Kenneth, thank you for replying so thoroughly. Most of your questions/comments seem rhetorical, so I will leave them to speak for themselves. However, I felt I should respond to this one. I think you mis-read the purpose of my call to action. If you read the conversation on Medium or on Facebook, you will see that most people have formed their own opinion on the issue, and that those opinions vary, even if they are expressed respectfully and cautiously. I have personally formed an opinion on the issue, which I tried hard to keep out of the article but still informed some of the assumptions I made. Mormons form their own opinions on this and other issues. I’m sure you’ve seen that yourself.

The point of asking the church to clarify this issue, then, is to prevent unnecessary pain. There are Mormons who have studied the issue carefully and come to the conclusion that polygamy is required in heaven, which is natural given the many varying statements which have been made over the years, and some of them are pained by that belief. If that really is church doctrine, then that pain is just something they have to find a way to deal with, in their own way. But if it’s not church doctrine, and polygamy is not required in heaven according to the church, such individuals would be spared unnecessary suffering. Thus I ask the church to take a position, not so that members will fall in line like robots, but so that real, suffering human beings might have a balm in Gilead, God willing.