Free Republic

With several polls showing Democratic Sen. Barack Obama trailing Republican Sen. John McCain in Colorado on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, some of the state's Democrats worried Sunday that McCain might pick former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as a running mate to solidify his support among a key voting bloc - Mormons. "It's going to make a big difference if Mitt Romney is the V.P." for McCain, said Nick Isenberg, a Democratic activist from Glenwood Springs. "We have a lot of Mormons in Colorado." Romney is a member of the Mormon church, officially known as the Church of...

A coalition that represents fundamentalist Mormons has issued a statement objecting to the LDS Church's attempts to deny their claim to a shared Mormon heritage. The Principle Voices Coalition, based in Salt Lake City, said that members "strenuously object to any efforts to deprive us and others of the freedom to name and describe ourselves by terms of our own choosing." Two weeks ago, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched a media campaign aimed at distinguishing itself from the breakaway sects. The church said its effort was primarily aimed at clarifying the difference between the LDS Church...

The irony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) wading into California’s same-sex marriage debate is too delicious to ignore. Earlier this week, the church sent a letter signed by its president, Thomas B. Monson, to all Mormon bishops in California. The document refers to the California Marriage Protection Act on the November 4 ballot, a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit the legal recognition of same-sex unions so recently won by a California Supreme Court decision. The letter is to be read aloud during June 29 services. In part, it states, “We ask that...

Lawyers for the Fundamentalist LDS Church are preparing for what could become a series of lawsuits against Texas authorities for the raid on the YFZ Ranch. "There is a desire and a need for compensation, so I think you will see something come," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney who is acting as a spokesman for the FLDS people. The lawsuits would likely focus on the removal of the children, the raid itself and damage to the FLDS Church's first-ever temple on the Eldorado property.

Well, that was fast. I would have thought that the law would wend its leisurely way for at least weeks if not months; that the children might see their parents again for their college graduations or weddings. But like a bolt of lighting the Texas Supremes ruled that the children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch have to be returned to their parents … now. SAN ANTONIO - In a crushing blow to the state's massive seizure of children from a polygamist sect's ranch, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that child welfare officials overstepped their authority and the children...

A support group for gay Mormons urged church leaders Wednesday to stay on the sidelines after the California Supreme Court said same-sex marriage there is legal. The church, which teaches that gay sex is a sin, has expressed disappointment in the recent ruling. Some critics and conservative groups want to overturn it through a constitutional amendment. In a statement Wednesday, the executive director of Affirmation said he hopes church leaders would not "use their energies and their funds" to overturn a ruling that affirms the worth of families or meddle in politics that demonizes gays. "Rather work with us to...

Can Mormon women wear pants when visiting a temple? Can men wear cummerbunds during a marriage ceremony? Are vasectomies an appropriate birth control option? The answers to these (no, no, and not really) and similar questions about Mormon practice and leadership might not seem to be especially secret, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn't pleased about secret church documents hitting the Internet. In this case, the cause of the displeasure is the confidential Church Handbook of Instructions, published by Wikileaks on April 16. The church is currently trying to get the information pulled down using copyright...

Newly-announced Obama endorser and superdelegate, Rep. Pete Stark, talking about the California gay marriage decision on XM's POTUS08 earlier today: Rebecca Roberts, XM: Congressman Pete Stark of California, a new super-delegate for Barack Obama. I wanted to get your reaction, by the way, since you're a Californian, on the Supreme Court decision to overturn the ban on gay marriage. Stark: I think that was, you know... California usually leads on these issues of human rights and civil rights. I was quite proud of our state supreme court. We're going to have a big fight, because you know, the born-again Christians...

Saintly Scissors The Cutting Away of Unwanted Revelation Just as God spoke to Moses on the mountain, the LDS Church claims that God personally appeared to Joseph Smith and directed him to establish "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth" (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). LDS revelations are usually written with Biblical sounding words like "thus saith the Lord." However, Brigham Young's 1847 revelation is the last section added to the D&C with that wording.There have been three additions to the Doctrine and Covenants dated after 1847 but they do not include the words...

Saturday, May 10, 2008 The Hypocrisy of Catholic Answers I had to break my hiatus to share two interesting campaigns by Catholic Answers. It appears from the two campaigns that the Catholic Church has a problem: the majority of Catholics are ignorant of their faith and susceptible to a variety of prey including Mormons, liberal Catholics, homosexuals and the dreaded “anti-Catholics�. In fact, according to Catholic Answers, the Mormons have been quite successful in gaining Catholic converts: “Many people have been doing just that—especially Catholics. In fact, in recent years the majority of converts to Mormonism have been Catholics....

