Posted on 10/22/2010 5:53:55 AM PDT by Colofornian
It's not surprising that breakaway Mormons say they love their polygamous lives in the affidavits they've sworn to support their position that practising it is their constitutional right.
What is surprising is that the affidavits are steeped in the myth of persecution. Filed in advance of the constitutional reference case, which is scheduled to be heard starting Nov. 22 in B.C. Supreme Court, they reveal that almost all of the breakaway Mormons say they live in fear of being jailed or having their children taken away from them.
Yet, the first time such men were charged in Canada with polygamy was two years ago. The case against prominent polygamists James Oler and Winston Blackmore - leaders of the Bountiful community near Creston, B.C. - was thrown out of court in September 2009.
B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong then asked the B.C. Supreme Court to rule on the legality of Canada's law against polygamy.
Even though the federal and provincial governments did take First Nations and Sons of Freedom children from their families and put them in residential schools, that has never happened to members of breakaway Mormon sects.
There are other surprises. The affidavits clearly indicate that these groups believe that if the anti-polygamy section of the Criminal Code is struck down in B.C. Supreme Court, they will get all of the benefits of Canadian society and more.
They believe it would mean an unfettered guarantee of religious freedom. And, unlike polyamorists who also want the section struck down, breakaway Mormons want as little as possible to do with secular Canadian society.
In her affidavit, a 24-year-old woman from the fundamentalist enclave of Bountiful says attending Cranbrook's College of the Rockies was "going into what I see as a wild and unstable world."
"Out there people were behaving in ways that are not in accord with my beliefs - fighting, impatient, yelling, dating and breaking up, drinking, using foul language."
In another affidavit, a woman identified as Witness No. 2 complains that Revenue Canada has cut back child-tax benefits to some plural wives. It says they are living common-law and must claim the income of the father of their child, regardless of whether others are already claiming it.
"This has been a real hardship," she says.
In the doctrine of these breakaway groups - unlike in the Quran - there is no requirement that men must be financially able to support all of their wives and children. There is also no limit on the number of wives male members of these sects can have.
Witness No. 2 is the first of two wives. Married at 16, she has nine children ranging in age from seven to 26 and is a nurse and midwife.
(In an unusual ruling last month, Chief Justice Robert Bauman agreed that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints could file anonymous affidavits and testify behind screens. Only Bauman will know who the witnesses are.)
Witness No. 2 complains that the breakaway Mormons "have an extremely hard time helping women immigrate when they marry as a plural spouse as it is very hard to get medical insurance."
She complains that education is too expensive and "the kind of jobs we can get working with our own people are mostly not high-paying jobs as we live in a small rural community."
But integration is out of the question.
"This rural life is precious to us," she says.
So, if polygamy is legalized, she wants money for education programs for polygamous women "tailored to our needs."
Bountiful's bishop Oler was one of the two men charged in 2008 and one of the few to file an affidavit in his own name.
Oler explains that the members of his sect believe that God decides who marries whom. God tells the prophet, who relays the message to the bride and groom.
A woman has "the privilege" of praying for inspiration of whom she should marry, says Oler. If she receives "inspiration," she can tell the prophet.
"I am not personally aware of any case where the Prophet has refused to honour that inspiration," Oler says in his affidavit.
The current prophet is Warren Jeffs. He is in jail in Utah awaiting retrial on charges of being an accomplice to rape after forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old first cousin. He is also awaiting extradition to Texas where he is charged with bigamy and two counts of sexually assaulting two of his child brides.
Even though Oler says both men and women "have free agency to chose whether to marry or not," men cannot ask to marry a particular woman. They can only express a desire to be married.
In a separate affidavit, a 25-year-old unmarried Bountiful man argues that is free choice.
"I will have a choice on (sic) who I will marry because I want to marry whoever God reveals to the Prophet."
If the church leaders find out that a man is abusing his wife or children, he says, "His family will be taken from him and given to a man who will love and care for them carefully.
