The creator of a calendar that featured shirtless Mormon missionaries was excommunicated Sunday after a disciplinary meeting with local church leaders in Las Vegas.

“Men on a Mission,” which has sold nearly 10,000 copies at $14.99 each, included pictures of 12 returned missionaries wearing black slacks, but not their trademark white shirts, in modest poses. The men also were photographed in traditional missionary garb and share their religious beliefs in biographical sketches. [video]

Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, described plural marriage as part of “the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth” and taught that a man needed at least three wives to attain the “fullness of exaltation” in the afterlife.

He warned that God had explicitly commanded that “all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same … and if ye abide not that covenenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.”

So why did the Mormons eventually reject polygamy?

The doctrines and practices of Mormon Fundamentalists are closer to those of the original Mormon Church than are the doctrines and practices of today’s Mormon Church.

Fundamentalist Mormons have responded to a less-than-honest PR campaign by the LDS Church.

While the Mormon church still teaches that gay sex is a sin and actively opposes gay marriage—which it will do from pulpits across California this Sunday—a first-ever meeting between Mormon officials and members of an advocacy group for non-straight Mormons, might suggest that such acceptance is more than wishful thinking.

Mormon leaders today said they are stepping up efforts to make the public aware of the differences between the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), which has recently garnered widespread national attention.

Then we fill in the details the LDS leaves out.

Keller, host of a live television program on the Internet, said the IRS investigation was triggered by his criticism of former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith.

The LDS Church now boasts more members abroad than in the U.S., where the church has its origins. About 55 percent of the world’s 13 million Mormons live outside the U.S., according to church figures.

“Wikileaks will not remove the handbooks [the Church Handbook of Instructions is a two-volume set], which are of substantial interest to current and former Mormons,” according to a Wikinews article. “Wikileaks will remain a place where people from around the world can safely reveal the truth.”

Wikileaks has posted a confidential document from the Church of Latter-day Saints called the Church Handbook of Instructions, which is a guide for the church’s lay leadership and is not available either to parishioners or to the public.

The Roman Catholic Church has recently directed dioceses worldwide not to give parish information to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The move is to prevent LDS Church members from baptizing by proxy Catholic ancestors.