"Headstrong in their two faiths, a Mormon and a Baptist squared off recently at the Tempe Institute of Religion at Arizona State University and spent 2 1/2 hours demonstrating they could aggressively question each other's religions but come away with deep respect and love for each other. Actually, some 55 times since 2001, the Rev. Gregory Johnson, founding pastor of Ogden Valley Baptist Church in Utah, and Robert Millet, dean emeritus of religious education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, have held "A Conversation Between a Mormon and an Evangelical" in the U.S., Canada and England. Between genial ribbing...

PLURAL MARRIAGE FOR THE RIGHTEOUS ONLY- OBEDIENCE IMPERATIVE-BLESSINGS RESULTING   DISCOURSE BY ELDER JOSEPH F. SMITH, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, July 7, 1878. (Reported by Geo. F. Gibbs.) 20:24 I naturally shrink from the task of addressing a congregation in this house, feeling as I do my inability to make myself heard. I have been interested this morning in listening to the remarks of Brother Cannon. We cannot but be delighted with the testimony that has been given in our hearing, and that we are continually receiving from many sources, which go to prove that...

Back then, Harry Reid had no faith. He had just been in a fist fight with his future father-in-law and was eloping with his wife-to-be when a Mormon friend offered to help. The bishop of a congregation in Henderson, Nev., offered Reid space in a local ward house and said he'd perform the ceremony while another friend stood guard. It would be one of the memorable encounters Reid had with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a journey that now leaves him the highest-ranking elected Mormon in U.S. history. [Snip] Reid, a soft-spoken man who now wields...

May I ask a question? What the heck is going on in Texas with the kids caught up in the polygamy ranch disaster? Look, I am not a fan of polygamy. For one thing, it's all any man can do keeping up with one wife. For another, it's against the law in this country. But the polygamists that have been in the news have been operating for decades. The authorities knew about it, and them. They didn't do a thing about it for all those years! Then, on a totally unsubstantiated telephone call about sex abuse - which apparently did...

Care of sect could top $5 million Web Posted: 04/25/2008 11:37 PM CDTNancy Martinez and Janet ElliottHearst Bus convoys carrying 265 children bound for foster homes around the state pulled out of San Angelo at midday Friday, ending a three-week emergency shelter operation launched in the wake of a raid on a West Texas polygamist sect. The cost of the massive effort, which cared for 462 children and, at one point, more than 100 mothers, could top $5 million, a source familiar with the operation there said. The governor's office said Friday it did not have final cost figures. The...

Except for the two large white charter buses, three Texas Department of Public Safety patrol cars and the ambulance, Friday could have been any other day at the Hendrick Home for Children in Abilene. The weather was warm and breezy, birds happily flittered about and a Fed-Ex driver delivered packages, oblivious to the more than 10 children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch who disembarked from buses they had boarded less than two hours earlier. They were bused in from San Angelo, 90 miles away, where they had been staying before Child Protective Services began placing them in foster homes...

EL DORADO, Texas -- A 32-year-old Nevada man arrived at the courthouse here today to provide a DNA sample to Texas authorities determining paternity of children seized from the FLDS polygamous sect earlier this month. David J. Williams said he is a former member of the Fundamentalist Ladder Day Saints and has three sons currently held in state custody in San Angelo. The boys -- Parley, 9; Jacob, 7; and Teral, 5 -- were among the 416 children rounded up when Texas law officers raided the sect's YFZ Ranch. Williams, who left the FLDS three and a half years ago...

There are believed to be far more girls than boys among the children in custody. And the Texas boys are thought to have escaped the hardships common in other Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints communities, where boys are routinely expelled.

Forced marriages. Underage sex. Teenaged mothers. That is the portrait emerging for the hundreds of girls who have been removed by the state from a polygamist sect’s compound in West Texas that is now the center of one of the largest child welfare investigations in American history. But what about the boys who are among the 416 children taken from the YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch? The numbers of boys among the 416 children is believed to be far exceeded by the number of girls in custody. And the Texas boys are thought to have escaped the hardships felt by...

