“The Bible specifically approves of it by God approving of men who were polygamous, Men like Moses the law giver who was polygamous while writing the books of the law!”
That is a lie.
Moses’ had been given a Cushite/Ethiopian wife by the Cushites, when he was made their king after fleeing Egypt. He did not go in to her, ever. Politically, he was in no position to not take her into the household of king, which they gave him for delivering them in a war after he fled Egypt, for 40 years. He had no children by her because he did not go in to her.
He took one wife for himself, who bore his two children.
Moses knew what his calling was, and what the call of Abraham was, from the time of his childhood, as recorded in the book of Jasher [Behold, is it not written in the Book of Jasher; Joshua 10:13;2 Sam 1:18], and it did not include taking a Cushite woman to wife.
This is all recorded in the true book of the Upright -Jasher. You can find it online at www.ccel.org.
I get this stuff from YOUR PROPHETS:
Brigham Young, second president of the LDS Church, declared "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 269, August 19, 1866)
In a sermon reported in the LDS Church's Deseret News, August 6, 1862, Brigham Young stated:
Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire. . . . Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers. . . .
Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord's servants have always practiced it. "And is that religion popular in heaven?" It is the only popular religion there . . . (Deseret News, August 6, 1862)
Now, are you willing to disavow Brigham Young and call him a false prophet? If so, then we can ROTFLOL together.
I notice DU that in your list of family & sexual sins you didn't list incest. Why not? (Could it be because of LDS history on this matter?)
The following multi-paragraph excerpt is from http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no91.htm:
"Fanny Stenhouse was at one time had been a firm believer in Mormonism and had even allowed her husband to take another wife." She wrote: "It would be quite impossible, with any regard to propriety, to relate all the horrible results of this disgraceful system.... Marriages have been contracted between the nearest of relatives; and old men tottering on the brink of the grave have been united to little girls scarcely in their teens; while unnatural alliances of every description, which in any other community would be regarded with disgust and abhorrence, are here entered into in the name of God...It is quite a common thing in Utah for a man to marry two or even three sisters.... I know also another man who married a widow with several children; and when one of the girls had grown into her teens he insisted on marrying her also... and to this very day the daughter bears children to her step-father, living as wife in the same house with her mother!"(Tell It All, 1874, pages 468-69)
An entry added to Joseph Smith's private dairy after his death confirms that Smith believed a man could be married for eternity to his own sister. It appears under the date of October 26, 1843, and reads as follows: "The following named deceased persons were sealed to me (John M. Bernhisel) on Oct[ober] 26th 1843, by President Joseph Smith: Maria Bernhisel, sister; Brother Samuel's wife, Catherine Kremer; Mary Shatto (Aunt)... [eight other names follow] \ John M. Bernhisel \ Recorded by Rob[er]t L. Campbell, July 29th 1868." (An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith, Edited by Scott H. Faulring, 1987, page 424) The reader will notice that Joseph Smith sealed John M. Bernhisel to his own sister. If the doctrine of Celestial Marriage were really true, in the resurrection John Bernhisel would find himself married to his own sister Maria Bernhisel!
Joseph Smith, the first Mormon prophet, asserted that "God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heavens, is a man like unto one of yourselves..." (Times and Seasons, Vol. 5, pages 613-14) He also taught that God was married and had billions of spirit children in the pre-existence. In other words, according to Smith's theology, we were all born of God and his wife and lived as his sons and daughters before coming to earth. [End utlm citation]
IOW, since LDS believe we already are brothers and sisters in the alleged "pre-existent" life before being born, what's wrong with marrying same said brothers and sisters on earth? (IOW, nobody on earth even qualifies as a non-brother or sister!) To cite LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie from a devotional he gave at BYU, "Our relationship with the Son is one of brother or sister in the premortal life and one of being led to the Father by him while in this mortal sphere. That's why we get quotes from Brigham Young like the following:
"Then I reckon that the children of Adam and Eve married each other; this is speaking to the point. I believe in sisters marrying brothers, and brothers having their sisters for wives.... This is something pertaining to our marriage relation. The whole world will think what an awful thing it is. What an awful thing it would be if the Mormons should just say we believe in marrying brothers and sisters. Well we shall be under the necessity of doing it, because we cannot find anybody else to marry. (The Teachings of President Brigham Young, Compiled and Edited by Fred C. Collier, Vol. 3, pages 362, 368)
Again citing http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no91.htm, "Mormon scholar Jessie L. Embry, of the church's Brigham Young University, acknowledged that as late as 1886 Lorenzo Snow, who became the fifth prophet of the Mormon Church, still secretly held to the belief that brothers and sisters could marry. Embry cited from the journal of Apostle Abraham H. Cannon to prove the point": ...Abraham H. Cannon, an apostle recorded in 1886 that he talked with 'Pres. [Lorenzo] Snow about various doctrines. Bro Snow said I would live to see the time when brothers and sisters would marry each other in this church. All our horror at such an union was due entirely to prejudice and the offspring of such union would be healthy and pure as any other. These were the decided views of Pres. Young when alive, for Bro. S. talked to him freely on this matter.' (Journal of Mormon History, 1992, page 106)
You fail to mention your many (false) assumptions with this statement.