"I know this seems harsh," he adds. It's not clear whether his empathy is for the men or for the women and children.
But what is clear is that fundamentalist Mormons members believe that a win in court would clear the way for them to set up a distinct society - a theocracy within our secular, liberal democracy.
Vancouver Sun
Sadly, I think you're right. We will get that theocracy under the guise of political correctness and freedom of religion.
The islamists are just biding their time. This is why we, and they, CAN'T let polygamy be legalized under any circumstances. Not to mention the moral breakdown of society.
Reading the article, I also noticed that they want handouts to support them from the very government they reject. They whine about the low wages that come with the area they CHOOSE to live in.
Well, ladies, suck it up. If you want to live like gods, wait til you're dead. Just don't expect the rest of society to support you in the manner in which you'd like. I'm not here to hand you my hard earned money so you can live high on the hog.
clear the way for them to set up a distinct society - a theocracy within our secular, liberal democracy.
______________________________________________________
The Utah Territory was at one time a theocracy...and a dictatorship..
The SLC mormons moved out of the United States and away from the jurisdiction of established laws so they would not have to “live in fear of being jailed or having their children taken away from them” for polygamy...
Sez the Polig:
In another affidavit, a woman identified as Witness No. 2 complains that Revenue Canada has cut back child-tax benefits to some plural wives. It says they are living common-law and must claim the income of the father of their child, regardless of whether others are already claiming it.
“This has been a real hardship,” she says.
Just another welfare sow squealing that she wants the rest of the public to pay for her bastards.
Religion is not the issue, cash flow seems to be.
She wants public cash to flow to her so she can live as a slut but a “religiously protected” slut.
Sorry, gotta call Bravo Sierra on that welfare sow.
No. Since the state has a vested interest in marriage (i.e. it winds up paying for broken homes & polygamyous homes...in the form of welfare, free lunch programs at schools, free breakfast programs at schools, and in a myriad of other ways...then it has a right to standardize what is ALREADY been recognized in our culture for hundreds of years).
Go to Hilsdale UT and its twin community, Colorado City, AZ, to see the impact of polygamy in extracting welfare.
If they want the government to subsidize their lifestyle and they’re getting money from it, then the government has every right to put restrictions on that money.
The government is not an independent private corporation. The money it has is is money it has essentially extorted from us. It is not theirs to give.
If a man cannot afford to support a family, he has no business getting married. He should not get married expecting someone else to pay for it out of coercion, no matter what the size and how many wives.
For all those religious people and the Mormons who claim that they believe the Bible, it says,.......
1 Timothy 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
and.....
2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
BOOM! Money quote.
Maybe THAT's why Mormons is getting all chummy with Muslims!
Ahhh...
The Golden Rule!
(He who has the gold; makes the rules.)
ROFL just when I thought I had read the most over-the-top way to attack the LDS Church I see something even more twisted. The Anti-Mormon gang on FR is just out there... way out there. Obsessed doesn’t truly quite cover it.
Anyone new to this zoo,
If you peruse the Free Republic religion forums you will notice a pattern. There’s an anti-Mormon group of people here that spends a great deal of their time attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They post regurgitated propaganda on an almost daily basis.
They have a misguided obsession. You can witness many different tactics employed that you might find quite interesting. The straw man argument is a big favorite and is frequently preceded by cherry-picking quotes or other material. After the “quotation” the attacker will misrepresent what has been said or what was meant and then attack their own interpretation.
Another favorite is posting scripture or statements which on their own really present no dilemma. They make something out of nothing while never bringing up a single objection that hasn’t been addressed a hundred times before.
Sometimes they cruise the headlines of the day seeking any story that might be twisted into making the Church look bad. Anything will do, just watch the progression of posts following it and see what I mean.
