Where do You Draw the Line?

Recently, an LDS influencer with the Instagram handle @whyistaypodcast shared a video expressing her support for polygamy. She said:

“I believe polygamy was ordained of God. 

Do I like it? 

No. Not really. 

Do I need to like it?

No. Not really.

All I need to know is: were each of the prophets in the church of Jesus Christ authorized to make decisions for the church by its head, Jesus Christ. 

And I believe they were. 

So even though it’s weird and hard and difficult to swallow. I believe polygamy was ordained of God.”

I respect everyone’s right to believe according to the dictates of their own conscience. If polygamy feels right to her (which it doesn’t seem like it does, she simply trusts in men who claim it is right), then that is her prerogative to believe as she may.

Yet I also hold the right to believe according to the dictates of my own conscience, and to express such beliefs as I see fit. Just as she has done in this video.

I’m sure she was aware that she was treading on controversial ground. I suppose that is why the comment section is turned off on her post. If I could have left a comment, I would have asked something like this: where do you draw the line?

Are you willing to do anything that the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asks you to do?

Anything at all?

Even if it feels wrong?

Let’s pose some hypotheticals.

What if the prophet asked you to give your daughter to him in marriage, though she is but only 14 years of age, and he in his 30s?

What if the prophet asked you to be sealed to him as an already married woman, which, according to Mormon doctrine, would then give you and your children unto him, and your first husband would be left out of your family in the eternities?

What if the prophet asked you to swear to keep quiet about the temple endowment, or else you would promise to slit your throat and have your bowels spill out upon the ground?

What if the prophet asked you to support racist teachings that portrayed those of African descent as inferior to the rest of us?

Unfortunately, these are real examples from the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And many believers said yes. They obeyed their prophet, even if it felt weird or hard or difficult to swallow.

Shall we look at some other examples from outside of our faith?

What if the prophet asked you to murder your sister-in-law and niece? (The Lafferty Brothers).

What if the prophet asked you to join him and other believers in committing mass suicide? (Heaven’s Gate).

What if the prophet asked you, as a teenage girl, to marry him in the temple, where he would then rape you on the altar? (The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

What if the prophet asked you to fly a plane into a building and murder thousands of innocent people? (Al-Qaeda).

What if the prophet asked you to murder your own children because he claimed they were processed by evil spirits? (Chad and Lori Daybell).

All of the examples above have one thing in common: believers followed a man who they believed to be a prophet/spiritual leader; A man who claimed to speak for God or claimed to have greater access to higher wisdom and knowledge.

Many believers said yes. They obeyed their “prophet,” even if it felt weird or hard or difficult to swallow.

Which, unfortunately, is the same logic you use to defend polygamy.

Stating that you support polygamy solely because you believe LDS prophets to be authorized by Jesus Christ simply isn’t good enough.

It is not sound logic. In actuality, it is dangerous thinking.

May I ask: would you do it? Would you do all of the above simply because the prophet told you to?

Would you do it, even though it felt wrong?

Would you do it, even if it didn’t make sense to you?

Would you do it, simply because a man who claims to speak for God, a man who you trust and believe in, told you to?

I have to ask, because that reasoning has lead to some of the greatest atrocities we have seen across human history.

It has lead to abuses and murders of the most egregious kind.

I would argue that LDS polygamy – the treatment of women as if they are property, the rape of teenagers, the neglect of women and children – easily falls within the category of abuse.

May I respectfully suggest that you draw a line somewhere? Somewhere where you decide: this is too far. This is abusive. Or quite simply, this just doesn’t feel right so I refuse to do it.

May I suggest that you believe according to the dictates of your own conscience; a conscience that is screaming at you that something is wrong? A conscience that seems to intuitively know that polygamy is “weird and hard and difficult to swallow.” May I suggest that you are having those feelings for a reason?

If you study polygamy as it was practiced in our church’s history, and you come to a different conclusion than I have, that’s fine. I would love to hear your defense of the practice or why, exactly, you believe Jesus would support it. I would love to see logic and evidence and receipts used in such a defense.

But I will not accept blind allegiance to religious leaders as an excuse to justify abuse of any kind.

When looking at other religions or faith systems, as shown above, we can see the abuse and the faulty justifications for such abuses as clear as day.

Yet we are blind when it occurs within our own walls.

I will not create a double standard for my church. And neither should you.

Yes, I support a person’s right to believe according to the dictates of their own conscience.

But I draw a line when those beliefs lead to the harm and abuse of others. Especially when it occurs within my own religion.

Do you?