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12 comments from readers

darkindigo
20 September 2007 at 16:33

Hello. Do a little research. The Golden Plates were NOT buried, but were given to an angel. There were several witnesses who saw the plates, who never denied their existance, despite leaving the church.

FightingForFreedom
21 September 2007 at 00:17

It might be worthy to note that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all had multiple wives. The "Christian" right always seems to overlook this point. They would call polygamy a 'sin', as do the current 'Mormons' (Official name = Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)

If polygamy is offensive to God, or a 'sin', the Bible clearly gives no indication of it. In fact, the only place it requires a man to have 'a wife' is if he is called to be a bishop. Now, that might be interpreted as 'a single wife' but it also may mean he must have 'at least' one - in other words, he must be a married man, in order to be able to function in his role as bishop, and understand and appreciate the inner workings of the family, where a single man has not the experience.

The Bible records that because Miriam and Aaron (Moses sister and brother) spoke against him for marrying another wife (Numbers 12:10), God was angry with them for speaking against Moses in the matter and struck Miriam with leprosy .

So, Christians and Mormons, since they both believe the Bible to be the word of God, have a paradox on their hands. If God doesn't view polygamy as a sin, (and the Bible says nothing about it , but actually seems to support it) then the stigma that they've attached to it must actually be 'man-made'. Actually, 'monogamy' only became the 'norm' for the peoples under Roman conquest (thus, the greater part of Europe - the so-called "Christian" nations.)

It's also of interest to note that aproximately 80% of all societies on the planet don't have a problem with polygamy. It would seem that 'anti-polygamy' is the minority view.

Again, it's worthy to note, that in many polygamous unions, women have time to pursue a career and work outside the home, without the usual worry of child-care. Many are professionals and would hardly believe that they are abused, subjugated, and trodden under the foot of men - quite the contrary - they feel quite liberated.

Why don't we NOT worry about 'polygamy', per se. Prosecute the fraudsters, child-molesters, and abusers, and those who would use it as a tool to 'control' others, as have the FLDS cultists (Warren Jeffs and followers), and leave adults who wish to enjoin themselves in multiple-matrimony in peace.

FightingForFreedom
21 September 2007 at 00:28

Here's some polygamy trivia to go with the caption picture of this article.

Our presidential hopeful, Mr. Mitt Romney, the "Mormon" candidate, in an interview has stated, "I can't think of anything more awful than polygamy."

Does that include the Holocaust? The World Wars? Rape? Murder? The London Blitz? 9/11?

I would say that if polygamy is the "most awful" thing he can imagine, then he doesn't have the vision necessary to be President of the United States.

The people of Massachussetts elected him as their governor, but 70% feel like he was a poor one, before his term was up. (wikipedia: Mitt Romney)

I'd say he lacks the vision necessary to be the leader of a nation. He might be a successful businessman and worth millions, but that only means that he knows how to take care of #1 - nothing more.

FightingForFreedom
21 September 2007 at 00:36

America just might be ready to elect a female president, but does it have to be the 'Queen of Corruption'? I hope the american people are wise enough to choose a leader that represents the values that the United Statesof America were founded on.

Logical2356
21 September 2007 at 01:28

Instead of being impartial and sticking to facts the author of this article has clearly define their own agenda in attempting to deface a religion that only seems to strive to protect family values.

I find it interesting that those who attack this religion always use the same arguments and can never come with anything new. Polygamy, the Book of Mormon being like the Bible etc etc. Those that practice polygamy are not a part of the Mormon faith, and are an extreme group of fundamentalists. Why do so many people try to align them with the Mormon faith? It is akin to comparing Lutherans to Catholics.

FightingForFreedom
21 September 2007 at 04:48

Logical2356,

Those that practiced polygamy WERE and ARE of the Mormon faith. Try reading the 'Doctrine & Covenants Section 132' and then say that it doesn't talk about polygamy. Just because the Church of Latter-day Saints renounced the practice (publicly) in 1890, it didn't stop the practice (secretly) until about 1917, simply 'ignoring' any new polygamous marriages that occurred.

Even Heber J. Grant, who became the 7th president of the church, took additional wives after the 1890 declaration, stating that he 'would continue taking wives, until one of them gave him a son.'

Evidently, church leaders felt that the 'Official Declaration #1' was not a revelation from God to them (It doesn't read like one either....), since many did as brother Grant, and took wives after the 'official' declaration of 1890, called 'the Manifesto'..

The church has volountarily renounced polygamy. Their leaders now say they do not have the authority to perform 'plural marriages'.. They also have changed their priesthood ordinations (according to official instructions to stake presidents and mission presidents in 1921, the priesthood was no longer conferred - only an office in the church. This was changed 'back' in 1953),church priesthood structure (there are no 'seventies' in the church today - they call them seventies, but they are ordained 'high priests', nor is there a church patriarch, - both of which belong to the organizational structure the church claims to believe in, according to their list of tenets, known as the '13 Articles of Faith'.