After reading their posts, I invite you to seek the truth about whatever “issue” they seem to be “revealing” or “exposing”. I promise that if you do so with honest intent, the “ahah” moments you will have will be many and frequent. You will start to recognize the tactics employed to cleverly twist and attack and will likely chuckle the more you see. In actuality, there’s nothing new here. It’s all been addressed many times before.
Here’s a few links to get your started from a different viewpoint. I have found that the vast majority of the “issues” brought up can be found and addressed at http://www.fairlds.org/ but here’s more:
http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/
Now take your haystack to the other thread as well...
Now take your haystack to the other thread as well...
Hey where’s the big fonts and colors? And some pictures! You know... all that stuff that doesn’t stop your posts from being false. Getting lazy?
As of December 31, 2009, there were 51,736 LDS missionaries serving in 344 church missions throughout the world. Their work, often in cooperation with local members, resulted in 280,106 convert baptisms in 2009.[12] Author David Stewart points out that the number of convert baptisms per missionary per year has fallen from a high of 8.03 in 1989 to just 4.67 in 2005.[13] He argues that the number of converts would increase if Mormon missionaries made greater efforts in meeting new people; he points out that the average companionship spends only four or five hours per week attempting to meet new people.[13]
How terrible it is that a handful of Christians post a handful of threads per week on FreeRepublic to counter the proselytizing efforts of the missionaries and public relations campaign of the mormon church. Don't you just feel SO sorry that the poor, persecuted mormons aren't able to have their message heard?
How is it that the mormon church feels the need to mount a multi-million dollar ad campaign on the theme of "We're mormons...we're NORMAL"?
You mean the one the includes the soft core porn photographer as a 'normal' mormon?
Yeah, that's the one.
>>i.e. it winds up paying for broken homes & polygamous homes...in the form of welfare, free lunch programs at schools, free breakfast programs at schools, and in a myriad of other ways...then it has a right to standardize<<
That is a really dangerous argument to make. Most of those examples, or similar type of examples, are used for controlling lifestyle because of health costs, or affect on other citizens. It’s typical of the liberal line to control more and more.
If you are truly conservative you may want to rethink using that one.
If you peruse Family Search Centers sponsored by the Mormon church, or various online Web sites, you will notice a pattern. There’s Mormon groups of people here that spend an inordinate amount of their time seeking their dead ancestors -- and yours. They go through the same regurgitated electronic and paper record shuffle daily.
To say they have a misguided obsession just doesn't aptly explain it. I mean, imagine you're part of a group that has less than 10 million active members worldwide...and only a few million that claim active access to your inner sanctum temple. And then, I as your "prophet" tell you that you only have to come up with the names and birth and death records of the billions of people who've ever lived...including pre-Gutenberg times (pre-1456).
And then you have to go into the temple and perform "works" on their behalf that will supposedly "save" them...and often it might involve your teen-age son being part of the process in acting as a "proxy."
You can witness many different tactics employed by Mormons seeking their dead that you might find quite interesting. The straw man proxy baptism is a big favorite (it's a "straw man" because there's really no unbaptized person there in that temple!!!) and is frequently preceded by cherry-picking records from other church denominations and has even included baptizing Jews from concentration camp lists!
Another temple favorite is for Mormons to "marry off" dead spirits in these temples using genealogical information, often times totally bogus historical information! (It's true)
Let me provide you with three examples as to how Mormons have "appended...[the] life history" of numerous individuals, including Jesus Christ, a Roman Catholic priest, and even a Mormon fundamentalist murderer!:
Did you know that these Mormon tactics include "sealing" records (rituals performed in the Mormon temple) -- that:
(a) Jesus is now "married"/sealed to Mary Magdalene, per our zealous Mormon match-makers?
(b) And Father Damien, a RC priest, was also posthumously "sealed" so that he, too, is now "married"
(c) And a fundamentalist Mormon killer who was divorced was posthumously "re-married" to his ex-spouse.
Documentation for all of these Mormon "religious" acts follow @ the end of this post, if you care to take the time to read them.
