Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy

Merina Smith's Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy: The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830-1853 (USU Press, 2013) does a very nice job summarizing scholarship on the LDS practice of polygamy during Joseph Smith's lifetime and for the decade following his death. The focus of the narrative (which is based on the author's recent PhD dissertation) is on the development of a theological narrative to support and justify the early practice of LDS polygamy. The author makes the point that a convincing theological narrative or justification was a necessary prerequisite for the acceptance and practice of polygamy by Joseph's associates and of course by the women who participated. Later the practice was broadened to a much larger percentage of the membership of the Church. And this is a key point: it took years for Joseph to develop that theological narrative and to get others to accept that theology. This book tells that interesting story.

Polygamy: Demise

This is the third and final post on B. Carmon Hardy's Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice and Demise (Arthur H. Clark Co., 2007). The simple story of the end of LDS polygamy is that it ended in 1890 with the Manifesto. The not-so-simple story involves a Second Manifesto in 1904, which raises the obvious question, "If the First Manifesto ended polygamy, why the need for a Second Manifesto?" The First Manifesto did not end the officially sanctioned LDS practice of polygamy. In fact, it took twenty years to fully execute that momentous institutional change of course.

Polygamy: Public Practice

In my prior post, I looked briefly at the origins of polygamy. Again using documents from B. Carmon Hardy's Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise (Arthur H. Clark, 2007), I will now look at the public practice of polygamy in early Utah. How did the Saints in Utah explain it to the world and what did visitors to Salt Lake City say about what they observed?

Polygamy: Origins

Once upon a time, no one except critics wanted to talk about LDS polygamy. But TV shows, court cases, and four Gospel Topics essays on the subject — which run to 32 pages of material when I printed them out — have changed the game. Now everyone is talking about polygamy. The current LDS position, however, is still as murky and convoluted as ever. Historical explanations, doctrinal justifications, and even simple factual descriptions of LDS polygamy remain controversial (see earlier posts at T&S, BCC, JI, M-Star, FMH, and most recently Kiwi Mormon). To this expanding conversation on polygamy, add the new aggressiveness some bishops are showing to threaten or initiate discipline based on posts or comments on Facebook or blogs (see here for a recent example) and it is clear we have a problem. This is particularly true given that the average bishop really doesn't know much about the history and practice of LDS polygamy, and half of what he does know is wrong. So it's a good time to review a few sources.

Polygamy 2012

Once upon a time, family law was a marginal legal topic that didn't make many headlines the way constitutional law or criminal law so often do. But gay marriage and Prop 8 have propelled family law and marriage to the legal center stage. In an odd parallel development, "the family" has, over the last few years, moved to the center of LDS doctrine and practice as well, with "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" being the most visible evidence of that change. We are living in an intersecting perfect storm of changing family law, family doctrine, and family practice. So we should learn some family law before the cyclone hits. Let's start with a current case.

What Happened in Nauvoo, Part 3: Polygamy

[See Part 1: Founding and Part 2: Flourishing] Any history of Nauvoo needs to give an account of the secret practice of polygamy between 1841 and 1846. In Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise, Glen Leonard does this in about twenty pages as part of Chapter 13, "Foes Within: The Church of the Seceders."

Ending Polygamy One Man at a Time

The annual Mormon History Association meetings are underway in Springfield, Illinois. The Deseret News reports on the address of the outgoing MHA President, historian Kathryn Daynes of BYU. She spoke on the varied experience of 19th-century Mormons who struggled, under increasing pressure from the federal government, to give up the practice of polygamy.

Nauvoo Polygamy

I dropped a new book into slot one of my Now Reading list, Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage", by George D. Smith. The title is certainly an orthographic challenge. I'll save my own substantive comments for a later post (after I've read more of the book), but here are several posts from other blogs that have already discussed the book.

MSM Meets the FLDS

I confess — for me, the most interesting reading in the Bloggernacle this week has been the steady stream of mainstream media articles popping up in my FLDS News sidebar, as the MSM struggles both to get the facts (no small feat) and to figure out the story (which, honestly, will take years). In coming years there will be a stream of books on this whole bizarre episode, and if Krakauer doesn't write a sequel to Under the Banner of Heaven called Under the Texan Sun he will have missed a fine opportunity.

