Question about Polygamy (current policy)

There are many threads about polygamy and celestial marriage here, I suggest you do a search. From my own point of view polygamy and eternal marriage are different, but I understand not everyone sees it that way. I agree that current church policy on the subject is sexist.

When I’m with family members or friends who I can be cheeky with – and polygamy comes up – I tell them straight up that the LDS church still believes in it. That is the conclusion I reach when considering our current policies.

I don’t like deception and feel the church DOES support polygamy, why won’t they just admit they do?

I think the rock they are against is that they don’t like polygamy and know it makes us look weird and icky…but the hard place they are also up against is that past prophets said it was necessary and it is hard to talk through how prophets can be wrong or if we really understood them. So they can’t admit they support it when most don’t want to support it…but they do want to be loyal to the office of the prophet. It can look like deception…but I think it is more likely just a conundrum. They don’t like to say, “We don’t have answers” and they don’t like to say “we may have been wrong.” So…they don’t say much…and the non-answer feels deceptive.

They are in a no win situation.

I can certainly agree with that. Given I am not a TBM I am more than willing to just have them say, “oops – no harm / no foul – they goofed back then” (like they have on the race issue with priesthood and temple worship). But I do “get” how much the church was all about polygamy back 100+ years ago – it was THE thing. The more I read about it the more I realize it was the defining issue – almost equal to the BOM and restored priesthood (and tied to the restored priesthood). If they were to come out and say, “Yep – there is another oops” it is much more egregious than the race policy mess ups (as bad as that was). WAY more egg on their face. Like you mention – more down to the core of the prophet leading people astray.

I think the unofficial policy of, “just don’t say anything about polygamy and it should fade away” was making some progress in distancing the perception of the church and the polygamy label over the last several decades. Then the Internet tide started coming in and that just isn’t working like it used to.

I think the unofficial policy of, “just don’t say anything about polygamy and it should fade away” was making some progress in distancing the perception of the church and the polygamy label over the last several decades. Then the Internet tide started coming in and that just isn’t working like it used to.

+1

What the small army of professional and armchair historians going over the documents and affidavits find will interest some, but it isn’t a substitute for the church as an institution respecting the living, modern women of this church enough to relieve them of the emotional burden of polygamy. No more “except” and “unless.” The longer this goes on the more foreign and detached I feel.

Ann:

“Oh, and seal everybody, male and female, to all their spouses.”

I see no reason for us to not do this today personally, so I’ll add one more reason, which is the same reason as why priesthood is male only: “There’s no agitation for that.” Obviously that’s not true, but so long as women’s voices are easily ignored, things that matter to women won’t make the agenda.

Oh, and seal everybody, male and female, to all their spouses.

Seal ’em all. Let god sort ’em out.

or

Seal ’em from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

I like the approach. Seal everyone to everyone else… and after that’s done we begin to realize that things really aren’t all that different than the way it is right now. We maintain the relationships we want to maintain. Isn’t that the problem that sealings were meant to solve, to quell fears that the phrase “till death do you part” created?

I have to say I don’t get this. Why seal everyone to everyone? What does that mean? Then why did God “separate” everyone to start out with? It seems like a solution looking for a problem. I think one appealing part of our theology (part of why my parents converted) is eternal families.

If you look at the human race as one big family isn’t everyone sealed to everyone the end game? I thought that was one of the purposes of temple work, to seal everyone as one family all the way back to Adam and Eve, which gets back to what I was saying earlier, once we’re all sealed we do what we want, right? Buy you may be referring to pairing people off? Like what happens after the resurrection and there’s a husband with two living wives or a wife with two living husbands and all of a sudden there’s this choice to be made.

I have reached a point where I am questioning why that isn’t the default. I can’t see why a loving God would put up processes and procedures needed for what people want in the first place.

Who’s to say that it isn’t the default? I think it’s human nature to have this deep seated fear that we will lose that which we hold most dear, in this case a spouse or family. It creates discomfort and we look for solutions. We tell ourselves that god will fix everything, we still doubt, so we come up with “sealings” to be doubly sure that our desires will be met… meanwhile god is wondering why we are making such a fuss over something that is a “given.” We only told ourselves that a sealing was necessary out of a desire to maintain our relationships. It calms our fears.

What we have now is a doctrine that has divorced couples that hate each other still sealed together and the majority of happy married couples are not “sealed.”

God is going to stand over them with arms folded, the most righteous scowl you’ve ever seen on his visage, and he’s going to be like, “You’re sealed, suck it up.” 🙂

Ann:

“Oh, and seal everybody, male and female, to all their spouses.”

I see no reason for us to not do this today personally, so I’ll add one more reason, which is the same reason as why priesthood is male only: “There’s no agitation for that.” Obviously that’s not true, but so long as women’s voices are easily ignored, things that matter to women won’t make the agenda.

Not only are their voices easily ignored, I think they are also pressured to question their voice because of the risk of being prideful and selfish by having a voice. I think that is part of the problem too. We have some conflicting values…to respect individual voices and to respect authority. It seems for the time being, the over powering opinion is to teach humility in individuals rather than change the status quo.