Mormon apologists work to meet an evolving need for information

It wasn't fair.

In the mid-1990s, Juliann Reynolds, Scott Gordon and other Mormons were under constant danger of losing their Internet provider privileges if they attempted to defend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

They navigated the rough-and-tumble world of America Online message boards, places where people could post comments on various topics such as religion. AOL used volunteers to monitor comments. These volunteers could give out warnings for what they considered poor behavior. Three warnings and a person could be banned.

Mormons who defended their religion, however, were subject to warnings and electronic excommunication.

One of the boards even required people to electronically "sign" a creedal affirmation before they could post — effectively banishing Mormons. "We're paying dues to AOL, and yet they are hosting a large message board system that some religions are not allowed on," Reynolds said.

Meanwhile, on the segregated Mormon message board, critics were allowed to post without warnings. Reynolds, Gordon and about 30 regular LDS posters defended against attacks, answered questions and built a community under siege.

Some opponents would post excerpts from the LDS temple ceremony. Others would stalk Mormons to other online places and attack them there. Many of the attacks were nothing more than cut-and-paste quotes from anti-Mormon Web sites outside the AOL world.

"It was just ugly. Very hateful," Reynolds said. "It was very discriminatory. They were pretty much allowed to run all over us and there wasn't much we could do about it."

After answering hundreds of posts about polygamy, the defenders started using humor to throw critics off balance. They posted over-the-top, silly replies claiming that Mormon men indeed had many wives — but that the women all lived in the Bahamas. They told how the women's extravagant lifestyle was funded by creating a traveling exhibit for evangelicals that featured biblical artifacts such as Adam's fig leaf.

It was silly, but it broke the tension. Most of the critics didn't know how to respond to the spoofs. "Mormons are very funny people," Reynolds said. "(We'd post) anything we could think of just to throw them off."

Even in the silliness, the group began to see a need for a place online where Mormons could go to scrutinize anti-Mormon attacks. They wanted a place where common criticisms could be counteracted by common sense.

A place where the rules were fair.