Since we have had no replies for a few days now, I'm moving this conversation on. Let's get back to the Irrational World of Brian Hales' Polygamy. I have some more fun facts and commentary. Let's talk about the things that aren't in the new Church Essay on Polygamy, like Smith's adultery with Mary Heron Snider.
The way that Hales handles the Joseph E. Johnson account about Mary Heron and Joseph Smith tells a lot about his lack of being able to present the evidence in any kind of balanced way. For example if one goes to the link above, and you wish to read the minutes of the Joseph E. Johnson account, you are first presented with another link that provides a “concise summary”. Here is Hales’ summary,
Joseph E. Johnson reported that he knew that “the first frigging [slang for sexual relations]—that was done in his house with his mother in law—by Joseph.” Johnson’s statement represents the only evidence I have been able to identify regarding a polyandrous plural relationship between Joseph Smith and Mary Heron Snider. However, Johnson seems credible so I have included Mary here as a possible conjugal wife. The fact that Mary Heron was not sealed to her legal husband, John Snider during their lifetimes, even though the opportunity was repeatedly available (including by proxy between her 1852 death and John Snider’s 1875 passing), is consistent with a sealing between her and the Prophet. John Snider remained an active Latter-day Saint, suggesting either that he was entirely unaware of the relationship (which is unlikely if his son-in-law, Joseph E. Johnson, knew about it) or that he knew about it and supported it.
http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/mary-he ... sexuality/
Does it even occur to Hales that because the “prophet” had committed adultery with his wife and she agreed with it that it was HER decision not to be sealed to John Snider? Of course, this throws a wrench into Hales’ fictitious creation here. When you are done reading the summary, by all means read the Mary Heron page found here
http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/history ... ary-heron/ and then come back and read the minutes here in their uninterrupted entirety, or read them first, curious reader. Here are the minutes I have been able to find as recorded by D. Michael Quinn,
1850 Sept. 2, 2 P. M
A Council met in WR’s East Room Present—B[righam] Y[oung] - H[eber] C K[imball] - W[illard] R[ichards] - O[rson] H[yde] P[arley] P P[ratt] E[zra] T[aft] B[enson], G[eorge] A. S[mith], O[rson] Spencer, T. B - D[aniel] Carn - A[lexander] Neibaur - J[oel]H. Johnson, B[enjamin] F. Johnson, and Joseph Kelly [clerk] –
[***]
O. Hyde [:] there is a matter of bro: Johnson to be laid before the Council—this matter was brot. before Council in Kanesville his Priesthood was required to be laid down until he came here—a Miss Goddard wife of Lorenzo Snow became in a family way by Bro Johnson—she was living in his house—we deemed it improper for her to be there he sent her away to a retired place—she was delivered of a child—she is again living at his house in Kanesville—he wishes to retain his fellowship in the Church. He says he has bro: Snow & he was satisfied.“
Joseph E. Johnson [:]—I am come purposely if possible to get the matter settled & atone for the wrong I av done—I av neglected to lay it before you before this—bro Hydes statements r all correct—true—all I can do is beg for mercy—I became acquainted with the girl, & the consequences r as the[y] r—I saw bro. Snow at Kanesville & he was satisfied—I am come here to atone for the wrong I av done.
[***]
“Ansr. I av not ad connection with Devol’s daur – as God is my judge this is true. I never herad [heard] any conversation to say it was right to go to bed to a woman if not found out – I was aware the thing was wrong. – had been with – he sd. He was familiar with the first frigging – that was done in his house with his mother in law—by Joseph.
“O.H. sd. Kelly told him Johnson knew what he was about—it was done in his house by bro Joseph that the Ch had tried to break down bro. Babbitt & the Ch Therefor—I knew at the time I was doing wrong—I never av taken any body as a excuse—I never plighted my faith on Joseph’s transactions.
[***]
“J. Kelly—It as taken me by surprise—in our conversation—Johnson introduced the subject—as to himself—& many scenes that r familiar in the Ch—he sd. It was a matter of his own concern & interested nobody else but those he wod. av to bow to him.” (Source: Misc Minutes, Brigham Young Collection, d 1234, CHL, Sept. 2, 1850, restricted; excerpts transcribed by D. Michael Quinn, bx 3 fd 2, Quinn Collection, Yale Library.)
[Quinn note:]
Brigham Young reproves him and has him rebaptized.
