Crossing the plains, kicking up dirt; A new Mormon pioneer

At a 1950s-style house nestled in a peaceful neighborhood nicknamed "Hanukkah Hill," a smiling Buddha on the porch greets visitors -- his arms raised as if to say all are welcome.

Affixed to the doorpost is a mezuzah, a decorative case holding blessings for a Jewish home. Inside, on the family's refrigerator, hangs a magnet from the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog that says, "Jesus loves us. Who cares what you think?"

In the kitchen stands Joanna Brooks, an accidental, unofficial and admittedly unauthorized source for all things Mormon. She's making "funeral potatoes," a classic Mormon casserole, and heaped on the counter are the ingredients: a not-so-healthy dose of cheese, butter, sour cream, hash browns and chicken soup. Her Jewish husband strolls by, takes a look at what's cooking, and grimaces. Bespectacled and freckled 6-year-old Rosa, standing atop a chair, proudly announces, "I'm Jewish and Mormon!"

The home and life Brooks has created is the product of a complicated journey.

She cannot separate The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from her identity any more than she can leave cheese out of funeral potatoes. But like her persecuted ancestors who braved the unforgiving plains to reach the promised land of what is now Utah, Brooks, 40, fights for her faith.

The battle has, at times, left her feeling beaten.

As a young feminist activist, she saw her beloved church excommunicate her intellectual heroes. She's felt outrage and soul-crushing grief while watching her church mobilize against same-sex marriages. For about 10 years, she walked away.

But today a vintage postcard of a Mormon missionary boarding a plane sits on her desk to inspire. It reads, in part, "Dare to be different."

She believes there's room in the LDS Church for loving criticism and candid talk, that Latter-day Saints like her can not just belong but also serve -- without fear of being cast out into the wilderness.

She's staking her claim to Mormonism, writing about it for Religion Dispatches, debunking myths in national papers, speaking up on podcasts, radio shows and from stages, and offering advice in her column and blog, Ask Mormon Girl. She recently self-published her memoir, "The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories from an American Faith" and writes regularly for Feminist Mormon Housewives. Politico has named her, or specifically her Twitter account, one of the "50 Politicos to Watch." All this while being an award-winning scholar, a published poet and, oh yeah, a department chair and professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University.

Amid Mitt Romney's presidential bid, the "I'm a Mormon" ad campaign and the smash-hit Broadway musical "Book of Mormon," this Obama supporter has emerged as a refreshing voice for media, hungry for frank discussion about her faith.

Her goal? To be her authentic self and humanize a tradition and people she couldn't love more.

"I just refuse to be ashamed of being Mormon," she says. "Don't talk about us like we're not in the room."

Embracing her difference

Growing up in California's Orange County, she often was the only Mormon in a room. She was, she likes to say, "a root beer among the Cokes," a reference to the caffeine-free drink that her faith permits.

She fantasized about her ancestors on the other side of the veil. Her father, a longtime LDS Church bishop -- a volunteer pastor -- said they knew her name and that her spirit would join them when she died.

She sang pioneer hymns in church on Sundays with other root beers. She kneeled and prayed to God each night before bed. By the time she was baptized at 8, she'd read cover-to-cover the Book of Mormon, the sacred text Latter-day Saints view as "another testament of Jesus Christ" and study in addition to the Bible.

She learned to relish being different, even when born-again classmates, taught by their pastors to believe she was in a cult, scrawled warnings in her yearbook. When Marie Osmond, a visible Mormon to the non-Mormon world, winked into the TV camera on Friday nights, Brooks was sure the gesture was meant for her.

Along the way, there were glimpses of the woman she would become. Asked one year in grade school to write two term papers, she chose as her subjects the Equal Rights Amendment and Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church.

"I'm not making this up," she says, laughing at what some may see as irony. "This is who I am."

But in her traditional - what she calls "orthodox" - Mormon home, she was only exposed to pamphlets on women's rights penned by Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative stalwart who railed against the ERA push.

At LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, the only college she ever considered attending, Brooks imagined the warm embrace of being among her people. Looking at those around her, at first she worried she was too different. But during orientation, an English professor quoted a verse from the Book of Mormon that she'd carry with her.

He denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

"I felt the knot of panic in my belly loosen and disappear," she writes in her memoir. "Deep inside my chest, a door opened. Light and oxygen flooded the room."

She gravitated to professors who shined the light on possibilities, devouring the words of Mormon poets and feminist historians.