Watching the videos, including the tours of the ranch, listening to the interviews and news reports it became clear that the women and children are living in a prison inside the gates of the FLDS YFZ Ranch Compound in Eldorado, Texas. It's run like a state prison anywhere in the US. Anyone else notice that? Nobody can leave, they are locked in, they have practically no contact with the outside world, they have work duties, they wear uniforms. The children have a restricted outside play area. There is a code like in a gang of deception. Initially the men told...

At 16 years old Irene Spencer became the second wife of her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron in 1953. From a fourth generation polygamous family, it had been drilled into the young girl that plural marriage was required to enter Heaven.

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- Hundreds of children who were taken from a polygamist ranch by Texas child welfare authorities will remain in state custody, a judge ruled Friday night. art.flds.ap.jpg Women arrive Friday at the courthouse wearing their traditional high-collared, pioneer-style dresses. Judge Barbara Walther also ordered court DNA testing for all 416 children who lived at the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch in Eldorado to determine their biological parents.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The neighbors knew Anne Wilde as a divorcee with three children, but she had a secret: She was married to a polygamist, a man who divided his time among his various wives, visiting her once a week at her house in the suburbs. "We'd play games - he'd park his car at a grocery-store lot and I'd pick him up" so that other people wouldn't see his vehicle parked in front of her home overnight, said Wilde, now a 72-year-old grandmother whose husband died five years ago. The neighbors had their suspicions, but they never questioned...

'Many False Prophets Will Arise and Deceive Many' When Jesus Christ foretold the major trends that would precede His return to earth, the first sign He mentioned was religious imposters who would come in His name. Do you take that warning seriously? by Tom Robinson When Jesus Christ's disciples asked Him what would herald His coming to rule all nations, He answered by first relaying a series of developments that would lead up to the grand climax of the present age: religious deception, wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes (Matthew 24:3-8; Mark 13:3-8; Luke 21:7-11). Jesus said that these were just...

ELDORADO — Mothers separated from their children as part of a wide-ranging abuse investigation within a polygamist retreat accuse state officials of misleading them before taking their offspring into custody. Authorities raided the sect's ranch more than a week ago in response to allegations that underage girls were forced to marry older men. Women and children from the secretive community were taken to a West Texas fort-turned-museum and a rodeo pavilion, but on Monday officials began separating women and some of their offspring without warning, members of the sect said. While some women and children were taken from the shelters...

Don’t mess with Texas.The slogan used to be reserved for bumper stickers. But on April 3, Texas authorities showed the world a whole new meaning of the phrase—spreading out on a sprawling FLDS compound in Eldorado, ultimately taking more than 400 children of polygamists into custody. They did so, apparently, based on a March 31 phone call from a 16-year-old girl, who claimed to have been forced into marrying a 50-year-old man and to have had his child. Bam. Done. Round up the kids and many of their mothers. Give them safety and shelter. Detain the men on the YFZ...

The FLDS raids in Texas have put an international spotlight on the religion. But the LDS church says that some of the bad press has been spilling onto their church. The confusion is something that LDS church officials want cleared. The LDS church says that false reporting has come out of France, Russia, Mexico and the Caribbean. The church says that media organizations in these countries have been calling FLDS members, “Mormons.” Mike Otterson, Public Affairs rep. for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says that the distinction between the two religions is important. “We don’t look like...

PHOENIX - Polygamist sect members who were moved to a Texas compound from their longtime homes along the Utah-Arizona line were hand-picked for their fierce loyalty to leader Warren Jeffs, and that allegiance may be a stumbling block for law enforcement, authorities say. Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, transferred people to Eldorado, Texas, to escape growing government scrutiny on the sect's base in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. "This was Warren Jeffs' all-star cast," said Goddard, who has been investigating the sect since...

ELDORADO, Texas (CNN) -- Texas Rangers on Saturday met with -- but did not arrest -- the man accused by a teenage girl of physically and sexually abusing her at a polygamist compound. Arizona probation officials said the meeting with Dale Evans Barlow, 50, happened just across the Arizona state line in St. George, Utah. "The Texas Rangers met with him. He was allowed to go, and no arrest was made," said Friend Walker, director of the Mojave County, Arizona, probation office. Barlow's attorney, Bruce Griffen, said the meeting was voluntary. He said he and Barlow are working to gather...

Watching the TV this week I wept as pictures were broadcast from an isolated part of Texas. I saw 416 children - from infants to teenagers - and 133 women being taken into protective police custody. They were driven away from a place they called "home" - a 1,700-acre desert compound run by the polygamist sect once controlled by their "prophet", Warren Jeffs. The reason I was crying was simple - those images of women wearing ankle-length dresses and holding the hands of bright-eyed children brought back terrible memories. For I was once one of them. Many of those teenage...