Here's a little documentation that will shed some historical light on the polygamy subject for you, in case you were unaware (and it seems that you are, since you wonder why mormonism and polygamy seem to be 'confused' with each other) Here's the source of where the practice of Mormon polygamy::

1. Did Joseph Smith have more than one wife while he was alive?

Absolutely. Just check Joseph Smith's official church marriage record at www.familysearch.org.

Faithful LDS member and historian Todd Compton has found solid documentation for Smith marriages to 33 women while he was alive. True, many more were sealed to him after his death, but Smith had at least 33 wives while he was alive.

Compton Writes:

"In the group of Smith's well-documented wives, eleven (33 percent) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him. Nine wives (27 percent) were twenty-one to thirty years old. Eight wives (24 percent) were in Smith's own peer group, ages thirty-one to forty. In the group aged forty-one to fifty, there is a substantial drop off: two wives, or 6 percent, and three (9 percent) in the group aged fifty-one to sixty."

"The teenage representation is the largest, though the twenty-year and thirty-year groups are comparable, which contradicts the Mormon folk-wisdom that sees the beginnings of polygamy was an attempt to care for older, unattached women. These data suggest that sexual attraction was an important part of the motivation for Smith's polygamy. In fact, the command to multiply and replenish the earth was part of the polygamy theology, so non-sexual marriage was generally not in the polygamous program, as Smith taught it."

2. Why did Joseph Smith have 33 wives?

Jacob 2: 24-30

24 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none... For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

(The Lord is saying here that the only reason for more than one wife is to "raise up seed" unto Him.)

D&C 132:

Verse 37: Abraham received concubines, and they bore him children; and it was accounted unto him for righteousness...

Verse 41: And as ye have asked concerning adultery...

(Why is adultery an issue? Being married or "sealed" to more than one woman might be bigamy or polygamy, but it's not adultery. Adultery is infidelity outside of marital relations that all parties are in agreement to or have 'covenanted with each other'..)

Verses 62-63: And if he [Joseph Smith] have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.... for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

In fact, Joseph Smith's original 1831 polygamy revelation, given to a group of married men while they were visiting a Native-American tribe, also explains procreation as the purpose of polygamy:

"For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and Just, for even now their females are more virtuous than the gentiles."

- Prophet Joseph Smith, The Joseph Smith Revelations Text and Commentary, p. 374-376, http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/indianpolygamyrevelation...

Brigham Young taught that "This is the reason why the doctrine of plurality of wives was revealed, that the noble spirits which are waiting for tabernacles might be brought forth." (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 197.)

3. But did Joseph Smith obey the commandment and have sex with his wives?

Compton writes:

"Because of claims by Reorganized Latter-day Saints that Joseph was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Joseph's wives) affirmed repeatedly that Joseph had physical sexual relations with his plural wives-despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American religion which otherwise would have prevented mention of sexual relations in marriage."

- Faithful Mormon Melissa Lott (Smith Willes) testified that she had been Joseph's wife "in very deed." (Affidavit of Melissa Willes, 3 Aug. 1893, Temple Lot case, 98, 105; Foster, Religion and Sexuality, 156.)

- In a court affidavit, faithful Mormon Joseph Noble wrote that Joseph told him he had spent the night with Louisa Beaman. (Temple Lot Case, 427)

- Emily D. Partridge (Smith Young) said she "roomed" with Joseph the night following her marriage to him and said that she had "carnal intercourse" with him. (Temple Lot case (complete transcript), 364, 367, 384; see Foster, Religion and Sexuality, 15.)

In total, 13 faithful latter-day saint women who were married to Joseph Smith swore court affidavits that they had sexual relations with him.

- Joseph Smith's personal secretary records that on May 22nd, 1843, Smith's first wife Emma found Joseph and Eliza Partridge secluded in an upstairs bedroom at the Smith home. Emma was devastated.

William Clayton's journal entry for 23 May (see Smith, 105-106)

- Smith's secretary William Clayton also recorded a visit to young Almera Johnson on May 16, 1843: "Prest. Joseph and I went to B[enjamin] F. Johnsons to sleep." Johnson himself later noted that on this visit Smith stayed with Almera "as man and wife" and "occupied the same room and bed with my sister, that the previous month he had occupied with the daughter of the late Bishop Partridge as his wife." Almera Johnson also confirmed her secret marriage to Joseph Smith: "I lived with the prophet Joseph as his wife and he visited me at the home of my brother Benjamin F." (Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets, 44. See also "The Origin of Plural Marriage, Joseph F. Smith, Jr., Deseret News Press, page 70-71.)

