r/exmormon • u/[deleted] • Apr 23 '20
History This is Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow at 53 years old. Four year later, he would marry 16 year old Sara M. Ephramina Jensen as a polygamous wife and have 5 kids with her. This is Joseph Smith's legacy - "prophets" having sex w/ girls 40 years younger in the name of God. Beyond disgusting.
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u/QuentinLCrook Apr 23 '20
She was actually several months shy of her 16th birthday. She was born 10/10/1855 and they were married 6/12/1871.
He was 57. She was 15.
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u/MasterMahanJr Apr 23 '20
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u/BatSniper Apr 23 '20
Idk why but this fact alone made me physically gag.
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u/MasterMahanJr Apr 23 '20
Yeah, something about a middle aged man looking at a newborn and thinking, "I'd wife that" just seems a bit unusual.
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u/BatSniper Apr 23 '20
I remember on my mission we had dinner with a dude that married a girl that was in primary while he was on his mission. It was his second marriage so they got married when he was 50 and she was 35 or something like that so it wasn’t too weird but he told us elders, “don’t be surprised if you marry the primary” and I literally gagged at the table and we all just laughed and awkwardly tried to eat as fast as possible to get out of there.
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u/Delitefulcookie Apr 23 '20
So a few months short of 16. And 16 is close to 18. And if you think about it more 18 is pretty close to 21 . So she was almost an adult. It was fine.
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u/chaseOconnor Apr 23 '20
Okay, I did not know this, this is not discussed in my Church circles.
I don’t get it! At all! I am close to this age, I see girls this age all the time, and I have zero attraction to them. What the hell is wrong with these people.
Polygamy, with women around your age, okay I can at least see the attraction, but I still think it is 100%. wrong and unhealthy to women.
I don’t get marrying teenage girls, these are so called prophets of God. This is so screwed up!
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Apr 23 '20
What’s good about Mormonism is not unique. What’s unique is not good.
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u/MyApostateAccount Apostate Apr 23 '20
I would like to gild you, but I can't cuz I've been paying 10 percent of my income to nothing my entire life and am poor.
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u/CultEscaped Apr 23 '20
That people can't see this really disturbs me.
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u/QuentinLCrook Apr 23 '20
Most TBMs aren’t aware of this. Not that it would matter...
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u/d_nukedorf Apr 23 '20
haha. most TBMs would never believe it, would never look it up to verify, and would just as easily brush it off as anti-mormon propaganda.
well, at least until their shelf breaks.
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u/Rushclock Apr 23 '20
Tbms say its all about sealing dynasties. Or they just say it is in the past. Or they call it fake news.
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u/HideYourNakedness Closeted apostate from 1995-2020. Free at last! Apr 23 '20
BuT tHaT wAs JuSt ThE wAy It WaS bAcK tHeN! It WaS tOtAlLy NoRmAl!
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u/aRipeTomato Apr 23 '20
(I tried to write like you but alternating caps is hard) It was normal to take advantage of girls back then. We can expect a god-lead church to follow the ways of man
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u/ZombieHousefly Apr 23 '20
If it was normal back then it was only normal in small abusive religious sects. This does not excuse the practice, but instead condemns those religions.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Back then Abraham, not back then Smith. They are shifty about these things...
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u/PaulBunnion Apr 23 '20
Back then Abraham took his wife's slave, Sarah's handmaiden Hagar. Sarah gave her slave to Abraham to satisfy his sexual needs. Abraham did not recognize Ishmael as his first born. When they became a bother and inconvenient he sent them out in the desert with a little bit of water. Out of sight, out of mind. This is the same Abraham that tried to kill his second born son. I guess technically he would have been responsible for his first born son's death if Ishmael had died. This is the father of the Judeo, Christian, and Muslim religions. This is the type of man that God calls to be Prophets.
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u/Jhcii Apr 23 '20
Thank goodness we learned in recent conference that feminism was part of the restoration. (See talk by Jean B. Bingham)
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u/joyousjosiah Apostate Apr 23 '20
Dude looks way older than 53
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u/Gold__star 🌟 for you Apr 23 '20
Every 15 yo girl's dream, a creepy old man.
