Belgian TikToker Found Guilty of Inciting Attack on Masonic Hall

by Christopher Hodapp

A 23-year-old Belgian woman has been convicted for harassment, defamation and making threats against a Brussels Masonic Lodge after publishing an anti-Masonic TikTok video. According to an account in the Brussels Times, her video received 86,000 views and generated 3,462 interactions. After her post on January 24th, the windows were broken and four people broke into the Masonic hall. The allegation was that her video incited them to vandalize the building.

The unnamed woman, who posts under the screen name of 'Supergirl', circulated a video showing the Masonic hall of the Loge des Amis Philanthropes (Philanthropic Friends Lodge) in Brussels, alleging the Masons inside are the members of the Illuminati and were engaged in Satanic rituals. 

The historic temple building on Rue de Purcil is the location of the Belgium Museum of Freemasonry.

The criminal court found her guilty of threats, harassment, and defamation, and was sentenced to a probation. She is required by the court to take a guided tour of the temple to learn about Freemasonry, get a job, and to stop sharing any content on social media that could be considered a criminal offense. 

Failure to comply could land Supergirl in the slammer for four months.

GL of California Continues Its #ImAMason Hashtag Campaign

by Christopher Hodapp

Last July, the Grand Lodge of California created what became a popular social media campaign centered around the hashtag #ImAMason. The strategy was simple: create a written or video message to post on Facebook or Instagram (or both) briefly telling your friends and online followers and subscribers just why it is that you are a Freemason. The goal was to reach as many people as possible to explain what the fraternity is, what we do, what we teach our members, and why it's still important to society after more than 300 years of fostering friendship and true brotherhood among good men all over the world who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance. Most of all, it was a chance to explain to your family and friends just why Freemasonry is important to YOU.

The campaign worked like gangbusters: more than 2.3 million people worldwide were reached by these messages. And Masons all over the world took part in crafting their own #ImAMason messages, not just those brethren in California. 

Photo: Grand Lodge of California

It was so successful that the Grand Lodge of California is asking Masons everywhere to do it once again this year. Between July 10th and the 21st, Masons who are comfortable doing so are asked to record a video, take a selfie, or write a post on Facebook or Instagram that explains what they get out of their Masonic membership, and to include the hashtag #ImAMason. (Adding the hashtag will enable them to compile the posts and easily share them online far and wide.)

From their announcement:

"By showing the people around us that they already know a Freemason—even if they didn’t know it—we can help to demystify Masonry in general, and maybe encourage someone who’s curious about it to reach out. Imagine: That second cousin you’re connected with on Facebook who doesn’t know how much your lodge means to you. Or a coworker who’s always been intrigued by Masonry but never known where to begin with it. Our hope is That those people will see these posts and decide to learn more. 

 

"So please join us in this effort. Tell your story of why #ImAMason. Together, we can help build on the effort to increase positive public awareness and drive the future of the fraternity.

[snip]

"We need to encourage members to talk about Freemasonry and what they get out of it with the people around them. We need to remind them that they’re allowed to talk about Freemasonry without fear of breaking any rules. (This tends to be a misinterpretation of a rule against soliciting membership, which is different than talking about Freemasonry in general, discussing what you get out of it, or describing what happens in a Masonic lodge.) And we need to give them tools that help them talk about Freemasonry and answer people’s questions.

"That’s what the #ImAMason campaign is all about. Don’t know what to say? DOWNLOAD OUR NEW BOOKLET, titled Opening the Door, for some helpful and simple answers to common questions about Freemasonry. Or check out our brand-new webpage, WHAT IS FREEMASONRY, meant to give newcomers a basic sense of things. These are a starting point to help members discuss the fraternity in general and how it works. But the best explanations will come from real members discussing the real things they get out of it."

