Mormons Primed for Polygamy

We were hesitating to publish this. But since we are all hunkered down for this virus, people need things to read and that is one of our freedoms we still have! So here we go.

History is repeating itself. Polygamy is becoming mainstreamed--right here in Utah first.


Recently a Utah legislature committee unanimously voted to decriminalize the practice of polygamy. The latest step in the sexual liberation juggernaut is moving on backed by what was once the most conservative state legislature in the nation.

We know there is a great deal of denial out there but for what it's worth here are a dozen reasons the Mormon church would reinstate its doctrinal practice of polygamy.

1. The impediment that stopped Mormon polygamy is rapidly disappearing.

Polygamy should obviously be allowed based on that fact that same-sex marriage has been legal for years.The LDS church has been softening toward homosexuality almost parallel to the world's timeline. Brigham Young University just changed its honor code to allow public homosexual behavior (opposite to 10 years ago when a student was expelled for such). Many denied that the mainstreaming of homosex would inevitably lead to legalizing polygamy. But homosexuality is historically much more heinous than polygamy; it's always fake, inordinately risky sex, whereas polygamous opposite sex relationships can involve biologically normal, harmless sexual intercourse. And if it's just about consent and love, then, like homosex, it must be allowed. (By the way, homosexuality is rarely monogamous.) Legalization will do away with the reason for the 1890 Mormon manifesto ordering the cessation of the practice of polygamy, which reason was that it was pronounced illegal by the U.S. federal government and the church was threatened with incarceration of leaders and loss of property. The church still believed in polygamy and practiced it secretly for another several decades, or more as far as we know.

2. The Mormon church has never denounced polygamy as a true doctrine to this day.

The truth is, most aspects of the church are founded in polygamy, although these sordid events have been habitually mischaracterized and hidden from ordinary church members. A man having more than one wife being the only way to the highest kingdom of heavenly glory is still printed in the LDS standard words of scripture, D&C 132. The first seven presidents of the church were polygamists, having had more than one living wife at a time, the last of these presidents dying in 1945. In fact, if you give it some thought, you will realize that the church's most prevalent practices are still based on the principle of women being subordinate to men and of limitlessly less value, which is very similar to Muslim beliefs and practices. (In his day Joseph Smith was actually dubbed the Mormon Mohammad.) One excuse Brigham Young gave for Mormon polygamy was so middle-eastern polygamist converts to the Mormon church would feel at home! No, we are not making this up. The church's particular male priesthood authority, scriptures, temples, and special undergarment wearing were all historically used to reveal, instigate, promote, and elevate the practice of polygamy. Even visiting teaching in Brigham Young's time was instituted to bring all the women around to accepting polygamy. Again, Mormon men being commanded to take more than one wife in order to "live up to their privileges" was only discontinued, with great difficulty, because the U.S. Supreme Court pronounced it illegal.

3. Some men in the church still practice polygamy in a surreptitious way. In other words, the leaders hold the principle in high regard; they believe in it.

Living men can be officially eternally sealed to more than one wife if previous wife/wives are deceased. It is noted that high ranking men in the modern church have taken as multiple wives only women who have never been married/sealed to another man (neither widowed or divorced/virgins). This is more evidence that polygamy remains doctrinal in the LDS church. (Funny, Joseph Smith didn't seem to care about that. He actually took other living men's wives for his own!)


4. Polygamy here and now could exist secretly within the LDS church, just waiting to be spread more widely.

There is a legacy of secrecy in this practice. It was historically carried on in secret while being vehemently publicly denied. It wasn't until Brigham Young led the Mormons into the territories that it became an open practice in 1852. Poor Emma Smith did not even know that her best friends and counselors in the Relief Society (an organization of women she hoped to use to dispel the rumors of  her husband's extramarital sexual exploits) and many young women she took into her house over the years were seduced by and sleeping with ("married to") her husband, the prophet. She eventually found out a great deal but probably never knew that full extent of his sexual dalliances. This principle of secrecy has never really changed. Members are just now finding out about Joseph Smith's many, many wives and the true history of polygamy by reading the church's own relatively recently posted, too-carefully-worded essays (see links below) and materials and books the church has always told them not to read. As mentioned above, some Mormon men today are still tallying up wives, living and dead. It isn't talked about except perhaps with a fond, eyebrow-raising chuckle.

5. Leaders have to know there will not be much trouble reinstating polygamy in the church once it is legalized and mainstreamed, especially if beloved leaders are found to be "successfully" doing it.

