Dear Polygamy Apologists:

For this post I'm narrowing the view of apologists to specifically discuss polygamy apologists. This post was inspired by listening to a famous LDS apologist discuss his personal views of polygamy.

Dear Polygamy Apologists:

    First, I need to get this off of my chest. It makes me very angry when you use the fact that the family of Fanny Alger stayed in the church, even after finding out about the relationship between her and Joseph Smith, as proof that polygamy was not a bad thing at that time in church history. I feel qualified to talk to this fact since her parents are my Fourth Great Grandparents. This is MY family. We are almost all still in the church, which is interesting to consider; generations of people might never have been in the church if it weren't for their choice to go to Salt Lake and leave Fanny. Let's be real, parents are not perfect. We do the best we can as each experience happens. Some parents do horrible things. We know that mothers of young girls stood outside the door when the "Prophet" Warren Jeffs was forcing himself onto his young "wives." So, using the same logic for a parent sanctioning awful actions towards their children, this must mean that the polygamy that happened with Warren Jeffs was not a bad thing at that time. I hope that you would not agree with this statement, so please stop using my family's choices to support an action that in all other aspects is wrong.

What I really want to discuss in this letter is the fact that you keep saying that polygamy will be necessary in the highest level of the Celestial kingdom. I remember being taught as a youth, probably even in the older classes in primary, that the reason we will need polygamy in heaven is because there is and will be so many more righteous women than men. I see two huge problems with this argument, and I hope for you to begin considering these points before you argue this aspect of our beliefs.

First, it is pretty awful to feel like my salvation is tied to someone else. How can I be the best I can and help those around me and at the same time I need to worry that my husband is not "towing the line." If he is not living up to his covenants, I will then be cut loose in heaven and be "up for grabs" to a righteous man. I cannot make it to heaven on my own efforts. Can you see how sexist this is? I can't go to heaven without a man. It doesn't matter what I do in this life, I need a man to be my ticket in. Before you say, "A man can't make it without a woman either." Consider this--that may be true, but the man will ultimately (according to your analysis) have the ability to choose his "ticket" from a bucket of surplus women waiting around to be tied to a righteous man.

I'll just throw this out there--if we truly can't make it to the top of the Celestial kingdom on our own, and there will truly be so many more women trying to get into that kingdom, there is another option out there. How about letting lesbian couples into heaven? No need for male dominated polygamy then.

Second, I'm not sure you realize how awful this point of view is to good men in the church. Are we really being taught that men just can't cut it like women can? Are we really setting up millions of guys to just decide that there is no reason to live up to the standards of the church? Why should they try? Most men aren't going to make it, right? I wonder if this thought process is what leads so many "heads of the household" to fade into the background and let their wives take the reigns. I can't tell you how many bishops or stake leaders have told me that husbands won't normally take the priesthood roll and lead the family spiritually. How could this be? Isn't that their job in the Priesthood? Perhaps this happens because they figure most men won't make it, so why try? And following this same thought process, a man could also assume that the bar for men making it into heaven might be lower than for women. God is going to need more men to balance out those awesome, hard-working women. Perhaps the target for husbands is lower.

Could this teaching be the core of why women in the church are feeling overwhelmed and stressed to the point of needing medication? Consider being in competition for all the women in the world to earn the right to be sealed to one of the few men who made it through the vetting process.

I have to ask you, is this the heaven you want to live in? I, for one, do not want to live in the world created by this doctrine just to achieve the right to live in this heaven.

My God loves me for me, not for who is tied to my wrists dragging me into heaven.

Sincerely,

A happily married woman, who will walk into heaven all on my own.