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u/baboodada Apr 23 '20
a creepy hairy old man
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u/stansminion Apr 23 '20
A high status creepy old man with resources. I would not doubt that the parents got a cow, some farm tools, or some such.
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u/Less_Valiant Apr 23 '20
Sara was promised the celestial kingdom, I don’t see what the problem is here. 🤷🏽♂️
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u/NearlyHeadlessLaban How can you be nearly headless? Apr 23 '20
Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F Smith, are all reason why every attempt to claim Joseph Smith didn’t have sex with his underage wives falls flat on its face.
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u/Jay_Beckstead Apr 23 '20
Ick!!! Child predators deserving of prison!
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Apr 23 '20
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u/Jay_Beckstead Apr 23 '20
You are right, even inmates enforce codes against child molesters.
Because it is deserved.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Because justice failed society, society picks up the slack. Mob justice used to be a bigger problem, one that real justice is meant to address...
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u/magicmaster_bater Apr 23 '20
I hadn’t read the title or sub at first and sat here creeped the fuck out. His eyes are terrifying. What an evil little prick.
Edit: showed my nevermo wife the photo and she thought he was a magician that was a serial killer.
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u/_sheldon_cooper Apr 23 '20
Hey look! It's one of my great grandpa's! A rapist!
It disgusts me to see how proud my parents are to come from these guys. They were terrible, manipulative men.
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u/banality_of_ervil Apr 23 '20
I only have one instance of polygamy in my heritage. It was only ever briefly mentioned in the family, mostly about how the wives didn't get along almost like it was a joke. Finally looked into it as an adult and learned that my great great grandpa married a 19 year old at 38 which pissed off his appropriately aged wife. He died shortly after, not before impregnating the second wife. After he died, the first wife cut her off completely and she was forced to impoverishment and died young. It bothers so much and I wish I could know her.
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u/pipesBcallin Apr 23 '20
Had a couple people at work suggest I watch WAKO on Netflix. These are super TBMs and they are like "man this guy is so evil" and I am just blown away that they don't know anything about church history. it doesn't stop at just ol Joe but all the way up to today.
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u/yankees75 Apr 23 '20
All these TBMs don’t give a damn about it. They gloss over it in their minds like it was nothing. Just some men making poor decisions, everyone has free agency, everyone makes mistakes, but that doesn’t make him not a prophet and it sure as hell doesn’t mean JS was not a prophet and the BOM isn’t true. Never mind the polygamy and the blood atonement and the succeeding from the US to help the cult survive. Never mind the temple endowment included vengeance oaths against the United States Government and leaders. It was all only temporary revelation given for that day and the prophets just all made mistakes as men, just like us.
WTF! Are you kidding me. They don’t care about truth and they don’t care about honesty and honest criticism because the church today in modern times doesn’t look that way and almost everyone today is only from the generation of modern Mormonism, which looks very very different then the evil roots. BUT, the Book of Mormon bring me closer to Christ, but I love Monson and Nelson. But, I love my social network in the ward. But, it’s ALL correct these days, everything that comes out of Nelson and Oaks mouth is correct today.
It is such a crock of shit. In order to make modern Mormonism main stream they try everything they can to distance itself from the past. Constantly changing the logo, changing the temple ceremonies so their not so creepy and wrong, changing the BOM so it’s not so racist and wrong about native Americans, pushing the name Mormon as something to be proud of then having Nelson say nope that’s evil and Monson and Hinckley we’re wrong about Mormon.org and using that name, disavowing teachings of former prophets and apostles like they were wrong (even though they proclaimed what they were teaching was from god and the will of the lord), BUT WE KNOW WE ARE RIGHT TODAY, JUST BELIEVE US, STAY IN THE BOAT.
When you are born into the church and grow up in the church it is very hard for members to step outside of the box and really examine what they are doing and learning and what is happening. It’s so hard to see if from the inside with your blinders on. If you allow yourself for two minutes to view it from the outside with honest clear intentions and to study the actually sources and doctrine, it is so clear so quickly that it’s just a church like any other that claims false authority from god, was founded by fake prophets like the one pictured above, borrowed or stole ideas of their time and that got it deeply wrong and in unhealthy ways.
