maklelan wrote:Mister Scratch wrote:As to the question of whether it is "still in effect," I think it depends on how one interprets "doctrine" for one thing. Frankly, I don't know whether it is genuinely "in effect" anymore. Obviously, interracial sealings have taken place in temples throughout the world. But on what basis? When and how was the ban lifted? We don't know.
If the ban really is still in effect, then yes: I do think it should be "shouted from the rooftops" in order to agitate the powers that be to change it.
Would you mind posting a good reference for this ban?
Here is some additional information about the ban or the policy or whatever it was:
On July 17, 1947, the First Presidency wrote to Lowry Nelson that “the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, is a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now.” (Quinn, "Prelude to the National 'Defense of Marriage' Campaign,"
Dialogue 33:3, p. 31 (citing John J. Stewart,
Mormonism and the Negro, p. 47 (1964)). Apparently this was the attitude of Harold B. Lee in 1960, when he told BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson, “If a granddaughter of mine should ever go to BYU and become engaged to a colored boy there, I would hold you responsible.” (Prince,
David O. McKay, p. 64); Lee made a similar complaint to Wilkinson in March 1965, when he “protested vigorously over our having given a scholarship at the B.Y.U. to a negro student from Africa.” (Quinn,
Extensions of Power, p. 852). Even when the
Church News announced the lifting of the priesthood ban on June 17, 1978, it made sure to include a brief article about the Church’s discouraging interracial marriage.