The more I read about the LDS Church, the more it seems to me that it really is very strongly tiered into leadership and membership.

The latter class seems almost oblivious of the intentions of the former but are highly compliant. There seems to be a very deliberate and quite extensive policy of information control by the leadership.

Conservatives would predict a rise in divorce rates; gays would predict no change to an established pattern – but both predictions are wrong. There seems to be something about allowing gays to marry which helps prevent straight marriages from breaking up.

No, I mean anti-marriage. After all, they are trying to prohibit marriage among some people — or further prohibit it where it’s already prohibited.

I liken it to a membership into a country club. It simply was a change of rules for a club membership. Not unlike a C.C. would change their rules for including Blacks or Jews or Catholics onto their pristine golf course. There was no “revelation” only if you define revelation as a extremely powerful feeling that came over everyone in that Temple meeting. In my mind, it was just a Board of Directors coming to an agreement.

The change for polygamy in the late 1800’s was the result of pressure from the Government. The elimination of practicing polygamy was termed a “manifesto” (not a revelation). As you can imagine, there were orthodox factions that broke away from the main-stream Mormon religion because of this manifesto. It’s still controversial in certain circles of Mormons.

didn’t they have a revelation about polygamy right about the time they were being considered for statehood, but for the polygamy issue?

————

You have to separate the canonized doctrines from the personal beliefs of some of the Mormon leaders. Not everything the Prophet Brigham Young personally taught or believed is necessarily accepted doctrine in the Mormon Church.

The Mormons have seen the errors of their past racist history. I can still get into some rather heated discussions with Mormons about this because I don’t think the change to their doctrine in regards to Blacks and their Priesthood blessings was a “revelation” (per se).

The biggest mistake I can lay at the feet of the Mormon leadership: They have NEVER EVER apologized for their racist past. Formally, that is.

Again, I repeat, mark this down, carve it in granite: Mormons will regret the day they worked to defeat anti-GAY marriage and how they treat(ed) their gay Saints.

WOW!