Same Sex Marriage

[The Nehor]

What form(s) would your opposition take?

 

Molotov cocktails are traditional and add a spice of pizzazz to any good opposition struggle. Good to stick with the classics.

[halconero]

I think they did.  There are numerous stories in the histories of GA's encouraging individuals AND the general populace to enter into polygamous marriages.  Sometimes they did it playfully.  Sometimes they did it with fire and brimstone.  The message was always the same.

 

"We wish to obtain all that father Abraham obtained. I wish here to say to the Elders of Israel, and to all the members of this Church and kingdom, that it is in the hearts of many of them to wish that the doctrine of polygamy was not taught and practiced by us...It is the word of the Lord, and I wish to say to you, and all the world, that if you desire with all your hearts to obtain the blessings which Abraham obtained, you will be polygamists at least in your faith, or you will come short of enjoying the salvation and the glory which Abraham has obtained. This is as true as that God lives. You who wish that there were no such thing in existence, if you have in your hearts to say: "We will pass along in the Church without obeying or submitting to it in our faith or believing this order, because, for aught that we know, this community may be broken up yet, and we may have lucrative offices offered to us; we will not, therefore, be polygamists lest we should fail in obtaining some earthly honor, character and office, etc,"—the man that has that in his heart, and will continue to persist in pursuing that policy, will come short of dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son, in celestial glory. The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them." - Brigham Young

 

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"I attended the school of the prophets. Brother John Holeman made a long speech upon the subject of Poligamy. He Contended that no person Could have a Celestial glory unless He had a plurality of wives. Speeches were made By L. E. Harrington O Pratt Erastus Snow, D Evans J. F. Smith Lorenzo Young. President Young said there would be men saved in the Celestial Kingdom of God with one wife with Many wives & with No wife at all." - Wilford Woodruff

 

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"Then President Young spoke 58 Minuts. He said a Man may Embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart & not take the Second wife & be justified before the Lord." - Wilford Woodruff

 

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"When a debate in the School of the Prophets arose when one claimed that "no man who has only one wife in this probation can ever enter [the] Celestial kingdom," both Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor disagreed." - Wilford Woodruff

 

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In 1892, Wilford Woodruff and others were asked, in essence, "if Joseph Smith had ever taught you at Nauvoo or anywhere else during his lifetime, that in order for a man to be exalted in the hereafter, he must have more than one wife?"

 

Woodruff: I don't know that I ever heard him make use of that expression or use that form of expression.

 

Bathsheba W. Smith: I never heard of that.

 

Joseph C. Kingbury: No sir. He did not teach me that. He did not say anything about that....I heard it preached from the stand that a man could be exalted in eternity with one wife.

Edited April 24, 2014 by halconero

[Bernard Gui]

Yes it was. It was a constant admonition to enter plural marriage. I don't think they cared about the math. It resulted in a large number of female teens being sought for marriage. In the case of my ancestors that I have researched (the journals I mentioned) both were sought after by married men (in one case a bishop) in their early teens (IIRC around 14-15). There was not a lot of pressure brought to bear and they politely demurred, but marriages to girls at least a decade or two younger than the man were relatively common.

You might want to consider this:

http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230

In trials, juries were often unwilling to simply enforce the law. Rather than focusing strictly on age, they made judgments about whether the appearance and behavior of a girl fit their notions of a child and a victim. It was not only that relying solely on age seemed arbitrary to them; at least until the end of the 19th century, age had limited salience in other aspects of daily life. Laws and regulations based on age were uncommon until the 19th century, and consequently so was possession of proof of age or even knowledge of a precise date of birth.

Near the end of the 18th century, other European nations began to enact age of consent laws. The broad context for that change was the emergence of an Enlightenment concept of childhood focused on development and growth. This notion cast children as more distinct in nature from adults than previously imagined, and as particularly vulnerable to harm in the years around puberty. The French Napoleonic code provided the legal context in 1791 when it established an age of consent of 11 years. The age of consent, which applied to boys as well as girls, was increased to 13 years in 1863.

