I've been reading a lot lately about the Jeff's trial and about the Sister Wives/Kody Brown lawsuit.

I've come to a few conclusions:

Polygamy & Polandry have always been illegal in the United States. These practices were also illegal in Mexico. The reason this is important is because of Joseph Smith's decree (D&C 132, Plural Marriage) that he and his followers, having heard the law of plural marriage, must accept and obey it.

This plural marriage decree or revelation, is extremely problematic for Mormons, especially since it was practiced and is still considered doctrine today.

Simply put, this revelation (plural marriage) flies directly in the face of any reasonable logic. It is impossible for me to accept that a powerful and all-knowing God would require his children to follow a law (plural marriage) that was and always has been illegal!

How can mormons claim otherwise?

Polygamy & Polandry was illegal in Ohio, illegal in Illinois, and illegal in the Utah Territories, when that region was under the jurisdiction of Mexico. It was outlawed when Utah was granted statehood. These a plain facts.

The law just wasn't enforced, especially in the territories, because of the remoteness and distance from enforcement agencies. I'm not suprised *mobs of angry citizens* would persecute a group of men who blatantly went around trying to accost other men's wives and underage daughters while using the excuse, "God told me I have to have multiple wives and so I must. Otherwise an angel with a sharp sword is going to get me." "Give them to me now." Yes, I suppose things would get violent, especially if those engaged in this illegal and criminal behavior won't stop!

Mormons must face the fact that the founder of their church was a criminal and most certainly a predator who was determined to continue practicing his criminality and encourage others to join him. Polygamy and Pollandry were considered felonies in the State of Illinois and Ohio at the time he went about his *marriages*.

If your regligious founder is a felon and engages in criminal activities, what does that say about the religion itself?

Gordon B Hinckley, Former Church President stated that the church's truth lies entirely with Joseph Smith. Either he is correct and the church is true or it is all a fraud.

If the founder of your church is a felon, the all logic seems to point to that religion as being fraudlent and untrue.

I don't see how you could come to any other conclusion.

This is an excellent point, and one I have not heard used by anyone else in this way. It's easy really. They practiced polygamy, but it was against the law. Why would a prophet tell you to go against the laws of the land?

and wouldnt going against the laws of the land be going against the articles of faith? when were the articles of faith written?

A great question to ask Mormons when they say the reason they stopped practicing was to obey the law of the land is then why did they even start in the first place? And why did it take them 70 years to stop?

may have covered its colonies here, but after the revolution I suspect it took some time for individual states to pass their own legislation. I'd love to see some citations for which states that had Mormons also had laws. I also wish I had documentation for the Mexican polygamy laws of the time.

Illegal or not, it was certainly rare back then, and got people angry. In fact, if it wasn't illegal yet in a state, that is undoubtedly only because no one else tried it.

This requires some research and some logical application.

Marriage in the 1830-1890's was performed according to state law and was defined as being between a man and a woman.

Each state had anti bigamy laws. An example is one I found for Illinois from 1833 as follows:

"Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive. If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases, and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred." Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833, p.198-99

This is signifcant for this discussion, because Joseph Smith had most of his 30+ marriages in Illinois between 1833-1843, with the bulk of them occuring between 1839-1843. Other members of mormon faith were also engaging in this illegal action during this time period in Illinois as well.

All the married Mormons who emigrated to Utah in 1847 had been married under the civil laws of their respective states; each one of those states had laws against bigamy, thus making monogamy the common law.

How then, is plural marriage (and its acts of bigamy, polygamy and polandry) legal and justified when it is and always has been, illegal in Illinois under the above 1833 law that was still in force at that time?

When Mormons left Illinois and went to Utah in 1847, all married Mormons at that time had been married under laws of the states they had come from. Utah became U.S. territory in 1848 after the Mexican War, and thus all citizens living therein became subject to the common laws of the nation, including marriage laws. (To use an analogy, you get your drivers' license from your state, but it is recognized as being legal in all the states. Marriage licenses are similar.) Marriages were not legal in the Utah territory until Utah became a state, and certainly not after 1848. So if prior to 1848 you were legally married, you were married under Mexican law. Unless of course you were married somewhere else in the US, which made you subject to that state's marriage laws.

Once in Utah in 1848-49, Young attempted to establish the "Territory of Deseret," and operate the area as a theocracy, under the "Law of the Lord," which included plural marriage and blood atonement. However, Congress rejected Young's attempt, and in 1850, the area was officially established as Utah Territory, with territorial overseers appointed from Washington D.C.. President Millard Fillmore appointed Young as governor. Thus, polygamy became specifically illegal under U. S. common laws in 1850; but, since polygamy was also illegal under Mexican laws beforehand, there was never a time when polygamy was legal in Utah. PERIOD.

The 1862 Morrill Act was not the first law which made bigamy illegal; it was merely the first law which specifically reinforced existing state anti-bigamy laws in a non-state territory. It was enacted specifically to close the "loophole" that the Mormons mistakenly believed they were operating under.

So even after the passage of the 1862 Morrill Act, the Mormon Church continued to practice polygamy in violation of the law for another half-century, and repeatedly challenged those laws.

So anyone who argues that "The Mormons stopped practicing polygamy when it was made illegal" are either misinformed or misrepresenting the truth. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ILLEGAL!!!

The final nail in the coffin which demonstrates polygamy's and bigamy's illegality was when Ann Eliza Webb filed for "divorce" from Brigham Young and sued him for alimony in 1877. Young successfully argued that their relationship was "an ecclesiastical affair, not a legal one," and the judge rightly ruled that since there was never any legal marriage, Webb could not file for divorce nor seek alimony.

