Reply #78: You are correct that genealogy was set up for proxy baptisms,

[Ferret Annica]

but I fail to see where the comment concerning inbreeding had racist connotations. The proxy baptisms are to give those who passed on the option to become of this faith.

Mormons believe that individual ability to choose continues beyond the grave. However many - particularly Jews - feel proxy baptisms constitutes a denial of the baptism that already took place.

Mormons agreed to stop proxy baptisms of Jews in 1995, but still have raised concerns by funding the preservation - at 10 cents a sheet - of thousands of names of dead Russian Orthodox Church members to effect baptism of them by proxy.

"Obviously we can't approve the practice, it takes away the most essential gift God has given people, their freedom," said the spokesman for the patriarchal parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States.

"It turns religion into magic," continued Father Joseph, a hieromonk who does not use his last name and is secretary to the administrator of the parish, St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in New York.

Proxy baptism is an arcane practice that helps strain the credibility of the LDS Church as an organization that respects other faiths as their peer in religion expression in any way.