Jean Bodie and Michelle Spencer discuss their project, The Temple Wedding Petition. The Petition is to allow for the option of having a civil ceremony outside of the temple without penalty to the couple.
Petition Web site: http://www.templeweddingpetition.org/enter/index.html
John, thank you so much for giving us time on your podcast to tell about our temple wedding petition. Nothing ventured; nothing gained is the old saying. We are getting a lot of support from the LDS community, the ex-LDS community and people from many different religions or no religion at all; they can see or have felt the pain of rejection at a loved one’s wedding.
If there were questions that were not asked or answered, Michelle and I will be happy to take them here.
I ask that anyone who goes to our website will do so with an open mind, without judgment and hearts full of love for those who do not believe just exactly the way that you do.
I wonder if part of the reluctance to change this policy is because it is such a visible one. By that, I mean that it is specifically taught in the youth programs, it is definitely in the YW lesson manual. They have stressed it to the youth and defended the policy, so to change it now may damage their legitimacy in the eyes of the youth. Also, any issue that is dealing with the temple, even remotely, the church is tentative about changing policy.
I enjoyed the discussion about it being a control issue, but I think some of it also is because ‘worthy’ members really don’t realize how big of an issue it is so the church has very little internal pressure to change it. I hope that petitions and awareness can be enough to get the church to change the policy.
Excellent interview. One aspect missing from the discussion is the fact that worthy members who are not endowed also miss out on family weddings because of this exclusionary practice.
When I got married my sister couldn’t attend. She was surely worthy — she had done baptisms for the dead. But she was too young to be endowed. Later, when she was married, I was able to attend. How is this fair that worthy LDS members must miss weddings simply because of their age? An 18-year old man must sit outside the temple, but had he been born a year earlier he would be able to attend because he would have taken out his endowments and he would be old enough to get his endowments in preparation for his mission. So arbitrary.
my signature is in the mail… great interview…
Still listening to the podcast, but had a thought. How cool would it be to get your civil ceremony done, then get sealed on your honeymoon, like say in the Hawaii or New Zealand…temples? That would make for a cool “destination” sealing…
That is precisely what we are saying. The sealing is a ‘sacred temple ritual’ and only means something to believers; the rest of us just want to be at the wedding. If a couple was able to choose for themselves where and when to be sealed it opens up a whole new world of free choice opportunities for them. Anniversary dates of special events to the couple, or at a temple they would not normally attend such as the suggestion here; going to the temple anywhere on honeymoon.
HOWEVER what I read on believers’ blog sites is that they think that any other way of performing the marriage/sealing is in some way diminishing the sacredness of the temple ceremony. This is mainly because they are accustomed to doing things this way and as the other poster suggested; changes to this policy might be difficult due to all the teachings to YMYW and even Primary aged children.
Many changes have been made to older and now extinct doctrines that this would not be so hard in my opinion. It has become obvious to Dave, Michelle and myself that the ‘problems’ that Mormons and Non-Mormons alike have been blogged about for a few years. It is time that we used our collective consciousness to bring about a revelation.
Thank you and god bless