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Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith tangles with a quirk of Arkansas history
Washington Post ^ | May 20, 2012

Posted on 06/08/2012 8:21:53 PM PDT by Colofornian

“There’s families all scattered in through this area who had ancestors in that, so there is a tinge of anti-Mormonism in this area, a little bit of bias I suppose,” said Republican Roy Ragland...

SNIP

The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains one of the darkest episodes in the history of Mormonism...Romney addressed it during his 2007 presidential campaign in response to a reporter’s question.

“That was a terrible, awful act carried out by members of my faith,” he told the Associated Press. “There are bad people in any church, and it’s true of members of my church, too.”

SNIP

In northwestern Arkansas, at least two monuments commemorate the massacre, including a towering wooden cross erected just six years ago. On it is carved a biblical saying: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord.”

Historians believe the wagon train of 30 families, laden with cattle and other goods, set off in early 1857...

Their journey took them through Utah...

...local Mormon leaders decided to attack the wagon train with the help of a local Native American tribe, on whom they planned to lay the blame. After days of exchanging fire, a Mormon leader approached the camp to offer safe passage. But it was a ruse: The Mormon militia massacred the men and women and many of the children, 120 in all. Seventeen...were spared, and adopted by local families until federal authorities intervened to return them to Arkansas...

Descendants’ groups headquartered here...have...sometimes clashed with, the Mormon Church to create a public memorial at the site...which sits on church property...

“It’s an emotional thing for us,” said Phil Bolinger, president of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation. “When you come of age, when you mature, things to do with your own blood kin becomes more important and you become passionate about it.”...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: History; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: arkansas; illinois; inman; lds; mittromney; mormon; mountainmeadows; nauvoo; obama
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Comment #21 Removed by Moderator

To: svcw

svcw, in Missouri and Illinois you are exactly right. The US Government was not involved with the persecution of the LDS people. It was local mobocracy, local and State governments who were involved. A petition was taken to the President by the LDS at the time and he responded that though he felt that their cause was just, he could not help them.

However, in the 1850s the situation was different. At that time it was a US Army that was coming to the LDS settlements around the Great Salt Lake and the quotes given on this thread by General Johnston of that Army and Colonel Smith as regards what they intended on the LDS people are accurate.

Luckily, the LDS had evacuated SLC and ultimately the impasse was resolved.


22 posted on 06/08/2012 9:43:58 PM PDT by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free, never has been, never will be (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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Comment #23 Removed by Moderator

To: piytar

This thread is posted in the Religion Forum. Posts containing potty language or references to potty language are removed on the RF.


24 posted on 06/08/2012 9:52:22 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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To: Colofornian
The Battle of Crooked River was a rescue mission mounted by a group of Mormons to retrieve fellow Mormons whom they thought were at risk of being massacred by the Missouri state militia, which in fact, had merely ejected Mormons from their property, which was confiscated in its entireity. The Missouri governor's extermination order might have been a *mere* expulsion order, but it resulted in the confiscation of all Mormon property in the state of Missouri without recompense. How would you feel if the state of California took all your property and kicked you out of the state?
25 posted on 06/08/2012 9:57:29 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Colofornian

Oh, one last thing (unless my other post got pulled, too): attacks on MittCare for something that happened that long ago are futile and make the critics look silly. Want to go afer Mitt? There’s a lot more fruitful and convincing targets re modern Mormonism and Romney’s liberal policies (MittCare, anti-gun, big govt, etc.) Those are relevant!


26 posted on 06/08/2012 10:03:30 PM PDT by piytar (The predator-class is furious that their prey are shooting back.)
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To: faithhopecharity
My attempted point was merely that the WashPost is a very biased newspaper today. (I imagine you knew that already, of course.) I did not mean to whitewash the 1857 events in SW Utah. Thanks.

Thank you for the clarification

27 posted on 06/08/2012 10:04:30 PM PDT by Colofornian (Mom when I grow up, I want 2B like Ike. Mom when I grow up, I want 2B a god from Kolob like Mitt.)
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To: Religion Moderator

Arggg! I didn’t see that!!! SORRY! Came up on my “new posts” page. I didn’t realize this was in religion.

Sorry again!


28 posted on 06/08/2012 10:05:42 PM PDT by piytar (The predator-class is furious that their prey are shooting back.)
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To: Loud Mime
Don’t you just the “holier-than-thou” types that infect this forum?

Do you say this with a "I'm holier-than-thou infectious types" spirit?

