Comments on: Temple Wedding Petition?

By: David van der Leek

David van der Leek — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:58:36 +0000

An article in the Arizona Republic today demonstrates the reason behind the Temple Wedding Petition.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/2010/03/28/20100328mormonwedding0328.html

Thanks to Cheri for going public with her very personal family story. It clearly demonstrates the need for the LDS Church to revise its policy of penalizing couples who choose a civil ceremony prior to temple sealing with a one year wait. Eliminating the penalty would help to remove the fear and stigma that church members attach to marrying outside of the temple in favor of all family members. Such a move would clearly mark the difference between a civil wedding/marriage and the religious requirement to be “sealed” in the temple for eternity.

By: David van der Leek

David van der Leek — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:55:05 +0000

The temple wedding petition website has received and has posted an official correspondence with Elder L. Tom Perry regarding the one year waiting penalty. Prior to the petition, a letter was sent to Perry requesting the policy be changed. His response is very interesting. A followup letter was sent to Perry without any further contact from his office concerning the matter.

Please see the three letters on the petition site in the Media Content section.

http://www.templeweddingpetition.org/enter/5036.html

Would love to hear your feedback.

By: David van der Leek

David van der Leek — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:25:53 +0000

The Mormon Expression podcast on the temple wedding petition is now available online. The petition coordinators are interviewed by John Larsen for about one hour.

Please visit http://www.mormonexpression.com and listen to podcast #34.

By: Sue Emmett

Sue Emmett — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:58:49 +0000

To all of you who have doubted that doing a petition will bring any of the desired results, I’d like to point out the following: The most important result of this petition drive will be getting the issue in front of people. After having given 3 informational talks about Mormonism to a very ethical and very intelligent group of people (talks in which I bent over backwards to tell the positive as well as the negative about the Mormon church) I can tell you that this issue about the weddings was the thing that floored them the most. They honestly just kept asking about it over and over — to be sure I had it right. Mormons are so used to this situation that they honestly do not know how very offensive and hurtful it is for a lot of people. So, I consider this petition only the first step in educating the U.S. population about this totally unnecessary and divisive policy of the church.

By: Sunday in Outer Blogness: The Reason for the Season Edition! | Main Street Plaza

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:45:28 +0000

[...] to rejoin the church for the social aspect, especially for her kids. Some Mormons have started a petition to get the CoJCoL-dS to universalize the civil-marriage-plus-temple-marriage option that exists in [...]

By: Jean

Jean — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:45:18 +0000

This is where the difficulty comes in doesn’t it. LDS people in North America are used to having the ceremony all in one, but other countries are not used to it and they enjoy their weddings so much. We have received a lovely post; watch for it maybe tomorrow on the website about how it works in Holland. This is a faithful Mormon man who is sharing how he wishes it could be in ‘Deseret.’ Most of the Church membership today did not cross the plains; it is essentially a new church with new teachings; many have been dropped and you probably know what they are without me going into it. Converts are converted to the doctrines but should their customs be honored? I served a mission in South Africa and the church there is advising the people to do away with their customs; their solidarity handshake, their lobola (bride price) which is very helpful to their society. It is important to separate church and state for the sake of individuals and the church. Let them have their sacred rituals but they cannot run our lives and our decisions that are not sinful but just our way.
Just a thought to throw into the discussion.

By: David van der Leek

David van der Leek — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:43:13 +0000

For couples outside of North America who decide to wait to consumate the marriage until they can get to the temple to be sealed, it is THEIR CHOICE and not by Church policy. Can you imagine the reaction if it was policy? It’s the same thing when it comes to the one year wait policy to be sealed. GIVE COUPLES THE CHOICE! Doesn’t the Church teach adherents correct principles and let them govern themselves? Seems those couples who choose to wait to consumate their marriage are governing themselves. When they feel ready, they do.

The sealing is the religious ceremony. It’s what makes the marriage eternal, not the fact that the legal aspect of the civil marriage is performed in the temple. But what the LDS Church has done over the years is to condition members into believing that “Temple Marriage” is the only choice, when it fact it is not. It is one component of the marriage. Two parts..civil and sealing.

A couple marrying civil first, in the temple, is no different than being married civil outside the temple, say in the chapel. What adds to the significance of the marriage from the LDS doctrine is the sealing component. Everything else in the eyes of the Church is irrelevant. But because it is required by the law of the land, that civil component is performed. Otherwise, I believe the Church would simply do away with it. A couple cannot have a civil marriage in the temple without the license..issued by the government. One could be sealed in the temple without a license, but then the laws of the land and the government wouldn’t recognize the relationship as legal.

So I see no fair and reasonable or logical rationalization to forcing a couple to wait one year to be sealed after a civil marriage. The decision or choice belongs to the couple and between them and the Lord. Anything else is simply interference in their free agency and interference in family relationships that result in disharmony and ill feelings one toward another.

That reminds me of something I heard many times over and over, “If any of you have unkind feelings toward any member ************, you are invited to withdraw so that the Spirit of the Lord may be unrestrained.”

This divisive policy, as I see it, results in contention. Isn’t the home and the family where the Spirit of the Lord should be in a relationship and place where it is unrestrained? How can the Spirit of the Lord be unstrained when families are excluded and the choice is taken away from couples? How does that couple feel who has to make the choice that the Church wants them to make, because to do so would be seen as not following the prophet? It’s so sad that the Church does not practice what it preaches.

By: queenlucy

queenlucy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:43:57 +0000

My husband served his mission in Brazil, and most of the couples waited to consummate until they could get to the temple. This was not an easy thing to do there at the time. It took 4-5 days by bus and was really expensive. Many times just the couple would go because trying to get all of the family to the temple just cost too much, so the only wedding they would see was the civil one.

By: Rob Perkins

Rob Perkins — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:27:06 +0000

The last time I saw the policy, they didn’t have to wait, but I know that at least one couple I met in Switzerland waited anyway; the Temple was less than a day’s travel from their civil ceremony.

By: heidi doggett

heidi doggett — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:25:32 +0000

My husband and I were discussing that when he brought up the petition last night. We thought a lot of people probably wait because they feel like they’re “not really married yet”.