If you don't happen to be a Freemason but are interested in joining or finding out more, either do an online Google search for "Grand+Lodge+Freemasons+(Your State or Country)," or visit the BeAFreemason.org website for more information and to begin the process of connecting to a Masonic lodge in your area.

The Freemasons of TikTok

by Christopher Hodapp

UPDATED May 28, 5:00AM: This story has been corrected. I mistakenly said that Tyler McKenzie is from Texas. He is actually a Mason in New Mexico.

Interesting article this week on the Input Magazine site about Freemasons using TikTok to counter hysterical conspiracy theories and other misinformation about the fraternity. The article "TikTok’s Freemasons are battling the haters and conspiracy theorists" by Jessica Lucas highlights Brothers Tyler McKenzie from New Mexico ("@harp.o.crates"), Zak Wyatt from Texas ("@brotherfluffmm"), and Aidan Mattis from Pennsylvania ("@theaidenmattis"). 

If you're over the age of 40, you've probably only heard of TikTok's reputation as a social media phenomenon favored by teenaged girls, dance party ravers, and Chinese intelligence services, along with its perpetuation of stunts, tricks, giggly kids making goofy faces, and viral "challenges" ("Take the Best Braless TikTok Girlz Dance Challenge!" or "Does This Make My Butt Look Big? Challenge"). Indeed, their most recent demographics show that 41% of all users are between 16 and 24. Appealing to short attention spans through brevity is the name of the game on nearly all social media these days: think of Twitter's original 64 character limit or the rise of the text message acronym 'TL;DR' ("Too Long; Didn't Read" - I get a lot of those reactions to my posts). Instead of typing out messages, TikTok is all video-based, and users create short video snippets between 15 seconds (!) and 10 minutes long.

We used to call that "Short Attention Span Theatre."

Deride it if you like, but TikTok has over 100 million regular users in the U.S. alone, and another 23 million in the U.K. And in what is inevitably the next step in attention deficit communication, the use of TikTok videos to replace written employment resumés for job seekers is beginning to gather momentum (which will of course lead to HR managers' making snap visceral reactions: "Ugh! Lookit that guy's SHIRT! Gross! Don't hire HIM!"). 

Anyhow, the brethren cited in the article are TikTok warriors fighting the enormous pile of anti-Masonic screeds that appear on the service day in and day out.

“There’s so much negativity about Freemasonry, and conspiracists on TikTok are nonstop. I figured if we’re going to be on here to teach about Freemasonry, we need to be as calm and correct as possible,” says McKenzie. . .

[snip]

Ultimately, TikTok Freemasons stand steadfastly behind their organization of choice — and think their videos are changing things for the better. “There’s always going to be the negative person. The troll. The hater. But I honestly think we’ve overcome it now,” says McKenzie. “If you went on TikTok a year ago and you typed in Freemasonry, you would find nothing but conspiracy theories.

“But now, you’ll find this fuzzy face and a whole bunch of other brothers that are ready and willing to give you light, truth, and knowledge,” says the impressively bearded McKenzie. “It’s brought so many to Masonry, and I think that it’s going to help us grow.”

These brethren have a big job to counteract the anti-Masonic stuff that litters TikTok. For every one of their positive messages there are dozens of the "Lookit all the sooper secret Illuminati Mason symbols hiding in plain sight!" imbeciles.

Read the whole article HERE.

Meanwhile, from the Stray Ferret website in Britain:

In an effort to bring the fraternity into the modern era and attract younger members, Freemasons in Yorkshire are attempting to become TikTok famous.

The Province of Yorkshire West Riding has posted two videos on its new account – @wrfreemasons – including a take on the staircase scene from Titanic, set to Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. CLICK HERE.

UPDATE:

When I circulated this story on Facebook, Zackery Wyatt provided the following figures about a video post: 

"Almost 2,500 viewers tonight, and at least 50 men asked how to find a lodge. Will they petition? Maybe, maybe not, but the first step was definitely made."

Pretty impressive reach for a single post in a very short time.

