Sir,

I am sorry that you didn't get to attend your daughter's wedding. That is one thing we hate to tell loving parents, especially ones who are not antagonistic to us. On the other hand, you cannot scoff at our beliefs and lie about our leaders, and expect to be admitted into what we consider to be one of the holiest places on earth. If, for instance, my daughter converted to Islam and wanted to be married at the Dome of the Rock (I know no one gets married there, this is hypothetical) , I might be hurt if I could not go, but I have to recognize that their faith has the right to perform its cerimonies as it sees fit. I certainly would not expect admission if I had mocked Mohammed openly and ridiculed his followers. I would say the same of the Basilica of Saint Peter or any other holy site. The tabernacle in the Bible could also be deemed exclusive.

I have been somewhat taken aback that other churches require you to pay to get into the building, but rather than judge their admittance policies (yes we do tithing but it's not a requirement to come and visit), I tend to try to live and let live. I certainly don't take it as a license to spread falsehoods.

The church doesn't hide anything from its members. I am well aware that Joseph Smith had more than one wife, and it is in his biographies that are sold at church book stores. The fact that one of them was fourteen was not a Mormon thing but a product of the 1840's. Back then there was no legal age of adulthood for women, because according, even to the authors of the constitution, all women were considered, as were children and slaves "incompetents" (early mormons tried to correct this in Utah, making Utah only the second territory to give women the vote in the 1870's. Unfortunately the federal government stuck its nose in and disenfranchised them. So much for outsiders looking out for the plight of Mormon women). Given there was no legal age for adulthood in a woman, most cultures tended to approve it as being after puberty . Thusly, fourteen year-old brides were commonplace. I certainly don't advocate going back to that, but you have to judge people according to the circumstances in which they lived. Except by the fringiest accounts, Joseph was humane to all his wives and a gentle patriarch. It was nothing like the violent rape and coercion one sees today in the apostate groups. Abraham and Jacob, in the Bible, also had more than one wife. There is no prohibition of polygamy in the Bible (except for specific directives to kings in Deuteronomy and bishops and deacons in Timothy.) Should we repudiate every religion that accepts Abraham and Jacob as prophets, and the Bible as the word of God?

As for racism, that is a lie. Some members were throwing the idea of black spirits being less valiant and President Brigham Young, arguably responsible for some of the most perceivedly racist statements in the Church, condemned it. Can we judge a whole church on the fringe ideas of some members? White Supremacy was certainly common among many Southern Baptists in the south and Catholics and protestants everywhere, but I am not going to attribute that to doctrine. If anything, the LDS church has been more progressive. Joseph Smith, while against the violent end to slavery, proposed the sale of government lands to buy and free slaves and did not allow members to own them. This is one of the reasons the racists in Missouri hated Mormons, because we were perceived as "abolitionists," even though by admission, we were not ("Abolition" in Missouri meant ending slavery violently, we wanted to do it without a civil war). He not only supported their freedom but their education and integration into society. When an anti-Mormon Bigot tries to refute me with one of Joseph Smith's half-quotes showing his "racism," you can actually look up the full quote and read the rest of the statement to see what I mean. Some crazies will say the Missourians hated us because of polygamy. That is revisionism, because we didn't practice that until Nauvoo, Illinois.

Furthermore, if you were shunned merely for leaving the Church, I am sorry my brothers failed you and their Christian Duty. I have had friends leave the church, and I did not shun them. I love them and I want them back, and I will be there for them whether they come back or not. However, if you were shunned because you were combative towards them, and told mean lies, that is a relationship issue you have to deal with. Excommunicated members are only shunned insomuch as they are combative and loud and their dishonesty regarding the Church. Otherwise, we will try to help them overcome their difficulty and come back in.

I know these perceived injustices to women in polygamous marriages and blacks are troubling. I am not ashamed to discuss them. Every religion has had its issues with the treatment of different races and women. In the Bible, there are tons of things that could be considered racist that the children of Israel did. Even the apostles of Christ himself said things that could be considered sexist or racist (though not as much as the eugenecists inspired by Darwin). Christ, Himself, compared a non-Hebrew woman seeking a blessing to a dog trying to steal the children's meat. We can question the Divinity of Him, or maybe confess that He knows something we don't know. In that case He was testing her humility. Christ was perfect, so He had his reasons, but perhaps Peter, Paul and the children of Israel did not. They were inspired but nobody said they were perfect. It's easy to judge things in retrospect.

The alleged "sins of the Church" were never hidden from me by anyone. They were openly discussed in many circles. I am sorry if we were too busy in Sunday School discussing the Resurrection of Christ, the Atonement and redemption from Adam's Fall, repentance from sin, and the doctrines of Salvation to cover the important minutia of wild theories that were never sanctioned by the church, or the history of polygamy. Just because we don't talk about those things as a prosyliting point doesn't mean we're covering up. Do we expect Catholics interrupt their Ave Marias to put a disclaimer on the loud speakers in the Cathedral saying "We just wanted you to know we engaged in the inquisition and the crusades," or perhaps for protestants when they prosylitize to start their approach as "Before we help you get saved, we would like to inform you that our predecessors were involved in witch burnings and the slave trade." If I want to know about those things I will look in a non religious history book, and I'll ask a Catholic or a Protestant to explain themselves, not a disaffected bitter ex-Catholic or ex-Protestant, or someone who is subjectively bitter.

If you have a legitimate beef with what I believe, ask me about it.