I mean if you don’t call it that. Now that fornication is decriminalized, a guy could have one wife and 55 mistresses just like Brigham Young.

Or Joseph Smith, with one wife and 29 mistresses. Follow the prophet, he knows the way. I don’t why the COB doesn’t have a couple of floors dedicated to a brothel. Talk about service work.

A man could marry one woman by the law and acquire additional 'wives' sealed to him in the temple. It's scripture!

And the state would say nothing.

During the same-sex marriage debate, what most people didn't (and still don't) understand is that civil law about marriage is a separate thing from religious law/customs about marriage. Your religion says you're sealed to several women? So what. The law says you're not married, that the "wives" (and their children) don't have the same legal rights and protections as people married within the requirements of the law — which says one spouse at a time.

I don't imagine many Utahans had been arrested for fornication or adultery in the past century or so. It probably got used as leverage in divorce settlements.

But as for a church-run brothel, we all know The Church Formerly Known as Mormon is staunchly against many things that are perfectly legal. We also know it loses one of it's favorite things to shame people about if it ever sanctioned unwedded humping.

Olderolder wrote in part:

"During the same-sex marriage debate, what most people didn't (and still don't) understand is that civil law about marriage is a separate thing from religious
law/customs about marriage. Your religion says you're sealed to several women? So what. The law says you're not married, that the "wives" (and their children)
don't have the same legal rights and protections as people married within the requirements of the law — which says one spouse at a time."

Reading your comment, I'm reminded of how the Warren Jeffs polygamist group in southern Utah was misusing the welfare system. Basically (from previous postings I've read), the additional wives/children of the polygamists were claiming that their husbands had desserted them and that they were therefore poor. This of course amounted to fraud in both the state and Federal welfare systems that was hard to control, let alone stop.

What I'm saying is that even if the state doesn't recognize these polygamist marriages as legal, those involved in the practice find ways to utilize the state's welfare (and other) system(s) to their own advantage.

The Mormon church would never sanction unsealed humping.

'humping'? What's humping???

Humping is loading up a backpack and then carrying the loaded backpack up an unpleasant incline, and no dawdling!

Or sex, another euphemism for sexual intercourse. I think it's one euphemism of six or seven known euphemisms...maybe eight?

The rule of thumb for unknown slang terms:

If it's a verb, it means sex.
If it's a noun, it means penis.
If it's a plural noun, it means breasts.
If it's an adjective, it means drunk

Since the cult can make its own laws in Utah nothing will surprise me. So glad I don’t live under the thumb of the cult!

But Rusty could bring back polygamy. Or Celestial Swinging, whatever you want to call it. Restore the restoration. Gain access to a whole new market.

Plus, guys would actually want to go on a mission.

That would also motivate a lot of "sweet spirits" to opt for their last respectable life option, a mission.

*A "sweet spirit" is a sister who falls way short of trophy-wife potential.

To me "sweet spirit" has always been a horribly rude way to refer to another person! Even joking about it is about as funny as using the "n" word to joke.

When my family joined "the church" I was surprised to hear people using this term to describe single girls/women. Often the person designating the girl as a "sweet spirit" (male or female) was not exactly trophy material themselves! Sometimes it wasn't just the boys. Their family members would pile on the insults as well. The non-lds people I had grown up with seemed far less judgmental.

Many years ago I moved to Utah and attended the 30+ single activities. A lot of the guys there liked to joke about "sweet spirits". The funny thing was about 97% of the men I met there seemed to be either divorced many times over or 40+ and still did not have a job, a car, or education, let alone a house. Many were obese and did not possess even passable social skills. They still seemed to believe they deserved a "trophy" wife".


Why would ex-mo people talk this way! Sometimes ex-mo's are a lot more like mo's then they would like to think....

G&G, you got my point exactly, and expanded on it superbly. I acknowledge the term is derisive, inappropriate, and rude, but is in so-called "polite society." And yes, the people who inflict it on others are likely to be lacking in social skills themselves. I don't think it has the high-blasphemy power of an ethnic invective, though.

