Sigh. The “trunk or treat” party, the Salt Lake Tribune writes, is “the kind of Halloween party that has sprung up in recent years. Instead of going door to door, costumed kids congregate in a parking lot, where they gather goodies from every car.”

But the event invitation to the Mormon Halloween party that circulated in the neighborhood of Sandy, Utah said kids should “wear costumes,” but “please no masks or cross-dressing.”

Cuz a real worry in this world is a little girl who might want to dress up like Sponge Bob.

A church official said the cross-dressing issue was church policy but that’s not so: “The church’s handbook does discourage the wearing of masks, due to ‘security and safety reasons.’ It says nothing else about costumes.”

Non-LDS resident Raquel Smith thought the message was “fear-mongering and hate driven,” and would make some kids feel unwelcome, like a friend’s daughter who wanted to be Spider-Man.
Judy McNeil, of Salt Lake City’s Pride Center, said the organizers likely didn’t mean harm but nonetheless the flyer sent “a message that it’s okay to discriminate against people based on their gender expression.”

We’re kind of happy to know there are such things as Mormon Halloween parties, but jinkies, what if you wanted to be something gender indeterminate, like a skeleton? Would you have to wear lipstick on your skull to show you’re a girl? Well, then they’d be fine because they might just think you were a model.

Again: Sigh.