polygamy

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I noticed a little while ago that the Church was so serious about actively spreading word that the LDS Church does not condone or practice polygamy that it was advertising the Newsroom.lds.org website.

Those same ads are still showing up in Google ads but they are now pointing to MormonsandPolygamy.org. It’s a one page site with a video of President Hinckley explaining the Church’s policy on polygamy, links to various resources, and tools to spread the word (including social bookmarking).

They even include a button to link the page that you can put on your own site.

Unfortunately, I can’t get the code to work for me right now. But I would recommend linking to it to boost its page-ranking and give it more notice in the search engines.

MORE: Thanks Bryce for the solution to fixing the code.

Sen. Reid continues push against FLDS

The Nevada Democrat requested and received the July 24 hearing before the committee, during which he will present evidence to support a federal crime investigation of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a spokesman said. . .

Reid contends that the FLDS are an organized crime syndicate that has engaged in bribery, extortion, fraud, embezzlement, witness tampering and labor violations. He wants the Justice Department to launch a federal racketeering investigation.

This has been a long-standing cause of concern for Sen. Reid. If crimes are committed, they should be investigated, but it only seems fair that they let the FLDS participate.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney and FLDS spokesman, said the Senate committee should give equal time at the hearing to sect members.

“The important point is if they really want to find out what is happening, they need to hear from both sides,” Parker said. “They cannot take at face value these accusations. A lot of them are unfounded and the people making them don’t know what they are talking about.”

Senator Gordon Smith is under fire for apparently comparing polygamy with same-sex marriage.

During a gay rights forum in Washington, D.C., Gordon was asked to reconcile his support of domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples while also supporting a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. . .

“Part of what I fear, as you start defining marriage — we have a long history of doing that in this country, and my Mormon pioneer ancestors were the victims of that. They were literally driven from the United States in the dead of winter for following their religious beliefs.”

“I don’t want that coming back,” Smith continued. “But there are some on the front pages of your newspapers who are trying to now.”

On Friday, Smith issued a statement reaffirmed [sic] his support of gay rights while clarifying his stand on the definition of marriage. “I have been a strong proponent of gay rights — such as domestic partner benefits, ENDA (anti-discrimination laws) and stronger prosecution of hate crimes,” the senator said, “but I oppose changes in the current definition of marriage.”

On Tuesday Smith apologized for mentioning polygamy in the discussion of gay rights. “If you’d grown up a Mormon, and spent your life trying to get out from the shadow of that legacy — it’s an emotional scar that you carry,” Smith told his home state paper. “I meant no offense by sharing that part of my history.”

I’m not sure what the Senator meant by injecting his “emotional scar” into the discussion. But at the same time I don’t understand why polygamy can’t be mentioned alongside same-sex marriage.

If same-sex marriage should be legal by what standard should polygamy be barred? I’m sure Sen. Smith didn’t mean it like this, but if homosexuality is the civil rights movement of our day, modeled after black civil rights, what’s to stop polygamists from doing the same?

How bad does the Church want to explain that LDS Mormons don’t practice polygamy?  

It’s placing Google ads linking to its Newsroom article explaining that “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reiterates that it has no affiliation whatsoever with any polygamous groups.”

I suppose it’s a cheap way to spread the message around.

(Who knows what the garments ad is all about).

It sounds like the Texas judge supervising the FLDS matter could not be more clueless or insensitive. After ruling that nursing mothers could not stay with their children, Judge Barbara Walther graciously allowed that the mothers could meet and pray with their children twice a day on the condition that they were supervised by an “appropriate religious person.”

Who is an “appropriate religious person”? Not anyone from their own church but the judge recommended someone from the “mainstream LDS Church” or another church! Understandably local LDS leaders are “baffled.”

Not content to break families apart, Judge Walther now seeks to manage the religious life of the FLDS. What authority does she have to determine who is an “appropriate religious person”? How much clearer does the LDS Church have to be that it has nothing to do with the FLDS? Hopefully the ACLU or someone will kindly help the judge to find a clue.

The Church practiced polygamy for some 70 years and for the next 110 it still can’t get rid of the stereotype. But there’s progress.

While most U.S. media has been pretty good at covering the Texas polygamy seige, the Church is not well pleased with a lot of the international coverage.

Elder M. Russell Ballard, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who oversees public affairs, said that the Church had noticed “a marked improvement” in the past few years in the way the news media has reported on the Church’s historical connection with polygamy. . .

But Elder Ballard said that Latter-day Saints are still offended when elementary mistakes are made in the news media or when printed or posted photographs fail to make the distinction between the Church and the polygamous groups.

“You would think that after over 100 years, media organizations would understand the difference,” he said. “You can’t blame the public for being confused when some of those reporting on these stories keep getting them wrong.”

Reuters notices this as well.

The Mormon faith — or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it is officially called — has a “fundamental” PR problem.

It may have renounced polygamy over a century ago but the breakaway sects which continue to practice plural marriage are the ones that often catch the public eye, leading to the popular misconception that all Mormon men have, or strive to have, more than one (often underage) wife.

It’s a good sign that the media is recognizing the problem, but how likely will the confusion ever go away?