Posted on 09/06/2007 6:01:57 AM PDT by Reaganesque
Riehl World View's Dan Riehl: "Based solely on my viewing the flow of the numbers from start to finish - on average, I honestly believe Romney resonated most strongly with the most people, conservative and moderate, in terms of the over all debate." (Dan Riehl, Riehl World View, http://www.riehlworldview.com/, 9/5/07)
Conservative Blogger's William Smith: "Mitt gives a great answer with regard to the responsibility of city government and state government." (William Smith, Conservative Blogger, http://www.conservativeblogger.com/, 9/5/07)
The American Spectator's Jennifer Rubin: Romney "[s]ays we have to have concern for the mother and change hearts and minds. Very nicely done." (Jennifer Rubin, The American Spectator, AmSpec Blog, http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp#7970, 9/5/07)
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "The focus on Romney and Giuliani reinforced the notion that the race right now is between those two men with former Sen. Fred Thompson who did not attend the debate as a potential wildcard." (Chris Cillizza, "GOP Debate Wrapup: Frontrunners Under Fire," The Washington Post's The Fix, http://blog.washingtonpost.com, Posted 9/5/07)
Heading Right's Macranger: "Romney immediately scored with his point about de facto amnesty, and he talks about shutting down the 'magnets'. Romney's doing great so far..." (Macranger, Heading Right, Heading Right Blog, http://headingright.com/page/2/, 9/5/07)
The Washington Post's Eric Pianin: "Romney's response drew loud cheers; Giuliani's polite cheers. It speaks to the difficulty of any candidate who has something less than a black and white position when it comes to immigration." (Eric Pianin and Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post The Fix Blog, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/, Posted 9/5/07)
- Pianin: "Romney is working hard to make sure viewers know that he and Giuliani differ when it comes to immigration, seemingly slipping in the fact that New York was a 'sanctuary' city at every turn." (Eric Pianin and Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post The Fix Blog, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/, Posted 9/5/07)
National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "That was a serious answer from Romney [regarding intelligence and the War on Terror]. It channelled [sic] his own decision to refuse protection for an Iranian tyrant - one of those who is against us - while governor of Massachusetts. Going into mosques if they preach terror is a reasonable and necessary position. And one that someone who gets the stakes would espouse." (Kathryn Jean Lopez, "Going Into Mosques," National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com, 9/5/07)
The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder: "Otherwise, Romney, being very familiar with New Hampshire's inner maw, had well-thought out answers for every other question, even as three of the first four turned, in some measure, on whether he flip-flopped." (Marc Ambinder, "And The Winners Are......," The Atlantic Blog, http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com, Posted 9/5/07)
National Review's Kate O'Beirne: "Romney's '462 events' In Iowa and New Hampshire alone also effective." (Kate O'Beirne, "Ready For The Questions," National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com, Posted 9/5/07)
Townhall's Mary Katherine Ham: "Mitt has a good line about his 'right to be kept alive' with respect to the government's response to terror." (Mary Katherine Ham, Townhall, Townhall blog, http://www.townhall.com/blog/MaryKatharineHam, 9/5/07)
Heading Right's JASmius: "So far, I think Romney gave the best answer [on immigration and sanctuary cities]." (JASmius, Heading Right, Heading Right Blog, http://headingright.com/page/2/, 9/5/07)
The information is found at LDS records. Nice try though.
~”The information is found at LDS records.”~
Yes, once parsed, broiled, deep fried, minced, and served cold. You do tend to generally ignore the exculpatory evidence also found in LDS records. When it opposes your preconceptions, it’s obviously biased.
This phenomenon is known as “intellectual dishonesty.” Shall we both stop pretending that we aren’t guilty of it?
| Wife | Date | Age | Husband* |
| Emma Hale Fanny Alger Lucinda Morgan Harris Louisa Beaman Zina Huntington Jacobs Presendia Huntington Buell Agnes Coolbrith Sylvia Sessions Lyon Mary Rollins Lightner Patty Bartlett Sessions Marinda Johnson Hyde Elizabeth Davis Durfee Sarah Kingsley Cleveland Delcena Johnson Eliza R. Snow Sarah Ann Whitney Martha McBride Knight Ruth Vose Sayers Flora Ann Woodworth Emily Dow Partridge Eliza Maria Partridge Almera Johnson Lucy Walker Sarah Lawrence Maria Lawrence Helen Mar Kimball Hanna Ells Elvira Cowles Holmes Rhoda Richards Desdemona Fullmer Olive Frost Melissa Lott Nancy Winchester Fanny Young |
Jan 1827 1833 1838 Apr 1841 Oct 1841 Dec 1841 Jan 1842 Feb 1842 Feb 1842 Mar 1842 Apr 1842 Jun 1842 Jun 1842 Jul 1842 Jun 1842 Jul 1842 Aug 1842 Feb 1843 Spring 1843 Mar 1843 Mar 1843 Apr 1843 May 1843 May 1843 May 1843 May 1843 Mid 1843 Jun 1843 Jun 1843 Jul 1843 Mid 1843 Sep 1843 1843 Nov 1843 |
22 16 37 26 20 31 33 23 23 47 27 50 53 37 38 17 37 33 16 19 22 30 17 17 19 14 29 29 58 32 27 19 14 56 |
NONE NONE George W. Harris NONE Henry Jacobs Norman Buell NONE Windsor Lyon Adam Lightner David Sessions Orson Hyde Jabez Durfee John Cleveland NONE NONE NONE NONE Edward Sayers NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE Jonathan Holmes NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE |
| * Living Husband at the time of Marriage to Joseph Smith |
References |
Would you supply a precise URL, please?
