Washington Post: Five myths about Mormonsim

[DU Ute]

Joanna Brooks >>>>>> MDL

http://mdl.org/103/polygamy

The biggest issue missing from the MDL is they don't tell the whole truth and everyone sees through it. I think an open, upfront, honest explanation will go light years farther than the petty, close-ended, spiteful writing of the MDL. Just my opinion.

Yes, I much prefer the gray of JB to the black and white of the MDL. The difference in tone is remarkable. If I were an outside observer I know who I'd be more likely to trust.

[UtahDan]

Interesting. I can't explain it. It seems like it would be like any other number of women's rights issues, where women are mostly for it and only the liberal men are for it.

There is an article (not specific to LDS) about how marginalized members of groups can actually come to identify very strongly with the people and ideas that marginalize them. The theory being that at least subconsciously they are worried about losing what little standing they have, sort of a "house slave" syndrome. I'm not saying that is exactly the same as this, but it is at least interesting to think about.

A much more convincing idea I have heard is that in many cultures power is gained through submission. The more an LDS woman submits and conforms the more credible and powerful she is. Go read a conference talk by a woman some time and look for references and deference to priesthood. I think this is much closer to the heart of the issue.

[Pheidippides]

I showed my wife this thread and JBrooks' article. She may come here and give you here feelings herself (she's been increasingly talking about participating on here) but I found her response interesting and enlightening. She doesn't share the same doctrinal concerns that I do necessarily, but reading the JBrooks piece (and especially the part about women's roles) brought her to tears. And then she talked about how a YW in the ward (my wife is in the YW presidency) came to the leadership and talked about how much she disliked YW - all she wanted to do is do activities like the boys get to do. And my wife then recollected (in what was a revelation, albeit not a shocking one, to me) how she felt out of place as a YW, and didn't see how she would fit in in the church. Not because she wanted to be a bishop per se, but simply because no woman would ever be asked to be a leader like that. The teenage her didn't think women had a place in the church at all. The adult her doesn't seem to think the teenage her was too far off the mark.

I haven't even told her about the complete reorganization of all auxiliaries under the priesthood yet. That will get her dander up I'm sure.

Point is that I'm starting to see more and more dissent among even the true believers. My wife is definitely a true believer (while knowing most of the historical warts, thanks to me) but she is exceptionally dissatisfied with the organization and hierarchy of the church. We need more people like JBrooks to speak plainly, openly, and unabashedly.

[scottie]

I haven't even told her about the complete reorganization of all auxiliaries under the priesthood yet.

What is that?

[LA Ute]

Joanna Brooks >>>>>> MDL

http://mdl.org/103/polygamy

The biggest issue missing from the MDL is they don't tell the whole truth and everyone sees through it. I think an open, upfront, honest explanation will go light years farther than the petty, close-ended, spiteful writing of the MDL. Just my opinion.

I think reading both MDL and Brooks is the best way to get a full and balanced picture.

[SoCalCoug]

I found out earlier this week that a friend of mine is an polygamist in the sense that he is sealed to two living women. Divorced the first but could not get clearance for a cancellation or for a new sealing. He got married civilly and eventually got clearance to be sealed to his current wife, but he remains sealed to the old one because the cancellation could not get approval.

I am currently sealed to two women. I was married in the temple and then divorced. I received clearance to be sealed a second time, to my current wife, but my sealing to my first wife has not been canceled.

[LA Ute]

I am currently sealed to two women. I was married in the temple and then divorced. I received clearance to be sealed a second time, to my current wife, but my sealing to my first wife has not been canceled.

There are thousands of men in the church in your situation.

[Northwestcoug]

Q. So, aren’t they just living the way Mormons used to live? Aren’t they like “old style” Mormons?

A. No. These modern non-LDS groups do things very differently than the way they were historically done by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For instance, when polygamy was practiced in early Utah, women had complete choice in the situation and the right to no-fault divorce. Church President Brigham Young knew that living in these arrangements could be difficult, so women could leave the relationships for any reason. As no-fault divorce was not generally available in the rest of the United States, this led to “divorce tourism” in Utah, with people coming from all over the country, including from Washington DC, to obtain easy divorces.