Grand Lodge of Tennessee Expels Minister For Performing Gay Marriages

by Christopher Hodapp

A heterosexual 41 year-old Tennessee Mason, minister, and father of three has been expelled from the Grand Lodge of Tennessee for violating their rule that forbids, in part, "promoting homosexuality."

Worshipful Brother Tag Thompson (photo above) was expelled in March after a Grand Lodge trial commission found him guilty of "promoting homosexuality," based on a Facebook post from last October in which he offered his services as a minister to gay couples seeking a celebrant for their marriage ceremonies.

A quite lengthy article about this incident appeared on May 14th on the Chattanooga Times Free Press website by reporter Wyatt Massey, which is where I'm drawing much of this information. Unfortunately, the article is hidden behind a paywall, so I will only excerpt parts of it here. However, the Pressreader website does have the text of the story HERE.

Back on October 27, 2020, Thompson posted the following message on his Facebook page:

 "I have LGBTQ+ friends who are worried about being able to marry in the future. If that is you, know that I am a licensed and ordained minister. No matter what happens I will be your officiant if you need me. #theycantmakethatcall."

The Grand Lodge of Tennessee's code, Sec. 4.2105 (27), specifically states that it is a Masonic offense to "To engage in lewd conduct. To promote or engage in homosexual activity. To cohabit immorally in a situation without the benefit of marriage." That Tennessee rule has been in place for more than 35 years, and has been upheld and reaffirmed by the voting members of Grand Lodge several times, in spite of attempts to amend or remove it.

(Just as a matter of idle curiosity, one can't help but wonder if the last part of Tennessee's rule declaring unmarried cohabitation to be a Masonic offense has ever been used in the last decade or two to expel any heterosexual members for living with their ladies, unfettered by a marriage license. But I digress.)

Tag Thompson joined the fraternity in 2015 and served as Worshipful Master of Chattanooga Lodge 199 in 2018. The charges against him were not brought by anyone in his own lodge. They were actually brought by Brother David Bacon, a Mason from a lodge in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee (presumably Soddy Lodge 418).

WB Thompson was not accused of being gay himself, but of promoting homosexuality through his position as a minister. Massey's article describes his background:

Thompson, the son of missionaries, spent most of his childhood in Central America before returning to the Chattanooga area to study at Tennessee Temple University and Bryan College. He was ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention, he said, and worked as a pastoral intern at Stuart Heights Baptist Church in 2004. 

Doing mission work in South Africa as a young adult changed the way he felt about the place for the LGBTQ community in the Christian faith. He moved away from the baptists and more toward the non-denominational house church movement, in which parishioners gather to worship in private homes. He is now the lead minister for the Tapestry, a local non-creedal community that does not espouse a central set of beliefs.

According to the Massey article, Chattanooga Lodge members supported him and originally considered conducting a lodge trial on their own friendly ground. But Thompson and his local brethren decided to opt for a Grand Lodge Trial Commission instead. They wanted, in part, to determine whether or not Tennessee's current leadership would firmly stand by their rule, or soften their stance, based on the widespread international Masonic condemnation over this same rule seven years ago.

From the article:

Thompson's trial was a closed-door affair, like many aspects of Freemasonry. He appeared in a Dayton lodge on Feb. 27, 2021, before a three-man panel of other Tennessee Masons, according to records from the process.

Similar to a judicial trial, Thompson had a Masonic lawyer, and so did the plaintiff. The affair lasted around four hours, Thompson said, though he sensed the outcome early on.

"Honestly, the trial was over before it started," he said.

Thompson chose not to testify.

Steven C. Bullock, history professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and author of "Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order," said the Masons have a history of finding common ground between men of conlficting religions or those facing other divides, something that is hard to achieve when members — even from neighboring lodges — start policing each other's differences.