Now, here is the account from Hales’ Vol. 1 of “Joseph Smith’s Polygamy” which he calls “an isolated source” (actually not “isolated”, but restricted by the Mormon Church):
Joseph Ellis Johnson’s Statement
Returning now to their original transgression in April 1849, even at that time with polygamy secretly gaining momentum among Church members, LDS leaders were intolerant of adultery regardless of the setting. Hence, upon learning of Hannah Maria’s pregnancy and the circumstances, Joseph Ellis Johnson’s Church membership was in jeopardy. He attended a council of priesthood leaders in the Salt Lake Valley on September 2, 1850, that discussed the case.70 Brigham Young presided at the meeting, which was also attended by Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Orson Hyde, Parley P. Pratt, Ezra Taft Benson, George A. Smith, Orson Spencer, Daniel Carn, Alexander Neibaur, Joel H. Johnson, Benjamin F. Johnson, and Joseph Kelly (secretary).71 Notes from that council explain:
O. Hyde [speaking] there is a matter of bro: Johnson to be laid before the Council—this matter was brot. before Council in Kanesville his Priesthood was required to be laid down until he came here—a Miss Goddard wife of Lorenzo Snow became in a family way by Bro Johnson—she was living in his house—we deemed it improper for her to be there he sent her away to a retired place—she was delivered of a child—she is again living at his house in Kanesville—he wishes to retain his fellowship in the Church. He says he has bro: Snow & he was satisfied.“Joseph E. Johnson [speaking]—I am come purposely if possible to get the matter settled & atone for the wrong I av done—I av neglected to lay it before you before this—bro Hydes statements r all correct—true—all I can do is beg for mercy—I became acquainted with the girl, & the consequences r as the[y] r—I saw bro. Snow at Kanesville & he was satisfied—I am come here to atone for the wrong I av done.72
During the proceedings, secretary Kelly recorded Joseph Ellis Johnson’s explanatory comments that make it clear he was not attempting to justify his conduct:
I never heard any conversation to say it was right to go to bed to a woman if not found out—I was aware the thing was wrong.—had been with—he sd. He was familiar with the first frigging [slang for sexual relations]—that was done in his house with his mother in law—by Joseph.73
The “mother in law” was Mary Heron Snider. (Brian Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy, Vol. I, pg. 211-12)
Hales shows favoritism to pro Mormon sources by claiming that this source must be considered because it was made by a “devout Mormon”, so here we have evidence that Hales considers a source by a Mormon who is “devout” to be of greater weight. Hales also claims that one must provide “context” for the account above and so provides pages of commentary before giving the rest of the trial account. Notice the footnotes. It is not until after Hales presents all of his own conjectures as to what this means (without just providing the whole account) that Hales then presents the rest of the account which is in a footnote! ( #111) which includes crucial details:
Other pertinent comments in the council meeting, as transcribed by Michael Quinn, are difficult to understand, although it does appear that the secretary, “J. Kelly,” was surprised. Quinn’s transcription reads: “O.H. sd. Kelly told him Johnson knew what he was about—it was done in his house by bro Joseph that the Ch had tried to break down bro. Babbitt & the Ch Therefor—I knew at the time I was doing wrong—I never av taken any body as a excuse—I never plighted my faith on Joseph’s transactions. . . . J. Kelly—It as taken me by surprise—in our conversation—Johnson introduced the subject—as to himself—& many scenes that r familiar in the Ch—he sd. It was a matter of his own concern & interested nobody else but those he wod. av to bow to him.” Miscellaneous Minutes, September 2, 1850. (Hales, op. cited, page 231)
These minutes are “difficult to understand”, ONLY if you are trying to justify or explain away Smith’s clear adultery here, as some kind of marriage. The facts of this case are,
1. Joseph E. Johnson was accused of committing adultery and was “on trial” for it, and was disfellowshipped until the trial.
2. Joseph E. Johnson admitted he committed adultery.
3. Joseph E. Johnson admitted that what he did “was wrong”.
4. Joseph E. Johnson claimed that it is wrong for anyone to “go to bed with a woman if not found out”, and therefore that it was wrong, even if it was kept hidden.
5. Joseph E. Johnson claimed that it “had been [wrong] with” then names Joseph Smith and that he was familiar with the “first frigging” (or sexual intercourse) between Smith and Johnson’s mother-in-law, Mary Heron. It is obvious that he is saying that it was wrong when Joseph did it too.
6. Joseph E. Johnson claims again that he knew at the time he was doing wrong and that he had never taken anyone else as an “excuse” to do wrong and that he “never plighted my faith on Joseph [Smith’s] transactions”. Again, clear evidence that Johnson considered what Smith did as wrong, or adultery.
