very interesting thing about in the church. What, what counts as a lie and what doesn't count as a lie. And I, I felt like, kind of summed up my feelings about everything I researched over the past two days.

John Dehlin [01:45:30] Okay. All right, so let's see what, what Hales has to say about what lying is and if the church qualifies or if David Jordan qualified. As I see it, the question did

Meggan Hayes [01:45:41] Joseph Smith lie about polygamy? Has the same answer as did Abraham

John Dehlin [01:45:45] lied to Pharaoh or King Abimelech? These incidents illustrate a principle that God

Meggan Hayes [01:45:51] does not require his followers to disclose their weaknesses to their enemies.

John Dehlin [01:45:58] Okay, do you want to comment or do you want to play the next slide?

Meggan Hayes [01:46:01] No, no, that's, that's the very. Yeah, that's, that's the very last one. And, and what it showed to me is that I was brought up in the church and I was told that lying could be a whole bunch of things. It could be telling an out and outright lie, or it could be telling a half truth, or it could be saying nothing.

Meggan Hayes [01:46:23] And what Brian said in that video, his point was, it's okay for the church to lie. And God wants the church to lie if they're trying to protect themselves from someone they consider an enemy. So regardless of what I was taught and what the members are still taught, the church as a system has a history of lying when they feel like they are up against someone who they consider an enemy. So they. This whole video with David Jordan, if he was lying, if the church has been lying, I think some of them feel like that that's okay because it's what God wants them to do.

Meggan Hayes [01:47:12] And I, that, that to me is one of the most aggravating things, because if I had lied, if I had gone into a bishop's interview and lied and been caught in a lie trying to protect myself, I would not have been given a temple recommend.

Meggan Hayes [01:47:28] And so the standard is different. The system of the church does lie, hides things, can lie, and the members are held to a different standard, and that should be outrageous to them.

John Dehlin [01:47:43] Beautifully said. And I'll just say I started Mormon stories because after 30 plus years of being a member, I read no Man Knows My History and a bunch of other books about the church, realized I had been lied to and deceived, and it felt hurtful. But I still love the church enough to want to try and help it. And so I started Mormon Stories to try and help the church. And anybody who started from the beginning and follows it knows that not only was that I was doing, I was saying that's what I was doing. And by interviewing apologists and believers and Richard Bushman and Terrell Gibbons and.

John Dehlin [01:48:22] And all those, you know, early apologists and believers, I was, I created stale ds.com I created Mormon Matters podcast, the Thoughtful Faith podcast. I was just. And I was actively attending and teaching others quorum. I gave a sunstone talk called why I Stay is, you know, as late as 2012, like, I was doing everything I could to help the church become more honest after feeling like the church had deceived me.

John Dehlin [01:48:54] And what's weird is that the church just can't stop. It seems like the church just can't stop lying. It's like it can't help itself. But more than that, by studying the life of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, what you learn is that they're just following the example of what the leaders did at the very beginning of the church because it's impossible.

John Dehlin [01:49:15] It's impossible to read factual church history. And the church now admits this, that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young lied about polygamy. Joseph Smith had 22 hidden wives, telling the public he wasn't practicing polygamy. And he hid even from his own wife emma, his first 22 or so wives. And that until even up till Joseph's death, he was denying publicly and to the broad church membership that he wasn't practicing polygamy. He was lying. And he was allowing Emma and Hyrum and others to lie on his behalf to tell the world that he wasn't practicing polygamy when he was. There's no way in the church even admits that now.

John Dehlin [01:50:00] And Brigham Young. Brigham Young. I'm just learning this now on the Brigham Young Podcast. I recommend that Everybody check out josephsmithpodcast.com and brigham young podcast.com. did you know this, Meggan, that. That Brigham Young had, like, five plural wives when Joseph Smith died? And that before he leaves, before he ends up leaving for, you know, Utah, before he leaves Nauvoo, like in 46, 47, I don't have the exact year. Right. He acquires like, another 30 wives in, like, three years.

Guest 2 [01:50:37] Whoa.

Meggan Hayes [01:50:37] No.

John Dehlin [01:50:38] So he's got almost 40 wives before he leaves Nauvoo. And do you know that he and the church kept hiding and lying about polygamy until like, 52 or 53 or 54. And they would send missionaries over to England who were polygamists.

John Dehlin [01:51:00] And the church, the members in England would say, aren't you guys polygamists? And polygamous missionaries would lie and print in the paper that they weren't practicing polygamy. So how can the church not be full of lying leaders in 2026 when those lying leaders must know that Joseph and Brigham Young were the original lying leaders?

John Dehlin [01:51:26] And they're saying, well, if Joseph and Brigham are the original leaders and they were called of God, God must be okay with lying. So lying must be okay. And the other example, the most outrageous example of lying leaders is post manifesto polygamy. That after the church told the world in 1890 that it was going to stop practicing polygamy for another 15 to 20 years, prophets, seers, and revelators kept engaging in and participating in plural marriages. And that's why. Why is there a second manifesto? I don't want to ever give you a pop quiz again, but, yes.

Meggan Hayes [01:52:04] Well, I just listened to a whole episode about the Reed Smoother hearings.

John Dehlin [01:52:08] So, yeah, you know, why was there a second manifesto?

Meggan Hayes [01:52:11] Because now they're like, well, so we're. We. We said we weren't practicing it before, but we just. It just went underground, and now we're really not practicing it. And then not only did they do that, but then the people who they'd been encouraging to practice, practice it, some of them got excommunicated. Like they threw people under the bus to prove that they were no longer practicing polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:52:33] Yeah. Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:52:36] Well, and that's. That's Brian Hill's whole point of that entire speech that he gave at the Fair Mormon Conference is that, yes, Joseph Smith lied, but it's okay. Yeah, it's okay to lie.

