Warren Jeffs' compound

[_asbestosman]

If it weren't for teenage wives would the polygamy thing even be a government issue? Is the real issue polygamy or young brides?

Also, I do wonder just how young one should be permitted to get married? Many states allow marriage at 16 (or maybe younger) with parental consent. Part of the reasoning is that perhaps the young girl was fooling around with a friend and got pregnant. Obviously I think it's immoral to usurp your authority over a child to force one into a young marriage, but I sometimes wonder just where to draw the line--is it fine if the teen is 18 or 19? I know many girls who are encouraged to marry straight out of highschool and men directly after missions. 21 is young in my opinion, but I would never want the government to interfere in that case. Yet somehow I'm fine with it here. What exactly is the difference? I really doubt that polygamy is the key factor though at least for me.

[_Brackite]

The MAD Mormons are protesting the media's use of the word "Mormon" in association with the group.

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... 34662&st=0

Once again, the LDS get angry when other Christians insist the Mormons do not have the right to call themselves christians, if that is what they believe they are - but they deny fundamentalist groups the right to call themselves Mormons, if that is what they believe they are. In fact, the fundamentalist groups view THEMSELVES as the "real Mormons", and the Utah church being a pretender.

And there is also another MA&D Discussion thread about this topic. Here is the URL Address to it:

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... 34640&st=0


The MA&D Moderator named 'Chronos' came in that thread to ban a Poster there. Here is what the MAD Moderator named 'Chronos' wrote there:

Mike,

We are not responsible for other sects. If you've got a beef with them, go argue it with them. As for bringing it up here and acting as if we must do something to stop everyone from practicing it, while being rather condescending about it has earned you a ban. We're not taking flak for something that we aren't doing. This disrespect will not be tolerated anymore. This is an LDS board, learn who's field you're playing on.

~Chronos

[_Coggins7]

Hat tip to Chronos. The present fundamentalist sects are not Mormons and, in a very real sense, have no connection to the LDS Church at all except in the most tenuous historical sense.

In another vein, one may as well ascribe present trends among sects and cults claiming descent, in one manner or another, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to the philandering of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, and other of the Lord's anointed (if you accept that they were, indeed, the Lord's anointed), as to Joseph Smith. Joseph did nothing, regarding plural marriage, other than what some of the great patriarchs and prophets of the past had done under the authority of the Priesthood, as is well documented in the Old Testament.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

We are not responsible for other sects. If you've got a beef with them, go argue it with them. As for bringing it up here and acting as if we must do something to stop everyone from practicing it, while being rather condescending about it has earned you a ban. We're not taking flak for something that we aren't doing. This disrespect will not be tolerated anymore. This is an LDS board, learn who's field you're playing on.

~Chronos

While we as LDS are figuring out what we can "do" about polygamy in America, I'm wondering what died-in-the-wool liberals like Harmony, Beastie, Tarski, Rollo and other of the most vehement critics of Joseph Smith and plural marriage here, want us to do about the continuing rampant practices of premarital cohabitation, promiscuous sexual experimentation among youth, and the continued popularity of extramarital sexual activities among the married that are rife in our society.

Once upon a time, in the seventies, premarital recreational sex (sexual freedom) and extramarital sexual adventuring (open marriage) were all the rage. Some 30 to 35 years down from the sixties and seventies, serial premarital relationships and extramarital flings are still popular pursuits among a large segment of the population, and hardcore pornography has become so popular and so mainstreamed as to be nearing the point of socio-cultural domestication.

I'm still at a loss then, to understand what problem secular liberals have with plural sexual relationships, whether practiced in non-serial form by Joseph Smith, or in modern serial form by Hugh Hefner.

[_Jersey Girl]

I'm still at a loss then, to understand what problem secular liberals have with plural sexual relationships, whether practiced in non-serial form by Joseph Smith, or in modern serial form by Hugh Hefner.

Please give me evidence from their posts where beastie, harmony, Tarski or Shades have promoted what you suggest.

[_Coggins7]

The MAD Mormons are protesting the media's use of the word "Mormon" in association with the group.

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... 34662&st=0

Once again, the LDS get angry when other Christians insist the Mormons do not have the right to call themselves christians, if that is what they believe they are - but they deny fundamentalist groups the right to call themselves Mormons, if that is what they believe they are. In fact, the fundamentalist groups view THEMSELVES as the "real Mormons", and the Utah church being a pretender.

Once again, Beastie's inherent intellectual slovenliness and her transparent tendentiousness shines like a beacon in the moonless night. The fundamental historical, semantic, logical, and sociological fact here is, of course, that these groups are not Mormons, and, perhaps, even more importantly, never were.