Salt Lake Tribune
Published: 12/13/97
Page: C1
BY VERN ANDERSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A year's celebration of the Mormon pioneer experience is ending with publication of a book on the ``tragic ambiguity'' of polygamy as experienced by 33 plural wives of church founder Joseph Smith.
The 788-page group biography casts a stark light on the peculiar practice that made the Mormons pariahs in the Midwest and compelled their epic migration to the Salt Lake Valley 150 years ago.
In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith vividly documents the faith, hardship and heroism that were the focus this year of the Mormon Church's successfully orchestrated sesquicentennial celebration.
But in this first comprehensive examination of the lives of the women Smith married and widowed, author Todd Compton also tracks the isolation and heartbreak that were a significant part of the Mormon female experience with polygamy.
``Most were pioneers, sometimes throughout their lives, moving from New England to Ohio, then to Missouri, to different parts of Missouri, to Nauvoo, to Winter Quarters, and on to Utah. Houses were built, then abandoned, with nearly every move,'' Compton writes in the introduction.
And while most polygamists were sincere, intensely religious people of good will, ``my central thesis is that Mormon polygamy was characterized by a tragic ambiguity.''
On one hand it was ``the new and everlasting covenant,'' restored by prophesy from the patriarchal milieu of the Old Testament and taught by Smith as an essential ingredient of eternal exaltation.
``On the other hand, day-to-day practical polygamous living, for many women, was less than monogamous marriage -- it was a social system that simply did not work in 19th-century America.
``Polygamous wives often experienced what was essentially acute neglect. Despite the husband's sincere efforts, he could only give a specific wife a fraction of his time and means,'' Compton adds, and polygamy's ``practical result, for the woman, was solitude.''
In identifying 33 well-documented wives of Smith -- other researchers have placed the figure as high as 48 -- Compton found that in the case of 11 women, Smith's polygamy was polyandrous. That is, the women were married and cohabiting with their husbands, who mostly were faithful Mormons, when Smith married them.
Yet not one divorced her ``first husband'' when Smith was alive. Indeed, they continued to live with their civil spouses while married to Smith.
``If one superimposes a chronological perspective, one sees that of Smith's first 12 wives, nine were polyandrous. So in this early period polyandry was the norm, not the anomaly,'' he writes.
Compton, a practicing Mormon living in Santa Monica, Calif., has a doctorate in classics from UCLA but spent much of the 1990s combing pioneer records, diaries and reminiscences.
He cites strong evidence that Smith experimented with polygamy in the 1830s in Ohio and Missouri, but added wives in large numbers only in the final two years of his life in Nauvoo, Ill. Curiously, Smith took no new wives in the eight months before his assassination by a mob, at age 38, in 1844.
Eleven of Smith's wives were between ages 14 and 20, nine were in their 20s, eight were in Smith's own peer group of 31 to 40, two were in their 40s and three in their 50s.
``I knew that Joseph Smith had married younger women,'' Compton said in an interview. ``But when I read all of the sources, the composite history is very troubling, striking, especially from the viewpoint of the young women.''
In Smith's theology, Compton writes, ``a fullness of salvation depended on the quantity of family members sealed to a person in this life. . . . This doctrine also makes it clear that, though Joseph's marriages undoubtedly had a sexual dimension, theological concepts also drove his polygamy. . . .''
After Smith's death, his successor as church president, Brigham Young, married between seven and nine of Smith's widows. Young's counselor, Heber C. Kimball, married 11 more.
Compton is aware that relatively few of the world's 10 million Mormons know many particulars of the polygamy practiced by their antecedents. Since abandoning the practice in 1890, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has striven for the place in the American mainstream that it was denied in the 19th century, largely because of polygamy, he said.
But Compton isn't comfortable with Mormon discomfort with the past, or with attempts to minimize polygamy or ``sweep it under the carpet because it was an oddity.''
He pointed out that the three pioneer women featured in ``Legacy,'' the church-produced movie about the Mormon migration shown to Temple Square visitors, were all polygamous wives -- a fact not mentioned in the film.