This is because they know Mormons are relentlessly indoctrinated day after day, week after week, to follow their leaders blindly no matter what. (In church recently a leader told our local congregation that if we didn't accept all the changes happening in the church we "would be wiped out." Really.) If you think about it, as polygamy becomes culturally acceptable and legal, true Mormons should demand polygamy be reinstated as per their belief in Joseph Smith as a true prophet. It could be that fundamentalists have always been the truest followers of Joseph Smith and are not the only ones pushing for legalization these days.

Members who haven't given it much thought, but who blindly swallow everything the church says and does will go along. A regular Mormon, a grandpa, told us just recently that he would take more wives if the prophet said to. In other words, he is prepared to obey the outrageous, unbiblical command of a human being he doesn't know anything about except what he has been told, above all common sense or decency or the feelings of his wife and children and grandchildren. (No, there are no age restraints for men when it comes to polygamy. Twelve-year-old girls are free game for octogenarians!) Even the Marine Corps are taught not to obey an unlawful order. But it is the dangerous, hurtful Mormon perception not to use the brain God gave you. Just obey. For wxample, we are pretty much told to go without a family vacation or feeding your family or even a family at all (infertility treatments cost a bundle) so you can give your hard-earned pittance to a church that has used its member tithes to amass a stash of over 100 billion dollars, and probably a lot more. Sounds crazy because it is. The parable of the widow's mite is about greedy church leaders taking even a widow's last coin to enrich themselves, if you read it in context. To this day this passage of scripture is falsely and cruelly used as a fundraiser. In a recent article an LDS church spokesman admitted that members are taught to pay tithing in place of groceries if it comes down to that. Then you can apply for church welfare.What? They are actually saying you will get more blessings by giving your money to a very, very rich church than by fulfilling your primary responsibility to feed your children. They would rather you were dependent on the church than on yourself. Isn't it chilling?

Back to polygamy, only those who have studied material the church tells you to stay away from and thought the issue out will resist its reinstatement, which is sad because they will be mourning their beloved church. For the rest it's going to be even more sad, especially for women and children. In polygamy, as seen in its true history, it is women and children who suffer most. Also, young men. Modern polygamous communities have been known to expel young men (their own sons!) from among them so the older men can seduce more young women without competition. Some say that women can be convinced into polygamy because they get help with the household and child care. (Usually polygamous wives today also work, providing financially for the family as well.) Maybe they are sometimes quite relieved to pawn off their immature, self-centered, oversexed, power-crazed husband on someone else. But these so-called advantages are pathetic and degrading to women and do not outweigh the terrible neglect, losses, and abuses of the mindset and lifestyle. It's so sad that people don't know or care what a real and right marriage is supposed to look and feel like.These are the people who will accept polygamy without a thought.

6.Generally speaking, men really like sex for its own sake.

Men have all that testosterone, which makes procreation a sure thing. Women like sex too, but are also very interested in things like sharing feelings and being appreciated as a whole person. This is why George Gilder said that proper marriage civilizes men. Alas, men who have never denounced the church's polygamous foundations are totally in charge of the Mormon church. Polygamy exalts men and degrades women, similar to Islam, but it may be worse in at least one aspect. I am thinking about the underwear Mormon women are compelled to wear along with all their other underwear. But I won't get into that here.

Because of the unlimited sex aspect, men are the ones who can be most easily convinced into polygamy. Because marriage is the only human relationship that is traditionally supposed to involve sex, polygamy is a convenient way around monogamy. Mormon polygamy involves a man having sexual relationships with an unlimited number of women. We have never heard anything to the contrary, no limit on the number of wives for any reason. Many Mormon marriages seem to consist of an overbearing, perhaps passive-aggressive husband, and a subservient, mealy-mouthed wife, attitudes historically modeled by the church which persist today. All of these facts and attitudes help to program Mormons for the reestablishment of its historical and doctrinal practice of polygamy. 

7. As Brigham Young calculated in his enthusiastic support for women's suffrage, more wives under the thumb of one husband means more votes, that is, political power. Yes, that is why he was all for it. It is the same today. Mormons love being seen and being raised in the public eye as a powerful group.

8.The Mormon church has the power to bring back polygamy in a big way.

