There are thousands of polygamists in the Mountain West. Joseph Smith, Jr., the Mormon Prophet, started it all. (To his credit, he did not start polyandry for the women, only polygany for the men. Polygamy includes both terms.) His first wife, Emma, was against it. (So were many church leaders and even more wives.) She said, God did not say that! She was angry! (Well, she didn't say it exactly like that, but near enough.) Her son, Joseph Smith III, denied and tried to prove that his father did not practice polygamy. That didnt help. The ex-wives he interviewed in Utah after his father's death evidently all lied to him. He insisted that his father never was a polygamist. (Sounds good to me.) The practice of polygamy poured so much misery on the Mormon Church that they dumped it. The Federal Government had the top leaders hiding in Mexico or in the basement of one of their homes. Polygamy could only continue to cause misery to the point that the church would not be able to function to its full destiny which is to save every man, woman, and child on the planet Earth, living or dead. Utah would still be a territory. The polygamists are now booted out of the Mormon Church whenever or wherever found. Polygamy is bad fruit. Present-day polygamist say the Mormon Church was wrong in dumping a fundamental belief that a person had to be a polygamist to get really good real estate in the Celestial Kingdom. They say about the banning of polygamy in the Mormon Church: God did not say that! (Well, not exactly but close enough.) The Mormons have three Kingdoms of Glory guaranteed by the atonement of Jesus Christ. The really bad go to the Telestial Kingdom, the good go to the Terrestrial Kingdom, and the Mormons and children under eight go to the Celestial Kingdom. The few left are Sons of Perdition. They go to hell to live with Second Mate Satan and his mutinous crew of angels. It doesnt end there. You could bounce to the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom by being a polygamist. That was before the Mormon Church banned the practice. Now to avoid being a servant in the Celestial Kingdom, you must simply be married in a Mormon Temple. The Mormons are building lots of temples which they hope will keep operating into the Millennium so that living and dead can all go to the top of the Celestial Kingdom. All living ordinances such as baptism and marriage are performed in the temples for the dead (Unless you are Jewish. Then you must have special authorization from the family to do any ordinance, living or for the dead. Israel got angry about the Mormons saving their dead for them. They like to do things like that for themselves.) The Mormons will not be happy in the Celestial Kingdom unless you are there with them. Thats why you see so many young men walking around the face of the earth in white shirt and tie. There are young women too, but they dont have such a stressful dress code. Young men or young women, they want you to know that God wants you right up there at the top. From this experience most of these missionaries become wonderful monogamous parents. First God separates the sheep from the goats. Mormons then separate the sheep from the sheep. Anyway, polygamy is causing more and more problems because of what Mormons call, Unrighteous Dominion. The polygamists are now considered by Mormons and Non-Mormons to be living in cults. A typical cult (there are a number of them) has a dictator who decides how to divide up the young women. The young men are shooed out of the clan so that there are more young women for more old men. These young women are not educated less they become wise and bug out from the clan. They are prisoners. They have no say in their destiny. They can not refuse marriage to an old holy man. (I got this simplistic view from the newspapers. Dont blame me!) The State of Utah is fighting the polygamist. The Utah Attorney General wants the worst of them in jail. Some polygamist men are nice to their women. He cant put all of them in jail because there are too many of them. One problem is that the polygamist cults are breeding schizophrenics and people with both physical and mental disorders by the dozens. The major problems are caused by inbreeding. This inbreeding must stop. My father was always afraid of inbreeding. He saw lots of that in Idaho when he was young and was afraid to death of it. When two of his grandchildren got married to each other, he went into a whizfanggle! (This is a new word for you folks that have grandchildren marrying each other. It was a niece and nephew in my case. The marriage flopped.) We moved to Idaho two years ago. We learned this: Never say anything bad about anybody. If you do, you will be talking to his or her cousin, aunt, grandparent, nephew, or such. Everybody in town will be mad at you. And they are not polygamist. What would things be like if they were? Safe Houses are being setup throughout the west for runaway polygamist brides. Some of these brides are very young in their early teens. They need to be schooled, clothed, and gainfully employed. They also have to be protected from the cults they ran from. Some former polygamists run these safe houses. God Bless Them! The cults are secretive and sometimes deadly. If you see a polygamist man and you are a young woman, run, run, run! Thats what Emma Smith did after husband was murdered--and she was right. She knew that God is not stupid and that even prophet husbands can make mistakes. Anyway, that is how I see it. CopyrightJohn T. Jones, Ph.D.2005 |
