On Monday, the official Instagram and Facebook accounts for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted a story of a man named Pono Skousen, a fashion designer from New York City. Notably, this story was not posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the post, Pono talks about how he grew up around female spaces, which influenced his desire to go into the fashion industry and design womenswear. He says that he loves to help women feel “strong, confident, and true to who they are,” and that there is a “real spiritual power in femininity.” Pono vaguely discusses how faith influences him in his career as a designer, and says that he doesn’t have to choose between “being a creative and being a disciple of Jesus Christ.” This is the only time Christ is mentioned in the post, while vague notions about identity, power, and telling stories appear more frequently.
What this post fails to inform anyone is that Pono is a gay man who makes and promotes products which openly mock the values of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Pono and another gay man, Charles Robertson, founded a fashion brand called the “Church of Martin.” The brand’s targeted demographic is gay people, more specifically gay members/ex-members of the LDS Church. On their official Instagram account, they have promoted themselves and their brand in videos— posted in May and June— which mock Church and Utah culture, often using Primary songs.
In a Church of Martin apparel review video made by a personal friend of Pono [WARNING: partial nudity at 0:43], she notes that the brand is “ran by two gay Mormons,” and states that both of them are “definitely” openly gay. It is unclear whether the two are in a relationship.
Just recently, in June of 2026, they released a collection based on the Boy Scouts of America. This includes a CoM-branded handkerchief, styled after the BSA’s, and a t-shirt/hoodie with a drawing of two Boy Scouts kissing, with the item title “Gay Scouts of America."
They also sell a shirt featuring two women kissing enclosed in a heart with the phrase “Love one another,” which twists the words of Jesus Christ to condone homosexuality; scripture cases, with some Boy Scout theming on it; a shirt that says “I Love My Mormon Boy,” which is similar to shirts we’ve seen sold at pride festivals in Utah; many shirts based off the outfits of female Mormon pioneers, which feels very disrespectful to the “real spiritual power of femininity” that Pono holds to heart; and a shirt that says “Currently struggling with same-sex attraction,” which seems to mock Church rhetoric.
The Church of Martin brand, despite only having slightly over 350 followers on Instagram, is followed by gay influencer Charlie Bird.
This is the second time within three months that the Church Communication Department has drawn ire from members. In April, the Church's social media posted the story of Nate, a man who admits to having no dream or direction in his own life and chose to defer to the direction and dream of his wife instead. Nate states, “There’s not one ‘right way’ to build a family or a future. For us, this is ours. And it’s sacred.” To some, this came across as a subtle critique of The Family: A Proclamation to the World and received heavy criticism from users on X/Twitter, leading to the account admin locking the post from receiving further comments— an unprecedented move for the Church Communication Department. It’s unclear if this backlash is why the Church's social media chose not to post Pono’s story on X.
