So then if lds is just another religion to you then why defend any of it?
You say you think polyg was a mistake... hello? did you tossout everything attached to that mistake also? Like the temple?
As much as I really hate to admit it, PP has Jason on this one, petard and all. Polygamy cannot be surgically removed from the entire corpus of Gospel teaching without maiming other core principles, such as some of the central purposes of eternal marriage (eternal increase), the principle of continuing revelation, and the fact that polygamy was clearly a divinely sanctioned practice among Old Testament prophets and patriarchs whom the Lord considered as righteous and upright in his estimation as any other. At least, that's what the Old Testament texts themselves indicate.
The fact that we, in our particular cultural condition, cannot accept polygamy at all, even if commanded of the Lord and done in his way, is simply a statement about us culturally, not about what the truth of the matter may or may not be. None of the Brethren, either singly or collectively, have ever renounced or overturned the core concept, or that it was divine in origin as it existed among the early Saints. Indeed, Polygamy is inherent within the concept of sealing. Any man who marries again, after a first wife has passed on, and marries someone who has not previously been married, will by default, if covenants are kept by both, inherit both of these wives in eternity, as both have been sealed for time and eternity through the power of the Priesthood. The sealing of the Holy Spirit of Promise makes all these bonds valid for eternity. There are any number of LDS men who will have plural wives in eternity, according to Gospel doctrine, even though they never practiced it in mortality.
The idea that polygamy was a mistake simply won't hold water. Although the practice was ended, the principle has never been altered as a core concept. Indeed, if you don't accept at least the possibility of legitimate plural marriage, you cannot, with any degree of philosophical rigor, accept the concept of sealing per se. The two are interconnected in such a way that, while we may never practice plural marriage while in this life, the concept of sealing and eternal family simply precludes plural marriage from being a possibility, or even a requirement for some.
I wonder how many of us would be willing to engage in animal sacrifice on a regular basis?