I just heard this one today from somebody on another forum,
“Please help me understand why God would command a thirty seven year old man to have sex with a fourteen year old girl and claim at least 11 women as his wives, who were already married?"
Follow up question:
"How does this behavior not violate the LAW of the Priesthood, the 10 Commandments and common human decency?”
Which works flawlessly, because:
#1. It takes the manipulator off the offensive and puts them on the defensive.
#2. It establishes to everybody within earshot that the manipulative cult brainwasher is lying to get out of a really embarrassing historical fact.
#3. It makes you feel really good to win a debate, hands down, with any Mormon, any time, anywhere. Best done in social networks and if you don't care if you offend a delusional worshiper of Joseph's Myth.
Anybody got a better one? I'd love to have had that ammo ready for when the cult brain washers showed up at my door.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2014 12:31PM by koriwhore.
Yes, they will often try to deny Smith was having sex with other men's wives. However, sex is beside the point. Just claiming another man's wife as your own is a violation of the 10 Commandments, the LAW of the Priesthood, the LAW of the land and just basic common human decency. What kind of society do we live in where people think it's fine to claim another man's wife as your own?
But the real authority on this topic, Todd Compton, who's a Mormon Historian in good standing with the church and author of "In Sacred Loneliness" concludes that he did in fact consummate his polyandrous relationships with other men's wives and probably produced at least one child from such an illicit affair. It's heartbreaking.
What's really heartbreaking is the story of Zina Huntington Jacobs Smith Young, who produced at least one child from Brigham Young, after Brigham Young sent her real husband, Henry Jacobs, off on a mission to the old country.
If her relationship to Brigham while she was married to Henry included sex, why would one assume otherwise when it came to her relationship with Joseph, while she was still married to Henry. Neither one of them were marriages, since there is no law that allows a wife to marry another man when she's already married.
It's true though. There's no proof he had sex with them. Of course, it's very likely he did, but there's no PROOF he did, so we can't really state it as fact unfortunately. The fact that he just married these women/girls is disturbing enough anyway.
Forgot to add. There's proof he had sex with Fanny Alger, since Emma Smith and Oliver Cowdry both caught them having sex, but the others there's no proof he had sex with each of the other 30 or so wives as far as I know.
In my opinion he probably had sex with most of them, but it's entirely possible there's one or two he never slept with.
There is evidence that he has sex with many of his polygamous/polyandrous marriages. There are several journal entries, affidavits, and interviews that state that the marriage was consummated (this was covered in Compton's book and elsewhere citing direct sources). You can also figure it out on your own by looking at other evidences. Take for example Heber C. Kimball, one of JS's closest associates. Why did HCK struggle much when JS asked for his wife Vilate? It took days of anguish before he obediently paraded Vilate to JS and gave her away (JS later said it was a test and dropped it). Do you think that HCK was so disturbed for a marriage in name only? I think not.
Exactly. There's plenty of evidence to lead any open minded individual to the only logical conclusion, that both JS and BY completely violated the LAW, every LAW, by claiming other men's wives as their own, since there is no law that allows them to do so. That the church continues to insist that these women were real 'wives' of both JS and BY, is further evidence that they're lying, when they propogate the myth that "JS and Emma based their marriage on the gospel of JC, an example to all" An example to Fundamentalist Mormons, but not to anybody else if they want to avoid prison time.
I've heard the "girls married younger in the 1800's" line from TBM's as their way of keeping their heads in the sand about how Smith was just like Warren Jeffs.
Doesn't work. Response is something like this: "Her husband married her until death, but Joseph Smith married her for eternity in order to save her eternal soul." And your follow-up question won't break their confidence in that, either.
Works every time for me. They can't deny there was sex involved when church records indicate that Brigham Young produced at least one child with Zina Huntington Jacobs Smith Young, which completely violates the LAW of the Priesthood in about 5 different ways, not to mention the 10 commandments, the law of the land and common human decency, of which Mormons have none.
I recall being told MULTIPLE TIMES that JS only had children with Emma and thus the other marriages were solely to bring the other wives into a temple marriage for entry to the CK. Since I left I haven't even cared to investigate whether or not he fathered children with his other wives. I don't care because even if he did not, I still know it is all just BS.
But that is the party line so there is no reasoning with TBMs...I used to be one of them.
I used to be one too and I wasn't beyond logic, empathy and ethics. I always did have logic, empathy and ethics that could be appealed to, even when I was TBM. I think the main problem with most Mormons is that they're so heavily invested in the bamboozle they use every ego defense mechanism in the book to avoid looking at the evidence. But if you can use all LDS references, familysearch.org, In Sacred Loneliness, and the LAW of the Priesthood, they can't deny what's written in black or white. Not even paid Mormon Appologists argue with the facts presented by Todd Compton. But none of them will touch the conflict between Smith and Young's well documented polyandrous relationships and the LAW of the Priesthood, which clearly condemns both Smith and Young for claiming other men's wives as their own. They didn't have to consummate the relationships with other men's wives to violate the LAW, just claiming another man's wife as your own is adultery. But these polyandrous relationships obviously were consumated, given the irrefutable fact that Brigham Young did produce at least one child with Zina Huntington Jacobs Smith Young, while she was still married to Henry Jacobs. That's on the permanent genealogical record if you know what you're looking for.
This is my exact opening line with folks. Of course there is no scriptural basis in sanctifying it (on the contrary, scripture speaks against it as you noted). TBMs need to own that history. I could not, and because of this and other things I knew I couldn't remain TBM.
I don't know about anybody else, but had I learned that JS and BY both claimed the wives of other men and how that violated the LAW of the Priesthood, in 5 different ways I wouldn't have been able to reconcile those two things and the Cognitive Dissonance would have been too much for my conscience to remain silent. That alone should be enough to convince ANYbody that JS and BY were false prophets, not to mention adulterers. Learning that BY did in FACT produce at least one child with Zina Huntington Jacobs, WHILE she was married to her only REAL husband, Henry Jacobs, sort of kicks the legs out from under any b.s. defense that the polyandrous marriages were for 'eternity only'.
That's nonsense, given the fact that:
A. The LAW of the Priesthood is VERY clear that the express purpose for plural marriages was to produce offspring.
B. There is no law that allows a man to marry a woman who is already married. To the contrary, EVERY law that governs marriage, including the LAW of the Priesthood, condemns polyandry as adultery.
C. The church genealogical records still list Zina Huntington Jacobs as both Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's wife, despite the fact that she remained married to her only REAL husband, Henry, her whole life and that completely violates the LAW of the Priesthood, not to mention EVERY other law governing marriage. And Mormons want to claim the role of 'conservators of traditional marriage'? F them!
I've got a conscience and empathy. I always did. I empathize with Henry and Zina, and the other 33 victims of Joseph's Myth.
I assume other human beings are capable of empathy, reason and ethics, even if they're temporarily stuck in a TBM mindset. I know I was, even when I was temporarily stuck in a TBM group thinking delusion.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2014 12:05PM by koriwhore.