The church is sitting on over 100 billion dollars, as has been recently exposed and admitted. That much power and money can control anyone and anything.We don't see it being used to end child sex slavery or abortion or online pornography available to children or any of the horrific abuses of modern times. For all we tithe payers know, the completely nontransparent church could be using our money to lobby for polygamy and who knows what else. So far, Utah is the first state to have a pro-polygamy bill pass through committee and be unanimously voted on by the state senate, the first step toward legalization. For your information, we at SoL have sat in meetings in the Utah capitol building in which veteran, conservative, family-values lobbyists have walked in the room with one standard, been told the LDS church's new stance on some issue, and walked out of that same room with their deeply-held beliefs abandoned. Here comes polygamy!

9. LDS women have always been treated as of lesser importance than men.

For all its protesting, damage control, flattery, and token compromises, the men-run church treats women as second class. Polygamy by its very nature makes any number of women never equal to just one man. Harriet Beecher Stowe called polygamy and slavery the twin barbarisms. Polygamy is an extreme form of exploitation and abuse of women. By the way, it has been noted that the main reason Emma Smith denied to her dying day that her husband instituted and practiced polygamy in God's name may have been because she was desperate that her sons never follow after their father in such an abominable thing.

10. The LDS church has in the last decade quietly published online essays about its history in polygamy, it seems for damage control, because of all the previously hard to find information so readily available now on the internet. (Read the essays here, here, here, and here.) These essays attempt to explain and excuse the polygamic practices of the early church. But for many people who read them the essays are so obviously cunningly and desperately worded to protect the church that they backfire horribly. Joseph had sex with a girl "several months before her 15th birthday"? Then, hello, she was 14. Too bad most members refuse to even look the essays up--perhaps they are afraid. Most of the really bad stuff, like Joseph Smith actually taking up to 40 women to wife in the space of 3 years is relegated to footnotes you have to click on to read. (For example, the essay on plural marriage in Nauvoo reads "The exact number of women to whom he was sealed in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary." You have to click on footnote 24 to read "Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40.")

11. Leaders in this church don't mind lying to members in order to protect the church and enrich themselves and keep the church a going concern.

Leaders have actually said on record that some truth isn't helpful. This is the nature of propaganda. It distorts the truth and sanitizes history and pounds these falsehoods into as many koolaid-drinking followers as it can. In doing so it infantilizes grown adults who possess God-given powers of thought and choice. This is not what Christianity is supposed to look like. True Christianity is about the free exercise of  each individual's conscience and convictions. This legacy of deceit has been passed down from Joseph Smith, a profligate who covered for his sins by lying about God commanding polygamy, and continues to this day. Nowhere in the scriptures does God command any man to take multiple wives or concubines. In fact, God condemned this practice, but the cultures of the times didn't take Him seriously on that topic. Well-meaning but habitually promiscuous men throughout history have tried to justify their bad behavior in the Bible but the honest ones admitted they never could.

12.The 20th and 21st century LDS church has repeatedly rebranded itself to fit the times, and it appears it will continue to do so.

Most recently for instance, it has stopped condemning abortion, accepted homosexuality in all but a few technicalities, and is in support of illegal immigration. It apparently has no qualms about completely ignoring or flipping on or spinning crucial issues. Many have noticed radical changes, omissions, and excuses in the last ten years. Certainly polygamy, with all its historical acceptance in the church could not be more radical than the church flipping on the issue of homosexuality?And if you think the church is still standing strong against same-sex marriage, note that it is always careful to include wording that passes the buck, i.e. that local leaders are to deal with these relationships--remember it's legal--on a case by case basis. In other words, the church is officially against it but we let our local leaders make the ultimate call, that is, whether or not to embrace it into their congregations. How's that for having your cake and eating it? How's that for double speak?

So there you have 12 possible reasons the church would happily reinstate the awful practice of polygamy. It all comes down to certain men imagining some great superiority they hold over women. You'd think mankind would have learned how harmful that idea is by now. But no. Some things never change.

Funny how the LDS church didn't get out of the BSA when it insanely welcomed openly homosexual boys, and then leaders. Well, men gotta do what men gotta do--at least that seems to be the basest male mentality. So what made the church finally get out? The church only got out of the BSA ---when? When the BSA decided to let girls in. Girls equal to boys? Hey now, we can't have that! Anyway, the BSA is now bankrupt because of all the lawsuits involving, no surprise here, homosexual molestation allegations. (For the next few years such litigation has been declared no longer inhibited by time constraints).

Polygamy in the LDS church again? The stage is set, always has been. And the unthinking leaders and members are primed.

We sure wish we were wrong.