Interesting fiction you must be reading red. I'm sure you have unimpeachable sources for those hung and burned alive.
But their woes tended to be of their own cause. If you do serious research you will find that mormon Rierdon in his 'salt sermon' declared war on the missourians weeks before the state was forced to respond.
May it be the actual persecution, the conditions they were exposed to that led to hardship, their journey's or building their new existence in a wilderness that wasn't the most forgiving, they lost many people.
They were persecuted because their leadership was in open defiance of the laws of this country - so much for that article of faith. And yes, actual research will show that Young and the inspired mormon leadership royally screwed up with their hand cart migration - with self inflicted deaths.
On the right there are stereo types, fictional make belief boogieman arguments or an exclusive view of Christianity that brands them as some sort of deviant
Fictional - lol, well documented by their own history red, nor is it an "exclusive" view - IF you bother to read the threads here in the RELIGION FORUM (hint hint), you would see that their doctrines - from their sources - are posted and contrasted to traditional Christianity. No need for boogiemen red.
Finally - your analysis/excuse for polygamy in the 1800s is flawed - studies show that there was not an overpopulation of women in the country as a whole, nor in Utah Territory.
references to self or other blogs/posts......
You stated: “because their leadership was in open defiance of the laws of this country “
You mean like having the US government pass laws that are unconstitutional by ANY litmus test and jail people (1,300), strip them of the voting rights, tell them that they are forbidden to run for public office.......... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds_Act
Or how about the Edmond's Tucker Act: where the US government essentially nationalized all property of the Mormon church! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds%E2%80%93Tucker_Act Which required an oath of office that made essentially ALL Mormons unqualified to hold public office, even if they never practiced polygamy! Dictating what textbooks kids use in schools, installing intentionally anti-Mormon federal judges.
This is getting comical, keep it coming!
You know, I'm Southern Baptist but grew up in Germany. Over there I had people looking at me like I was weird, they saw us as radical, in fact dangerous, sort of like a Muslim extremist.............
“If someone passed laws that were flagrantly unconstitutional and stepped all over you, would you follow them, or would you at some point simply ignore them?”