Is the Mormon Doctrine of Baptism for the Dead a Controversial Topic?

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900006133/mormon-baptisms-on-holocaust-victims-celebrities-violated-church-policy.html

The truth is that many of the doctrines and practices are controversial for the reason that dissidents who have either left the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or who have been excomminicated attack the Church by using lies or half truths to foment controversy. The above article is a good example of the actions of those who have left the Church attempting to create controversy and cast aspersions on the Church. I am not promoting the article, but if you do read it, you will see that the "controversy," if there is one, comes from accusations made by former members.

Basically, the issue raised in the article is that members of the Church, not the Church itself, have requested and performed temple ordinances for individuals who the dissidents classify as "Holocaust victims." As a genealogical researcher, I do not find enough information in the article to either confirm or refute the allegations made by the dissidents. I do note that the article itself quotes a representative of the Jewish community who is apparently not disturbed by the claims made against the Church. Here is the quote from the article.

Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the former national director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, watches the LDS database on behalf of the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. He has asked church leaders to regularly remind Mormons about the church policy. 

He defended the LDS Church, saying the number of names found by Radkey "are infinitesimal" in scope, that the church has "an astonishingly good record" and that the process he oversees is working. 

"As somebody who's been involved at this level for many years," Greenebaum said, "I find it sort of extraordinary that someone is still wanting to say that the church is not acting in good faith, because I think it is acting in extraordinarily good faith." 

Greenebaum has been watching the church for more than a dozen years at the request of the late Ernest Michel, an Auschwitz survivor who worked on the 1995 agreement. The LDS Church sends Greenebaum a monthly report on submissions of Holocaust victims and updates him on how each case is resolved.

Interestingly, from the standpoint of someone working on my own family history and helping others by using the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, I would have some observations on the subject.

First of all, the article clearly records the fact that the accuser examined the Family Tree to find the information she alleges. The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is freely available to both members and non-members. But in order for a person to see the temple ordinances, the user would have to have access with an LDS account available only to members. In other words, the accuser gained access either through the cooperation of a member, who she does not name, or through misrepresentation by using some member's ID number. In addition, as an attorney, I would be suspicious of an accusation that did not include some evidence that the people submitting the names were, in fact, members of the Church. If she gained access to the temple ordinance information as a non-member, then it would have been possible for someone to fraudulently use the program to make the Church look bad.

By the way, millions of entries are added to the Family Tree every year and the fact that the accuser could only find 20 names in a five year period shows the effectiveness of the Church's efforts to comply with the requests from the Jewish community.

Recently, all users of the FamilySearch.org website are going to be required to register for a free account. This action alone will markedly increase the security and accountability of the entire website.

As a genealogist and as a member of the Church, I take these types of attacks personally because I constantly teach about the need to follow the rules set forth in submitting names for temple ordinances. Please read and follow the guidelines for submitting names.