"The idea of bringing people together, of connecting and people being brothers, regardless of who they are, it's kind of, it's kind of a part of the American tradition too," Bullock said by phone. "The key foundations of Masonry are creating some sort of sense of brotherhood, of inclusiveness, of family between people who are otherwise distant from each other and different from each other. And that's been the long, long history of the fraternity, right from the beginning.

"Now you have this kind of just trying to circle the wagons, which is just a very difficult kind of thing," Bullock said. "Not very healthy."

Bullock said it's significant the grand lodge handled the matter because the traditional role of the grand lodge is "to keep peace within the community, and wanting to keep growing and expanding and bringing people in."

[snip]

On March 15, 2021, Thompson received a letter from the state's grand secretary containing the verdict: "The defendant, Brother Thompson, was found guilty of the charges and we received the sentence of expulsion," the letter read. "... The member is not eligible for restoration."

"Every close friend that I had, every close male friend that I had in the world at that point was a Mason. I mean, it's who I hang out with. I mean, it's a brotherhood, so I was incredibly close to these people," Thompson said. "And when you're expelled from Freemasonry, you're basically out. So I lost all of those friendships. Every single one of them. I haven't seen any of those people in, I'm not sure. Well, since that day."

Thompson now hopes the story of his expulsion will motivate more Tennessee Masons to remove the rule from their code.

Non-Masons should understand that there is no single national or international governing body for Freemasonry. In the US, the states have their own governing grand lodges that are sovereign within their territory. Outside of the US, most countries do have their own national grand lodges that make their rules and issue lodge charters. But American grand lodges all are able to make rules that suit their memberships' standards, as long as they agree to follow certain basic standards of practices, requirements and conduct (i.e. admitting men of good character who must affirm a personal belief in God, a Supreme Being, or other higher power; lodge work conducted with an open Bible, Tanach (the Hebrew scripture), Koran or other Volume of Sacred Law deemed holy by their members; conferring only the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason; no discussion of religion, politics or business in meetings; adherence to the "Ancient Landmarks" of the fraternity as compiled in James Anderson's Constitutions of the Free-Masons, first published in England in 1723).

Now that Thompson has taken his story to the press, it may turn into another public hornet's nest like the one in 2015. The expulsion that year of two married Tennessee Masons set off a year's worth of national and international protests from individual Masons and grand lodges. David Clark and Mark Henderson had both been active and enthusiastic Tennessee Masons in their lodge for many years. When they first petitioned for membership, members of their lodge had investigated both men by visiting the home they shared together, and made no objection to their relationship. After the Supreme Court's landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legally permitted gay marriage was rendered, the men married, with many members of the lodge attending. But after Clark publicly posted photos from their wedding on Facebook, some Tennessee Masons were outraged by what they saw as deliberate flouting of their Grand Lodge's rules, and successfully brought charges against them. Both men were expelled from the fraternity.

That story eventually hit the local papers, TV stations, Chattanooga National Public Radio, and eventually the national news. It remains to be seen if the press and the Masonic community will react similarly to Thompson's story.

In the U.S. apart from Tennessee, it should be noted that only the Grand Lodge of Georgia has a similar ban on homosexuals as part of their official code. Georgia's began as an edict issued in 2015 by then-Grand Master Douglas McDonald on the heels of the Supreme Court's landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision that gave constitutional guarantees for gay marriages. McDonald's edict was made part of Georgia's code by the assembled voting members of the Grand Lodge in 2016. (McDonald ultimately resigned from Freemasonry in 2019 for "religious reasons.")

Masonic responses to the 2015 Tennessee story became something of an avalanche. Grand Lodges of the District of Columbia, California, New York, Belgium, France, the Netherlands all withdrew recognition of Tennessee (as well as Georgia, in some cases) over the no-homosexual policies. Countless other grand lodges and grand masters around the world issued impassioned statements in 2015-16 strongly condemning such rules at that time. A 2016 attempt to insert a similar ban on homosexuals in the Grand Lodge of Mississippi failed — that proposed resolution didn't even have enough support to be sent to the jurisprudence committee for consideration. An even earlier homosexual ban was proposed back in 2010 in the Grand Lodge of Kentucky. It also failed overwhelmingly.

