When I first read your post, I immediately remembered a quote by Hugh Nibley. However, I couldn’t locate it until today. I apoligize that it’s late but I hope your readers will read it and benefit therefrom.

“Even though everyone may discover what goes on in the temple, and many have already revealed it, the important thing is that I do not reveal these things; they must remain sacred to me. I must preserve a zone of sanctity which cannot be violated whether or not anyone else in the room has the remotest idea what the situation really is…. No matter what happens, it will, then, always remain secret; only I know exactly the weight and force of the covenants I have made--I and the Lord with whom I have made them--unless I choose to reveal them. If I do not, then they are secret and sacred no matter what others may say or do. Anyone who would reveal these things has not understood them, and therefore that person has not given them away. You cannot reveal what you do not know!”
--Hugh Nibley, The Temple and the Cosmos, p. 64.

Thanks, Bryce

“It’s not ‘respectful’ to depict something the very depiction of which is literally a profanation of it. No matter how accurately the thing is profaned.”

As Brad noted, it is largely irrelevant. Overall, it was inaccurate, given the fact that it was taken completely out of the context of the sacred environs of a dedicated temple, and only a very small portion (a few minutes) of the ceremony was even attempted of an ordinance that is about 2 hours long. How much of a book could we understand if we read only a couple paragraphs?

As I noted in my post, when these sacred things are profaned outside of the temple, they lose their power, they lose their meaning, they lose their Spirit, they lose their authority, they lose their ability to communicate truth, and therefore they are usually grossly misunderstood and even boring. In that sense, it was completely false and inaccurate, and anyone trying to gain any kind of proper understanding of the temple by extracurricular sources such as these will be left wanting. President Boyd K. Packer once wrote:

Some things concerning the temple ordinances have been published by apostates who seek to injure or destroy the Church. Their accounts do not assist understanding, partly because the accounts are usually distorted. In any case the temple ordinances cannot be understood without the feeling and the spiritual presence that surrounds them in the temple. They must make very dull reading indeed for the enemy who has no right to the Spirit of the Lord. (The Holy Temple, 30)

Fortunately, as Brad also noted, this should also give you the opportunity to share your testimony about the temple in a proper way, and there is much that we can talk about with others without going into inappropriate details. You can share how temples bind families together through sealings, how we make covenants with God of morality and Christian living, and that we give an opportunity to our ancestors to receive the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A glance through this website might give you some ideas (such as here). Books such as the one I just quoted from, The Holy Temple, are also excellent resources of information for sharing what the temple means to us.

Then I would suggest you take the opportunity to explain what the temple is, what the endowement, covenants, promises, blessings, and other parts of the temple are, how families are sealed, and the other wonderful aspects of the temple. You might even go as far as to explain that we make promises in the temple to keep the temple endowment to ourselves.

You could also point out that we don’t talk about the temple ceremony with other people that are endowed either outside the temple. I don’t know if all the people wondering about this issue realize we don’t talk about temple ceremonies with anyone outside the temple, even other endowed members!

If you ask me, it is 100% obvious that there is a hidden issue why Big Love had that episode: because the person/s behind it has/have an axe to grind at the LDS Church. And it was either induced, heightened or exacerbated by Proposition 8.

I never believed in their statement that they had to do it for the sake of the story—it’s just a piece of p.r. and a feel-good formality. Honesty in Hollywood? That’s a myth.

The writer who is part of the production is a lapsed member who publicly expressed his hate for his LDS family background because of his sexual orientation. The actor-producer came from a part-member family and did not have a good experience about it either. And the timing–so fresh, right after the Prop 8 saga! It is so, so, so hard to believe that these things are not related to the issue.

Thanks for your thoughts. I’d just like to say a couple things about your comments. Yes, there are many religious rites and sacraments that are considered sacred to those who hold them. The question we should ask ourselves is if we’d feel comfortable broadcasting it on TV or film if doing so was blasphemous or extremely offensive to those who practice those rites. That is when it becomes a moral question of right and wrong. Will we do something with someone else’s sacred things that they would not want us to do, or that was highly disrespectful to them? Would we tromp all over someone else’s pearls? There is an element of respect and reverence that all people should have towards those things that others hold sacred, whether or not they hold them sacred themself. It is a matter of brotherly kindness, goodwill, respect for others, and common sense. As Terrance Olson wrote in his article on Meridian Magazine, if we do not respect the sacred of others, it probably means that we don’t hold much sacred ourselves.

