A brief, objective introduction to the LDS church.
1) Founded by a pair of con artists, not uncommon in religion, during a period of religious experimentation, mostly by immigrants, in the US. Having far more females than males at the time, this explained why they dabbled in polygamy and pseudo-socialism when living in the desolation of Utah. They were just being pragmatic.
2) Their second leader (Young), was an exceptionally good manager. He was ambitious, until he went loggerheads with Abraham Lincoln, and was smart enough to realize that if he didn’t behave, after the war, the Union Army would pay a visit.
3) From that point, they had generally wise doctrines, if a tad racist. Be loyal to the US. Be contemporary, that is, keep up with the times. Go for a healthy lifestyle, and keep religious and social discipline. Don’t make waves.
Now, this being said, despite their early origins, and a few annoying foibles, for the most part they have matured into a respectable religion. Ironically, their “soft sell” approach, staying out of national politics, may have been too tame at times, but that has likely kept them out of some of the nastier fights the US has gone through.
The left generally hates them, because they will not bow to the left’s agenda; and the right is dubious about them for religious reasons, even if in considerable agreement with them as far as social, economic and international policies.
Their problems are that first of all, they sometimes offer too much grace to members who are offensive to the gentiles, and there is a willingness among some to stick it to the gentiles in business. This does not make friends. Nor does retroactively declaring other people’s ancestors Mormons.
Second, for some reason they inspire some kook gentiles to extremes of paranoia. While this is not really caused by the Mormons, it is a problem *for* Mormons.
But, again objectively, their pluses far outweigh their minuses. Even in a position of authority they generally will not try to force their religion on subordinates. However, they do try to keep their children away from gentile influences, for example, and prefer that their children not be taught by gentiles, or have too much exposure to gentile ways.
I believe it was Ansel12 who has posted sociological/demographic info which disproves this bogus theory. As was true of the entire West in the 19th century, there were many more men than women. (Perhaps Ansel12 could repost the info he found)
According to the Changing World of Mormonism, pp. 224-225: [LDS} "Apostle John A. Widtsoe stated: ’We do not understand why the Lord commanded the practice of plural marriage.’ (Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, p.393). One of the most popular explanations is that the church practiced polygamy because there was a surplus of women. The truth is, however, that there were less women than men. Apostle Widtsoe admitted that there was no surplus of women”: The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seems always to have been more males than females in the Church.’.. The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United States, ... there was no surplus of women'” (Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, pp.390-92," as cited in Changing World, pp. 224-225).
Sorry. You are engaging in revisionistic history. If anything, the Mormons accelerated their practice of polygamy in the late 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s...when they began to require their bishops & other top leaders to become polygamists. (In fact, some bishops were released who would not engage in the practice).
It was the Republican party, identifying polygamy was one of "the twin relics of barbarism" in 1856, followed by increasing Congressional legislative pressure from the early 1860s to the later 1880s, that helped bring about the beginning of polygamy's demise (along with a railroad goin' thru Utah, which helped the federals in their investigation & crackdown).