Prior to the dedication of the San Diego Mormon temple in 1993, local Mormon families were even "given a packet entitled Family Temple Preparation Material. Included in this written material were about seven pages devoted to "true stories" of temple patrons who were visited by the dead. They see dead people?
The Mormon church even includes accounts of supposed dead spirits visiting their leaders in their Sunday School lessons! Source: pp. 1-2 of LDS Sunday School Lesson
Sometimes they cruise the cemeteries of the dead seeking any fingernail remnant of informational DNA from the dead that could eventually be twisted into how, "Look, we've baptized more dead people who will accept the Mormon 'gospel' and become Mormons in the spirit world." Any record morsel will be devoured; just watch the progression of "genealogical research" that's unfolding in the Mormon church and see what I mean.
After looking over the "PR" side of how the Mormon church is presenting information about their genealogical work, I invite you to new threads coming within the next several days to a week -- a continuation of a series I call the Other- World Series -- which, coupled with Halloween, will shriek your socks off re: the Mormon relationship with the dead and the occult. (They see dead people? linked above was one of those articles already posted this month)
****************
Documentation of Claims A/B/C above:
From article documenting (a) above: On May 27, 2010, “Maria Magdelena” was listed in New FamilySearch with her birth date as “1504 Israel,” and death date as “before 1540 Israel.” Both years are likely inventions. Along with “spouse” “Jesus Cristian,” “Maria Magdelena” was baptized and confirmed a member of the LDS Church by proxy on April 8, 2010 in the “Salt Lake City Utah Temple.” She was subjected to initiatory temple ordinances on April 8, 2010; an endowment ceremony on April 9, 2010; and the marriage “sealing” to “Jesus Cristian” on April 9, 2010—all rites were done in the “Salt Lake City Utah Temple.” Mary Magdalene is described in the New Testament as a faithful follower of Jesus. Because the concept of marriage is strongly emphasized in LDS teachings, the notion that a spousal relationship existed between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is common among Mormons—although that belief is not formal LDS doctrine. There is no reliable historical evidence to indicate that Jesus was married—to Mary Magdalene, or anyone else. Source: Jesus Christ was baptized and “sealed” to Mary Magdalene
From column documenting (b) above: "It's blatantly wrong to seal a person who took a vow of celibacy as a Catholic priest and is so revered in his Catholic religion," said Radkey, a former Catholic. Source: Helen Radkey and Salt Lake Tribune strike again
Why is the Lds church playing "matchmaker" post-death with single RC priests? Answer: Lds say single people are shut out of the highest degree of glory in heaven. Therefore, if Father Damien was going to get there, they had to find a way to marry him off -- in the nether world!
This whole religious shenanigans brought this out in a Yahoo Question: Mormons "marry" dead Catholic priest posthumously to a woman he likely never was married to in life. Why?
This whole enterprise is a literal Mormon marriage machine for dead spirits...
From the article documenting (c) above: The LDS Church has disowned Mormon fundamentalists. In sharp contradiction, the LDS temple system systematically validates the plural marriages of dead ex-Mormon polygamists through its marriage sealing rituals. An example of many such individuals is Rulon Clark Allred, who was excommunicated from the LDS Church in 1940 for practicing polygamy...As though killers will share an eternal reward with their victims, Ervil Morrell LeBaron — the Mormon fundamentalist behind the death of Rulon Allred — was sealed by proxy in 2002 to Delfina Salido, from whom he was divorced. Source: Mormon Church Quietly Endorses Polygamous (Afterlife) Marriages of Excommunicated Fundamentalists
We need to understand that Mormons clarify their belief that marriages are forever by saying that applies only to those who reach the highest degree of glory. So Mormons believe murderers need proxy eternal marriage sealings 'cause they represent the highest degree of works-righteousness folks?
It´s Butters!, bump.
The sense of Genesis II:24 is singular, not plural.
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