I liked that he pointed out that it seemed sneaky to try to avoid it.

And as to Saturday’s Warriors, all lawyers with a passing knowledge of ancient law should remember that there’s lex talionis, lex naturae and lex de acevedo.

I suspect that the requirement for blood tests before temple sealings applied to those whose sealings followed immediately after their civil marriage, which was permitted in those days.

I thought the blood test thing was for having kids. Looks like it was discovered in 1940, so it seems to match with the 1941 law.
When I got married (late 90′s) in Idaho, it was required to state your blood type, but nobody was going to prohibit marriage on that basis. It was just to alert you to the potential problem if kids were in the future.

I love the answer to the “did we choose our parents” question. I am aware of several individuals whose patriarchal blessings mention commitments and relationships formed in the preexistence, FWIW.

And yes, the “using the Church for business dealings’ answer was also a classic.

When my wife and I got married in L.A., California required a blood test. When we went to get our license, they didn’t accept my blood test since it was out of state (and this was a couple of days before our marriage). We finally found a judge who exempted that for us and issued the license. But now I wonder, is our sealing invalid??? Are we not really married???

My first thought about the blood test was the race thing, but then I realized that they probably couldn’t tell someone’s race via blood that long ago.

My question to the answerer would be, what about someone whose falsely convicted of murder? It has been known to happen over the years.

And on the subject of Saturday’s Warrior, I tried to watch a production of that a couple of years ago on BYU TV to see if it was something I wanted to show my kids (a piece of my childhood and all that) but it was so horrid that I couldn’t bear to watch more than about five minutes of it. I sure hope BYU TV isn’t still showing it since it violates most of the provisions of the 13th Article of Faith.

→The clerical undertaking necessary to track members back when it was all pen and paper boggles my mind. Yeah, there were fewer members then, but still.

→Yes, blood tests for marriage licenses were to test for STDs, and they’re still required by a large but slowly shrinking number of states. Maryland hasn’t ever required them, as far as i can tell, which means that marriage in the Washington DC temple (which is actually in Kensington, Maryland) has never required a blood test. If i read this answer right, though, a Mormon couple from Maryland (not that there would have been many at this time) would still have had to get a blood test to be sealed. Interesting situation of extending Utah’s norms and customs (and laws!) to Mormons outside of that state.

→Interesting differences between current and past practices regarding church membership and criminal conviction.

→“Any business or social scheme which requires bolstering by argument based on Church doctrine or history is one of which the people may well be careful.” I am so going to memorize this quote and use it.

→The church’s Handbook has at times painfully legalistic rules for what times church activities can begin and end. Given that questions like whether they can start midnight Sunday/Monday night have come up in the past, i guess i can understand why a bit better now.

→And finally, how can they say we have no revelation on whether we chose our parents? We have Saturday’s Warrior, don’t we? ;)