(the old link became unavailable, so I found another copy of it from Nov. 19.) Here it is:
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2014/11/19/op-ed-lds-church-should-make-clear-smith-was-wrong-to-take-14-year-old-wife/
This is what she said that resonates with me:
"I've worked in a prison rehabilitating sex offenders. I'm well-versed in victim grooming patterns. These include establishing a relationship of trust (often with age/other authority), convincing victims that their proposal isn't wrong, and afterward ensuring that victims remain silent."
And that is EXACTLY what Joseph Smith did! And THIS is what infuriates me about the entire polygamy topic.
Relationship of Trust
Joseph Smith was in a position of authority—he was the leader of the Church, the mouthpiece of God, and his followers trusted him. They believed him when he said he had revelations from God and visits from angels. He was also a charismatic person, and people naturally followed him and wanted to be near him and to believe what he said.
Convincing victims that his proposal wasn't wrong
Here is the quote from the church's essay,
"When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates [the families of the girls he wanted to take as plural wives] that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully."An angel came with a drawn sword and threatened Joseph with destruction unless he took plural wives! That is complete and utter crap!! Joseph manipulated the members of the Church by using their belief that angels had come down to him in the past and given him instruction (i.e. the angel Moroni who directed him to the golden plates where the Book of Mormon originated) to convince them that this was another instance of heavenly messenger instruction. And the ones who believed him became his victims.
Ensuring that victims remain silent
From the essay regarding the early plural marriages in Nauvoo:
"Participants in these early plural marriages pledged to keep their involvement confidential... Nevertheless, rumors spread. A few men unscrupulously used these rumors to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized practice sometimes referred to as 'spiritual wifery'. When this was discovered, the men were cut off from the Church. [The key word here was "unauthorized"; it was a perfectly acceptable practice to the leaders of the Church as long as they were authorized by Joseph to do it. The Church has labeled these men as unscrupulous, but the practice was the same]. The rumors prompted members and leaders to issue carefully worded denials that denounced spiritual wifery and polygamy but were silent about what Joseph Smith and others saw as divinely 'celestial' plural marriage. The statements emphasized that the Church practiced no marital law other than monogamy while implicitly leaving open the possibility that individuals, under direction of God's living prophet, might do so."
The leaders of the Church lied to their members. Members heard rumors and wondered, "What's going on here? Are our leaders really practicing polygamy?" and the leaders of the Church flat-out lied to them and told them no. But they were sneaky about it. They said that the official doctrine of the Church was monogamy, and that's why so many people think polygamy started in Utah under Brigham Young, because that's the first time the leader of the Church came forward and publicly announced that it was a practice commanded by God. Joseph and his buddies practiced it quietly and he told the girls and their families to keep quiet about it, which many of them did.
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The question is: are the plural wives and fellow leaders of the Church considered victims? And my answer is yes, many of them were victims. I'm sure there were some women who were more than happy to have sex with the charismatic leader of their church and community. But look at what the Church's essay says regarding some of their reactions to the news of this "revelation from God":
Helen Mar Kimball (the 14-year-old): it was one of the "severest" trials of her life.
Heber C. Kimball: "I never felt more sorrowful. I wept days... I had a good wife. I was satisfied."
Brigham Young: "it was the first time in my life I had desired the grave."
Lucy Walker: "Every feeling of my soul revolted against it."
Zina Huntington Jacobs: "I made a greater sacrifice than to give my life, for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honorable woman."
To me, that absolutely says victim. These people knew in their hearts and souls that Joseph's proposal was wrong. But the article goes on to describe how these people came to terms with this "commandment" that was revealed to them: they prayed about it. And after days of weeping and praying, they all received personal revelation that this was a correct principle and that Joseph was right, and they moved forward with polygamy free of conscience.
But here's the thing about prayer: if you pray hard enough and pour out your heart long enough, you'll feel okay with anything. Your brain will eventually come up with a rationale to help you deal with what's been put in front of you, and religious people will interpret that as an answer from God (I'm speaking from personal experience here—that's how I was able to be okay with the early Church's practice of polygamy for so many years). These people believed Joseph was a prophet who spoke for God. They wanted to believe that he wouldn't ask of them something that was wrong. And sure enough, after much prayer, each one of them became okay with his proposal.
Those girls who didn't become victims were the ones whose parents saw through Joseph's lies and they left the Church because of it. I have absolute respect for those people because they saw Joseph for what he was: a sexual predator who was using his position as the leader of the Church to sexually prey on the girls and women of his church.
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Many people, including some of my family members, want to know why I have such strong feelings about this topic and why I'm making such a big deal about it. "It happened more than 170 years ago and right now polygamy isn't part of the Church; why are you so hung up on this?"
This is why: 1) it questions the validity of Joseph Smith as a prophet of God, and 2) it calls into question the validity of all of the Doctrine and Covenant revelations, which the Church is founded on.
1) Every four years when the Church studies the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history in church meetings, this scripture inevitably gets talked about, and I've heard it many times, "Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it." (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3). The Church puts Joseph Smith right below Jesus Christ in order of importance to the salvation of men! The Church glorifies Joseph Smith, it reverences him, and the leaders will forever sustain his revelations as from God Himself. But if people were to admit that Joseph made up the revelation on plural marriage to justify his pursuits to have sex with a bunch of women, then they would have to admit that the commandment wasn't really from God, despite the 37 times in that revelation that the speaker specifically refers to himself as the Lord (that in itself is a little telling—it comes across as the speaker trying really hard to convince the reader that he is who he says he is). And if that commandment wasn't really from God, then how many other commandments were also not from God? If they aren't God's commandments, then Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God and he was, instead, a conman.
2) The entire Doctrine and Covenants is now questionable, and that's the book of scripture that most of the LDS church is founded on. The way the Church is organized, the duties that the different leaders have, they're all spelled out in the Doctrine and Covenants as revelations directly from God to Joseph Smith. The very nature of God and the three Kingdoms of Glory (the Church's version of the afterlife) are spelled out in the Doctrine and Covenants. The Book of Mormon is the face of the Church—it's what missionaries hand out to people they want to convert to the Church, and Church leaders frequently encourage members to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. But I've never heard leaders tell members to gain a testimony of the Doctrine and Covenants. The Pearl of Great Price, sure, but not the Doctrine and Covenants, and that, more than any other book of LDS scripture, represents the LDS church. The only reason that the Church can claim it is God's true church is because of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. But if Joseph Smith made up the revelation about plural marriage, then it's quite likely that he made up much more than that, and that would mean the LDS church is not God's church-- it was Joseph Smith's church.
These are my reasons for feeling so much anger toward the early Church's practice of polygamy. I firmly believe that Joseph Smith used his power and authority as the leader of the Church to sexually prey on the girls and women of his congregation, and I'm furious that it worked so effectively. Kristy Money's article regarding the Church's essay has a different point to make; it wasn't to paint Joseph Smith as a sexual predator. But her description of the "victim grooming pattern" describes exactly what Joseph Smith did and the Church's own essay gives the evidence, and it's a much MUCH bigger deal than members would like to admit.
