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If the US elects a Mormon whose great-grandfather was a polygamist, who knows where it might lead? Someday we might have a Muslim President whose father was a polygamist.

Mormons consider it a religious duty to trace your ancestors (so they can be posthumously baptized). What if Romney gets elected and makes everyone do their genealogy? Just in case, the Ancestry.com people ought to be pumping money into his campaign.

Ancestry.com people ought to be pumping money into his campaign.

They probably are since they are owned the the SLC lds corporation.

If the US elects a Mormon whose great-grandfather was a polygamist, who knows where it might lead? Someday we might have a Muslim President whose father was a polygamist.

As a descendent of a Mormon polygamist myself, I can speak firsthand that there is a carry-over effect to diminishing the institution of one-man, one-woman marriage.

I've seen it in the Mormon culture. And I would say a trickle of that trickled down to Massachussetts when Mitt utterly FAILED to stand up to the MA Supreme Court, which had no authority to institute same-sex marriage.

It was there even from the get-go when Lds began moving away from polygamy (1890). From 1890-1910, Lds leaders solemnized another 250 or so plural marriages...on the sly...

It was there in 1898 when Utah voters voted in B.H. Roberts to Congress. Roberts had taken yet a third wife around 1893 -- three years AFTER the manifesto moving Mormons away from polygamy. Do you think evaluating a Congressional candidate who openly ignored "prophet" Wilford Woodruff's manifesto bothered Utah Mormons enough not to vote for Roberts?

No.

Do you think that collective action by Utah Mormons bothered Republicans around the nation?

You bet. Grassroots, pre-mass media America got together 28 banners and signed 7 MILLION signatures asking Congress NOT to seat B.H. Roberts as Congressman. (And they didn't; they sent him back to Utah)

By extension, you can disparage grassroots people in 1898 all you want, VR...

You can somehow claim that Mormonism's long-time dissing of monogamy and Muslim's long-time dissing of monogamy hasn't had ANY effect upon Romney's lack of defense of it in MA or Obama's lack of defense of it now, but I'll vehemently disagree!

I'll stand with those 1898 grassroots Americans.

I won't buy into your false choices that we either have to vote for Romney or Obama...because we don't have to be part of their falsehood voter-clans.

If the US elects a Mormon whose great-grandfather was a polygamist, who knows where it might lead?

#1 For the record, an early 1960s survey showed that 40% of Mormons would embrace polygamy if their leader told them to...
"Another survey taken in the 1960s found that not only do contemporary church members overwhelmingly disapprove of polygamy but only two in five said they would enter the principle if commanded by the prophets." [B. Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant, p. 339, citing survey published in 1963 by John R. Christiansen, "Contemporary Mormons' Attitudes Toward Polygamous Practices," Journal of Marriage and Family 25 (May 1963): pp. 167-170)].

#2 Mormon culture did indeed lead Mormons to heavily frown upon monogamy:

"The need for prostitution...was seized on by Mormons as evidence that monogamy was manifestly an incorrect system of marriage...From the 1850s until the end of the century, Mormon writers and speakers struck at what they considered their detractors' hypocrisy for criticizing Mormon marriage when, as the First Presidency affirmed in 1886, adultery and prostitution were the consequences of the monogamic arrangement.... (Hardy, A Solemn Covenant, p. 89, citing "An Epistle of the First Presidency..." March 1886, Messages 3:68...Hardy cites in the same footnote about 8 other sources from Heber C. Kimball to Brigham Young to John Taylor to George Q. Cannon to apostle Erasmus Snow).

So there ya go! The embracing of polygamy naturally led to an elitist position where polygamists looked down upon, frowned upon, and even openly dismissed or criticized "monogamy!"

When Mormons had an LDS "prophet" in 1886 claiming that adultery and prostitution were the consequences of monogamy, that's a major, major problem!!! In fact, Hardy devoted a full chapter to how LDS regarded polygamy as sexually superior--not for erotic or orgy reasons--but for what they regarded was the "opposite"--associating prostitution and the resulting ill-health with monogamy, etc.

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Oh, and for those who think mainstream Mormon polygamy is so passe' -- so yesteryear -- I've yet to see any Lds leader shoot down what Lds "apostle" Bruce McConkie wrote in "Mormon Doctrine":

"Obviously the holy practice (of polygamy) will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millennium." (Mainsteam Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966 edition, see pp. 577-579 for context)

This was a book, mind you, republished with close oversight of two Lds "prophets" (Lee & Kimball, 11th & 12th Lds presidents); republished again in 1979...and then twice again in '91 & '93 under the 13th Lds "prophet's" watch... no wonder it achieved "almost a scriptural stature...near-canonical status."

The Mormon church ensured it got ahold of the direct copyright by acquiring it from Bookcraft and published under its direct ownership umbrella (Deseret Book Publishing) in 1993.

This book was published under 7, count 'em 7, Mormon "prophets" (McKay, Lee, Kimball, Benson, Hunter, Hinckley, Monson). Only McKay -- over 50 years ago -- conveyed strongly that alterations needs be forthcoming...and the above quote wasn't part of that!