Marriage is not performed in the heavens in the hereafter. Harold B Lee, Youth and the Church p128
My lovely Joan was sent to me:
So Joan joins Fern
That three might be, more fitted for eternity.
‘O Heavenly Father, my thanks to thee.’ Harold B Lee, cited Deseret News 1974, Church Almanac p17
We don’t hear about Heavenly Mother because she is only one of many wives of god. Maxine Hanks, Women and Authority chapter 11 p251
Salt Lake City – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicates any church member who practices polygamy. The Church has publicly disowned Mormon fundamentalists, representing the sects of Mormonism which embrace early Mormon teachings that made polygamy a central part of the Mormon fait – the ongoing legacy of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
While the LDS Church says it does not sanction polygamy, behind closed temple doors, and in Mormon databases, many excommunicated Mormon fundamentalists (and their plural wives) have been reclaimed through posthumous rituals for the dead – and, in numerous cases, posthumously reinstated through ‘resurrected’ original LDS ordinances, including baptisms.
Reinventing its polygamous history, the LDS Church is ushering deceased excommunicated Mormon fundamentalists – such as Rulon Clark Allred; Rulon Timpson Jeffs; and members of the LeBaron clan, including notorious killer, Ervil Morell LeBaron – back into the LDS fold.
The LDS temple system is systematically validating the plural marriages of many deceased Mormon fundamentalists who, when they were alive, were excommunicated from the LDS Church because of polygamy. Some of these polygamists have been posthumously sealed in LDS temples to plural wives they married – after the LDS Church officially suspended polygamy.
Why does the LDS Church condemn the practice of polygamy – including the polygamy of Mormon fundamentalists-as the LDS temple system consistently validates deceased Mormon fundamentalists and many of their plural marriages? Helen Radkey, board post 2nd June 2009, ‘The Mormon Church and Polygamy: A Double Standard’
Three living Mormon Apostles are polygamists.
Dallin H Oaks, Russell M Nelson and L Tom Perry are all married under the ‘New and everlasting covenant’ to two women. All three were sealed in a Mormon temple using the Mormon temple ceremony of Marriage Sealing. All three are ‘celestial polygamists’.
This means that while all three have one living wife, all three have two spiritual wives. And while Valerie Hudson stated at a recent FAIR conference that the Mormon ‘new and everlasting covenant’ is ‘a monogamous relationship between one man and one woman’, Dallin, Russell and Tom have proven that it is not.
So when Mormons tell you that they are not polygamists they are not being completely truthful. They may not be temporally polygamists, but they are celestial polygamists. In Mormon heaven they can and will have more than one wife. Infymus, board post 18th August 2011, ‘Modern Day Mormon Polygamy – Don’t Let Them Fool You Into Believing They No Longer Practise It’
I can’t imagine anything more awful than polygamy. Mitt Romney, 60 MINUTES interview Mike Wallace 13 May 2007
When our people came west they permitted it on a restricted scale ... The figures I have are from between 2% and 5% of our people were involved in it. It was a very limited practice. Gordon B Hinckley, Larry King Live interview 1998
I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. ibid.
It ended. We moved on. M Russell Ballard, Ensign article June 2010, ‘Sharing the Gospel with Confidence’
Let me state clearly that no polygamist group, including those calling themselves Fundamentalist Mormons or other derivatives of our name have any affiliation whatsoever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. M Russell Ballard, general conference October 2011
President Hinckley affirmed the eternal nature of the marriage between Sister [Inis] Hunter and the former church president, whose first wife, Claire Jeffs, died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease and is now buried beside him in the Salt Lake Cemetery. Inis Hunter ‘will now be laid to rest on the other side,’ he said. ‘They were sealed under the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood for time and for all eternity,’ he said, recalling the marriage ceremony he performed for them in the Salt Lake Temple in April 1990. Deseret News 22nd October 2007 ‘Sister Hunter’s Humor and Cheerfulness Remembered as She is Laid to Rest’
If we are going to do away with polygamy, it would only be one feather in the bird, one ordinance in the Church and Kingdom. Do away with that, then we must do away with the prophets and apostles, with revelation and the gifts and graces of the Gospel, and finally give up our religion altogether. Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses XIII:166
We are not going to stop the practice of plural marriage until the Coming of the Son of Man. Wilford Woodruff, 17th May 1888
Smith’s revelation on polygamy opened floodgates of lies and hypocrisy. Hundreds of honest women and honorable men were forced to become liars by circumstances created by Smith, Young and other Church leaders.
In the first place, polygamy was a violation of section 121 of the Illinois State law of 1833. This law provided for a $500 fine and one year in prison for each violation. Smith had to swear his new wives and also his friends and their plural wives to oaths of secrecy in order to stay out of prison.
Noted Church historian B H Roberts admitted that secret marriages were performed by early leaders and that this practice resulted in duplicity and hypocrisy: ‘This enforced secrecy which a reasonable prudence demanded gave rise to apparent contradictions between public utterances of leading brethren in the Church and their having a plurality of wives’.
The official Church policy of lying about polygamy, called ‘reasonable prudence’ by B H Roberts nevertheless proves that Apostle John A Widstoe was lying when he said, ‘The Church ever operates in the full light. There is no secrecy about its doctrine or work.’ Arza Evans, The Keystone of Mormonism
Women who have large families generally live longer than the unmarried or the childless ... Latter-day Saints believe in large families wherever it is possible to provide for the necessities of life, for the health and education of their children, and when the physical and mental health of the mother permits. Hugh B Brown, You and Your Marriage pp133-135
I wish to send out a reminder to the female student body of BYU. As the weather warms up, your necklines should not be going down. I have been saddened to notice that many female students are not being as attentive to their attire as they ought to be.
I understand this doesn’t account for all women, but too many are letting their necklines dip lower than they should. At first I thought it was just me noticing and averting my eyes. But my wife mentioned the same issue. We agree that the women at BYU need to know that showing cleavage lines isn’t acceptable.
Young men do not want the ‘view’ and married women do not want you exposing their husbands to unnecessary displays of your bosoms. Please think twice when choosing your clothing. It isn’t just the Honor Code; it is respect for yourself as well as others. Kenneth Clark, editorial Daily Universe 6th May 2009
Young women you will be the ones who will provide the example of virtuous womanhood and motherhood. You will continue to be virtuous lovely praiseworthy and of good report. You will also be the ones to provide an example of family life in a time when families are under attack, being redefined and disintegrating. You will understand your roles and your responsibilities and thus will see no need to lobby for rights. Elaine S Dalton, YW General President, 15th January 2013
A good Mormon woman has elaborately curled longish hair until middle age and a permed upswepted coiffure in later life. Either way, the highly sprayed hair moves as a unit like a padded, shellacked helmet protecting the brain from injury or information. Martha Nibley Beck, Leaving the Saints
Women are queens and priestesses but not gods. The Godhead, the ‘presidency of heaven’, is a presidency of three male deities, similar to a stake presidency whose members each have wives who are responsible for domestic religious education but not ecclesiastical functions. Rodney Turner, retired BYU religion professor, Sunstone panel discussion 7th September 1991
We are trained not to see male privilege ... to be silent is to participate in an abuse of authority and to damage the community that I care about ... I believe that the present structure of the church damages women’s sense of worth. Margaret Toscano, BYU professor excommunicated
The mormon church has me permanently married, forever, in the hereafter, to a criminal who tried to kill me! True, I chose him and married him in the mormon temple, because he conned me into it, pretending to be kind and spiritual. He is the son of someone high-up in the mormon church, who prevents my petitions for divorce.