NOTE: There is one item in the article that I need to clarify on a personal note. 

Massey's article featured a direct quote from one of my blog posts back in 2015 when the stories in Tennessee and Georgia were erupting. However, he paraphrased something I apparently said at the time, and his summary was not at all correct. Here are the pertinent paragraphs:

The news caused a stir in Masonic lodges across the country, and in other parts of the world. The news drew rebuke from grand lodges in Maine, Washington D.C., California and Belgium. Many grand lodges do not have laws banning gay members, although Georgia's in 2015 prohibited homosexuality in its ranks. In 2010, Kentucky's grand lodge voted down a proposal to create such a rule.

After the Tennessee vote, Chris Hodapp, an Indiana Mason and a prominent writer on the brotherhood, wrote on his Freemasons for Dummies blog that many religions affirm homosexuality and that the prioritizing of one religion's tenets goes against the nature of Freemasonry.

The organization was designed to bring people together, Hodapp wrote.

"In your own Masonic career, you have undoubtedly made friends with men you otherwise would never have met, never socialized with, never sat in church with, never have given a second thought to," he wrote, in the March 25, 2016, post. "That is what makes this fraternity unlike any other. But I have heard from dozens of good Masons who have given much of their time and treasure to it, who are now leaving because we have failed to live up to the promises we made to them when they joined."

To my recollection I did NOT say that "many religions affirm homosexuality." I can't seem to find where Massey got this idea. What I may have said at the time was that many denominations or individual churches affirm or welcome homosexuals as part of their congregations. Some mainstream churches, synagogues, temples, and even large national or international denominations have open homosexuals in their congregations, permit and perform gay marriages, and allow gay members to join their clergy. But I certainly do not know of a large religious body or faith tradition that favorably "affirmed" or favorably mentioned homosexuality as part of their doctrine or scriptural origin, prior to the 20th and 21st centuries.

It should be noted that after about 2016, more and more grand lodges have established pretty strict rules about what can and can't be said openly on Facebook, Twitter, websites and other forms of social media. Thompson's story may not get the sort of attention that Clark and Henderson's 2015 expulsions did, in part because fewer Masons will circulate it because of stricter rules about discussing internal business and affairs in public.

A common part of the obligation all Masons agree to is not to "violate the chastity of another Mason's wife, his mother, sister or daughter, knowing them to be such." That's the sum total of Masonry's concern over what goes on under the blanket in a Mason's bed or in the back seat of a Subaru. The love lives and sexual activities involving two consenting adults are none of our collective business — as long as they do not violate the civil law, and are conducted with discretion, as all proper gentlemen should conduct everything in their lives. 

As for Masons who fret themselves sick over the very notion of sitting in a lodge room with a homosexual lurking along the sidelines, I can probably assure you that it is more than likely you've had gay brethren sitting in your lodge since the night of your Entered Apprentice degree. That's probably been true since the very beginning of the fraternity in 1717. It's none of your business, any more than it is the lodge's business that your particular interest may be to sleep with a seven-foot-tall, one-eyed, Episcopalian kangaroo.

Read the entire article HERE.

Bazillionare Elon Musk Twitters "Freemasons"; Masons Go Wild

by Christopher Hodapp

Online Masonic forums and Facebook pages were all atwitter Tuesday over a Twitter tweet by Elon Musk in which he referenced Freemasons.

Ultimately, the downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stonecutting services for nothing

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022

Musk announced his purchase of a majority of the company's stock last week and posted this message as part of a thread opining on the possibility of charging a fee to use the platform. 

What was kind of amazing were the reactions of a lot of Masons over Musk simply mentioning the fraternity. 