About others’ marriage rituals, many such ceremonies are not closed to the public, and anyone is invited to view them upon certain conditions. I was just in Ukraine a couple years ago with a group, and several in our party walked into a church and witnessed an Eastern Orthodox marriage ceremony. It was a sacred rite, but was not inappropriate for others to participate in it or see it, as long as they kept quiet, respectful during the rite, and the women covered their head with a scarf. Many such ceremonies are videotaped by friends and family and posted on YouTube. To them, such representations are not outside the scope of propriety, although many probably are. What was sacred about it was that it was performed in a sacred place, the church, and only those who entered the church could participate in it. It was secret from all others outside the church, the profane space.

Another experience I had while on that trip in Ukraine was that we were told to be very reverent and discreet about taking photos inside the Eastern Orthodox churches, and if told not to take them that we should stop. While it is not strictly prohibited to do so, with our large group it would have been highly offensive to barge into the churches with our flashes a’blazing. We didn’t necessarily hold those churches sacred as the worshippers themselves did, but we respected their right to hold it sacred, and we reverenced their space. What if we had disregarded that right, and took tons of flash pictures anyways, believing we were “exempt” from the request to hold reverence for something deemed sacred by someone else? We probably would have been thrown out on our ear.

I disagree with your view on the terms secret and sacred. Most definitions of sacred DO include an element of secrecy. Sacred means something that is set apart, not profane or common, private, and as such is not to be profaned or violated. Hence, it is held apart from typical or common experience. In other words, it is held secret in some form. Even the form of the words themselves, sacred/secret, come from similar Latin roots for something “set apart” or “separate.” Even if something that is sacred to another is not sacred to me doesn’t give me license to profane it according to my will. Again, it comes back to a moral question, and our amount of charity towards others. If you think about something that you hold sacred in your personal life, you would probably be very put out if someone else took it and pasted it in public view without regard to you or your beliefs.

I don’t believe most LDS are afraid of our history. I think we are much more concerned with being perceived truthfully. When someone believes that I live a religion that includes those who practice modern-day polygamy, it concerns me because it is not true. It is a false image, a misconception. This is why we distance ourselves from the polygamists. The fact that we lived a form of polygamy over 100 years ago is not something that we try to hide, or cover up, or eliminate from our past. Indeed, information about that time can be found in any church history book. But it is not the life we lead today, albeit many out there still believe Mormons are polygamists, and lead the kind of lifestyle of modern polygamists. It is not true.

Many non-Christian religions have traditions that seem odd from viewed from an outsider’s vantage point. If an aboriginal marriage ceremony is shown on television, where is the outrage? There is none. I once watched on a show titled something like “strange and amazing videos” the marriage rituals for some group in India. It was fascinating to think that if done in another context the rituals could even be called immoral, but they weren’t under the rules of that society.

Let’s be fair and show outrage at any artistic portrayals of all sacred religious ceremony. But I don’t think even LDS would go that far, because the classic romance comedy often ends with a marriage ceremony – I’m thinking “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” here – and marriage is a good thing right?

One other quick thought is that we need to distinguish more clearly between the terms secret and sacred. Most if not all the definitions of the word sacred do NOT include an element of secrecy. I think that is because sacredness has everything to do with how one holds or esteems a particular subject. What is sacred to me isn’t sacred to another, and that is okay. We must not demand that others hold our beliefs as sacred as we do, which sacredness just happens to include and element of secrecy for those of us who have actually taken the covenant upon ourselves – all others are exempt from the expectation of keeping the secret.

I will never watch the Big Love episode because I won’t subscribe to HBO because most of the programming there is unsuitable for my home.

I agree with the non-LDS poster that says most people will forget the ceremony the next day.

Which leads to a much greater point, most LDS are afraid of our history. We are constantly trying to distance ourselves from practices of the past which have brought about persecution, and polygamy is a biggie in this regard. We need to get over ourselves. Most of the world’s religions have pasts that they would like to forget, but the LDS tendency to take such a hard stance in trying to eliminate it from the public consciousness is only fueling the fire. It is times like this that a little humility would do us all some good.

You might find some interest in my post:

“Exposing sacred temple practices violates professional standards.”