7. The only person who seems the least bit surprised by this is the clerk Joseph Kelly. What Hales does not tell you except in a footnote is that Brigham Young reproved Joseph E. Johnson for his adultery and had him rebaptized. There are no objections or accusations directed at Johnson for lying, or giving false information, or that Johnson’s observations that what Joseph Smith did with his mother in law was NOT something that he would “plight his faith on” was anything those in attendance were surprised or offended at.
The page about Mary Heron Sinder at Hales’ website is basically the same as in his book. There is a lot of apologetic explaining that takes place before one gets to read the evidence. In attempting to try and mitigate the damage that this account does to Smith’s reputation and credibility Hales writes at his website,
… the faith of Joseph E. Johnson does not seem to have been negatively affected by what he learned about the Prophet and his mother-in-law in 1843. It is probable that, if he viewed the relationship as immoral, his testimony may have been compromised. Similarly, when he discussed his case with the council in 1850, the minutes do not record any reaction from the leaders to his comment about Joseph and his mother-in-law.
That they convened in part to consider Joseph E. Johnson’s membership status due to his adultery (he was disfellowshipped), demonstrates a lack of tolerance of sexual transgressions. That they would have disciplined Johnson but dismissed similar conduct by Joseph Smith without comment seems less likely. If the Prophet was guilty of adultery, Johnson could have claimed hypocrisy, which he was careful to not do.
This same tired old argument by Hales gets repeated over and over again. Even in his response to Mike Quinn on his website, Hales claims that if you only pay attention to those around Smith, you will see by their lack of negative reaction that Smith could never have been practicing sexual polyandry. Really? Then how could a man like David Whitmer reject Smith and still believe in the Book of Mormon? There are many other examples. But what about those who still believed in Smith? Would they condone "immoral" behavior? Yes, because their "prophet" told them that it really wasn't. Marvin Hill wrote in 1989,
Joseph told a city council in Nauvoo in 1844 that "the people's voice should be heard, when their voice was just," but that when it was not "it was no longer democratic." He said that "if the minoritys views are more just then Aristocracy should be the governing principle." For the most part, this meant that Joseph himself would decide what was just. He told the Saints in Kirtland that "he was authorized by God Almighty to establish his Kingdom--that he was God's prophet . . . and that he could do whatever he should choose to do, therefore the Church had NO RIGHT TO CALL INTO QUESTION anything he did . . . he was responsible to God Almighty alone." Marvin S. Hill, Counter-revolution: The Mormon Reaction To The Coming Of American Democracy, Sunstone 13:3/31 (Jun 89)
This was affirmed by Henry Jacobs -- the living husband of Zina Huntington while Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were married to her when he told his wife Zina: “[W]hatever the Prophet did was right, without making the wisdom of God’s authorities bend to the reasoning of any man. (Zina Diantha Huntington Young, Autobiography, Oa Jacobs Cannon, “History of Henry Bailey Jacobs,” 5. )
As Richard S. Van Wagoner wrote,
"Gentile Law," with its civil marriage, was publicly denounced as early as 1847 by Orson Pratt in a sermon recorded by Wilford Woodruff:
As all the ordinances of the gospel Administered by the world since the Aposticy of the Church was illegal, in like manner was the marriage Cerimony illegal and all the world who had been begotten through the illegal marriage were bastards not Sons & hence they had to enter into the law of adoption & be adopted into the Priesthood in order to become sons & legal heirs to salvation.
Pratt further explained in his 1852 Church-sponsored periodical, The Seer:
Marriages, then among all nations, though legal according to the laws of men, have been illegal according to the laws, authority, and institutions of Heaven. All the children born during that long period, though legitimate according to the custom.; and laws of nations, are illegitimate according to the order and authority of Heaven.
Even Mormon marriages prior to the fall of 1835, when priest-hood authority began to be evoked in marriage ceremonies, were pronounced invalid. John D. Lee, member of the secret Council of Fifty and an adopted son of Brigham Young, remembered:
About the same time the doctrine of "sealing" was introduced.... the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid. That those who had solemnized the rites of matrimony had no authority of God to do so. That the true priesthood was taken from the earth with the death of the Apostles and inspired men of God. That they were married to each other only by their own covenants, and that if their marriage relations had not been productive of blessing and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, as much as if they had not been married.
