I agree that this thread is mainly about poking fun at the Society for their ridiculous rules and interpretations, but _Morpheus makes a valid point.
The Society extrapolates all kinds of rules and policies and even doctrines based on stories and laws and customs from the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures). In the "Israelite days," there was something called brother-in-law marriage. If a man died childless, his brother (or some other male relative) was duty bound to impregnate his widow, and the child would be considered the offspring of the dead man. All perfectly legal and aboveboard. No stigma whatsoever. Just how things were done.
But today, when it comes to surrogacy or infertility treatments like IVF or sperm or egg donation, the Society calls it adultery. WTF? The intent is the same: helping someone have the child they desire so much. Brother-in-law marriage involved actual intercourse, probably repeatedly over a period of time. Modern day methods are much more clinical and do not run such a risk of emotional entanglement and the betrayal of a mate (which is how most would define adultery).
To equate something as compassionate as helping another have a child with adultery is cold-hearted and legalistic on its face. To do so in abject defiance of scriptural precedent is hypocritical for religious leaders who put such stock in Old Testament "type and antitype." When you consider that even they concede that brother-in-law marriage was a "divine arrangement," it seems blasphemous to decree that the modern day direct parallel is a sin. That's placing their judgment above God's, in effect overruling him. What chutzpah! It's arrogance of the highest order.
They are saying that the gift of one's DNA through sperm or egg donation, or even a surrogate's carrying of a married couple's own genetic fetus to term because the wife is unable to do so, is adultery. But brother-in-law marriage, which involved actual intercourse, was not. This completely ignores scriptural precedent, or Biblical principle, as they like to call it.
This policy is just one thing that proves to me that the Truth© is certainly NOT the truth, and the Society is nothing more than a mind-control cult that's perfectly willing to pronounce edicts that affect millions on the flimsiest of notions and the most specious of reasons. It's all about power and control, not what's right, or even what's best for the flock.