Quote:

"I wish my women, and brother Kimball's and brother Grant's to leave, and every woman in this Territory, or else say in their hearts that they will embrace the Gospel -the whole of it....say to your wives, 'Take all that I have and be set at liberty; but if you stay with me you shall comply with the law of God, and that too WITHOUT ANY MURMURING AND WHINING. You must fulfil the law of God in every respect, and round up your shoulders to WALK UP TO THE MARK WITHOUT ANY GRUNTING.' "Now recollect that two weeks from to morrow I am going to set you at liberty. But the first wife will say, 'It is hard, for I have lived with my husband twenty years, or thirty, and have raised a family of children for him, and it is a great trial to me for him to have more women;' then I say IT IS TIME THAT YOU GAVE HIM UP TO OTHER WOMEN WHO WILL BEAR CHILDREN. If my wife had borne me all the children that she ever would bare, the celestial law would teach me TO TAKE YOUNG WOMEN that would have children....

"SISTERS, I AM NOT JOKING, I do not throw out my proposition to banter your feelings, to see whether you will leave your husbands, all or any of you. BUT I KNOW THAT THERE IS NO CESSATION TO THE EVERLASTING WHINING OF MANY OF THE WOMEN IN THIS TERRITORY; I am satisfied that this is the case. And if the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their heals, and that it may be following them all the day long....

"Prepare yourselves for two weeks from to morrow; and I will tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I HAVE SET YOU FREE, YOU MUST BOW DOWN TO IT, and SUBMIT yourselves to the CELESTIAL LAW. You may go where you please, after two weeks from to-morrow; but, remember, that I WILL NOT HEAR ANY MORE OF THIS WHINING."

(Sermon by Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4., pp. 55-57; also printed in Deseret News, Vol. 6, pp. 235-236)

Sure they had a choice. But what would most polygamous women have done when the choice was presented like this?

[scottie]

Q. So, aren’t they just living the way Mormons used to live? Aren’t they like “old style” Mormons?

A. No. These modern non-LDS groups do things very differently than the way they were historically done by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For instance, when polygamy was practiced in early Utah, women had complete choice in the situation and the right to no-fault divorce. Church President Brigham Young knew that living in these arrangements could be difficult, so women could leave the relationships for any reason. As no-fault divorce was not generally available in the rest of the United States, this led to “divorce tourism” in Utah, with people coming from all over the country, including from Washington DC, to obtain easy divorces.

Quote:

"I wish my women, and brother Kimball's and brother Grant's to leave, and every woman in this Territory, or else say in their hearts that they will embrace the Gospel -the whole of it....say to your wives, 'Take all that I have and be set at liberty; but if you stay with me you shall comply with the law of God, and that too WITHOUT ANY MURMURING AND WHINING. You must fulfil the law of God in every respect, and round up your shoulders to WALK UP TO THE MARK WITHOUT ANY GRUNTING.' "Now recollect that two weeks from to morrow I am going to set you at liberty. But the first wife will say, 'It is hard, for I have lived with my husband twenty years, or thirty, and have raised a family of children for him, and it is a great trial to me for him to have more women;' then I say IT IS TIME THAT YOU GAVE HIM UP TO OTHER WOMEN WHO WILL BEAR CHILDREN. If my wife had borne me all the children that she ever would bare, the celestial law would teach me TO TAKE YOUNG WOMEN that would have children....

"SISTERS, I AM NOT JOKING, I do not throw out my proposition to banter your feelings, to see whether you will leave your husbands, all or any of you. BUT I KNOW THAT THERE IS NO CESSATION TO THE EVERLASTING WHINING OF MANY OF THE WOMEN IN THIS TERRITORY; I am satisfied that this is the case. And if the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their heals, and that it may be following them all the day long....

"Prepare yourselves for two weeks from to morrow; and I will tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I HAVE SET YOU FREE, YOU MUST BOW DOWN TO IT, and SUBMIT yourselves to the CELESTIAL LAW. You may go where you please, after two weeks from to-morrow; but, remember, that I WILL NOT HEAR ANY MORE OF THIS WHINING."

(Sermon by Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4., pp. 55-57; also printed in Deseret News, Vol. 6, pp. 235-236)

Sure they had a choice. But what would most polygamous women have done when the choice was presented like this?

There's also D&C 132:64:

64 And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law.

[Moliere]

What is that?