- Faithful Mormon and Stake President Angus Cannon told Joseph Smith's son: "Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked [Eliza R. Snow] the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, "I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that."" (Stake President Angus M. Cannon, statement of interview with Joseph III, 23, LDS archives.)

4. Did Joseph Smith father any children from his polygamous wives?

- Stake President Angus Cannon also testified: "I will now refer you to one case where it was said by the girl's grandmother that your father [Joseph Smith] has a daughter born of a plural wife. The girl's grandmother was Mother Sessions . . . She was the grand-daughter of Mother Sessions. That girl, I believe, is living today, in Bountiful, north of this city. I heard prest. Young, a short time before his death, refer to the report . . . The woman is now said to have a family of children, and I think she is still living." (Stake President Angus M. Cannon, statement of interview with Joseph III, 25-26, LDS archives.)

- Faithful Mormon and wife of Joseph Smith, Sylvia Sessions (Lyon), on her deathbed told her daughter, Josephine, that she (Josephine) was the daughter of Joseph Smith. Josephine testified: "She (Sylvia) then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church." (Affidavit to Church Historian Andrew Jenson, 24 Feb. 1915)

- In her testimony given at a Brigham Young University devotional, Faithful Mormon Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner stated that she knew of children born to Smith's plural wives: "I know he [Joseph Smith] had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I know he had three children. They told me. I think two are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names." (Read her full BYU testimony here: http://www.ldshistory.net/pc/merlbyu.htm)

- Faithful Mormon Prescindia D. Huntington, who was Normal Buell's wife and simultaneously a "plural wife" of the Prophet Joseph Smith, said that she did not know whether her husband Norman "or the Prophet was the father of her son, Oliver." And a glance at a photo of Oliver shows a strong resemblance to Emma Smith's boys.

(Mary Ettie V. Smith, "Fifteen Years Among the Mormons", page 34; also Fawn Brodie "No Man Knows My History" pages 301-302, 437-39)

- Researchers have tentatively identified eight children that Joseph Smith may have had by his plural wives. Besides Josephine Fisher (b. Feb. 8, 1844) and Oliver Buell, named as possible children of Joseph Smith by his plural wives are John R. Hanc**k (b. Apr. 19, 1841), George A. Lightner (b. Mar. 12, 1842), Orson W. Hyde (b. Nov. 9, 1843), Frank H. Hyde (b. Jan 23, 1845), Moroni Pratt (b. Dec. 7, 1844), and Zebulon Jacobs (b. Jan 2, 1842). ("Mormon Polygamy: A History" by LDS Historian Richard S. Van Wagoner, pages 44, 48- 49n3.)

Now, shall we talk about Brigham Young, or is it 'nuff said'?

russellwades
21 September 2007 at 21:52

FightingForFreedom

As an educated and orthodox believing Mormon (your sources, accounts, and issues are NO surprise to educated Latter Day Saints), I am thoroughly disappointed with the utter irrelevancy of this post to the question at hand. How long did it take you scrape all this material together? If more than 10 minutes, then you disappoint in your choice of how to use your time. And besides, your scholarship is seriously lacking--not so much in your sources (for that, I must tentatively commend you) but in your interpretative framework. Instead of piecing together the parts, you seem to prefer to take every piece that has even the slightest allusion to moral ambiguity and then throw it back at us. That's not good scholarship, that's the worst kind of muckraking, the kind that loses its purpose.

And it's also NOT appreciated on how you talk about MOrmons as though you've never actually engaged them seriously, instead preferring to foist your own brash and often misleading statements upon us. I believe D&C 132 fully--and yet polygamy is one of the last things (murder, other atrocities definitely supsede) that I ever want to engage in.

In any case, think twice about speaking concerning things you know in only bits and pieces. Consider for a moment that Latter Day Saints might just know more about their history and faith than you do.

coltakashi
24 September 2007 at 18:03

Modern polygamists are people who very distinctly are ANTI-Mormons. They specifically reject the authority of the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the time of Wilford Woodruff and his renunciation of polygamy as a binding principle for the Church in 1890. The real Mormons have no control over or responsibility for the polygamists, any more than Pope Benedict XVI controls the Southern Baptists, even though they both believe in the Bible and Nicene Creed.