Like France, many other countries, increased the age of consent to 13 in the 19th century. Nations, such as Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons, that adopted or mirrored the Napoleonic code likewise initially set the age of consent at 10-12 years and then raised it to between 13 and 16 years in the second half of the 19th century. In 1875, England raised the age to 13 years; an act of sexual intercourse with a girl younger than 13 was a felony. In the U.S., each state determined its own criminal law and age of consent ranged from 10 to 12 years of age. U.S. laws did not change in the wake of England's shift. Nor did Anglo-American law apply to boys.

 

[Bernard Gui]

Well, shoot! Halconero beat me to the punch and posted the complete Brigham Young quote.
Good job, Hal!

Edited April 24, 2014 by Bernard Gui

[SeekingUnderstanding]

You might want to consider this:

http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230

Sorry, I wasn't judging the age of the participants. I tried to make clear that they weren't pressured too heavily either. I merely made the point that the emphasis on polygamy had the very expected effect of raising the marriage age for men and lowering it for women.

[Coreyb]

I think we are barking up the wrong tree here. In Brigham's, and other nineteenth century Mormons minds, "exaltation" was not so much about getting to a certain place (ie Kingdom) as it was building up a kingdom, like the one God has. Obviously you need a wife to build a kingdom, but you could build a much bigger and better kingdom with many wives. It's like how you need knowledge of certain things to be saved (knowledge of Christ), and any additional knowledge you gain will give you so much the advantage in the life to come. The same goes for wives (per nineteenth century mormon thought).

[Scott Lloyd]

Or multiple marriages, where men and women try on a partner every few years....get married, get uncomfortable, get a divorce, and then marry again, get uncomfortable, get divorced, marry again....oh wait, that's the example set by hetero marriage, the "traditional" kind.

So?

Why must *that* be the example you assume for traditional marriage? Are you just going to ignore the numerous instances where husband and wife remain faithful throughout their lives?

I don't approve of serial marriage and divorce either. But to use that as an excuse to say the traditional family structure doesn't work and must be abandoned along with aspiration for marital faithfulness is silly.

From what I understand, homosexual relationships don't have a great track record for faithfulness.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[california boy]

Does any active church member feel at all hypercritical in condemning polygamy being practiced today?  And if not, how the heck do you justify your position?  Do you pretend it never existed in the church?  Or do you pretend that early church leaders never received such a revelation?  

 

The irony of a Mormon being aghast over the possibility of polygamy becoming legal in the United States is amazing to me.  This is a principle that leaders were willing to go to jail over.  This is a principle that leaders went into hiding and even fled to foreign countries over.  It is not like it was some admonition to wear white shirts to pass the sacrament.  Polygamy was a core belief. Now it is as if many are trying to minimize it as much as humanly possible.  Now at the mer suggestion of couples practicing polygamy is a sign of the end of times and the collaps of civilization as we know it.  Come on.  If you believe that, you belong to the wrong church.

[california boy]

So?

Why must *that* be the example you assume for traditional marriage? Are you just going to ignore the numerous instances where husband and wife remain faithful throughout their lives?

I don't approve of serial marriages and divorces either. But to use them as an excuse to say the traditional family structure doesn't work and must be abandoned is silliness.

From what I understand, homosexual relationships don't have a great track record for faithfulness.

And why "that" be the example to assume that all homosexual marriages are failues.  Do you have any statistics comparing the rate of divorce of gay couples verses straight couples?  Or do you just like slinging around irresponsible statements as well.  Calling out others for the same thing you do can be embarassing at times.

[why me]

Because as we can see from the link, it becomes an anything goes society. What has happened is that individual rights have come at the expense of collective rights. And as more special interest groups struggle for their individual rights, the collective rights of societies become impaired because there are no collective rights just a series of individual rights for each group of people. .

Edited April 24, 2014 by why me

[Scott Lloyd]

Well, shoot! Halconero beat me to the punch and posted the complete Brigham Young quote.

Good job, Hal!

Kudos to you both. To you for the intent and to Halconero for the execution.

[Scott Lloyd]

I just did a search for "polygamy necessary exaltation" and found numerous quotes from Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff and others to the effect that polygamy was required for exaltation.

Just one of many quotes, from BY: "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy." (Journal of Discourses 11:268) BY also said at one point, though, that people who were at least willing to practice it, but couldn't, for whatever reason, would be considered faithful in that regard.

But regardless, that polygamy was necessary for exaltation seemed to be the prevailing wisdom of the time.

