Faith Over Family: A Dating Dilemma for Mormon Singles

My latest article on Patheos went up yesterday, and as I promised I would, I'm providing a link to the article, which discusses the strange dilemma a lot of single Mormon women face, a dilemma that my move away from Mormonville is making me very aware of. To whet your appetite, here's a snippet:

As a 26-year-old woman, I still consider myself young, but the prospect of facing such limited dating opportunities for four to five years has me approaching the question of my romantic future in an entirely different way.

As I discussed this issue with a friend, she said something surprising. She said, “This may sound blasphemous, but I wonder if you would have better luck finding someone if you dated outside the Church.” She’s not the first person who’s suggested as much, but she is the first fellow Mormon. And that’s not the only surprising part of the idea – the very way my friend framed this suggestion reflects a hesitancy in how we, as a group, view interfaith marriages. Her suggestion was so bold and potentially  offensive that she framed it with the disclaimer of “this may sound blasphemous.”

On a doctrinal level, marrying outside the faith is not a sin, but members sometimes discuss interfaith marriage as if it were.