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Originally Posted by MikeWaters
Some of you guys may not remember the cycle of leaks related to the handbooks, and then the church successfully getting them off the net. Until finally wikileaks leaked the whole thing and the church was powerless to have them removed.
So it increasingly doesn't make sense for the handbook to be private because in this day and age it is almost impossible to keep a document like that private that is shared with, what, tens of thousands of people?
Even if the document was private, we'd have heard rumblings about canceled baptisms and the policy would have come to light in a similar way. Through innuendo, media reports, confirmation from church PR, etc.
How many of us were aware of the policy on polygamists, in their specific particulars? I wasn't. I knew that in general there were specific special rules. Like a polygamist in another country couldn't be baptized while still married to more than one woman.
I think the rule is about expunging polygamist sympathies in the church. Which means that the new gay rules are about expunging gay sympathies in the church. But why don't they say that then? "We don't want people with gay sympathies in this church." Of course, then bigotry charges would stick like hot tar. "Yes, we admit it, we are bigots. For the Lord. He commanded us." But instead they have to say it's all about loving gay families.
It's a mess. When you are in a mess, tell the truth.
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The polygamy rules with kids and baptism I think have been around for a pretty long time and were probably more about giving the message that we don't do polygamy in this church and we're not the same as the FLDS or others who do. Polygamy seems to be less of a cultural taboo today though, but it was a big deal maybe 30 or so years ago when a lot of false info seemed to go around about how we still did it. The anti's of the time were less savvy and/or didn't care if they knowingly gave out false information as long as it made anyone less positively inclined toward the church. Pre-internet days it was much easier to put blatantly false stuff out there and not be called out on it.
Also, I didn't listen to this podcast available on this site, but it sounds like there may have been a legal motivation for the policy that has something to do with divorce laws combined with anti-discrimination laws in some states (most notably California), or something like that. When stepping back to look at it with more perspective it seems very odd to handle it in this way and I'm assuming it will change in some way shortly.
http://athoughtfulfaith.org/church-p...xts-james-ord/