“Punish you? You mean about Ellison?”
“I don’t know if it was about anything specific. But maybe. You grow up believing that God protects the people who are righteous and obey Him, and that everyone else has to deal with hurricanes and droughts and stuff. And yeah, even if you’re trying to give it up, it can be hard to stop thinking about God that way, as someone who punishes.”
I wanted to ask him if he’d given up belief in God entirely or if he was thinking of joining another church, but it seemed too invasive of his privacy somehow, even if I was his mother.
“I was so jittery I started buying some pretty hard liquor to try to combat it. And maybe to flip off the church’s rules. But I didn’t actually want to get drunk to numb myself out. I needed to figure out how to deal with the change. So I called up Naomi, who I’d met in Mormons Anonymous, and talked to her about everything, and well, we got closer and closer after that.”
“I’m so sorry you went through all that alone, Kenneth.” I wish he’d told me. But it was so tricky now, with Kurt as bishop. Even with my own son, maybe I couldn’t be completely honest about my feelings for the church anymore.
Kenneth shook his head, “No, Mom. Samuel was the one who needed your attention the most. But I just needed to explain to you what was going on at the time so you’d understand how much Naomi means to me. And why we’re not getting married in the temple. Or in the church.”
I let out a long breath. “If Naomi was from a polygamous family, did she even have to have her name removed from the records like you did?”
“It’s complicated,” Kenneth sighed. “Her parents were married in the Salt Lake Temple and they weren’t polygamous until way after she was born. So, yes, her name is on the records of the mainstream church.”
“And did she leave for the same reason that you did?” I asked. “The new policy?”
Kenneth’s mouth twisted. “Partly that, and partly other things,” he said.
“Such as?” I prompted
“Well, to be honest, she couldn’t stand the way the mainstream church covers up so much about polygamy in church history. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are treated like these heroes who never did anything wrong.”
“But the new essays on Joseph Smith and polygamy admit he married a fourteen-year-old girl,” I pointed out. There was a new series of “Gospel Topics” essays on the church website, even if they weren’t that easy to find if you didn’t know about them. Kurt still had people in church complaining about teachers teaching them because they didn’t believe they were official.
“They admit it but don’t condemn it. Naomi thinks that’s even worse. It’s okay to take a fourteen-year-old bride if you’re the prophet?”
That was definitely a problem in my book, as well. But how could the church condemn Joseph Smith’s polygamy without simultaneously disavowing the other things he had done, like translating The Book of Mormon, and restoring the sacred temple rites and proper priesthood power? Without Joseph Smith’s contributions, we’d just be the same as most other Christian churches, not the “one true Church.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “If her family is polygamist, wouldn’t they all have been excommunicated?”
Kenneth seemed almost amused. I guess now that he was out of the church, this wasn’t his problem anymore. “The bishop of the Carter family ward excommunicated her father but thinks the wives and children aren’t culpable. Naomi thinks it’s all hypocritical. A wink and a nod kind of thing.”
I mulled this over, hoping that I would like Naomi as much as I agreed with her views of polygamy. “So if Naomi resigned from the church because of polygamy, does she still have any contact with her family?” Kenneth had sounded as if he expected me to meet them in the near future.
Kenneth drummed his fingers on the countertop. “Some contact. She’s trying to figure out how to negotiate things.”
I heard uncertainty in my son’s voice. He didn’t know how he was going to negotiate things with his family, either. This was all such a mess.
“Will they be attending the wedding?” I asked, because it was easier to focus on the particulars than on the emotions behind them.
“She wants to talk to you about all that herself. I’m hoping that you and Dad will come to dinner with us next week. We can meet in Salt Lake whenever is convenient for you two.”
“You want me to smooth things over with your father by then?” I asked.
“Could you? If you need more time than that, I can postpone it for a few more weeks, but we’re hoping to get married this summer,” Kenneth said.
Kenneth so rarely asked for anything, how could I say no? I thought about how careful I’d have to be and how strained my relationship with Kurt was at this point. I could have tried to explain to Kenneth, but he didn’t need to have more on his plate than he already did.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.