Parting Glances: Who's counting, Joey Jr.?

I'm not sure if I was motivated by brotherly love or neighborly lust, but I crossed Cass Avenue to chat with Mormon missionaries sweating on a curb in front of Wayne State's Old Main.
I knew they were missionaries at once: white shirts, black ties, dark pants. Two "trademark" bikes parked nearby. (Missionaries travel in twos. Live together as twosies. Bike about preaching for two-year hitches.)
Both guys in their too-too-blossoming 20s were handsome – spiritually affidavit faces – and, yes: I'd buy a used car from them even if they were selling lemons instead of ginger-and-spice American home-baked-pie theology).
Both spoke with boyish enthusiasm in spite of pavement-reflected heat, and seemed surprised I knew a little something about their religion and could ask non-taxable, faith-based questions.
They updated me on the mammoth temples the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has built – 122 – since its 1838 founding by Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. They said membership is 12 million; one of the fastest growing – and economically solvent – religions in the world.
Our curbside exchange was brief. The concerned Tom & Jerry tandem wondered if they might meet with me for further "sharing." I said sorry, guys, my dance card is filled for the next two years. (I was tempted to invite them to my art studio to see my etchings, but I've got gossipy neighbors.)
There's a remote possibility that we might have a Mormon for our next Republican president. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is gearing up to run. His dad George (born in a polygamist church colony in Chihuahua, Mexico) was Michigan governor from 1962 to 1969. As his political ilk goes, he did a fine job.
At the time of George's tenure there was a saying circle jerking about: "There but for the grace of God goes God." There's an underpinning to that quip, not too well appreciated at the time.
According to Mormon teaching, members of the LDS priesthood in good standing (keepers of the church's sacred guidebook, Doctrine & Covenants) are afterlife candidates to become God – capital G – over their own celestial planet. (Males become priesthood members at 13. This "privilege" was belatedly extended to blacks in 1978. Women, whose spiritual "exaltation" depends on their temple-married husbands, are not eligible for the role.)
Other LDS teachings include temple "celestial" marriage "for time and eternity," and proxy baptisms for the dead (upsetting many present-day Jews as Holocaust names are being chosen for this vicarious ritual, making said victims eligible for afterlife conversion to "the restored Gospel").
Sacred to LDS believers is the Book of Mormon, which Prophet Smith translated through "divine inspiration" – and the aid of two "peep stones" – from several gold plates he was led by a really obliging angel to discover buried under Hill Cummorah in Upstate New York.
Plates were engraved in "reformed Egyptian" and upon completion of Smith's Temp Service were whisked heavenward by the selfsame messenger. [Not meaning to be contentious in this fair-minded column, I quote – but only reluctantly – Mark Twain's succinct observation on Smith's translation: "printed chloroform."]
The LDS church is a strong, outspoken, power-broker supporter of family values, frequently allied with right-wing fundies – but actually theocratic enemies – in coalition against same-sex marriage. The irony is Mormons have an embarrassing history of polygamy (until forced to abandon this notorious practice in exchange for 1896 Utah statehood). Joseph Smith had 33 wives. First LDS President Brigham Young had 57!
Male chauvinist pig that I am, I'm considering proxy tank dunkings for 30 of my ex-husbands. It would serve them right.