29 posted on 06/08/2012 10:05:47 PM PDT by Colofornian (Mom when I grow up, I want 2B like Ike. Mom when I grow up, I want 2B a god from Kolob like Mitt.)
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To: Religion Moderator; piytar
This thread is posted in the Religion Forum. Posts containing potty language or references to potty language are removed on the RF.

Any chance we could get that policy extended to the other forums?

30 posted on 06/08/2012 10:12:37 PM PDT by Mycroft Holmes (<= Mash name for HTML Xampp PHP C JavaScript primer. Programming for everyone.)
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To: svcw; Colofornian
I suppose that there was no violence in Missouri in 1838 or in Illinois in 1844. I never said that LDS members were blameless. As for the massacre, supposedly one of the settlers won a group Darwin award by saying that he was one of the people who killed Joseph Smith.

At any rate, refighting the Mormon War is a tactic of the left right now. Romney is the nominee and aiding Obama will get us nowhere.

31 posted on 06/08/2012 10:16:16 PM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: Jeff Head
However, it was not the 1st act of “terrorism” on these shores by any stretch, nor was it the worst up until that time.

Never said it was. I said it was "lst 9/11 terrorism"...Can you pinpoint OTHER terrorist acts occurring on American soil on Sept. 11 before 1857?

What happened in Mountain Meadows 155 years ago was a horrific, terrible ACT [singular]

Jeff, please see post #13. You make the same horrific reductionism Romney does by making a series of ACTS [plural] -- that, with the cover-up occurred over MANY generations of Mormons -- into one ACT.

Sadly, there are evil people in any gathering of any appreciable numbers of people almost anywhere.

Jeff, you & I both know that if the murder/kidnapping/theft extends to after-the-fact accomplices -- people who cover up the crime -- that the "exhaust" that settles on the people cannot only be blamed upon "the evil people" in question.

Tell me, Jeff: Name me a few Mormon leaders from 1857 to anybody in the 20th century who came forward to specifically implicate the Mormon slaughterers?

Because of this long-time Mormon silence, the fear that the Israelites showed in Dt. 21 re: an atonement for innocent blood shed -- rests upon the Utah Mormon people.

Deuteronomy 21: If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who the killer was, 2 your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3 Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke 4 and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck. 5 The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. 6 Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8 Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent person.” Then the bloodshed will be atoned for, 9 and you will have purged from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord. (Deut. 21:1-9)

32 posted on 06/08/2012 10:26:24 PM PDT by Colofornian (Mom when I grow up, I want 2B like Ike. Mom when I grow up, I want 2B a god from Kolob like Mitt.)
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To: Zhang Fei
The Battle of Crooked River was a rescue mission mounted by a group of Mormons to retrieve fellow Mormons whom they thought were at risk of being massacred by the Missouri state militia...

On October 18, 1838, Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, D. W. Patten at the head of 40 men made a descent on Gallatin, the county seat of Daviess, and they burned the only store and stole their goods. Previous to the 25th of October a great part of the Mormons residing in Caldwell County had returned home with their dividend of plunder.
* 6 days before this attack: • On October 25, 1838, the Battle of Crooked River: Mormon forces attacked (unknowingly?) the Missouri state militia under the command of Samuel Bogart. This incident became one of the principal points of conflicts in 1838 Missouri. The battle resulted in the death of three militia and the LDS leader, David Patten. One of the militia was taken prisoner by the Mormons. Source: http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/mormonism/are-christians-persecuting-mormons

33 posted on 06/08/2012 10:31:48 PM PDT by Colofornian (Mom when I grow up, I want 2B like Ike. Mom when I grow up, I want 2B a god from Kolob like Mitt.)
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To: Zhang Fei
...it resulted in the confiscation of all Mormon property in the state of Missouri without recompense. How would you feel if the state of California took all your property and kicked you out of the state?

First of all, how again does this relate to 1857 Southern Utah?

Are you telling me that if 11 say Baptist or Presbyterian families in your area had their property confiscated today -- that some other Baptists or Presbyterians -- 19 years from now -- would be justified in committing mass murder against people who had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with that confiscation?

Such lack of reasoning absolutely astounds me!!!!

Where did I get 11 families?

Joseph Fielding Smith (lds "prophet") said mob of 500 (Church History, p. 135) no violence but threatened it July 23, 1833. Smith says "about 1200 members forced to leave Jackson co." (p. 209) but the committee which forced them out only specified 11 families according to Smith earlier in the book. They forced 9 of 11 families to leave within a few mos. warning -- and the two remaining would finish up their business goods (Smith, p. 135).