Or at least the prevailing idea that pops up on a Google search that is apt to iinclude anti-Mormon or apostate sources who mine the same quotes again and again. Edited April 24, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[why me]

Awesome. Good for them. I hope their lives together are full of much joy.

Which is fine. However, it just may not be good for a society to have marriage a free for all possibility. Of course, we can also have four men marrying and fathering children. Or we can have one woman marrying 5 men and two ladies. The possibilities are many for one's search for happiness. Once the marriage contract is permitted outside the traditional marriage definition, the possibilities are endless.

[why me]

And that is a problem because....?

I think that muslims will be claiming their right to be polygamous. Then, of course we will have throuples of same sex marriages. Or we can other possibilities too. Brother marrying sister etc. All rights should be respected in such a system of moral anarchy. Marriage laws were in place to bring a sense of harmony to a society. Thus, it was illegal for same sex couples to marry. It was illegal for polygamous marriages to exist. And it was illegal for three women to marry or 3 men to marry. But now, in the age of individual rights, we have immense possibilities to experiment in marriage.

We can only wait and see just how this will impact society.

[why me]

So is that a bad thing?

 

Are you opposed to religious freedom?

No. However, at times we need to look at the forest for the trees and not just the trees and the rights of each tree. Sometimes rights need to be restricted to protect the forest.

[Scott Lloyd]

Does any active church member feel at all hypercritical in condemning polygamy being practiced today? And if not, how the heck do you justify your position? .

I do it quite easily with the understanding that plural marriage is acceptable if and only if God mandates it. And that has not been the case since the practice was discontinued in the Church of Jesus Christ.

[why me]

Does any active church member feel at all hypercritical in condemning polygamy being practiced today?  And if not, how the heck do you justify your position?  Do you pretend it never existed in the church?  Or do you pretend that early church leaders never received such a revelation?  

 

The irony of a Mormon being aghast over the possibility of polygamy becoming legal in the United States is amazing to me.

I don't think that it is polygamy that could be the problem. Of course, many muslims will wish to have four wives, which is permitted in islam. However, we then have three women marrying etc. So, we have no basic definition of what constitutes a family. By granting your right to marry, we have also granted the right for three women to marry and have a child. Or four men to marry etc. Or a man marrying two men and a woman. Why should any rights be restricted between consenting adults? Regardless of how it affects common collective values?

We live in an age of individual rights but how this will impact collective values remains to be seen.

[Scott Lloyd]

And why "that" be the example to assume that all homosexual marriages are failues.

I was addressing what seemed to be Walden's insinuation that because some people fail at traditional marriage, the institution of traditional marriage itself is unworkable. I say again, that is silliness. People can succeed at it, and very many do.

Do you have any statistics comparing the rate of divorce of gay couples verses straight couples?

No statistics, just what I've heard repeatedly.

I understand that until fairly recently, the concept of homosexual monogamy was rather novel, and that promiscuity was pretty much the entrenched condition in the hosexual lifestyle. I would be amazed to learn that the contrary is true and that even so much as 25 percent of homosexual relationships remain exclusive for life. But I'm open to new information.

[california boy]

Because as we can see from the link, it becomes an anything goes society. What has happened is that individual rights have come at the expense of collective rights. And as more special interest groups struggle for their individual rights, the collective rights of societies become impaired because there are no collective rights just a series of individual rights for each group of people. .

You do realize that these same arguments were used to deny Mormons their religious rights?  And this is the irony that I am speaking about.  Now, a hundred years later, it is Mormons on the soap box defending society from marital corruption.  I just can't quit smiling about this for some reason.

[california boy]

I was addressing what seemed to be Walden's insinuation that because some people fail at traditional marriage, the institution of traditional marriage itself is unworkable. I say again, that is silliness. People can succeed at it, and very many do.

No statistics, just what I've heard repeatedly.

I understand that until fairly recently, the concept of homosexual monogamy was rather novel, and that promiscuity was pretty much the entrenched condition in the hosexual lifestyle. I would be amazed to learn that the contrary is true and that even so much as 25 percent of homosexual relationships remain exclusive for life. But I'm open to new information.

Would you say that heterosexual monogamy outside of marriage is rather novel, and that promiscuity is pretty much the entrenched condition of single heterosexuals. "No statistics, just what I've heard."  

