Posted on 02/27/2006 2:19:51 PM PST by High Cotton
The initial complaint against Steed was filed in 2003 by Tapestry Against Polygamy, a group founded by women who had left the secretive colonies.
Steed legally married his first wife in 1965, according to court documents. The second and third wives were married — or "sealed" as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints refers to it — to him in religious ceremonies in 1975 and 1985.
He has 32 children by the three women, who are sisters, court documents said.
Plural marriage was an original tenet of the mainline Mormon church, but the faith abandoned the practice in 1890. About 30,000 polygamists, who split from the main church into various fundamentalist sects, are believed to be living in Utah, the Southwest, Mexico and Canada.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.peninsulaclarion.com ...
I don't know, any man that can keep the peace among several wives might actually be a pretty good judge. / half joking
His name is certainly apropos
Here is my stupid question:
"If this judge had never married his first wife. He then cohabited with 3 women and had those children out of wedlock. Would he have broken any anti-polygamy statue?"
LOL.....Ain't that the truth :)
Anyone else notice how much polygamy and the LDS has been in the news of late?
No, but his NBA career would be worth several $Million!
Not very tolerant of them.
Now that gay marriage has it's toe in the door, the rest of the alternative lifestyles are trying to legitimize their own brands of deviance....
The judge is not LDS. No matter what subject that comes up on FR that has some, even distant relationship to the LDS Church or a member, many freepers, regrettably jump on the Mormon-bashing wagon. It does get tiresome.
The Judge is Fundamentalist Mormon residing in the Colorado City area of Utah/Arizona. The basis of their religion is the Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants and other standard LDS works.
They consider themselves Mormon, just as LDS adherants consider themselves Christian.
That's my opinion of all this, too.
Anyone else heard that in two weeks, the HBO Network has a show about polygamy coming out called Big Love, starring Bill Paxton? From the show's promo material:
Paxton plays Bill Henrickson, an upright, fortysomething business- and family man. Actually, he's a three-family man; a member of a Mormon Church offshoot that condones polygamy. The result: three wives and seven kids.
And some of us conservatives were shunned for advocating against divorce on demand. Truely a matter of degrees. Is it any less disgraceful to cohabitate without marriage, than to marry and divorce multiple times? Further, is an economic disincentive for divorce more effective than a social stigma? It would seem to me that the absence of social condemnation has caused a proliferation of divorce and infidelity (in the true sense)
Nevertheless, they are not LDS and cannot be. They are lawbreakers and welfare cheats.
They hold the same keys as the priesthood holders, plus the key for performing celestial marriages...I think they must therefor be the actual true LDS Church.
In your eyes they are apostate, in their eyes they are the only ones who live the fullness of the gospel.
I saw the previews to Big Love. Ick is all I have to say.
I used to really like Bill Paxton myself. "Ick" was pretty close to my own reaction.
They cannot hold the keys, or the priesthood if they are excommunicated or are practicing polygamy. If you think they are the true church, I suggest you join up before they move to Texas. They have a new temple there and that will surely be their center place. They are also taking some serious heat from the Arizona & Utah pols and judiciary, so now's the time to skedaddle.
By whose authority? Why would they be excommunicated for living the law of celestial marriage as outlined in D&C section 132:4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting acovenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye be damned•; for no one can reject• this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
"the doctrine of plural and celestial marriage is the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth, and that without obedience to that principle no man can ever attain to the fullness of exaltation in the celestial glory" (William Clayton in Historical Record, p.266); "the only men who become gods, even the Son of God, are those who enter into polygamy" (Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, vol. 11, p.269)
"To enter the celestial [kingdom] and obtain exaltation, it is necessary that the whole law be kept...Do you desire to enter the celestial Kingdom and receive eternal life? Then be willing to keep all of the commandments" (Joseph Fielding Smith, in The Way to Perfection, p.206).
On October 12, 1856, Heber C. Kimball (first counselor to Brigham Young) declared, "You might as well deny 'Mormonism,' and turn away from it, as to oppose the plurality of wives." (JOD 5:203).
1880, Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt said, "...if plurality of marriage is not true or in other words, if a man has no divine right to marry two wives or more in this world, then marriage for eternity is not true, and your faith is all vain, and all the sealing ordinances, and powers, pertaining to marriages for eternity are vain, worthless, good for nothing; for as sure as one is true the other also must be true." (JOD 21:296).
BTW I don't believe any of the claims by the LDS or the LDS offshoots, so I won't be joining anyone in Texas! It's just funny to me....the pot calling the kettle black!
To Whom It May Concern:AS for polygamy, it has been approved by Heavenly Father at certain times (Abraham, Isaac, King David.) And it has been not approved most of the time. Being able to hold the priesthood is another item that has varied down through the centuries. The tribe of Levi was designated to hold the priesthood. That was changed when Jesus Christ organized His church.
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy—I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
WILFORD WOODRUFF
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.EXCERPTS FROM THREE ADDRESSES BY PRESIDENT WILFORD WOODRUFF REGARDING THE MANIFESTO
The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty. (Sixty-first Semiannual General Conference of the Church, Monday, October 6, 1890, Salt Lake City, Utah. Reported in Deseret Evening News, October 11, 1890, p. 2.)
It matters not who lives or who dies, or who is called to lead this Church, they have got to lead it by the inspiration of Almighty God. If they do not do it that way, they cannot do it at all. . . .
I have had some revelations of late, and very important ones to me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me. Let me bring your minds to what is termed the manifesto. . . .
The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.
The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?
The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for . . . any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed. A large number has already been delivered from the prison house in the spirit world by this people, and shall the work go on or stop? This is the question I lay before the Latter-day Saints. You have to judge for yourselves. I want you to answer it for yourselves. I shall not answer it; but I say to you that that is exactly the condition we as a people would have been in had we not taken the course we have.
. . . I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write. . . .
I leave this with you, for you to contemplate and consider. The Lord is at work with us. (Cache Stake Conference, Logan, Utah, Sunday, November 1, 1891. Reported in Deseret Weekly, November 14, 1891.)
Now I will tell you what was manifested to me and what the Son of God performed in this thing. . . . All these things would have come to pass, as God Almighty lives, had not that Manifesto been given. Therefore, the Son of God felt disposed to have that thing presented to the Church and to the world for purposes in his own mind. The Lord had decreed the establishment of Zion. He had decreed the finishing of this temple. He had decreed that the salvation of the living and the dead should be given in these valleys of the mountains. And Almighty God decreed that the Devil should not thwart it. If you can understand that, that is a key to it. (From a discourse at the sixth session of the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, April 1893. Typescript of Dedicatory Services, Archives, Church Historical Department, Salt Lake City, Utah.)
President Lorenzo Snow offered the following:
“I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.”
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.
Salt Lake City, Utah, October 6, 1890.
And I was always taught to follow the living prophet. If I had/have any doubts about what to believe, go back to the canonized scriptures, the latest ones.
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