Posted by:
anonynon
(
)
Date: April 10, 2024 03:02PM
You might want to research what went down when the church baptized holocaust victims and sent "congrats your ancestor who died because of their religion has now been baptized into our religion" certificates. It was a big issue for many years. Unfortunately I don't remember too many of the legal specifics (it made me so angry, I think I blocked a lot of it out) - I think they had to employ a full time researcher to make sure holocaust victims stayed out of the proxy baptism/ordinance lists, because even after widespread scorn, members kept submitting names and participating in ordinances for Jewish Holocaust victims. If I could remember the legal cases and specific recourse, I'd include it, so don't take this as a snarky "do your own research" I just don't remember the specifics,and really, really don't want to go back to it for emotional reasons, so I'm suggesting researching that as a jumping off point.
I did some other research out of intellectual property curiosity a decade or two ago, so I don't know if this is still true, and perhaps people with knowledge of the law will weigh in here. But what I learned was that a person's likeness (including their name, reputation, etc.) belongs to their estate by default for the first year after their death, and after that, the estate would need to file for an extension. I believe this is one reason why the church "insists" (but doesn't really care) that names of the dead be submitted by family, due to identity (for lack of better term) ownership issues. If you have relatives who died within the year and have been proxy dunked/submitted for dunking by people/relatives who aren't part of the estate (ianal, so I don't know who the "estate" refers to beyond the executor and next of kin), and you are part of the legal estate, you might have grounds to insist the deceased be removed from the rolls.
If it's been more than a year, there's not much you can do, and tbh, even if it was still within the time period that you could try to insist on removal, nothing is ever really removed from their records permanently. Not even people who have officially left the church. They're fair game for a proxy dunking on what would be their hundred and first birthday (assuming they aren't still living on that milestone date). That is, unless policies have changed in the past decade or so.
My best advice to you is to consider the practice as far removed from any sort of reality as other odd beliefs. Nobody knows what happens when we die (other than our loved ones missing us), and it seems unlikely that souls are sitting around in god's waiting room waiting for someone from the LDS church to dead dunk them "so they can accept or refuse the offer" (lol). Baptism for the dead is an offensive trampling on the free will and choices someone made in their lifetime, but it's only real if you accept it as a real practice. Remember and honor your deceased loved ones for the rest of your days, and just ignore the weird things that dishonor their memories. The Mormon church is a tiny, insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things (and their meaningless practices have baptized Hitler, and sealed him and Ava Braun, and, even more weirdly, have baptized Jesus into "his own church" many times under a variety of names). Don't let their practices waste your precious time and mental energy.
If you need/want a way to symbolically achieve a lasting memory for them, a sort of symbolic counter to their name on bogus church rolls, might I suggest donating to a charity in their names, purchasing a tribute stone/plaque/name slot (I can't think of the right term) for them in a place that's meaningful to you or would have been meaningful to them. This could be a park, Disney world, a stadium, a congregation you or they attended, a music hall, there's no shortage of these sorts of tribute options. At least then, their names will live on in a way they might have wanted.