"He noticed us! He noticed us!"

Odder were the responses of Masons who didn't get the joke he was making.

"Free? What's he talking about? My lodge charges $200 a year!"

Don't get excited - Musk was making a wisecrack, not nosing around for a lodge to join.

New Facebook Group for Masonic Building Administrators

by Christopher Hodapp

The COVID shutdown has brought its own fresh set of issues for all building managers, but for Masonic buildings that struggle, it may affect some of us more than average buildings, depending on the ways yours is used. Many of our Masonic halls and temples are over a hundred years old, and those older buildings come with their own sets of expensive, unique and hard to solve problems. 

Brother Ernesto Fernando in Cambridge, Massachusetts has just started a new private Facebook page specifically for Masonic Building Presidents, Chairmen, Trustees, Directors, Masters of single-lodge buildings, or other principal administrators of Masonic buildings to share ideas, solutions, hunt advice, or just commiserate. 

If you are such a person, or know one, or are connected to a group who may have one in it, please join or share. The hope is to reach a critical enough mass of participants that the page becomes a working asset to all Masonic building administrators everywhere.

LINK: MASONIC BUILDING ADMINISTRATORS

Screen Versions of 'Lost Symbol' and 'National Treasure 3' Advancing

Two high-profile, big money media projects of interest to Freemasons are inching closer to reality - and knowing Hollywood, they are spurring each other on in a race to see who gets in front of audience eyeballs first.

First up, NBC has now officially authorized and ordered a pilot film of Langdon, a new TV series initially based on Dan Brown's Masonic-themed 2009 mystery adventure novel The Lost Symbol. I reported this last June, but this announcement by NBC and Imagine Entertainment means this project is no longer just a rumor and is slated for the 2020 production season. So it's real as of now.

The potential TV series is being re-drafted as a prequel to Brown's earlier novels, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, and will deal with the younger years of Harvard "symbologist" and globe-hopping mystery solver Robert Langdon. The novel revolved around the kidnapping of Langdon's early mentor, Peter Solomon, and is something of a Masonic landmark tour of Washington D.C., culminating in the Scottish Rite's House of the Temple.  

Due to several troublesome plot points in the story (pesky stuff like a major portion of the action taking place in total darkness), Sony Pictures and Imagine Entertainment skipped making The Lost Symbol into a big-budget feature film a decade ago, which disappointed Masons everywhere. At least five writers previously attempted to wrestle The Lost Symbol into a feature script over a six year period after it came out - including Brown himself - before Sony and Imagine gave up and instead made his NEXT novel, Inferno, into the third Langdon movie with Tom Hanks. 

No cast has been announced yet. For this new TV series, Hanks won't appear (with his bad haircut), and a new actor will play this younger version of the Robert Langdon brainbox character. 

According to the Deadline website, the approved script for the proposed Langdon pilot has been written by The Crossing creators Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie, and rumor has it that Dan Brown recommended them for the project. They've been named as the show's executive producers - they also co-created/executive produced Matador, and served as consulting producers on Star Trek: Discovery and American Horror Story. 

(While you wait, I'd like to recommend my books Solomon's Builders and Deciphering The Lost Symbol so you can bone up on the REAL Masonic background and history of Washington D.C.)

Meanwhile, over at the House of Mouse more rumors keep being circulated about Disney developing National Treasure 3 as either a big-budget movie release, or as a streaming Disney+ offering. This was first being touted back in November, but now screenwriter Chris Bremmer, who wrote the script for the current Will Smith/Martin Lawrence picture Bad Boys For Life, has confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that he's been tapped by producer Jerry Bruckheimer to pen a National Treasure 3 script. That's all anyone is saying publicly, and nobody knows if stars Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and Helen Mirren will be back, or if this will center on a new set of characters. It's been a dozen years since the second very successful NT movie came out, and that cast isn't getting any younger (although with the creepy new de-aging SFX software, anything is now possible). 

