Fiannan wrote:Another option would be like the stand on egg and sperm donation. It is "discouraged" but there are absolutely no penalties for doing so -- and if a child is born from a donated egg or sperm he/she is automatically sealed to the legal parents.
So the Church could sort of discourage it or merely not advocate it as it did with full force in the 19th Century, but allow members to do it if they want.
I was under the impression that a sperm donation was considered adultery and an excommunicatable offense. Not so? Do you have documentation for that?
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
Polygamy was always about power. No way is it coming back unless the big 15 want to practice it themselves. And they don't. Not until polygamy is so mainstream that it becomes a status symbol among upper-middle-class elites.
Sophocles wrote:Polygamy was always about power. No way is it coming back unless the big 15 want to practice it themselves. And they don't. Not until polygamy is so mainstream that it becomes a status symbol among upper-middle-class elites.
it's already practiced by upper middle class elites. It's called serial marriage, instead of plural marriage, is all.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
Fiannan wrote:Another option would be like the stand on egg and sperm donation. It is "discouraged" but there are absolutely no penalties for doing so -- and if a child is born from a donated egg or sperm he/she is automatically sealed to the legal parents.
So the Church could sort of discourage it or merely not advocate it as it did with full force in the 19th Century, but allow members to do it if they want.
I was under the impression that a sperm donation was considered adultery and an excommunicatable offense. Not so? Do you have documentation for that?
Check the most current Handbook and you will see that it is merely "discouraged." I have read a couple of news articles featuring LDS males who have been donors.
Sophocles wrote:Polygamy was always about power. No way is it coming back unless the big 15 want to practice it themselves. And they don't. Not until polygamy is so mainstream that it becomes a status symbol among upper-middle-class elites.
I think the only two who might have the stamina to take on additional wives would be Elders Uchtdorf and Bednar.
Homophobia was entirely sufficient to motivate the brethren's persecution of gays. Besides, they salivated over the prospect of repeating their successful campaign against the ERA, which was, after all, Gordon Hinckley's master piece.
The anti-gay campaigns in Hawaii and California must have been rejuvenating for him but in the end, homophobic politics has turned out to be a huge miscalculation.
Instead of an easy victory, people around the world are confronting the Church as an enemy of liberty and human rights. It's race all over again.
Hellmut wrote:Instead of an easy victory, people around the world are confronting the Church as an enemy of liberty and human rights. It's race all over again.
Too bad someone didn't know ahead of time that this would end badly, but no one can guess the future.
"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS
"¡No contaban con mi astucia!" -- El Chapulin Colorado
Aristotle Smith wrote:The worst nightmare of the LDS church leaders is in my opinion the legalization of polygamy. And, it's probably coming sooner than most people think. There have already been several opening salvos for legalizing polygamy, but I think the following presages a win for polygamy advocates:
The bill doesn't appear to specifically mention polygamy, but if the two parent per child limit is eliminated, legal relationships that by definition create more than two parents for a child, like polygamy, are sure to benefit.
I don't see this as a problem for the LDS Church at all. If polygamy becomes legal the LDS Church will simply announce that the time for polygamy is still past, that none of us should enter into it, and that the Church will still excommunicate anybody entering into it.
Hellmut wrote:Instead of an easy victory, people around the world are confronting the Church as an enemy of liberty and human rights. It's race all over again.
Too bad someone didn't know ahead of time that this would end badly, but no one can guess the future.
Yet I often wonder why the church, being God's "sole instrument of communication on the earth", wouldn't have had the foresight, or gasp, the revelation, that this sort of thing would end badly for them.
Now we have God's PR department trying to put out fires created by Prop 8 and many people confused and preoccupied with the church's involvement in a political theater.
I believe that Joe was making it up as he went and I believe the church is still led in such a manner.
Rufus wrote:Yet I often wonder why the church, being God's "sole instrument of communication on the earth", wouldn't have had the foresight, or gasp, the revelation, that this sort of thing would end badly for them.
A similar thing could have been said the day after the crucifixion of Jesus; people could have wondered why Jesus didn't see that His ministry was going to end badly for Him.
The answer is that sometimes when things seem to be going badly for someone, it nonetheless turns out more for the better for that someone in the long run.