John Dehlin [01:52:52] Well, I'll just say it's my opinion that it's a lie or deceptive. And, you know, I could be wrong. This is just my opinion. This is my best memory. I'm also going to read what was written by the church in their complaint, because what it says is that in their complaint that David Jordan signed, it asks for, quote, and I'm quoting any and all relief provided by 15 USC and then it provides a bunch of legal codes, and then it writes, covers the defendant's profits, damages up to three times actual costs and attorney fees. Covers copyright damages, including statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work if the infringement is willful of.

John Dehlin [01:53:44] The complaint alleges will for willful infringement covers costs and attorney's fees. So I don't know, maybe he didn't. Maybe he didn't use certain words in his mind around damages, but literally they included the statutory language in their lawsuit, as I understand it, around damages.

Guest [01:54:11] You.

John Dehlin [01:54:11] You tell me, Meggan, is that. Is that deception?

Meggan Hayes [01:54:16] Yeah. Or. I don't want to say. Just like he didn't know. He. He's the lead attorney.

John Dehlin [01:54:22] He signed it.

Meggan Hayes [01:54:23] Yeah. So whether or not he did, he signed it.

John Dehlin [01:54:26] So maybe in his mind that's not asking for damages.

Meggan Hayes [01:54:30] Yeah. Yeah. Maybe there's a legal term we don't

John Dehlin [01:54:32] understand, but listing the example of the damages that. That follow from a lawsuit like this. You do the math. So again, maybe in his mind, that's not deception.

Meggan Hayes [01:54:44] Right. Well, and it said in up to three times. That's a lot of money.

John Dehlin [01:54:47] It seems deceptive to me, you know.

Meggan Hayes [01:54:49] Yes. And.

John Dehlin [01:54:49] And by the way, we. We fully understand that that is a potential. Technically a potential consequence or outcome of. Of this very lawsuit. But because we believe so strongly that we were operating under fair use and that. That that latches and that there's no real trademark infringement. And, and, you know, for all those reasons, we're willing to take the risk, even though we. We think that. That we have never. You know, and he also kind of slightly implies that we made the changes because we knew we were in the wrong. That's not why we made the changes. We told them when we made the changes. None of this admits fault or any admission of guilt. We told them this.

Meggan Hayes [01:55:37] Yeah, that's in the original email.

John Dehlin [01:55:39] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:55:39] Yes.

Closing Thoughts and Wrap-Up

John Dehlin [01:55:40] The only final thing I'll say just to close, because we have to close, and then we're going to start right up again. So we've got 743 people. Please come right back for the amazing work Meggan has done to actually cover the rest of the news today. It's banger stuff. It's really, really good stuff. We'll try and cover it in an hour. We have to cover it in an hour, honestly. But please come back right for it. Literally, Julie scheduled, Julia scheduled it, and we're going to end this episode and come right back to the next episode. But the only other thing I'll say is that even when all the mediation was done, even when we said we don't think this mediation is in good faith, we're going to end it, I still sent an email to Intellectual Reserve and I said, in case you don't know, here's all the changes we've made.

John Dehlin [01:56:30] And by the way, we've changed every copyrighted image that we're aware of for the past three years that are in violation. We've changed every reasonable thing. We've incorporated disclaimers, we've changed our branding to the extent that we think is our best attempts at compromise will make more changes. Just tell us what else we can do. And even then, they didn't. They just said, nope, we're going to file a lawsuit. So final words, Meggan,

Meggan Hayes [01:57:05] I am honored to be part of this work that affects so many people who were raised Mormon, who love Mormonism, who care about the Mormon culture in the way that it brings us together. And I am just gonna. I'm on board. I'm on board because this is about all of us. It's about all of us being able to talk about our experiences, be honest about what happened, and do our very best to make sure that people have support, whether they stay in the church, whether they are halfway in the church, or whether they leave the church because loneliness harms people. And we can come on here and. And help dispel some of that. And I think that's important. And if the church wants to continue a lawsuit to stop us from trying to help people, I think that shows who they are.

John Dehlin [01:58:12] It does. It does. Here's a super chat, Monica. Thank you for that beautiful summary, Meggan. Monica writes. I hope that more and more members can see the truth about the leadership. Monica writes evil wolves in sheep's clothing. Kind regards, John and Meggan from Draper. Thank you, Monica. Thanks to everyone who joined us for this part one of the Mormon News Podcast. I joked with Meggan that we might need to do two Mormon News Podcast episodes going forward instead of one because there's just way too much news, you know?

Meggan Hayes [01:58:50] Yep. Every week.

John Dehlin [01:58:52] Yeah, there's just way too much news really quickly just because we have to end. You can go to mormonstories.org There's a menu item for the lawsuit. You can click on it. You can download all these complaints. You can read them, you can. There's news articles and you can also donate to support what we do. So please support general unquotable. Thank you, Meggan, for your amazing work. Please join and please support Mormon Stories podcast. You can go to MormonStories.org donate to support us. Generally, you go to MormonStories.org legal I think to donate to our legal fund. Be good to each other, be kind to each other.

John Dehlin [01:59:28] And literally in like one minute, we're restarting Mormon News Podcast for part two. Please join us. It's amazing stuff. Meggan does great work and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon News Podcast at mormonnews. Com and Mormon Stories Podcast and generally unquotable. Thanks, Meggan. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.