Bremmer's script for the new Bad Boys sequel is being credited with successfully resurrecting that 25 year-old franchise with its aging stars for Bruckheimer, so we may find out what Benjamin Gates saw on page 47 of the President's Book of Secrets after all. With luck, there will be some Masons lurking in the edges of the story again.

The original National Treasure with its Masonic Founding Fathers and buried Templar treasure was deviously designed in 2004 by Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney to capitalize on Dan Brown mania while the world awaited his promised sequel to The Da Vinci Code, which turned out to be The Lost Symbol. Bear in mind that Hollywood is a fickle place and, to quote Bart Simpson (or maybe George Burns), show business is a horrible bitch goddess. One or both of these projects could disappear or actually make it to the light of a flickering screen. I'm guessing some executive saw viewership figures on both Lodge 49 and the Sky TV five part series about the United Grand Lodge of England that Hulu aired last Fall and decided, "These Freemason guys are hot again. Call somebody. Get somebody. And get me somebody while I'm waiting." So maybe this is a race between these two projects, and maybe it isn't. But with any luck, we Masons may soon be back on the public radar screens for a little while again.

GL of Scotland Shuts Down Its Social Media

"You shall be cautious in your Words and Carriage, that the most penetrating Stranger shall not be able to discover or find out what is not proper to be intimated, and sometimes you shall divert a Discourse, and manage it prudently for the Honour of the worshipful Fraternity." 

- James Anderson's Constitutions, 1723

What is it about anti-social media that compels some Masons to take good leave of their senses?

A couple of years ago, the Grand Lodge of Scotland went all in on social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, in addition to its extensive website, with frequent posts about news of the Craft, announcements, general interest articles, photos and more. Those were public pages and posts that were open for all to see. The hope was that this public campaign would help attract new members, along with engaging existing ones online.

Unfortunately, it seems that plenty of Masons couldn't make the distinction between public versus private pages, and how they were supposed to behave in public when it came to private information and their own language and behavior. Over time there was an increase in posts about what should have remained just between the walls of the lodge room, or public language and behavior that had no business being identified with Freemasons, who should know better.

So, what started as a genial attempt to have an open, public face of the fraternity has now been officially shut down by the powers that be in Edinburgh. 

The Grand Lodge of Scotland has just pulled the plug on its social media pages and accounts - although their website still is online. And the story actually made The Times yesterday. 

From Grand Lodge logs off social media after freemasons overshare secrets (it's hidden behind the Times' paywall, so this is an excerpt):

Robert Cooper, the curator of the lodge’s library and museum, who also edits its Twitter and Facebook pages, confirmed that the pages had been put on hold pending an internal review. 

“As with any organisation there are internal private discussions that shouldn’t be aired in public,” he said. “Unfortunately, some of our members are doing that. Naively, they are putting up messages on Facebook saying, ‘What do you think about what the Grand Lodge are proposing?’ Issues being discussed are not public but then, all of sudden, they are in the public domain.” 

Mr Cooper, an author and historian, said that there had been instances in which individuals had been revealed as members without their consent. “There are some people who work in sensitive occupations that don’t want their membership to be known,” he said. There also have been cases where online disputes between brothers became less than fraternal.

“People are putting things on the likes of Twitter and Facebook that are simply not appropriate,” he said. “Certainly things you would never say face to face to people. That’s causing all sorts of internal disciplinary problems.” 

Mr Cooper hoped that the pages, which made announcements, highlighted items of masonic history and addressed popular misconceptions about the organisation, could return. “We have got 25,000 people from around the world who read the posts regularly,” he said. “We have had lots of queries as to why we have stopped.” 

The article goes on to quote a couple of members about the development:

Gordon Paton, a member of the lodge, whose initiates refer to the organization as "the craft," called for the sites to be reactivated. He said: "Social media isn’t going to go away. To ignore it would be extremely introverted whereas we should be outward looking and communicating positively about the craft." 