(Incidentally, I'm not ex-Mo.)

That is certainly true about the "high blasphemy" power!

When we do our required HR Training at work I find it amusing that it is apparently acceptable to be rude to some groups of people but not others (protected classes)!

Obviously, it is not. But what is the degree to which it is tolerated? This is more complicated than it appears--and I'm a never-Mo Bostonian!

A practice can be prohibited according to the law ("de jure"), but allowed to be practice without consequences ("de facto"). I think this is where polygamy, like marijuana in many not-yet-legalized states, stands. If a person(s) is reasonably discrete, law enforcement may take a "no harm, no foul" stance. It's when a person is flagrant, or other problems arise, that the long arm of the law decides to reach out.

In the case of marijuana, lots of people deal in small amounts and partake without being hassled. Suppose, however, that cops are called to a loud, disruptive party, and see a bong with grass or hash? Perhaps dispersing the party and having the owners smash the bong will suffice. Throw in underage drinkers, an uncooperative owner, and the cops might add "possession of a controlled substance" to the hit list.

Utah authorities probably know of numerous polygamous situations. As long as there are no complaints, no indications of child abuse, no provable welfare fraud, etc. they may well "live and let live." Another factor is once the state intervenes (like the Short Creek and Texas raids) the situation can escalate wildly, and the enforcing agencies (police, family services, etc.) can get into a very sticky situation, with legal complications, custody disputes, charges/counter-charges, retaliatory law suits, public relations gone haywire, and --especially--prosecution challenges.

Prosecution is understandably rare. When John Daniel Kingston forced his 15-year-old daughter Mary Ann to marry her uncle, David Ortell Kingston, the charges were assault & batter on a minor, kidnapping, and incest--not polygamy.

So, is polygamy legal? No. Can you get away with it? Exercising common sense, yes.

(I consider it legally and morally wrong, and wish there was effective enforcement. As things stand now, that is very unlikely.)

I'm available to officiate for adults, reasonable rates!!

All on the down-low, mind U...

I hate polygamy.

But I've always found it funny how as long as the people involved in promiscuous relationships with multiple partners never bother to get married and never publicly claim to be married, nobody in officialdom (government/media) has much problem with it. It's just the new morality or whatever.

But if it's done by the holdovers from that old-time religion, they may get cracked down on.

In both cases, there is a lot of overlap in the damage done to kids born into those environments. I guess in the religiously promiscuous arrangements there's the added damage of cult indoctrination. But in the non-religious unofficial polygamy version, there can be a host of other problems that seem to go with the territory of irresponsible adult behaviors.

I'm sure there are a lot of weird political calculations behind the discrepancy in the way the two situations are treated by law enforcement. In the western states, it's probably down to the SLC Church going out of their way to distance themselves from the Fundies and to do so they exercise influence on the govt. authorities to get them to crack down from time to time and put a fundie plygmeister in jail in a big showy way. "See, look at how we support law enforcement in putting those crazy fundamentalists in jail. We are so different from them. We, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have no connection to those dirty polygamist fundamentalists. We despise them."

Whether polygamy or Mormonism is worse for kids is a toss-up. I’m looking at it as a rebranding opportunity. If Russ wanted to bring back polygamy, he would have the support of true believers. He would solve the problem of not enough worthy RMs. He would get a new customer base, guys who want multiple wives. All they have to do is pay 10% of their income for church sanctioning of their harem. That’s a sweet deal if you want such a relationship normal and accepted. Mormons are above the law anyway, cuz God, so it doesn’t matter that the state considers it one wife and many girlfriends. It’s all the same in the Kingdom of Heaven. Just change one line in the temple endowment.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Look at how Nevada made out by legalizing gambling and prostitution.

I’m waiting for Russ to announce the new policy and introduce his blushing new 16 year old bride at his upcoming birthday bash.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2019 04:52AM by babyloncansuckit.