Yeah, that's why they were excommunicated from the Mormon church, and prosecuted so vigorously by the state of Utah, that they fled to Texas.
These are middle aged men, who marry multiple girls (frequently nieces), who have been held captive for their entire lives.
Do you have any proof whatsoever that they were excommunicated by the LDS (not Mormon) Church? Especially the children? If so, I would like a link.
This is a repost, but it bears repeating.
I grew up in a very orthodox Mormon family, full of the usual stories about “the Prophet,” his greatness, and all he did.
I learned how the Mormons had been badly persecuted, and how everyone who spoke against the church was a “liar.” So many liars. So very many liars.
I was told that Joseph Smith had numerous wives. But I was told the sanitized version, with “marriages” that did not involve sex, 14 year old girls, the wives of other men, and a life of lying, cheating, and skulking around from bed to bed.
I was even taught most of the problems were Emma’s fault. She was the “weaker vessel,” who could not come to terms with the Lord’s program. She was so weak, I was taught, she left the fold when Joseph died. Brigham Young said “Joseph will have to go into hell to get her.”
Whatever.
I was constantly asked about polygamy. I gave the standard answers. I believed them myself. I could not understand it, but it “came from the Lord.”
The first sense of just how awful it all was came years after later, when I read “The Giant Joshua,” Maurine Whipple’s novel about early Mormonism and polygamy in St. George. I first learned about the way arrangements were made, and how they were enforced——”blood atonement.”
It made me question. I was not taught this. It sounded awful, but it made sense. How else could the stupid and pathetic practice of polygamy be enforced? It had to involve threats.
I have since read the good books about Mormon polygamy. That includes “Under the Banner of Heaven,” ‘Tell it All,” and “Wife No. 19.” It hit me very hard. Polygamy, as practiced by Warren Jeffs, is the same kind of polygamy practiced by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. It did not change at all. The same methods used by the early church are used now. To make it work, you must remove all freedom from the women. They must become property.
Women were, and are, chattel. Girls are married off young, and assigned to the role of slaking the lust of 50 year old lechers who should be arrested and castrated. They are not patriarchs, they are child molesters. They operate under the guise of the ‘holy Priesthood,” which is just an excuse to pick and choose the nubile girls. Some sacred authority that is.
The whole thing is sick. It is beyond pathetic. But it goes on and on and on. Joseph Smith started it, and it never would go away. It took on a life of its own, and became a huge monster that cannot be controlled. One man’s desire for sexual experimentation led to hundreds of ruined lives, child molestation, and a sick, sick theology. How utterly nauseating it is.
I cannot stand to hear Mormons talk about it now. “We will practice it in the Celestial Kingdom,” or “It will come back when we are worthy,”
Can’t these dopes figure it out? It is not holy, pure, or moral. It is just sick. It has, at least done one thing. It has prevented the Mormon church from ever having a shot at being mainstream.
Now that I see things clearly, I am disgusted by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. What they did was wrong, and there are no two ways about it. Anytime I hear someone say that Smith is a prophet of God, I am sick. Will Mormons ever be able to see that Joseph Smith was no different than Warren Jeffs? How can they, in their minds, justify that Smith is a prophet of God, and what happened at this polygamist compound is something entirely different? I hope it makes some Mormons stop and think about the true history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.