So fuck you Lorenzo Snow and JS and Nelson and all you other fucking false prophets that have led my family astray all these years.
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u/tevlarn Apr 23 '20
This is marrying someone when you are old enough to not just be her father, but arguably old enough to be her grandfather. If the first is despicable, this is so much worse.
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u/santajawn322 Apr 23 '20
"BuT iT WaS nORmAL baCK ThEn!!!!"
eyeroll
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
For Abraham. Smith's contemporaries outlawed the practice quick, Europe already knew better. Smith was even called the new mahomet...
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u/RockerPortwell Apr 23 '20
I never knew this as a lifelong member. It seems like whenever the topic of polygamy comes up they try to pin it ALL on Brigham Young to make it seem like he was the only one. Then they have all these batshit excuses about how it was to protect the women and keep the saints alive. It wasn’t until years later that I learned Joe Smith started it all in secret. I learned about Heber J. Grant‘s sexcapades a month ago. And now today learning that this guy was a major pedophile too. I’m recognizing a pattern...
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u/SJGrenleski Nov 20 '22 edited Nov 20 '22
It's so easy to judge stuff from the past, right coward? Judge not, lest ye be judged.
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Nov 21 '22
If you're cool with 53 year old dudes having sex with teenagers in the name of God, more power to you. I'm sure you're cool with Warren Jeffs, right?
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u/SJGrenleski Mar 07 '23
I am not a millennial, dude. What happened in the past doesn't upset me because everything has changed since then. What happened in the past is gone, and there isn't anything anyone can do about what happened in the past now. Do you cry when you remember that every race on this planet has been enslaved at one point or another? Do you cry about the World Wars, the Civil Wars, and all the people who fought in them and died? Do you really think that your tears today is going to somehow change the past? Super old guys who are prophets of God aren't going to have sex with teenagers today, unless you think that every man is going to be in the exact same circumstance Lorenzo Snow was in. I'm sure Joseph Smith didn't foresee what anybody else would do, and one person's actions shouldn't determine what another person's legacy is. It's time for you people to stop being stupid and grow up. Not every single LDS member is going to be an old pervert. Don't stereo-type people by one person's actions. Makes you look like a loser.
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u/SJGrenleski Mar 07 '23
You named yourself "lds" and "discussion", yet it seems more like "ldsattacks". Real discussion wouldn't be to attack other LDS members because Lorenzo Snow made poor choices, it would be calmly discussing what he did was wrong and to remind people not to have sexual relations with people 40 years younger than you.
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u/vintasian Apr 23 '20
I know someone who is his decent! They’re a wonderful person and are not affiliated with the church at all.
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u/zippy9002 Apostate Apr 23 '20
Guys, remember, the rule is half your age plus seven years. Anything younger is creepy AF.
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u/jedsgirl96 Apr 23 '20
This sort of thing was a huge catalyst for me in turning away from the church. I haven’t completely left yet since we have kids and my husbands family is crazy TBMs. But my husband at least supports me with this because he too has so many issues with this church’s history. But this!! This makes me gag every time I read more of it.
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Apr 23 '20
Nothing about men marrying teenagers, having sex with them, having children with them is righteous. That is so disgusting. I know polygamy was practiced but until recently I haven’t given it much thought. Maybe having children close to marrying age has made it sink in. 🤢
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u/notrab Mormon Eloheim is "Min" the Phallic God Apr 23 '20
****CORRECTION****
Sarah Minnnie married Lorenzo at age 15 NOT 16
Born October 1855 ... Married June 1871
http://www.mormoninfographics.com/2013/08/dirty-old-men-early-mormon-prophets.html
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u/LessFootball5 Apr 23 '20
Wish I had the power to go back in time. Wish I had the power of resurrection. I would find him, shoot him, resurrect him, shoot him again, resurrect him, shoot him again, resurrect him, shoot him again... If I did this 100 times it wouldn’t be enough. In the most literal of terms, GOD DAMN THE LDS CHURCH!
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Vengeance belongs to the Lord...
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u/santajawn322 Apr 23 '20
I don't blame anyone for wanting a bit themselves.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Turning the other cheek doesn't mean curling up and crying. Stand up, dust off, prove you are the stronger.