A left wing publication like this trying to smear Romney with the actions of polygamists is like someone tryhing to smear Rudy Giuliani for responsibility for the Inquisition or for child-abusing Catholic priests. It is only the fact that your readers are just as ignorant and uneducated and prejudiced against religion as you are that you even dare attempt it.

spencerd
24 September 2007 at 18:33

"unites the Christian right with the liberal left it's discomfort ..over ...membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" The liberal left seems comfortable with Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid's Mormonism. Why do you assume they would object to Mitt Romney's? And associating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints with Warren Jeffs is like associating Southern Baptists with the KKK. This was one of the worst, biggotted hatchet jobs I've seen in modern journalism in quite a while. I hope you don't refer to yourself as a journalist because it would be an insult to those who truly report the news fairly and unbiasedly.

FightingForFreedom
25 September 2007 at 06:59

RusselWades

Quoting you:

"Instead of piecing together the parts, you seem to prefer to take every piece that has even the slightest allusion to moral ambiguity and then throw it back at us. That's not good scholarship, that's the worst kind of muckraking, the kind that loses its purpose. ..."

What did you seem to think was 'thrown back at you'?

I find no 'moral ambiguity' at all in the information I quoted in my previous post - so the reason you take offense is what seems to be the ''raw nerve' syndrome that most mormons seem to have whenever the subject comes up.

You said, "...And it's also NOT appreciated on how you talk about MOrmons as though you've never actually engaged them seriously, instead preferring to foist your own brash and often misleading statements upon us...."

Really!? You assume too much. Oh, I've engaged them all right - and you have no idea how seriously. I've not found many that can go the distance when challenged with hard evidence.

What 'brash and misleading statements do you refer to? Please, illuminate the pensive reader....

you also said.

"...In any case, think twice about speaking concerning things you know in only bits and pieces. Consider for a moment that Latter Day Saints might just know more about their history and faith than you do."

You seem to lack familiarity with many points of mormon history, like many other mormons I've engaged - it is apparent from your post - you SAY you know much - when in fact most of you are pretty much 'in the dark.

When it comes to many things in the collective mormon past, most members can only produce what they've been 'fed' by their leaders..

I think Isaiah 28:1-13.sums up the situation completely.

FightingForFreedom
26 September 2007 at 01:46

spencerd,

Your 'raw nerve' is showing. The author never associated Warren Jeffs and his group with "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". He simply stated that he was the leader of "a group of fundamentalist mormons". I'd call that accurate. You mormons sure bristle easily.

"....associating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints with Warren Jeffs is like associating Southern Baptists with the KKK. "

You make a wonderful comparison! Perhaps this is all too true. I'm sure that there have been Southern Baptists that were practicing members of said group, or at least had their roots with them.

Rich.......!

FightingForFreedom
26 September 2007 at 02:06

Coltakashi

You made some observations that seem made from a very narrow point of view, and not true in a general sense. Please allow me to explain:- First, your statement, "Modern polygamists are people who very distinctly are ANTI-Mormons. "

There are many cultures in the world where polygamy is a very accepted practice - almost the 'norm'. MOST of these cultures are 'non-mormon', but certainly would not be considered 'ANTI'-mormon. Many are not christian societies, although there are some. Polygamy is biblical, as my initial post pointed out, so the judeo-christian society is not unfamiliar with it. Uncomfortable, yes, but not unfamiliar. There are Christian polygamists out here in society (not mormons). Again, these people are not of neccessity 'ANTI'-mormon.

Your statement MAY be true of some of the groups that call themselves "fundamentalist mormons", where they openly take a stand against the 'main-stream' mormons. They believe in the church as it was restored by Joseph Smith Jr, and do not believe that the church had any right to reject the alleged revelations (there were more than the one) regarding "celestial or plural marriage" as it is referred to in the Mormon Doctrine and Covenants, section 132. There are many mormons that believe in polygamy, who ARE members of the LDS (Mormon) church, and they certainly are not 'ANTI'-mormon. I've listened to and conversed with many mormon stake presidents, scholars, and other leaders on the subject. I've also had dialogue with Jews. It's a fascinating way of life, and, as I mentioned, can be liberating, rather than 'oppressing' to women.

Are there abuses? Of course, but before we stone anyone, lets make sure that our own society is free from fault. Do abuses and inequalities exist in our modern monogomistic 'western' society? Hard to deny that they do. They are there in all the ugly forms that seem to be attributed to ALL polygamists. You seem to dump them all in the same category, and yet yelp at the author who talked about two groups with a common heritage. How narrow-minded and bigoted is that?

Are there advantages for those who choose it as a way of life freely? Undeniably, or they wouldn't choose it! They'd UN-choose it just as easily.

The author of this article approached the subject of polygamy with an open mind - not faulting it at all, which I found refreshing. It seems (again) that all the polygamy bashing comes from the mormons. WHY? It's a part of theirr heritage.

There's a saying that starts something like: " He who protesteth loudly, has something to hide " Please find it in your heart to forgive me if you feeli I've over-paraphrased....