1000: Benji Schwimmer - Life After Mormonism Pt. 1
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2018
⏱️ 101 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Here it is! Episode 1,000 of Mormon Stories Podcast!! Today we re-interview professional dancer, choreographer, and actor Benji Schwimmer - 13-time undefeated US Open Swing Dance Champion. This episode is jam-packed with good stuff, including:
1) Benji’s professional life since winning Season 2 of So You Think You Can Dance, which includes appearing on Dancing with the Stars, dancing with Paula Abdul and Christina Aguilera, choreographing Olympic figure skaters, and appearing in the upcoming Quentin Tarantino movie entitled “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” starring Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and Al Pacino.
2) Benji’s journey to find love, health, and happiness including very candid discussions about navigating sexuality, “masculinity,” and his struggles with heterosexism/body image issues as a gay ex-Mormon man.
3) A deeply moving story about Benji’s return to the site of his LDS mission in Oaxaca, Mexico.
4) Benji’s sharp criticism of how the Mormon church has handled LGBTQ issues since his previous Mormon Stories interview, as they continue to advocate for celibacy and mixed-orientation marriages for LGBTQ members. He also discusses the hypocrisy, deceit, and damage he has witnessed in the LDS NorthStar community, and with the spokespeople the Mormon church uses on the mormonandgay website.
5) We conclude with Benji’s current philosophy for living a healthy, happy life, including his thoughts/feelings about facing the mortality of his beloved father.
Please join us for a funny, fascinating, and deeply moving interview.
WARNING: Adult language and sexually explicit language - viewer/listener discretion is advised.
https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/benji-schwimmer-life-after/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Music |
| 0:22.0 | Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely upon |
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| 0:36.0 | and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under Support. All contributions |
| 0:41.0 | to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible in the United States and go towards producing |
| 0:46.4 | the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks |
| 0:52.0 | for your support. |
| 1:23.0 | I hope you'll be wasn't that bad. |
| 1:28.0 | I have one please note that this podcast episode contains adult language and some adult sexual |
| 1:34.0 | topics and it may not be suitable for everyone so listener discretion is definitely advised. |
| 1:41.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast and it's not just |
| 1:47.0 | another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. This is the 1000th episode of Mormon Stories podcast. |
| 1:54.0 | Yay! |
| 1:57.0 | We are broadcasting to you live today in Redlands California at the dance studio, home of the |
| 2:06.0 | swimmer family and their dancing legends, not just dance instructor legends, not just |
| 2:12.0 | in California but across the world. And we are here to re-interview Benji swimmer who hopefully |
| 2:23.0 | many of you know who that is. But for those who don't, Benji is the 13-time world-swing dance |
| 2:37.0 | champion. He's a choreographer and he won season two of So You Think You Can Dance. And we |
| 2:44.0 | interviewed him seven years ago on Mormon Stories podcast. Probably the first kind of celebrity |
| 2:49.0 | that I ever interviewed are super excited about getting Benji to do the interview and my family were |
| 2:57.0 | huge fans of So You Think You Can Dance and so we were excited about that. But a lot has happened |
... |
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