I know that I am just pissng into a stiff wind...but I need to send the following letter to Gordon Hinckley. I can not sit back and take this crap lying down...I am so broken hearted at the prospect of NOT being able to witness my own TBM daughters wedding...I'm hoping that if enough people complain that at some time in the future the mormon church will change yet another long held policy...but I won't hold my breath.
President Gordon B.Hinckley, President
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
50 East North Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84150
Dear President Hinckley:
It is my hope that those that serve you will not insulate you from my letter…although I am not naïve enough to think that you will actually get and read this correspondence.
On *** July, my daughter will be married in the **** LDS Temple. I, the father of the bride, however will not be admitted to witness my own daughters wedding because I am no longer a member of the LDS Church. I have been relegated to second class status and will stand outside the temple doors as my daughter is married. Instead of this being a joyful day to celebrate my beautiful daughter’s marriage…Our family will have a grey cloud hanging over us. But we will endure this excruciatingly painful process, that is placed on partial LDS families, for the sake of our daughter with class. It is truly sad when children are forced to choose between their religion and their families. More times than not…the non-believing family members become the casualty.
I am writing, as one father to another, in the remote hope that you, as a father, might empathize with the pain I feel by being excluded from my daughters wedding. I can not sit silent to this travesty and say nothing; it is not right, regardless of the LDS Churches motivation for this exclusionary policy, thus my motivation in writing you.
You alone (yes I understand your need to confirm any changes in Church policy with your God) have the authority to change this heartbreaking, exclusionary church policy. The LDS Church has an extensive history of making changes to long standing church policy when pressured by society or when motivated by necessity. (yes I understand that this is not the view you hold regarding changes in church policy)
At my own Temple wedding, all attendees were required to wear white…this policy was changed; attendees can now wear street clothes. African American’s were once excluded from Temple participation…this has changed. And as you are fully aware, many of the offensive elements of the Temple endowment have been removed or changed throughout the years…the most recent in 2005. Change is possible.
So on behalf of all in-active, non-recommend holding or non-member parents of children who choose to be married in an LDS Temple, I plead with you, father to father, to review this policy that prohibits parents from attending their own children’s weddings. Make Temple weddings a wonderful uniting experience, where "families" of all faiths, creeds and persuasions "can" truly "be together".
Sadly, any change in policy will not come soon enough for me…I can only hope that future parents will not suffer this painful exclusion at such an important and otherwise joyful time in their child’s life.
With Sincerity,
Cra@g In the Middle
*************************************************************************************
Some final thoughts:
So my daughter is a married woman ….I took a bullet for my daughter and bit my lip so as not to upset her or my TBM wife on this most special of days. I sat quietly outside the Temple as the ceremony was taking place inside without me…the father of the bride.
As I sat and reflected on my 2nd class status…I suddenly became nauseous…the reality of the exclusionary policy of the Mormon Church swept over me and I became emotionaly sick…all I wanted to do was throw up. But I held my cookies…and sat watching all the Morg-bots exiting the “International House of Handshakes” with their smiles pasted on their faces. (If only they knew the truth...or even cared)
After some time my daughter came out in similar fashion…my beautiful daughter has graduated into a full fledged Mormon….I ran to some bushes and lost my cookies…I wiped my mouth and went to greet my daughter and wife and other family members with that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Surprisingly, no one dared ask me why I hadn’t been in the Temple to witness my daughters wedding….Most people are still unaware that I am no longer a member of the Mormon church…a reality I haven’t gone totally public with at my wife’s request. I guess they assumed that I wasn’t worthy (what ever that is)…and that’s bullshit.
Some points of particular interest:
Last week a close TBM friend of mine informed me that he was having a mini-affair with another woman NOT his wife. He told me how he had felt up this girl at work who had been hitting on him, grabbing her bare breasts, sucking on her nipples and putting his hands down her pants… (well you get the picture) he told me this before the wedding asking what he should do…I insisted he attend the wedding...He did!
My son in law’s RM cousin, who according to my son in law is a closet gay, also attended the Temple wedding…he was accompanied at the reception by his boy friend. YES they’ve had sex. Family pressure requires him to remain closeted and act TBM for the family image...how sad.
Another friend who is a fellow member of my wife’s ward attended the Temple Wedding…he has a very nice wine collection…how do I know? I’ve sampled it often with him...as recently as a week ago...he came to the reception ...Buzzed.
Another attendee at my daughters Temple wedding ...drinks coffee (oh sin of sins) on a daily basis...I don’t judge these people they each have their reason’s to lie…and personally I applaud them and welcomed each of them to the wedding. It’s Mormonism and the pressure it places on people to conform to their artificial standards and hide their true identities that I criticize.
So the moral of this story… all one has to do to get into a Mormon Temple is Lie. Something I refuse to do. Now I don’t fault one of these people for attending my daughters wedding, in fact I’m actually glad that they were able to attend. But it points out the lies and the fraud behind the Mormon’s churches claim that their Temple are Holy and Sacred. This is another Mormon myth. The Temple reflects society. But because a Mormon Temple recommend is also a status symbol…Mormon’s will do anything, yes even lie…to get one…Now I would assume that most Temple attendees meet the Mormon so called worthy standards…but YES there are a lot that merely go through the motions to act Mormon, They have a recommend for appearance purposes only and just don’t want to face the crap that a TBM spouse or family would give them if they didn’t hold a recommend...can you say Cult?
A few years ago in the city where I live, a Temple worker was caught with his pants down …ah should we say at the receiving end…while in a public park having sex with someone NOT his wife or of the opposite sex. He was charged with one count of public ludeness. While on his way to the jail house to be processed, he pulled out his Temple recommend in an effort to influence the policemen that he was a good decent citizen of the city and they should let him go. This all became public when printed in the local paper. And you wonder why they removed the naked touching part of the initiatory. This in a nut shell is what Mormonism is all about…it forces good people to lie about silly things and bad people to lie about gross disgusting things…all so they can have a silly piece of paper. Pay Lay Ale!