Read DoM's biography. It happened around 1960. Prior to then the auxiliaries were almost autonomous, functioning on their own separate of the priesthood. It was Lee's vision of correlation that changed the structure to what we have today.

It's also ironic that the last recorded account of females anointing other females prior to childbirth was around the 1950s.

[UtahDan]

I am currently sealed to two women. I was married in the temple and then divorced. I received clearance to be sealed a second time, to my current wife, but my sealing to my first wife has not been canceled.

Then you, sir, are an original gangsta.

[UtahDan]

Sure they had a choice. But what would most polygamous women have done when the choice was presented like this?

The women he is talking about were uneducated (like almost all women back then), had no independent means of support, had children to take care of, in most cases had alienated their families when they joined and had walked across the plains to get to Utah. But go ahead, leave any time you want if you can't embrace the doctrine.

Not exactly a meaningful choice. But women didn't have many choices in that era. It really is very similar to what the FLDS are doing, but it is far more shocking now because of the opportunities women now have.

[Pheidippides]

What is that?

Read DoM's biography. It happened around 1960. Prior to then the auxiliaries were almost autonomous, functioning on their own separate of the priesthood. It was Lee's vision of correlation that changed the structure to what we have today.

It's also ironic that the last recorded account of females anointing other females prior to childbirth was around the 1950s.

It was more than just that. Or maybe I'm just expounding on what you said. Anyway, the idea was that there were parallel hierarchies. RS Presidents reported to Stake RS Presidents and they to the General RS president. And so on. Sure, everybody reported to the President of the Church, but YW, YM, RS, etc. were independent below that. And then in the 60s, everybody was made accountable to the Bishop under the guise of "priesthood leadership" as part of the correlation, as Moliere says.

[Uncle Ted]

Joanna Brooks on race and Mormonism... (More myths about Mormonism)

Several readers wrote me to ask why I did not address issues of race and Mormonism. It's a topic I had proposed to cover, but one that did not make the final cut for the article.

Racism continues to be a crucial issue in American life, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about race in Mormonism. Many people are aware that until 1978, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not ordain worthy men of African descent to the lay priesthood. But this policy (enforced primarily in the twentieth century) does not represent the whole history of African-Americans in Mormonism. In the earliest years of the Church, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, many African-Americans (see, for example, Elijah Abel and abolitionist Walker Lewis did join and Black men like Abel and Lewis were ordained to the priesthood. After Smith's death, with the leadership of Brigham Young, and as the Mormons moved further west, the practice of ordaining African-Americans to the priesthood gradually ended. Some historians trace this to controversies and social conflicts that took place while the Mormons were living in Nauvoo, Illinois, in the 1840s. Whatever the reasons it began, denial of priesthood took hold and solidified in Mormon society.

Through the influence of their own upbrinings in a widely racist American society, Brigham Young and other Church members began to articulate "reasons" for the denial of the priesthood. They drew largely from American Christian folk theology that often connected racial difference to the curses placed upon Cain or Noah's son Ham in the Old Testament. These stories took hold among LDS people, especially in their isolation in Mormon settlements in the intermountain West.

During the twentieth-century, some Church leaders generated new stories about the roots of the priesthood ban, tying it to an alleged lack of "valiance" by the souls of African-Americans in the pre-earthly life. These stories were (and are) offensive. They have no source in scripture. But these too were absorbed and circulated by Mormon people. They continue to circulate today in some communities.

The worldwide growth of the Church from the 1950s onward spurred new reasons for Church members and leaders to question the validity of the priesthood ban. The ban rested heavily on the hearts of many Mormons, black and white, and many members and some leaders also prayed for the Church to find greater light on this issue. The issue became especially acute with the rapid growth of the Church in Brazil. In 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball announced that in answer to prayer he had come to understand that the priesthood should be made available to all worthy male members of the Church regardless of race or ancestry. This announcement has been canonized as scripture.

Still, racism remains in Mormon communities, and there are many African-American Mormons and their allies who work hard to address it.

[ERCougar]

MDL responses remind me of how attorneys have counseled me to respond in depositions--terse statements that force the opposing counsel to pull out all information. It makes me wonder if the MDL is composed of attorneys.

Its interesting how much shorter the Brooks piece is, while conveying about the same amount of information.