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) - It was no secret that a polygamist sect that built a compound in the West Texas desert believed in marrying off underage girls to older men. And the sheriff had an informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside the sect. But authorities say their hands were tied until last week, when they finally obtained the legal grounds to move against the group. The trigger for the raid was a hushed phone call from a terrified 16-year-old girl to a family-violence shelter to report that her 50-year-old husband had beaten and...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Teenage girls, often younger than 16, were required to have sex in the soaring white temple after they were married in sect-recognized unions at a polygamist compound in West Texas, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. The temple "contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17," said an affidavit quoting a confidential informant who left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

SAN ANGELO, Texas - The 16-year-old girl whose call for help sparked a massive raid at the FLDS compound in Texas said her spiritual husband had recently broken her ribs in a beating and she feared for her life, a newly-released document said. In a March 29 call at 11:32 p.m. to an unnamed agency, the girl spoke quietly on a cell phone and said she feared being overheard, the document said. She said she had been spiritually married to a man who was about 49 years old after her arrival at the YFZ Ranch three years earlier, and was...

It's been nearly a quarter of a century since Freemasons in Utah rescinded a 60-year ban that prohibited Latter-day Saints from joining their fraternity. And while many remember the religious division that had characterized Freemasonry in the Beehive State from pioneer times, Glen Cook believes he is evidence that things are changing among his Masonic brethren. Cook, a Salt Lake criminal defense attorney and Brigham Young University law school graduate, is believed to be the first member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be elected grand master in Utah in nearly a century, overseeing the activities...

The connection is based not on theology but on shared values and a sense of isolation from mainstream America. The Mormon Church has to be among the most outgoing on earth; in recent years its leaders have reached out to, among others, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics and Jews. One of the most enthusiastic responses, however, has come from what some might consider a surprising source: U.S. Muslims. "We are very aware of the history of Mormons as a group that was chastised in America," says Maher Hathout, a senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "They can...

This is the fifteenth episode of The Ancient Paths television program, hosted by Pastor Jason Wallace. In lieu of the new LDS movie on the life of Emma Smith (the first wife of Joseph Smith) Pastor Wallace welcomes back Sandra Tanner to discuss the historical details of the life of Emma Smith. The program airs on Wednesday nights at 8:00pm on KTMW-TV20, a station that is available in Utah and parts of surrounding states. The program is hosted by Christ Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City. This episode aired on 03/26/08.Scroll Down to Episode #15

If a Mormon ever points to divisions within mainstream Christendom for apologetic purposes, as a complaint against Christian unity, my usual response is: "Just wait. Mormonism is only 250 years old. You'll have plenty of your own when you get to be 2050." In fact you need not even wait that long. We have recently acquired a book titled Divergent Paths of Restoration by one Steven Shields which provides what appears to be an exhuastive catalog of Mormon schismatic movements. (You can still buy it here, in fact.) Let us be clear about our intent: We are not striving, as...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - In a show of Republican unity, one-time bitter foes John McCain and Mitt Romney raised money and campaigned together Thursday for a single goal - getting McCain elected president. "We are united. Now our job is to energize our party," the Arizona senator said in an airport hangar, flanked by Romney and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., an early McCain supporter. Both have been mentioned as potential vice presidential picks, and McCain praised each. Romney lauded McCain and promised to do all he can to help, saying: "He is a man who is proven and...

Religious extremism seems worlds away from Victoria. However, the southern part of our province is a hotbed of religious extremists. A tiny communal town with less than 1,000 people, Bountiful, B.C., is one of North America’s well-known settlements for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who openly practice polygamy — the practice of taking multiple wives. The tiny community recently gained national attention when Utah’s Warren Jeffs, the former leader of Mormon fundamentalist polygynist sect who had close ties to the town, was arrested and convicted of being an accomplice to rape after he arranged an...

Play of the Day: McCain's Mom on Mormons Nov 9 07:33 PM US/Eastern 103 Comments McCain’s Mother Goes After Romney and Mormons Related Stories Radar: McCain Clarifies Mom's Mormon Slam MEREDITH, N.H. (AP) - John McCain's 95-year-old mother, in a swipe at her son's rival Mitt Romney, said Friday that Mormons were to blame for the scandal that rocked the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. During an appearance on MSNBC, Roberta McCain laid out why her son, John, deserves to win the Republican presidential nomination. But in evaluating McCain's primary rivals, she criticized Romney's Mormon faith and his time in...