The above is perhaps the major example, out of a number, of why I don't trust Beastie's analysis of archaeological subjects as related to the Church, and why no one else should either. That the fundamentalist groups themselves view themselves as the real Mormons does not, in any logical sense, support either Beastie's or their arguments that they, in fact, are. The real Mormons, if the argument is framed in this manner, are, of course, members of the real Church, which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The very idea that plural marriage is somehow so salient a practice that the "real" Church can be understood to be so based solely upon the presence of this practice within it cannot be supported doctrinally based in the core concepts of the very religion these so called "fundamentalist" Mormons claim to represent.

None of our scriptures, from the Old Testament to the D&C, promote or accept plural marriage except for specific persons under specific conditions. Nothing in the doctrines of the Church require plural marriage to be practiced in this life to attain exaltation, unless one is specifically called to do so . The fundamentalist's view of polygamy is very much like Pentecostals view of glossolalia.

In any case, they have no Priesthood authority, and hence, no authority to enter lawfully into this principle. They also have rejected the mysteries; the highest ordinances of the Gospel and the sealing power, without which, all bonds, oaths, contracts, and obligations entered into in this life, with one wife or with many, are void upon exit from this life.

Their entire position, in other words, is moot.

[_truth dancer]

In any case, they have no Priesthood authority, and hence, no authority to enter lawfully into this principle. They also have rejected the mysteries; the highest ordinances of the Gospel and the sealing power, without which, all bonds, oaths, contracts, and obligations entered into in this life, with one wife or with many, are void upon exit from this life.

Coggins... you are aware that the FLDS similarly assert that it is the LDS church who has "rejected the mysteries; the highest ordinances of the Gospel and the sealing power without which, all bonds, oaths, contracts, and obligations entered into in this life with one wife or with many are void upon exist from this life," right?

Claiming something doesn't make something so! ;-)

~dancer~

[_Brackite]

We also need to remember that the 2nd President of the LDS Church, Brigham Young, also married pretty very young females as wives when he was over the age of 40 years old.
Here are a list of some of the young Wives, of Brigham Young:

Age of Female:-----------Age of Brigham Young:-----Date of Marriage:
Clarissa C. Decker 15------Brigham Young 42------------May 8, 1844
Emmeline Free 19----------Brigham Young 43-----------April 30, 1845
Ellen Rockwood 16---------Brigham Young 44-----------January, 1846
Mary J. Bigelow 19---------Brigham Young 45-----------March 20, 1847
Lucy Bigelow 16-----------Brigham Young 45------------March 20, 1847

[_Coggins7]

Coggins... you are aware that the FLDS similarly assert that it is the LDS church who has "rejected the mysteries; the highest ordinances of the Gospel and the sealing power without which, all bonds, oaths, contracts, and obligations entered into in this life with one wife or with many are void upon exist from this life," right?

Claiming something doesn't make something so! ;-)

How can the LDS Church have rejected the mysteries when it is precisely the FLDS who have consciously rejected them? They have no Temple ceremonies, nor does the Church of Jesus Christ, another apostate branch. It would seem to me that the one's who do not have the mysteries and who are consciously aware that they do not would not be the one's to try to point this out to the organization from which they came which has preserved them.

But this is all moot. The FLDS do not have the Gift of the Holy Ghost. They have no Priesthood, and know authority. Do I need to make long doctrinal or philosophical arguments in support of this claim? No. The spiritual manifestations to the Saints at the time who were in tune with the Spirit and living their religion were clear and unambiguous as to he upon whom the mantle fell upon Joseph's death. And what else? The FLDS are not LDS; they are not Mormons, and they never were. Their members have no more membership in the LDS Church or connection to it than the average Mississippi southern Baptist, except one: at some point in the past, someone who was, at one point, a Mormon, began a sect that was, in some senses, based upon a selection of doctrines and practices accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In this sense, the fundamentalist cults have a historical connection to the Church. However, these folks are still nonmembers of the Church. they are not part of the Kingdom. If their leaders or originators were members, they have been excommunicated, and an excommunicated member is as if he had never been a member at all.

But, I understand that you simply do not understand what I am saying, and have no intention of doing so.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

We also need to remember that the 2nd President of the LDS Church, Birgham Young, also married pretty very young females as wives when he was over the age of 40 years old.
Here are a list of some of the young Wives of Brigham Young:

Age of Female:-----------Age of Brigham Young:-----Date of Marriage:
Clarissa C. Decker 15------Brigham Young 42------------May 8, 1844
Emmeline Free 19----------Brigham Young 43-----------April 30, 1845
Ellen Rockwood 16---------Brigham Young 44-----------January, 1846
Mary J. Bigelow 19---------Brigham Young 45-----------March 20, 1847
Lucy Bigelow 16-----------Brigham Young 45------------March 20, 1847

Yes, common age differences for the age, both within and without the Church. Keep in mind as well, that at the time, 40 was about the average life expectancy of an American male, and a substantial number of children born, even in urban areas, never made it out of childhood (I think this was something like 30%).