Ian Hunter, another member, added: "I am all for making the craft more accessible to the public as most lodges are seeking to bring in new members as our numbers are dwindling. "We could have a closed group where anything goes for masons only or a public group where only the secrets and rituals are kept off." 

Many grand lodges have done just that on Facebook - created private pages to discuss matters the public doesn't need to see. In the ancient days of the early 2000s B.Z. (before Zuckerberg), private online forums hidden behind password protected sites with verified member identification accomplished all of this. It's probably rank nostalgia to pine for those halcyon days of yesteryear, but Facebook and Twitter have not been the best development for the fraternity. Only one of the laziest and most insidious, since it's everywhere.

In addition, more and more jurisdictions are establishing social media policies and guidelines for their members in a possibly forlorn effort to bring back the forgotten skills of common sense, decorum and manners to their members. Possibly because of their New England scold tradition and having way too many Harvard lawyers on hand, I know that Massachusetts has a truly enormous one they developed in an effort to think of every possible transgression. Maine, Virginia, Florida, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Minnesota, Hawaii, Texas, Illinois all have them, and I'm sure many more do, as well. Prince Hall jurisdictions have them. My own jurisdiction in Indiana is hammering one out right now, and we might actually be among the last to do so. More and more grand lodges outside of the U.S. are creating them, as well. 

What is it about the bizarre anonymity of online interaction that sends our whole notion of subduing our passions right out the 10th-story window? Far too many Masons proudly display a square and compass on their profiles, or even profile pictures and avatars, and then go right on unleashing rude, crude and reprehensible public posts and comments that would have gotten them bounced from the fraternity even a short decade ago. Political diatribes, religious rants and insults, personal arguments deliberately guaranteed to elicit rage, and regular strings of F-words, D-words, C-words, N-words, S-words, and ABEGHIJLMOPQRTUVWXYZ-words all pour out online next to a shining avatar of the fraternity. The problem is frankly worldwide, but U.S. Masons seem especially uncircumspect in their online discussions and behavior while displaying public badges of Masonry. So, in a world that has lost all manners and common sense, rules and regulations must now replace what used to be those things you "just don't do." 

The problem is that non-Masons regard every single Mason as a freestanding example of the fraternity. In other words, to echo the hairy old bromide, "You are someone's idea of Freemasonry." That's triply true among anti-Masons, or just those who are on the fence about us. In a culture that questions and sneers at nearly all religious and non-activist organizations, and declares hypocrisy to be the most egregious transgression on the planet, Masons who don't publicly live up to our own standards and expectations do us more harm than any anti-Masonic fanatic ever could.

So Scotland has just decided to solve their situation by closing down their social media altogether, at least for now. Hopefully they will come back with private pages, because Bob Cooper was posting fascinating and informative stories online for several years. 

Unfortunately, Times reporter Marc Horne loses ten points from his fair reporting scorecard for his concluding paragraph that resorts to the requisite (you guessed it) 'handshake and trouser leg'  reference:

Last year Scotland’s freemasons allowed cameras into their lodges for the first time for a BBC documentary, Secrets of the Masons. The lodge refused, however, to reveal the details of its handshakes — or grips — or to allow its initiation ceremonies, which are said to involve blindfolds and raised trouser legs, to be filmed.

I'm now convinced that all reporters in the UK have a keyboard shortcut that just inserts this same reference into every single news story by hitting Cmd+33. Odd that they wouldn't dare insist inserting a reference to Catholics 'genuflecting and bead jiggling,' or Muslims 'banging their foreheads on the floor,' or Jews 'wearing their funny little skullcaps' whenever their traditions are reported upon. Because I guess that would be rude and insensitive.

Whereas we Freemasons must just be silly old farts of no real consequence, unworthy of any respect, but always worthy of a parting sneer.


H/T to R. J. Johnson