 

I think the point Walden was making is that it is not like heterosexual couples have a steiler record.  Yet you want to clarify that not all marriages are failures.  Then in the next paragraph, you want to paint a broad brush against gay relationships.  Don't you find that a bit hypercritical?  You don't see yourself doing the exact same thing just moments later?  

 

I know it is fun to condemn gay couples that want to get married, and people do it all the time without any real basis for their condemnation.  Just hearing about such things is hardly justification for repeating statements that paint broad brush strokes against gays.  A little perspective occasionally would be appreciated before such statements from members of the church seems like a reasonable expectation don't you think?

[Scott Lloyd]

Would you say that heterosexual monogamy outside of marriage is rather novel, and that promiscuity is pretty much the entrenched condition of single heterosexuals. "No statistics, just what I've heard."

Actually, I would. My impression is that people who have sex outside of marriage are not too interested in long-term, monogamous commitment. If they were, they'd get married.

I don't approve of heterosexual relations outside of marriage any more than I approve of homosexual relations.

I think the point Walden was making is that it is not like heterosexual couples have a steiler record. Yet you want to clarify that not all marriages are failures. Then in the next paragraph, you want to paint a broad brush against gay relationships. Don't you find that a bit hypercritical? You don't see yourself doing the exact same thing just moments later?

I know it is fun to condemn gay couples that want to get married, and people do it all the time without any real basis for their condemnation. Just hearing about such things is hardly justification for repeating statements that paint broad brush strokes against gays. A little perspective occasionally would be appreciated before such statements from members of the church seems like a reasonable expectation don't you think?

I suspect that at the heart of the gay marriage movement has been the effort to get society to accept the normalization of homosexuality in general. Other than a symbolic victory, the gay rights movement has not gained anything they didn't already have before. I doubt we will see much change in the way of greater long-term monogamous commitment in homosexual relationships, legally married or not.

Time could prove me wrong, but at this point, I don't expect it.

[Tsuzuki]

Which is fine. However, it just may not be good for a society to have marriage a free for all possibility.

It's good for the kind of society that I want to live in. If you want to live in a society that prevents consenting adults from forming familial (and yes, sexual) bonds with those they love and care about, then we are at odds as to the direction we want society to take, and I will try to thwart you at every opportunity.

 

Of course, we can also have four men marrying and fathering children. Or we can have one woman marrying 5 men and two ladies. The possibilities are many for one's search for happiness. Once the marriage contract is permitted outside the traditional marriage definition, the possibilities are endless.

This is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. I would also point out that there are cultures where these configurations have existed for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, so you may want to check your definition of "traditional."

[Walden]

So?

Why must *that* be the example you assume for traditional marriage? Are you just going to ignore the numerous instances where husband and wife remain faithful throughout their lives?

I don't approve of serial marriage and divorce either. But to use that as an excuse to say the traditional family structure doesn't work and must be abandoned along with aspiration for marital faithfulness is silly.

From what I understand, homosexual relationships don't have a great track record for faithfulness.

 

Why must *that* be the example you assume for traditional marriage? It is not, my comment was more tongue-in-cheek with regard to the article referenced by the OP and the "throuple" being held up as an example of the future of gay marriage. To use this story as an example of why gay marriage should not be allowed is as preposterous as using the example of serial divorce as a reason to abandon traditional marriage, which was the ironic/absurd point I was unsuccessfully trying to make....irony is difficult to communicate on the internet.

[Walden]

Because as we can see from the link, it becomes an anything goes society. What has happened is that individual rights have come at the expense of collective rights. And as more special interest groups struggle for their individual rights, the collective rights of societies become impaired because there are no collective rights just a series of individual rights for each group of people. .

why me, I ask this in all sincerity, can you please enumerate how your "individual rights" have been sacrificed, jeopardized or even affected by the rights being granted to gay couples to marry?

[rockpond]

Other than a symbolic victory, the gay rights movement has not gained anything they didn't already have before.

 

This is false.  State recognized marriage provides a host of legal rights like making medical decisions, inheritance benefits, protection of children, etc.  Those rights have been realized in the states where gay marriage is now recognized and are being fought for (and won) in other states as we speak.