My best guess is that there are some GAs, and possibly a handful of apostles, that would love nothing better than to simply eliminate D&C 132 (the "get on the polygamy train, Emma, or be destroyed" section). The younger the GA or apostle is, the more likely it is that their stomach churns at the mere thought of D&C 132.

The church is obviously willing to make adjustments when necessary for its survival or simply its relevance. Large examples of this are polygamy and the priesthood ban. Less significant examples of this are changes to the endowment or modifications to the wording in the intro to the book of Mormon or to certain sections of the D&C.

IMO, as vomit-inducing as D&C 132 is, it will likely always be there. The ramifications of eliminating the connection to this doctrine would be devastating. Polygamy was the defining doctrinal principle of the church for nearly 100 years (or longer, if you consider that the last polygamist prophet, Heber J Grant, died in 1945).

Why couldn't the church simply say that a mistake was made (prophets speaking as men) and then attempt to move beyond polygamy? There would be so many advantages to this, BUT it will never happen. Discrediting polygamy would also discredit a few generations of prophets and this is simply not an option.

Or is at an option? Could the church simply dismiss polygamy as a fringe doctrine in a way that Adam God has been dismissed?

It's not an option. That was officially released as the WORD OF GOD. Unlike most quotes, they can't twist that around to make it "speaking as a man, not a prophet".

I don't see how the church could remove section 132 without having a major change in doctrine. I don't think it's a matter of discrediting former presidents/prophets. Mormon doctrine is that polygamy will be practised in the celestial kingdom! I'm sure it's an incentive to some...

Based on some extremely informal polling, over the course of a few years, I'm not convinced that a majority of rank and file members of the church believe that polygamy will be practiced in the celestial kingdom. And those that believe strongly that polygamy will be practiced are dying off at a rapid rate.

Its more than just polygamy though it is also the basis for the eternal marriage/family concept which then becomes the basis for the endowment ceremony which is the primary reason for the the temple. You drop that and the stick with which to "encourage" tithing becomes much smaller and then the financial aspects become more critical focusing the spotlight in the wrong place.

I have no doubt there are some GA's who would love to do away with it but to do so starts tscc on an even faster, tighter downward spiral.

Why would the eternal family concept be eliminated with the elimination of polygamy? I'm not seeing the absolute connection. You could still have the eternal family concept (and the corresponding cash cow) within a monogamous framework (billions of religious people around the world currently have this). I don't see how the temple carrot is eliminated if they denounced polygamy. The eternal family (monogamous) concept would still be in tact.

If you research eternal marriage or eternal families from the modern LDS viewpoint, almost all supporting scriptures are in D&C 131,132, and 138, which the majority coming from 132.

138 was recorded in 1918 (ninety years later than one would expect for such a fundamental doctrine), and for some reason the only way I can tell 131 is referring to marriage is through "meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage" appearing in parenthesis.

On my mission, I wondered why the Book of Mormon didn't seem to have any scriptures that discussed eternal families/marriage/etc, when it was such a fundamental doctrine. It would be hard to suppress the cognitive dissonance of removing the only real supporting scripture for eternal marriage.

Celestial marriage meant polygamous marriage. That's why the term was invented. It was reserved for the few, the chosen, who were willing to participate. It was instituted to justify the practice, because then it meant that God himself approved. The whole idea of the temple was to promote polygamy. The endowment was to form a secret club of polygamists. The garments identified the members of this secret club. Eternal families were resticted to polygamous ones. If you weren't polygamous, you didn't get an eternal family. Temple marriages were all polygamous, at first. To repeat myself, at first it was one and the same.

Now "Celestial" has come to mean "romantic", and by extension 100% faithful monogamy. This idea just did not occur to the early participants in the whole temple thing. In fact its purpose was exactly the opposite- to relegate monogamy to the dustbin of history, and to place the women in eternal subjugation to the men.

But that's not exactly what they told you in Seminary, now was it?....

I'm not so sure the GAs are that unhappy with the concept of multiple wives. Didn't Oaks make a comment when he remarried about now having two wives for the hereafter?

Removing sections of the Dn´C is a tradition. 132 has come up before for removal-downgrade. However, it explains so much about church apologetics that it cannot be done away with, just yet. I think that it will be more likely be rephrased in a futre version, than downright deleted. I know it seems ridiculous to pretend poligamy was not doctrinal while the huge fly of 132 and plain old church doctrine sits on your face, but they have managed this far.

Does it say that you HAVE to have a plural marriage to make it to the CK or does it just grease the skids?

I can't be bothered to read that 17th century pigeon english.

The Community of Christ (formerly RCJC) repudiated every thing in the D&C from, I believe it was 1835, on. The idea was that with polygamy, Joseph became a fallen prophet. Everything that came before polygamy was good; everything after, spurious.