Are teens who practice polygamy devout or brainwashed? Are teen terrorists devout or brainwashed? When is a teen old enough to be held accountable for crimes, but not old enough to make his or her own life decisions? Continue reading…
Archive for the 'polygamy' Category
Unless your last name is Van Winkle, you likely already know that, yesterday afternoon, the California Supreme Court concluded that the state’s law prohibiting same-sex marriage (SSM, for short) is unconstitutional. Put more simply, in 30 days, SSM will be a reality in California. For those of us here on the Left Coast, things are about to get very interesting. Within hours of the ruling, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, without a hint of irony, told a gathering of reporters: “I plan to marry as many people as I can.”
Like many others, I’m still working my way through the 100+ page opinion. We lawyers sure love our footnotes, and one in particular has got me thinking. To be clear, I am no fundamentalist Mormon, and I certainly am not bucking for the opportunity to bring another set of problems wife into my happy family. But I can’t help but be annoyed by the apparent fact that, over a century later, courts are still content to rely on outdated and prejudicial attitudes towards Mormon polygamy.
There is a common belief among LDS that wonderful women are sometimes saddled with mediocre men or sometimes no man at all, which will result in a surplus of women in the Celestial Kingdom. So, are Mormon women really so much better than men? Continue reading…
The raid in Texas is interesting (and differs from AZ and UT prosecutorial efforts) in that polygamy is being attacked directly. So, will this shift in approach result in the end of polygamy (again)? Continue reading…
Nauvoo was a mistake. At the close of the Missouri Mormon War in the winter of 1838-39, the Saints crossed the icy Mississippi. The people of Quincy, Illinois, were aghast at their condition and opened their hearts and their homes to the refugees. A new gathering place needed to be planted and the church soon found a hopeful location upriver from Quincy — approximately at the border between Illinois, Missouri and the Iowa Territory. Continue reading…
Since news first broke that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or FLDS church) was building a new Zionic city in western Texas, I’ve been excited to watch history unfold (and perhaps repeat?) At first there was little more on the site than three large dormitories masquerading as “hunting lodges.” However, it didn’t take long before aerial photos began to show an expanding grid of roads. The grid reminded me instantly of Joseph Smith’s “Plat of Zion,” after which so many 19th-century Mormon towns were patterned.
Leaving aside the implications of polygamy as to the lessened value of males to society and to families, the other question that arises is just what is polygamy? While some are bothered by the fact that Joseph Smith engaged in polygamy, others are perturbed by the fact that he had so few children by anyone other than his first wife. As the recent DNA studies reflect, he and Emma buried more children than the other women had with Joseph between them. Continue reading…
Polygamy gets a fair amount of attention from time to time, but very little thought of what it means or what it implies as far as what kind of species humanity might be and how relevant men are or just what is to be expected in the next life from eternal relationships.
My own thoughts are influenced strongly by just how irrelevant it is easy for a man to become when there are long term female house guests who fit in well, a situation we had when a friend’s husband got transferred and she had one semester left to finish her master’s degree. It wasn’t polygamy, but my wife and our friend got along like happy sisters and I noticed that I was less relevant. That got me thinking about things I had observed working in simulations and studying animal behaviors. Continue reading…
Part 2 of this discussion.