Sorry Mormons, you can't have it both ways. If Brigham Young was living with this woman, Ann Eliza Webb, and the marriage wasn't LEGAL, then it was ILLEGAL, and Brigham Young was guilty of Bigamy. Very simple, isn't it? So Brighma Young was a felon, too!

Worse, since Young himself admitted that his own "plural marriages" were not legal marriages, that means that no other Mormon "plural marriage" at any time was a legal marriage either. No legal marriage licenses were ever applied for nor granted, and every single child born of Mormon "plural marriages" was illegitimate - i.e. not born in a legal marriage.
So every mormon practicing plural marriage was guilty of a felony. Yikes!

It is clear following this logic that mormons have a very big problem.

They are supposed to follow the law of the land, yet God (through Joseph Smith) gives them the law of plural marriage,
which defies current and standing laws governing bigamy, polygamy and polandry (all of which were felonies)
which have always been in force (1833-1890)+
Which makes plural marriage ILLEGAL. AND IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

So how can Joseph Smith be a prophet of God if he is committing felonies?

And how can the Mormon church be true if this is the case?

Answer: It can't be.

so when cornered by the facts, apologists try to spin polygamy as "a necessary civil disobedience". Like that is a value that transcends the articles of faith.

hello Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> so when cornered by the facts, apologists try to
> spin polygamy as "a necessary civil disobedience".
> Like that is a value that transcends the articles
> of faith.

and Doctrine and Covenants Section 101, Verse 4 (1835 edition).

"Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy; we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife; and one woman but one husband; except that in the event of death when either is at liberty to marry again."

in polygamy in Nauvoo, so that eliminates their legitimacy.

I'm still not clear on the law in Utah from 1848 to 1862. When my g-g-grandparents married polygamously in Utah in 1860, what made that illegal? It wouldn't have been legal if they went to another state, but why would it be illegal in Utah before the Morrill act? Sorry, I'm just not an attorney and I desperately want to be able to explain this to others.

@Heresy

What made their marriage illegal in 1860 was that the Utah Territory prior to statehood was subject to US Territorial law, which outlawed bigamy, polygamy and polandry. Mormons living in the Utah Territory gave alliegance to their church, not realizing that the church and federal government (there isn't a state) are not the same, even though Brigham Young was in charge of both (Govenor of the Utah Territory & President of the Church). Part of the problem was that those in power in Washington DC weren't aware that mormon practices of polygamy and blood atonement were as widepread and doctrinal as they were.

Rank and File Mormons probably didn't realize that it wasn't legal for Brigham Young to be performing eclessiastical marriages AS IF THEY ARE LEGAL FEDERAL AND STATE sanction marriages. Polygomous marriages were NEVER sanctioned, EVER. That was why Young's trial with Webb (Webb sued for divorce and alimony) is so interesting and frankly condemning. Those marriages weren't LEGAL. Which means they were ILLEGAL.

Mormons in Utah at that time probably thought they could LEGALLY marry, but they could not LEGALLY MARRY AS A POLYGAMIST ANYWHERE in the US, EVER. And the important point here is that in the Utah Territory in 1860 was considered US Territory subject to US Federal Law.

You are welcome Heresy.

I found out after doing more research that the Edmunds Act of 1882 was instituted by the Federal Government to give "teeth" to the Morrill Act of 1962 by a) making it a Federal felony to engage in polygamy and b) even went so far as to define unlawful cohabitation as illegal, thus removing the requirement to prove a marriage did or did not exist.

What is interesting, is how many prominent Mormons GA's continued to break the law, including a two even AFTER the 1890 manifesto. This is proof that it is STILL CONSIDERED DOCTRINAL, otherwise, why couldn't it stop immediately in 1890?

Here's the list:

Lorenzo Snow — 1885 — an Apostle of the church at the time. In late 1885, Snow was indicted by a federal grand jury for three counts of unlawful cohabitation. According to his indictments, Snow had lived with more than one woman for three years. The jury delivered one indictment for each of these years, and Snow was convicted on each count. After conviction he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court which convicted him. The petition was denied, but federal law guaranteed him an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. In Ex Parte, on Snow's behalf, the Supreme Court invalidated Snow's second and third convictions for unlawful cohabitation. It found that unlawful cohabitation was a "continuing offense," and thus that Snow was at most guilty of one such offense for cohabiting continuously with more than one woman for three years. Snow became President of the LDS Church in 1898.

Abraham H. Cannon — 1886 — a member of the First Council of the Seventy of the Church and son of Apostle George Q. Cannon. Cannon was convicted of unlawful cohabitation in 1886 and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, which he served in full. In 1889 he became an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

George Q. Cannon — 1888 — an Apostle of the church and former non-voting delegate for the Utah Territory in the United States Congress, prior to passage of the Edmunds Act. Cannon surrendered himself to authorities and pleaded guilty at trial to a charges of unlawful cohabitation. As a result, Cannon served nearly six months in Utah's federal penitentiary.

Heber J. Grant — 1899 — an Apostle of the church at the time. Grant pleaded guilty to unlawful cohabitation and paid a $100 fine. Grant became President of the LDS Church in 1918.

Joseph F. Smith — 1906 — President of the LDS Church. Smith was brought to trial on a charge of unlawful cohabitation with four women in addition to his lawful wife; he pleaded guilty and was fined $300, the maximum penalty then permitted under the law.

Sorry, it should be Morrill Act of 1862. Off by 100 years LOL.