Sure people in the LDS Church honor, respect and love Joseph Smith. I certainly regard him as a prophet called of God.
But to say that Latter-day Saints place him or anyone else above Jesus Christ is simply untrue. Christ is our only Savior, and without him we have nothing.
A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link...
As I have frequently told them, no man in this dispensation will enter the courts of heaven, without the approbation of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jun.
Brigham Young
You continue to dismiss and/or ignore the quotes from Mormon leaders: why??
Read the quotes Norm. Who are they talking about? C’mon.
The ‘honor, respect and love’ is in reality worship and they put Smith, in reality, over Christ.
“Come on! ye persecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet... When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go.”
- Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, v. 6, pp. 408-409
From Brigham Young:
Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the vail in the great work of the last days. I can tell our beloved brother Christians who have slain the Prophets and butchered and otherwise caused the death of thousands of Latter-day Saints, the priests who have thanked God in their prayers and thanksgiving from the pulpit that we have been plundered, driven, and slain, and the deacons under the pulpit, and their brethren and sisters in their closets, who have thanked God, thinking that the Latter-day Saints were wasted away, something that no doubt will mortify them - something that, to say the least, is a matter of deep regret to them - namely, that no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith. From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are - I with you and you with me. I cannot go there without his consent. He holds the keys of that kingdom for the last dispensation - the keys to rule in the spirit-world; and he rules there triumphantly, for he gained full power and a glorious victory over the power of Satan while he was yet in the flesh, and was a martyr to his religion and to the name of Christ, which gives him a most perfect victory in the spirit-world. He reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim - “Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!” But it is true. – Journal of Discourses 7:289 (Oct 9, 1859)
“...and he that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh and sent Joseph Smith with the fullness of the Gospel to this generation, is not of God, but is Antichrist,” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 312).
I can keep going...this goes beyond honor, you will never see Christians speak of their founders this way or sing praises to them or have nativities of them at Christmastime.