News
March 28, 2001 08:30:00 - Associated Press
Mormon Church Asks Congregation Leaders Not To Put Up Web Sites

SALT LAKE CITY - The Mormon church has asked the leaders of congregations and other subgroups of the church to take down their Internet home pages.

The Presiding Bishopric of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made the request in a letter in behalf of the ruling First Presidency to the local leaders, from mission presidents to bishops.

Local leaders also were told not to put up any new sites until a Web policy is developed that would apply to all 28,000 congregations worldwide.

The letter says that only official sites, such as www.lds.org, contain "approved, correlated material that the church has deemed appropriate for the Internet.

"As the church grows, it is very important that information presented to the world be accurate and dignified and that it represent a single, unified church voice," the letter said. "In addition, it is imperative that the rights of third parties be protected and respected through strict compliance with applicable laws."

Church spokesman Dale Bills declined Tuesday to provide any information beyond what was in the three-paragraph letter dated March 15. He would not say what prompted the decision to ban the Web sites.

However, the letter - especially its reference to protecting third parties - triggered speculation that it may have been in response to a recent rumor on the Internet that some ward Web site had posted names of excommunicated members. Kent Larsen, founder and editor of the popular Web site Mormon News, said he has not been able to confirm the rumor.

The mere possibility that it could have happened at any one of the thousands of unofficial and unsupervised ward and stake Web sites in cyberspace could have been enough to give the church's lawyers headaches, Larsen said.

The rumor "is a good example of what could happen if you don't have a measure of control over these sites," Larsen said. "If someone did (list excommunicants online), it obviously opens up the church to libel charges."

The ban does not effect Larsen's site, a private operation he put up two years ago with his wife, Michelle. Mormon News Today records more than 100,000 visitors per month.

"Generally, (the ban) is the right thing to do. But it is unfortunate the church didn't do this three years ago when these sites first began appearing," he said.

Meantime, ward and stake Web sites seemed to be slowly complying with the church directive. Of the dozens of Mormon congregational sites checked by The Salt Lake Tribune Monday, about half still were active while the remainder were dead links.

Some contained brief notices of suspension. At the North Little Rock (Ariz.) Stake home page, visitors were informed, "We have received a letter from the First Presidency requesting that all ward-stake Web sites be removed from the Web.

"The letter seemed to indicate that they will be coming out later with guidelines and policies," it continued. "Maybe we can get it back up then."

It is not known how many Mormon wards and stakes have had Web sites.