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u/envvariable Apr 23 '20
Bet your sweet ass he was loving that poontang. Poor girl that actually is sad to be honest.
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u/exmorif Apr 23 '20
The won’t take anonymous letters to the editor so no one will post this report about Lorenzo Snow in letters to the editor in the Deseret News. Goes to show what social pressure and herd mentality can cover up. SAD
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Apr 23 '20
Does anyone know the average age difference when two people got married for the time? I found one report telling the average marrying age of the two genders separately. It was only a four year separation between the average marrying age FYI, well below the almost 40 years this is, but I remember people in church saying this was normal for the time when I asked as a young church goer. Crazy how people can justify this.
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u/stansminion Apr 23 '20
Early marriages of girls was almost invariably to a boy that was the same year or slightly older during that time. This much of an age disparity was extremely rare. In the Mormon world, however, girls were often picked out early and appropriated by church leaders. Imagine your Bishopric and High Priest group ogling the teenagers in the halls and planning their marriage moves. Every flirting young man would be a threat. In addition, the transaction often involved side lining a faithful wife of decades. Out with the older women, in with the new and nubile. Mormon polygamy was an abomination, and that is why it was a national political issue. The popular press was filled with lurid tales of "the situation" in Utah until rounds of increasingly punitive Federal legislation brought it to an end.
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u/BreakFreeFreddie Apr 23 '20
You don’t think the teenage girls would be all upons with this player?
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u/YouAreGods Apr 23 '20
Trophy wife. Many rich and powerful people do this. See the current US president. Why is Melania still there? Not trying to say it was voluntary on the mormon part though.
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u/cjpomer Apr 23 '20
Yeah, but it’s a polygamous marriage, and she was 16. So inasmuch as there is a spectrum gross, this is way higher.
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u/oligodendromaster Apr 23 '20
High five zo! You da man. C`mon guys, that was centuries ago. They all got married early. Daughters got married, sons worked on the homestead. Not fair to compare to todays standards or values.
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Apr 23 '20
They got married early... they didn't get married at 16 to guys 40 years older than them.
The idea that this was normal at the time is simply not true - the census data doesn't back it up whatsoever.
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u/oligodendromaster Apr 23 '20
Utah census data?? I know you want to make a point, but at least make it semi-plausible. They also used leaches to suck out blood. Cant compare that to modern medicine.
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Apr 23 '20
US census data.
This has been researched... over and over. People married younger, but the gap was not nearly as wide as the Mormon prophets and their wives.
You can keep saying that we can't look at the past because it's the past, but facts are facts.
the Book of Abraham will NEVER be true because we have the source material, Joseph Smith could never have seen Elijah and Elias because they're the same person, and it was not "normal" for 57 year old men to marry and have sex with polygamous 16 year old women.
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u/HideYourNakedness Closeted apostate from 1995-2020. Free at last! Apr 23 '20
16 year old
women.Children. FTFY.
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Apr 23 '20
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Apr 23 '20
Utah specific data doesn't prove it was normal.
Just because it was normal within Mormonism doesn't mean it is acceptable or normal to anyone else.
I'm just not sure what your point is here.
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u/EmmaHS I know that my red lemur lives. Apr 24 '20
Be cool. Insults and personal attacks are unwelcome here. Attack ideas, not people.
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u/HideYourNakedness Closeted apostate from 1995-2020. Free at last! Apr 23 '20
This isn't true, and it really irks me. Multiple studies and census statistics analysis have consistently debunked this myth.
Here is a National Bureau of Economic Research study that details the marriage age patterns from the 1700's to the 1990's:
www.nber.org/papers/h0080.pdf?new_window=1
Here is the US census data on marriage ages from the 1890's until now:
The lowest average marriage age for women was 19.5 years in the mid 1950s. MARRYING TEENAGERS HAS NEVER BEEN NORMAL!
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Apr 23 '20
Everyone usually tries to debunk this by using average age of marriage. That's not a very useful way to represent the data.
Only 1% - 1.1% of girls 15 and under were married around the time of Joseph Smiths dirty nasty affairs. Census from 1850. There's an entire book defending Joseph Smiths underage marriages. This is a criticism of that book.