``Those who would portray Mormon history as carried on by superhuman men and women, without flaws, would turn them into inhuman automatons, which in fact betrays a deep disrespect for the real humanity of our foremothers and forefathers,'' he writes.
Compton finds humanity aplenty in some of the Smith wives' stories.
Emily Dow Partridge recounted how in 1843 as a frightened 19-year-old she was approached by the Mormon prophet, who said ``the Lord had commanded (him) to enter into plural marriage and had given me to him. . . .''
So secret was the practice that neither Emily nor Eliza Partridge, a 22-year-old sister married by Smith four days later, initially knew they shared a common spouse.
Later, the two sister-wives were ordered out of the Smith home by Emma, Smith's first wife, with her husband's anguished acquiescence.
Helen Mar Kimball, 14-year-old daughter of Heber C. Kimball, wrote that after initially refusing when her father proposed marriage on Smith's behalf, she finally relented.
``I knew that he loved me too well to teach me anything that was not strictly pure, virtuous and exalting in its tendencies; and no one else could have . . . brought me to accept of a doctrine so utterly repugnant and so contrary to all of our former ideas and traditions,'' she wrote.
Toward the end of Smith's life, knowledge of his secret marriages began to leak out. William Law, Smith's second counselor in the church's First Presidency and an ardent polygamy foe, filed suit against the church leader for living ``in an open state of adultery'' with 19-year-old Maria Lawrence.
In a speech a month before his death, Smith responded by flatly denying polygamy, which was illegal under federal law. ``What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one,'' he said.
Linda King Newell, who co-authored a 1984 biography of Emma Smith, said Compton's focus on Smith's wives gives the book ``a ground-breaking impact because we tend to look at polygamy from a male point of view.
``He didn't sensationalize,'' Newell said, ``which tends to be the case when people get going on polygamy.''
|
I’m afraid I won’t have time in the next few days to handle this one like it should be. If any of you feel inclined to tackle MHG’s claims again, feel free. This particular tangent starts at post #152. It’s the one about Joseph Smith’s supposed adultery.
I find your unwillingness to believe that JS married women who were already married interesting.
I can see that is not generally taught in history class!
A while ago someone posted a link to the LDS website which showed a clear example of blatant lying about a wife of BY. The website said she was a widow and BY married her. In fact her husband was very much alive, in fact he died after Brigham Young.
That could explain why there is such anger at the church when people leave. They see the facts and how the church attempts to cover it up and spin it. Its no fun being duped.
~”I find your unwillingness to believe that JS married women who were already married interesting.”~
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m refuting the claims of adultery.
Here’s an article that sums up the entire argument. I know you won’t accept or agree with it, but you’re asking for my side, so here it is:
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=290
"I misspoke there. I didn't mean in any way to compare service in the country with my boys in any way. Service in this country is an extraordinary sacrifice being made by individuals and their families," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday."
"I'm very pleased and proud of my boys and the help they're doing for their dad, but it's not service to the country. It's service for me. And there's just no comparison there."
Thanks! I missed that on Fox Sunday.
The deputy sheriff looked at the floor the entire time he spoke. Not sure what it meant. Did he not hear the first apology? (understandable knowing the MSM) Or just not accept it. He had a right to be upset but if he didn't accept the initial apology then the problem becomes his. was he was looking at the floor because he was still upset having never heard the apology or knew about it and was just getting a dig in to make Romney pay for his mistatement.
A Ron Paul supporter neighbor of mine mentioned this article. I see it is posted here on FR. Too bad our Senators don't know the constituion. Having said that I think he still should be thrown under the bus whether he was "in transit" or not.
BTW, even my neighbor admitted there have been a good number of "hippies" at the Ron Paul rallies he has attended lately.
There are many Prominent Mormons who support other candidates like Bay Buchanan (Pat's sister) who is working on Tancredo's campaign. There are a lot of contitutionalist Mormons who aren't sold on Romney. Initially (last fall) I was hesistant about him based on what I had read in the Boston Globe articles posted here on FR. But when I researched it more the more I came to think he will make a great president. It did take time for that transition. By getting to know him and researching beyond the DNC soundbites.
Iowa voters went through this process, they were initally wary about the unknown but as they got to meet Mitt, research his positions and get to know his character they came out overwhlemingly for him. The real trick will be whether he can replicate it at the National level.
Utah has had 10 pubbie governors and 6 Dem. SLC routinely votes Dem's in, unfortunately.
BTW, where was the report from? Not a daily Boston Globe hit piece was it?
Why two? Isn't one example where God does it enough?
2 Samuel 12:7 ¶ And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; 8 And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. 9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
David is condemened not for the wives God gave him (who were Saul's) but for slaying and taking a wife unto himself when it was not commanded by God. Saul dies later so we have at least one example of God commanding it.