Married women such as Mary Elizabeth Lightner, Marinda Hyde, Sylvia Sessions, Prescendia Buell, Zina D. H. Jacobs, and others were likely persuaded by Joseph Smith himself that even though their marriages may have been "productive of blessing and peace," he, a prophet of God, could take them to the highest degree of the coveted celestial kingdom whereas their legal husband might not. (Richard S. Van Wagoner, “Joseph and Marriage, Sunstone 10:9/33 (Jan 86)
Jedidiah Grant would later affirm that not everyone did agree that Joseph could do whatever he wanted to and be justified,
When the family organization was revealed from heaven-the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and on the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, "Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?, "I would tell him to go to hell." This was the spirit of many in the early days of this church. Did the Prophet Joseph want every man's wife he asked for? He did not but in that thing was the grand thread of the Priesthood developed. The grand object in view was to try the people of God, to see what was in them. (Journal of Discourses, 2:13-14.)
Unlike what Hales states, there were some that objected to Smith’s behavior and some who did not, but embraced it in all its ugliness (In a subsequent post I will have more about this, which includes accounts by Catherine Lewis and Augusta Cobb and Brigham Young's adultery with Cobb). Van Wagoner, again,
In some instances, however, the Prophet's intent went beyond "trying the people," for he apparently did want the wives of some men. Despite a canonized statement in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants which recognized that "all legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled," the Prophet in the 1840s viewed as invalid those marriages not sealed by his blessing. As God's earthly agent, he believed he had been given powers that transcended civil law. Claiming sole responsibility for binding and unbinding marriages on earth and in heaven, he did not view it necessary to obtain civil marriage licenses or divorce decrees. Whenever he deemed it appropriate he could release a woman from her earthly marriage and seal her to himself or another, thus eliminating in his mind any stigma of adultery. In an unusual polyandrous twist to such relationships, the Prophet advised each of these married women to continue living with her husband. (Van Wagoner, op. cited)
This concept of doctrinal and personal infallibility as to sin was explained by Abraham H. Cannon,
The angels who appeared in the Kirtland Temple delivered the keys of power to the Prophet Joseph and they were now with the Priesthood. There is not a man who has the Holy Ghost that the adversary can make him do anything wrong. (Abraham H. Cannon, Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses Vol.3, p. 284).
Therefore, whatever the leadership did was RIGHT, and certainly not SIN. It didn’t matter if it was in the “scriptures”, the “living oracles” always trumped the scriptures and anyone who would call these men to account were told that they themselves were without the “Holy Ghost”. George Q. Cannon made this perfectly clear,
There is one thing that the Lord has warned us about from the beginning, and that is, not to speak evil of the Lord’s anointed. He has told us that any member of the Church who indulged in this is liable to lose the Spirit of God and go into darkness. The Prophet Joseph said time and again that it was one of the first and strongest symptoms of apostasy. Have we not proved this? Have not his words upon this subject been fulfilled to the very letter? No man can do this without incurring the displeasure of the Lord. It may seem strange, in this age of irreverence and iconoclasm, to talk in this way. Nevertheless, this is the truth. God has chosen His servants. He claims it as His prerogative to condemn them, if they need condemnation. He has not given it to us individually to censure and condenm them. [p.223] No man, however strong he may be in the faith, however high in the priesthood, can speak evil of the Lord’s anointed and find fault with God’s authority on the earth without incurring His displeasure. The Holy Spirit will withdraw itself from such a man, and he will go into darkness. This being the case, do you not see how important it is that we should be careful? However difficult it may be for us to understand the reasons for any action of the authorities of the Church, we should not too hastily call their acts in question and pronounce them wrong. (George Q. Cannon, October 6, 1896, Brain Stuy, Collected Discourses Vol. 5, p.223)
Like with Hales and polygamy being “difficult to understand”, so too Cannon uses this same line of reasoning to justify leaders being held accountable for their actions. You cannot find fault with “God’s leaders” without incurring his displeasure. So Joseph Smith and Brigham Young could take other men’s wives away from them, commit adultery and break any law because “it is not given to us individually to censure and condemn them.” This was drilled into the heads of the “saints” during the Nauvoo years, and unfortunately many fell victim to this perversion of scripture and by their silence enabled these men to act with impunity in any way they so desired.
Joseph’s mantra, that some sin is really not sin, was taken up by many and believed when it came to marriage, the law and adultery. Brian Hales today is a prime example of someone who believes in this way and will go to any length and postulate any silly or illogical excuse to exonerate Smith from his John C. Bennett type spiritual wifery.