Anyway, here are a few links to ponder:

The End of a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in Texas

At least if you're an FLDS kid (named Alexander or not). The judge in Texas has issued a ruling giving CPS everything it wanted — basically temporary custody of every FLDS kid in the county and DNA samples from both FLDS children and adults. See Sect's Children to Stay in State Custody for Now at the NY Times. And: Polygamous-sect children ordered to stay in Texas custody at AP. Here's the paragraph from the AP story summarizing the judge's ruling:

State District Judge Barbara Walther heard 21 hours of testimony over two days before ruling that the children would be kept in custody while the state continues to investigate allegations of abuse stemming from the teachings of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Friday Media Links to FLDS

Media liveblogging: Live from the courthouse, Day 2. With court hearings resuming in Eldorado, Texas at 9:30 a.m. this morning, it's the big story of the day — except, of course, for the visit to America of the leader of that billion-member cult whose priests have committed actual abuse against thousands of actual children [as opposed to hypothetical abuse of hypothetical children, the FLDS scenario]. It's obvious the Catholicism of the parents indoctrinated them to place excessive trust in Catholic priests, which set their kids up to become sexual victims. So, following Texas CPS reasoning [see this story], Catholic children should be removed from Catholic homes. Right?

Here are links to Friday's media stories:

Media Links to the FLDS Story

Update #3: Here's a running update of Thursday's court proceedings from San Angelo, Texas, and reports from a media liveblogger. In addition, I put two newsfeeds with FLDS stories in the far sidebar (from Google News and from Topix) so y'all can follow the breaking news.

Notable mainstream media stories, most recent at the top:

• Children of the Cult by Rod Dreher, asking some tough questions.
• "Polygamist sect hearing in Texas descends into farce" at AP. Unless Texas has been holding your kid for two weeks, then it's a tragedy.
• "Texas custody hearings under way" at the BBC.
• "When the Polygamists Came to Town" at Time.
• "Chaotic Hearing in Polygamist Case" at NY Times.

FLDS, Remember the F

Working together, Texas and the FLDS have managed to create a major news event that makes everyone look bad. And the worst part is that the mainstream media can't get enough of the story, which has been getting almost daily coverage in places like the little Yahoo newsbox and my local newspaper. The RLDS changed their name ... could the FLDS maybe do the same? I'd like to suggest "We Are Not The Mormon Church" as an option. How about the "Sorry We Moved to Texas Church." Or maybe the "If We All Become Baptists, Will You Give Us Our Children Back Church." There are endless possibilities.

A Quick Verdict

The jury has returned its verdicts in the Warren Jeffs case in which he was accused of being an accomplice to rape for instigating a monogamous FLDS marriage of a 14-year-old girl to a 19-year-old man, and the media and blogs are awash in coverage:

• The Salt Lake Tribune: "Jeffs guilty on both counts"
• The Deseret News: "Jury finds Jeffs guilty"
• Messenger and Advocate: "I am very, very surprised ...'
• Freespace: "God's favorite serial rapist ..."
• Freespace, remembering his libertarian values: ... a lot of troubling questions ..."

Polygamy Challenge Dismissed by 10th Circuit

As reported in today's SL Trib, the 10th Circuit dismissed for lack of standing a challenge by three individuals (husband, first wife, and second-wife-to-be) who were denied a marriage license by the Salt Lake County Clerk's Office for the proposed second marriage. Sounds like a rejected script for a Big Love episode. For legal news junkies, here's a link to the court's opinion, which appears in the short post describing the case over at Religion Clause.

Universal Normalcy

Check out the new decor at Get Religion by reading "Perfectly Pedestrian Polygamists." The post reviews media coverage of a college basketball player's polygamous family. Interesting story, of course, but GR's focus is on how the media covers religion stories, and the point of the post is that, in the newspapers, everyone is normal. The more unconventional the relationship, the more "normal" the media will describe it. The GR post calls this "advocacy reporting." Interesting term. The media falls all over themselves this political season citing surveys and quoting conservative Christians that depict patriotic, monogamous Mormons as wacky pseudo-polygamous cultists. But when a real polygamist shows up in a story ... they're "normal."

Help me with some synonyms for "advocacy reporting." Biased reporting? Shallow reporting? Worthless reporting? I don't even bother to subscribe to a newspaper anymore. They just seem like a waste of paper to me.

Framing the Jeffs case

Erik Luna, a law professor at the U, posted a short analysis of the legal issues in the upcoming Warren Jeffs case, The Polygamy Case That Isn't (hat tip: Positive Liberty). He suggests the case will turn on the straightforward facts of whether the FLDS teenager who married an FLDS man with Jeffs' strong encouragement did, in fact, refuse or attempt to refuse the sexual advances of her FLDS husband but was improperly persuaded or pressured to submit by Jeffs (who was thus aiding and abetting a rape).

Despite declaring that the case is not about polygamy, Luna can't resist talking about it anyway in the final section. He is surprisingly ambivalent ("Is it really anyone else's business when consenting adults want to form a domestic union?"), even suggesting that Article III in the Utah Constitution (forever prohibiting plural marriages) may be open to a constitutional challenge. Bottom line: we're all going to hear an awful lot about polygamy before this case is over.

