How important is a white shirt?

[tragula]

What else can we expect?  Once we start down the road to Phariseeism, where does it stop?  Where do we draw the line?  It starts with white shirts and ties and quickly turns into a game of one-ups-manship.  Who is holier than who?  Who is more righteous than who?  You make your young men wear white shirts and ties?  Well, we have gone one better than that.  We require our young men to wear suit coats as well as white shirts and ties.  It starts with white shirts and ties, and before you know it's white robes and candles.  After all, if white is good, than more white is better, right?  If white shirts show respect for a sacred ordinance of the priesthood, then white robes would show even more respect for a sacred ordinance of the priesthood.  Isn't that how the robes of the Catholic Church started?  Showing respect for the sacred ordinance of the Communion?  And now they have a "uniform of the priesthood."  How far away from that are we?  The people in my stake are already talking about a "uniform of the priesthood."  In our case it's a coat and tie and white shirt.  Is there any guarantee that it will stop there?  I guess the missionaries around here are "out of uniform" because they don't wear coats in the summer time, but our young men do.  I guess President Ezra Taft Benson was "out of uniform" years ago, when he took off his coat in the Priesthood Session of General Conference.  After taking off his coat, he said, "Do you want to know why I did that?  Because I'm hot."  But if our young men are hot they can't pass the sacrament without a coat on.  Was President Benson "out of uniform"?  Is there really a "uniform"?  Apparently there is in our stake.  And, like I say, where does it stop?  And where do you draw the line?  One ward draws it here and one draws in there.  Who's right?

[Suzie_Su]

Tragula, that story is just plain sick and ridiculous. Did you speak with the leaders about it?

[tragula]

What if you wear a light blue shirt when passing the sacrament, does it really have to be white? What is your view?

I think if the Lord really cared, He would have said something about it through His living Prophet, but since, as far as I know, the Prophet hasn't said anything about it, I suspect that the Lord doesn't really care about the color of our shirts.