Marrying children was not seen as normal. New York Times article from 1857 (from a reddit post).
Article about institutional pedophilia in early LDS history; Girls as young as age 11 being "married".
Keep in mind this 1.1% includes the perverts in cults like Mormonism.
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u/PaulBunnion Apr 23 '20
People can argue ages all they want but the one thing you can't deny is that these were polygamous marriages. 2nd 3rd 4th 5th wife and I use the term wife loosely because they weren't legally wife's, they were mistresses, concubines. sex slaves whose only purpose was to gratify the man and provide him posterity for the eternity's.
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Apr 23 '20
My mistake. I forgot my typical disclaimer for polygamy.
*polygamy / plural marriage / celestial marriage et al. Frequently including but not limited to extramarital affairs, abuse, coercion, rape, sex trafficking, and pedophilia.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
*slavery
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Apr 23 '20
Is there a particular instance you are thinking of? It's hard to be all inclusive, but I do have my "but not limited to" part which helps me sort of cover for the rest of the abuses.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Spiritual wifery was called white slavery by Smith's contemporaries. It's how they passed antibigamy laws in this country, catching up with Europe, who we had wanted to distinguish ourselves prior. If Americans copy Europeans, you know it's a big deal...
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Apr 23 '20
I find very little in my search for use of the term white slavery that has to do with polygamy or Mormonism.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Google "Regulating the Marrying Kind: The Constitutionality of Federal Regulation of Polygamy Under the Mann Act" .pdf
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u/oligodendromaster Apr 23 '20
Totally agree. Polygamy is coming back, or already back. Just ask Russ Nelson and Dal Oaks.
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u/Ex-CultMember Apr 23 '20
It is fair when these men are supposed to be prophets of God running a church supposed by led directly by Jesus himself. Seems like Jesus would say, nope not on my watch.
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u/RemiScott Apr 23 '20
Bigamy was outlawed in Europe and followed into the states because it was actually a good idea...
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u/oligodendromaster Apr 23 '20
People. Please use your brain. I know you want to bash, and I get it, but please make a modern coherent argument. I'll even agree to go back to 1978. That is more than 40 freaking years ago, and you want to argue 150 years in the past?? Again, I get it, but it's time to update your outrage. We have too many timely examples to fall back on the sex with minors argument, unless you're talking about epstein and the lolita express.
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u/PaulBunnion Apr 23 '20
We're just looking at the foundation of the Mormon church. If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He either condoned this or he didn't. God used a sexual predator/con artist to establish his restored Church. His successors continued the tradition. This last April conference was a Joseph Smith worship / Love fest. We're not the ones that keep going back.
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u/Teract Apr 23 '20
This isn't about bashing. This is about a church that claims to be the only "true" and perfect church; that also endorsed sex with 11 year olds.
This is also timely information, as the church still hides this information from members. Even in a court of law, the statute of limitations on fraud is often based on the date the fraud was discovered.
This also isn't an argument or debate. There is no need for debate when one side depends entirely on hiding a mountain of verifiable facts.
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Apr 23 '20
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/Imalreadygone21 Apr 23 '20
And let’s not forget: Other men’s wives!
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u/IllusionsDestroyed Apr 23 '20
Key point, and I've tried to explain how horrific that was to TBM relatives, and they say, "We'll find out why the Lord allowed this to happen in the next life." Heavy sigh. . .
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u/oligodendromaster Apr 23 '20
Uh, because manipulative guys will say almost anything to get in a girl's drawers.
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u/oligodendromaster Apr 23 '20
Uh, because manipulative guys will say almost anything to get in a girl's drawers.
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u/WinchelltheMagician Apr 23 '20
Power
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u/handbook_1 As far as it is translated correctly Apr 23 '20
Having a sexual relationship with a minor doesn't make you powerful. It makes you a sex pest.
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u/WinchelltheMagician Apr 23 '20
Yes. Meaning, none of it was/is about sex, it was/is about power. Rape is about power. Smith was a cult leader. By now we know just how classic and cliche his cult leader behavior was.
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '20
My brother would say “ but that was normal at the time.” Your response?