WOSF Episode 8
The immediate prequel, Wildflower Seeds, hasn't published yet, but also touches on this issue. In the Mormon church last year, there was a church-wide study of the "Doctrine and Covenants" which is their other major scripture besides the Book of Mormon, and which contains some really good stuff but also some really questionable stuff - all of it purporting to be private revelations from Jesus to Joseph Smith - one of which revelations is the one regarding polygamy. We were being urged to vote for Democrats despite their going against Christian moral values generally, specifically because it was believed that they were likely to continue their redefinition of traditional marriage to legalize polygamous or group marriages - in favor of their more typical constituents, but the Mormons would be happy to jump on that bandwagon, and I have been told by multiple people that at least some of the temples in Utah are going ahead and solemnizing them, much like some of my liberal parents' gay friends had religious or private "weddings" long before the supreme court formally legalized gay marriage.
While names are not being used and appearances and other identifying details have been altered, everything in these comics did actually take place on the dates and in the locations specified.
In Wildflower Seeds we will see the origins of our running away from Ohio and eventually away from the Mormons altogether, as I resist pressure to engage in a polygamous relationship with one of my local church leaders, who takes his revenge at my refusal by having me excommunicated for disobedience. This is why we are seeing a gradual "ripple effect" of former friends abandoning and shunning us as we progress on our journey - it took time for word to spread, and I could theoretically have gotten around the excommunication by officially moving to a different geographic area (not just by traveling but by formal change of residence address, since Mormons are assigned to a local congregation based on residence - you are not free to register at a different location unless there is an extraordinary circumstance) or marrying someone, either of which would have taken me out of that local leader's authority. But instead I chose to get around it by leaving that church altogether and rejoining the Catholic Church, which appears only too happy to have me as an almost-daily communicant!