Teens Defend Polygamy at Utah Rally

That is the headline (word for word) on this AP story. It made the little headline box on the Yahoo main page (my primary gateway for news these days), so it's getting plenty of airplay.

Teenage polygamy activists ... kinda creepy. Pictured teen carrying sign that says, "I love all my Moms." I wonder if he has heard of the lost boys? The article makes them sound like regular Utah teenagers: "Dressed in flip-flops and blue jeans, bangs drooping over their eyes, the teens at Saturday's rally talked on cell phones and played rock music, singing lyrics written to defend their family life." Lyrics written to defend their family life? These are not normal teenagers.

Gideon the Polygamist

Sometimes you latch onto a concept or idea, and suddenly it starts popping up everywhere. So there I was, enduring to the end of an uninspiring lesson on Judges, when look what pops up in the short bio of Gideon, heroic Israelite patriot and judge from the tribe of Manasseh:

[Gideon] went back home to live. He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives. His concubine, who lived in Shechem, also bore him a son, whom he named Abimilech. Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash. (Judges 8:29-32, NIV)

Wives, a concubine, and living to a good old age. How patriarchal.

Messing With Texas

You've got to hand it to these FLDS folks: when they set their mind to it, they can do some nice construction work. And out in the middle of nowhere Texas, no less. The LA Times just ran a story giving the latest, entitled Dispatch from Eldorado, Texas (from the Topix feed). The surprise is that they're actually getting along pretty well with the locals. They don't say much to the Texans, but, reading between the lines, the story makes it clear the FLDS are actually getting along fairly nicely.

Utah Court Affirms Bigamy Conviction

As if on cue for this week's theme of polygamy, the Utah State Supreme Court delivered a polygamy opinion this week, State v. Holm, 2006 UT 31, filed May 16. (Hat tip: this interesting post at Right Coast.) The Court affirmed the bigamy conviction of an FLDS adherent from Hildale, Utah. Anyone interested in LDS history will find the three opinions (there was a concurrence and a dissenting opinion) interesting reading. Should Reynolds ever be taken up by the US Supreme Court, this Utah case will provide a starting point for their analysis.

Big Covenant

Before there was Big Love, there was Solemn Covenant (U. of Illinois Press, 1992). I think it's time to pull it off my bookshelf (where it has been sitting for a year) and actually read it. As a warm up (and for this week's online essay) go read Truth and Mistruth in Mormon History, an essay by Carmon Hardy, the author of Solemn Covenant. This one is well worth your time. Here's the first paragraph:

It was while doing research in preparation for a book on polygamy, especially post-Manifesto polygamy, that I encountered extensive resorts to purposeful mistruth by Mormon leaders and others. I will suggest that such practices have serious implications beyond the particular instances involving their employment. This was certainly the case, I believe, when dishonesty was used to defend polygamy.

Under the Banner of Liberty

I got an email from a friend a couple of weeks ago with a link to this interesting post at Positive Liberty by an accomplished libertarian blogger, decrying (in no uncertain terms) present-day polygamy of the sort practiced by the FLDS Church but defending consensual adult polygamy, which he rather generously likened to the sort practiced by the 19th-century LDS Church. This rather unusual constellation of positions is due in part to the author's recent reading of Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. I like Krakauer and have posted on him before (Responding to Krakauer; Krakauer Walks the Walk; The Land That Time Forgot; and, from the old blog, a post on Into Thin Air). Here I'll just comment on the post at Positive Liberty.

Polygamy: The View From England

From RNB, a repost of a nice Guardian article on the seamy side of modern polygamy, entitled Hellfire and sexual coercion: the darkside of American polygamist sects. It's good therapy for Mormons who still harbor the idea that there can be a blessed side to modern polygamy. Sorry — it's all pretty seamy. English journalists write with more wit and irony than most US journalists can muster, so you'll encounter some choice quotes. The article ends with reference to an escapee: "But the first item on her to-do list is 'Get out of Utah.'" Ouch!

Something New in Texas

From RNB, Town Springing Up on Compound reveals that the 1500 acre FLDS ranch located about 45 miles south of San Angelo, Texas, is now the site of a compound, surrounded by 8-foot high fences, inside which a small town is presently springing to life. Dimes to donuts that Under the Banner of Heaven is a bestseller these days in nearby towns. But Texas isn't like sympathetic Utah. I'll bet, in a few months, when some teenage FLDS runaway spills her guts to the local sheriff, he and a dozen cousins march right on in there with a small arsenel and, uh, welcome the polygamists to the neighborhood.