Orson Pratt Implies That Joseph Smith Was Gay.
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2023 1:13 am
Everyone is familiar with Joseph Smith trying to coerce Orson Pratt's wife Sarah to become one of his many plural wives. Sarah famously rejected Joseph's proposal which infuriated Joseph to the point that he publicly called Sarah a "whore." Exactly the kind of behavior one would expect from a true prophet of God, or Harvey Weinstein.
Well, here's a bit of Church history you don't learn everyday in seminary, Sunday school or General Conference. The Wasp newspaper (a weekly Latter Day Saint newspaper edited and published by William Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, from April 1842 to April 1843) reported that the apostle Orson Pratt implicitly accused Joseph Smith of engaging in same-sex sexual activity
Well, here's a bit of Church history you don't learn everyday in seminary, Sunday school or General Conference. The Wasp newspaper (a weekly Latter Day Saint newspaper edited and published by William Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, from April 1842 to April 1843) reported that the apostle Orson Pratt implicitly accused Joseph Smith of engaging in same-sex sexual activity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... th_centuryQuinn, D. Michael (1996). Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example. University of Illinois Press. p. 267. The Wasp claimed that the Prophet Joseph Smith had tolerated Bennett's homoeroticism. The church newspaper even printed one apostle's implication that Joseph Smith himself had also engaged in an 'immoral act' with a man. On the next page of the July 1842 'Wasp,' the church newspaper described Smith's reaction to Apostle Orson Pratt's vote against a resolution defending the prophet's chastity: 'Pres. Joseph Smith spoke in reply [on July 22]—Question to Elder Pratt, "'Have you personally a knowledge of any immoral act in me toward the female sex, or in any other way?' Answer, by Elder Pratt, 'Personally, toward the female sex, I have not.'" Since this same issue of the 'Wasp' had already raised the topic of Bennett's 'buggery' and the prophet's alleged toleration of it, Smith's 'in any other way?' was an implicit challenge for Pratt to charge him with 'buggery' as well. Pratt declined to answer whether Joseph Smith had committed 'any immoral act' with someone other than a woman, but also declined to exonerate the prophet form such a charge.