First of all you assume that polygamy (what I would call "formal adultery") was the "end-all" practically speaking over "informal" adultery. Let's take a look at the some the hazards of being an LDS plural wife in the 19th century which undermine your assumptions, shall we?
(1) How is "spending all your time with only one wife" favorable for extra plural wife? (One discussion as to whether to admit Patriarch John Smith to the Salt Lake School of the Prophets was discussion about how he spent his time with only one of two wives). (see B. Carmon Hardy, A Solemn Covenant, p. 51)
(2) How is literal abandonment of extra wives that occurred in many LDS families when its "Manifesto" went through such a "plug" for polygamy?
If statements by Mormon authorities were contradictory [in the post-Manifesto years], their private life-styles were even more so. Some ceased living with their plural wives in strict accordance with public comments about the meaning of the Manifesto. In fairness, it should be said that the church asked no one to forsake or abandon his wives. Rather, they were told to continue to support them but not to live with them... (Hardy, A Solemn Covenant, p 144, 146 citing Seymour Young and George Q. Cannon as examples).
(3) If, as you say, formal polygamy was better than formal or informal cohabitation, then do you want to explain why LDS leaders thought otherwise in 1887 and 1888?
According to Hardy, Utah introduced a proposed constitution of 1887 & was seeking to hand out misdemeanors for bigamy & polygamy "but the relevant section said nothing about unlawful cohabition, rendering it as useless as the federal law of 1862. Written comments fromleaders to one another indicate that the provision was purposely worded to allow plural marriage to continue. As Franklin S. Richards, the church's attorney, explained to Joseph F. Smith, if the constituion were ratified, they could then 'fix the penalties, administering them themselves, and so leave 'cohabitation unrestricted.' (Richards Correspondence from June 28, 1887)...An exactment by the legislature the next year, utah's first marriage law, also avoided the phrase 'unlawful cohabitation,' forbidding only formal bigamy...' (Hardy, A Solemn Covenant, p. 53)
(4) If polygamy was so great, why were LDS 19th-century apologetics about it so base? Hardy devotes a full chapter to how LDS regarded it 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.
Benjamin F. Johnson remembered that Joseph Smith taught him that plural marriage was the only means by which prostitution could be eliminated. (A Solemn Covenant, p. 16)
Not from a personal perspective necessarily (between couple) but from a Joseph Smith policy perspective, Johnson's remembrance shows that a true purpose of plurality (not the only one) was in effect to have an "in-house" prostitute. How base is that for 19th LDS to have embraced that vantage point? Hardy cited other LDS who thought that mass polygamy would "eliminate sexual wickedness" and LDS general authority/legislator, William Gibson, who after-the-fact claimed to have voted against the Manifesto, called it "the best antidote to sexual sin." (A Solemn Covenant, p. 145, citing William Gibson, who was quoted in "Polygamous Issues," DN, March 28, 1896.)
"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.... (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).
(5) 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 you have an LDS "prophet" in 1886 claiming that adultery and prostitution were the consequences of monogamy, that's a major, major problem!!!
At a stake conference in northern Utah in the summer of 1900, Apostle Matthias F. Cowley spoke on plural marriage and referred to the 'evils of monogamy.' (A Solemn Covenant, p. 189, original source was Clawson Diaries, Aug. 25, 1900)
LDS apostle Orson Pratt urged the Saints to do all they could to purge from their own and their children's memories knowledge of Christian marital tradition. ("Celestial Marriage," Seer 1 Nov. 1853, p. 173. Similar comments in JoD vol. 12, p. 92, 1867. )
(6) Finally, in an era in which divorce was not common, the final assumption of yours that I challenge is that plural marriage didn't prompt divorce: "We also know that divorce in such families was more extensive than heretofore believed..." (A Solemn Covenant, p. 17) I mean come on, look at what an additional cohabitator adds to the dynamic of the relationship. Sarai's reaction to mistreat Hagar (Gen. 16) is Exhibit A.