Thanks for confirming what we've come to realize at FR, that Mormonism apologists are deceivers working to promote their cult of Joseph Smith. Taking Uriah's wife was adultery. Taking Saul's wives was not because Saul was dead. But that was a typical try at deception by yet another lying Mormonism apologist.
~”Joe Smith took eleven or more women for his wives who were at the time still married to living men. That’s adultery.”~
No, it’s not. Where we are seeing the logical disconnect is that you tend to equate temporal marriage with the eternal sealing. They are two different things, though normally mingled. Joseph Smith was sealed to some women with current husbands. The question is: if there is no sex with such a woman, is it adultery? As you would have found if you’d read the article I posted to you, there is, with one possible exception, no credible evidence to support the claim that Joseph Smith actually engaged in physical intimacy with the women in question. I tend to ascribe to the principle of innocence until proof of guilt - though I know that some of Smith’s detractors delight in taking the opposite approach.
By the way, you said 11 such women existed. There were 8 in fact.
In short, it appears that Smith was sealed to these woman for dynastic purposes, not for physical intimacy. I don’t pretend to understand why such a dynastic union would have been deemed necessary. Nevertheless, this argument stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose behind and use of the sealing power according to LDS doctrine.
Interestingly, while an LDS sealing is considered a legal marriage in the United States, and thus within the scope of sexual intimacy under LDS doctrine, this is not the case everywhere. For example, the LDS sealing is not considered a legal marriage in Italy. So, a couple is required to undergo a legal marriage, and then they travel to the temple (the closest being in Switzerland) to have the sealing ordinance performed.
But the couple can engage in sexual intimacy after the legal marriage; they don’t have to wait for the sealing. However, as Italian citizens, if they were to skip the step of being legally married before being sealed (a move against which there are preventive safeguards), sexual intimacy would be, as I understand it, fornication until they were legally wed.
This has been, yet again, an example of you accusing the Mormon apologist of lying because you misunderstand what the Mormon apologist believes. I suggest getting the facts before engaging in such accusation.
Smith’s adultery was real in the minds of his contemporaries, both the living husbands of the women Smith ‘married’ and a few fellow Mormons who were outraged by Smith’s sexual exploits with other men’s wives. But I understand your need to believe the peepstone ‘prophet’ was an innocent lamb. Your need to remain blind is overwhelming your intellect, tantiboh.
Joseph Smith's first wife, Emma, allegedly told the wife of Apostle George A. Smith, Lucy, that Joseph Smith's plural wives were "celestial" only, that he had no earthly marital relations with them. "They were only sealed for eternity they were not to live with him and have children." Lucy later wrote that when she told this to her husband:
He related to me the circumstance of his calling on Joseph late one evening and he was just taking a wash and Joseph told him that one of his wives had just been confined and Emma was the Midwife and he had been assisting her. He [George A. Smith] told me [Lucy Smith] this to prove to me that the women were married for time [as well as for eternity], as Emma had told me that Joseph never taught any such thing.
Because Reorganized Latter Day Saints claimed that Joseph Smith was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Smith's wives) affirmed repeatedly that he had physical sexual relations with them—despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American culture which ordinarily would have prevented any mention of sexuality.
For instance, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner stated that she knew of children born to Smith's plural wives: "I know he had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I know he had three children. They told me. I think two are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names." Melissa Lott Willes testified that she had been Smith's wife "in very deed." Emily Partridge Young said she "roomed" with Joseph the night following her marriage to him, and said that she had "carnal intercourse" with him.
Other early witnesses also affirmed this. Benjamin Johnson wrote "On the 15th of May ... the Prophet again Came and at my hosue [house] ocupied the Same Room & Bed with my Sister that the month previous he had ocupied with the Daughter of the Later Bishop Partridge as his wife." According to Joseph Bates Noble, Smith told him he had spent a night with Louisa Beaman.
When Angus Cannon, a Salt Lake City stake president, visited Joseph Smith III in 1905, the RLDS president asked rhetorically if these women were his father's wives, then "how was it that there was no issue from them." Cannon replied:
All I knew was that which Lucy Walker herself contends. They were so nervous and lived in such constant fear that they could not conceive. He made light of my reply. He said, "I am informed that Eliza Snow was a virgin at the time of her death." I in turn said, "Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked her the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, 'I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.'"
Cannon then mentioned that Sylvia Sessions Lyon, a plural wife of Smith, had had a child by him, Josephine Lyon Fisher. Josephine left an affidavit stating that her mother, Sylvia, when on her deathbed, told her that she (Josephine) was the daughter of Joseph Smith. In addition, posterity (i.e., sexuality) was an important theological element in Smith's Abrahamic-promise justification for polygamy.
From http://www.signaturebooks.com/excerpts/insacred.htm#prologue
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