34 posted on 06/08/2012 10:46:19 PM PDT by Colofornian (Mom when I grow up, I want 2B like Ike. Mom when I grow up, I want 2B a god from Kolob like Mitt.)
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To: rmlew
As for the massacre, supposedly one of the settlers won a group Darwin award by saying that he was one of the people who killed Joseph Smith.

Made-up hearsay.

No evidence whatsoever.

...refighting the Mormon War is a tactic of the left right now. Romney is the nominee and aiding Obama will get us nowhere.

Except if THAT was true, then Romney shouldn't have reduced what happened with his '07 comment. If it wasn't worth reliving, then he should have avoided addressing it.

He addressed it.

He excused it as if mass-murderers sit in the pews of EVERY church body.

He belittled & reduced it to one single ACT...vs. a series of murders over days, kidnappings over years, cover-up over generations, and theft over a lifetime... cover-up over

35 posted on 06/08/2012 10:49:49 PM PDT by Colofornian (Mom when I grow up, I want 2B like Ike. Mom when I grow up, I want 2B a god from Kolob like Mitt.)
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To: Colofornian

Get over it; it happened over a 150 years ago. My own biological father was a real SOB bast##d, that doesn’t make me act like him.
I don’t like Romney as a candidate or a conservative, but if my choice is between him and an outright communist like Ostupid I known who I have to vote for.


36 posted on 06/08/2012 11:12:17 PM PDT by 5th MEB (Progressives in the open; --- FIRE FOR EFFECT!!)
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To: 5th MEB

Sorry. Mr. ROmneyCARE is a vicious backstabber
of conservatives and WOMEN (Gov. Palin) through
surrogates.

Therefore, this “quirk” (murders of Americans)
IS relevant.
The MSM will provide more shortly, no doubt.

And in any case:
We will NEVER vote for Romney, the liar, and
backstabber of Conservatives.


37 posted on 06/09/2012 2:46:47 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. " Pres. Ronald Reagan)
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To: rmlew

As for the massacre, supposedly one of the settlers won a group Darwin award by saying that he was one of the people who killed Joseph Smith.
_____________________________________________

Not Joey Smith...

Parley P Pratt the 2nd great grandfather of Willard Mitt Romney...

Pratt had a harem of concubines and stole another mans wife to add to them...

He took her from her husband and children in Arkansas and went to California and Utah...

He was back in Arkansas and the wronged husband hunted him down there and killed him in early 1857...

Pratt was a leader in the Mormon religion, and since the people in the wagon train were also from there they got blamed as an excuse to murder them and steal the 300 blood horses and 1,000 cattle and the money and wagons and goods they had with them...

Supposed the story was that one of the men had the gun that killed Pratt...

How2ever he was stabbed to death...


38 posted on 06/09/2012 4:32:45 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana (Why should I vote for Bishop Romney when he hates me because I am a Christian)
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To: rmlew
I can understand your concern about ISLAM; but most folks KNOW about it; whereas MORMONism hides under rocks.


The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group.

39 posted on 06/09/2012 5:27:18 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Colofornian
Colo, you are playing with semantics. Anyone talking about the Mountain Meadows Massacre speaks of it in the whole. I have no problem saying that every part of it was deplorable and an atrocity.

From those who planned it, to those who carried it out under the awful duplicity which they did, to those who covered it up, to those who attempted to take those children as their own. (That was not an act of compassion in the sense that they somehow saved those children out of love for them) They did it out of fear of their own beliefs, even given the unbelievable contradiction their murders already reigned down on them. They took those children to make them their own and it too was atrocious...all the way up to a trial for a single person for the murders who was hung when there should have been scores of defendents.

Anyone who took part in the killing and its planning should have been on trial. That too was atrocious.

There was no intentional dumbing down of the truth in my statement, Colo...you are just so invested in your commitment to attack anything LDS and believe the worse that you demand that every iota be spelled out by anyone LDS discussing it, even though it was 155 years ago.

For me, with Mountain Meadows that is fine. It all was an ugly, deplorable atrocity.

Just as any of those who took part in the planning or the killing and raping of LDS people at Hahns Mill, MO, Far West, MO, or in and around Navuoo, IL in the 1840s should have been brought to trial and executed for their crimes, not to mention the pilfering and theft of all of their homes, property, improvements, etc....but never were.

All of those terrible acts on both sides were travesties and atrocious and have no place in this nation or amongst any group of people who claim discipleship following Jesus Christ. Such actions, irregardless of which side of that coin, are clearly the anti-thesis of "Christian."

40 posted on 06/09/2012 5:28:52 AM PDT by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free, never has been, never will be (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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