Sunday, March 23, 2008 McCain-Romney?Posted by: Hugh Hewitt  at 9:50 AM The Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi is no fan of Mitt Romney, but her column today looks at the many upsides to McCain's selection of Romney as his running mate.  Key graphs: At a time when the economy frightens everyone from Main Street to Wall Street, Romney has the most extensive and successful business background of any candidate on the national stage. McCain admits that economic theory is not his strong point.... Even if Massachusetts is more than a long shot, Romney might help McCain snatch New Hampshire from the...

A McCain-Romney ticket makes political sense for the GOP. John McCain and Mitt Romney fought bitterly as presidential candidates and don't seem to like each other very much. But, to quote Vice President Dick Cheney in his recent interview with ABC's Martha Raddatz: "So?" A presidential nominee doesn't need another best friend. He needs a ticket-balancer - and from the ridiculous to the sublime, his ex-rival fits the bill. Romney has hair; McCain has much less; Romney is robotic; McCain is temperamental. Romney shifts positions with enthusiasm; McCain does it without any. Romney is a very wealthy man who invested...

Two young, LDS missionaries, wearing their white shirts and ties, left their apartment and went out into the busy streets of Bangkok, Thailand, in July 1972. As they tracted, they found an unusual picture on the front page of the newspapers: another missionary they knew sitting on top of a large statue of Buddha. That evening, the elders received a phone call. They were to stay inside their apartments and not proselyte. A photo that seemed fun at the time turned out to have some drastic consequences. For six weeks Elder Mark Tippets and his companion read, all they could...

A criminal investigation focusing on three Mormon missionaries who were photographed defacing a Catholic shrine has been dropped after the Catholic bishop in the San Luis Valley of Colorado where the incident happened urged forgiveness. According to reports in the Denver Post and the Pueblo Chieftain, the three missionaries had been shown in photos posted on the Internet at the Shrine of the Mexican Martyrs at the Chapel of All Saints on a butte overlooking the town of San Luis. The photographs were taken in 2006 and showed the men preaching from the Book of Mormon at the shrine's altar,...

The search for suspects in a Pleasanton double homicide has gone national. Listed under a search for fugitives, "America's Most Wanted" has posted details on the killings of husband and wife, Ernie Scherer and Charlene Abendroth on its Web site. The site lists some incorrect information on the case, however. "America's Most Wanted" states that the couple had just returned from trips to Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands, when they had actually just traveled to South America. The site also states that a security guard was sent to their home, when it was in fact a Castlewood County Club maintenance...

Why McCain Should Pick RomneyStephen M. Studdert, FSM Editor-at-Large.John Nance Garner IV, the nation’s 32nd Vice President, once described the office of the vice presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm spit."  Unlike most past elections, this year things are different. Throughout most of the primary season the major issues facing the next president seemed to be getting out of Iraq and how to solve growing health care problems. No longer.  Today the country is immersed in what may well prove to be a deep and lingering economic crisis, with cracks appearing everywhere in our private and public...

Mitt Romney leads the VP Stakes at GOPNation.com. Vote today for your choice for VP! The top three so far are Romney (25 percent) Condi Rice (18) and JC Watts (14). http://gopnation.com/wordpress/?page_id=357

SAN LUIS, Colo. - Members of the parish of the Sangre de Christo Roman Catholic Church planned to vote Sunday on whether to ask authorities to file charges against Mormon missionaries who allegedly damaged a shrine in 2006. The Pueblo Chieftain reported that church members saw photos on the Web showing the Mormons in the shrine. The Chieftan reported that Sangre de Cristo Catholic Church members discovered a Web photo Thursday that showed an LDS missionary holding the severed head of a statue at the shrine. Residents since found the head had been replaced, the Chieftan said. Other photos, also...

A little more than 2,000 years ago, the Redeemer of humankind was born in Bethlehem of Judea. While yet an infant He was brought to the temple in Jerusalem. There Mary and Joseph heard the wonderful prophecies spoken by Simeon and Anna about the tiny babe who was destined to become the Savior of the world.He spent much of His boyhood in Nazareth of Galilee, and when 12 years of age He was brought to the temple again. Mary and Joseph found Him conversing with learned men, “and they were hearing him, and asking him questions” (Joseph Smith Translation, Luke...