How Can TTPers Help? — and Mormons and Monogamy

Jack F. Nicholson writes:

Jack, I read your article asking your Subscribers to volunteer help in any of a number of areas, and I happily volunteer because I believe so strongly in the principles and goals to which TTP is committed.

I have a large number of friends who, like me, are American Conservatives who despise the assault on our culture, politics and moral underpinnings that is so pervasive today…from the (Socialist) Democratic Party and their many allies in the Press, Academia, Foundations, and the hapless but dangerous U.N.

I regularly encourage my friends to look you up and subscribe to TTP. For a few very special friends I have given a subscription as a gift. Let me know other ways in which I can be of meaningful assistance to the TTP movement. This ‘game’ is too important to sit out. We can and will win the contest of ideas and values and return our great nation to the Constitution and all that the Framers meant it to enshrine, if and when an extraordinary number of ‘Joe’s and Mary’s’, of all backgrounds, faiths and colors get off their sofas and fight for what has been and continues to be (but under extreme assault) the greatest and most successful nation and way of life ever developed by men and women who acknowledged and trusted in God and who understood the dangers of excessive secular government.

Jack —

Thank you so much for this. I very much appreciate it.

Our new monthly rate makes it really easy for most anyone to subscribe. If you know of any websites or “blogs” whose readers would be in tune with To The Point, you could suggest that they link to us. That would be one way you could help — any way you can spread the word through the Internet, through the Web, through the “Blogosphere” that To The Point really is “The Oasis for Rational Conservatives.” Thanks once again, Jack…

Kurt Johns writes:

While I agree wholeheartedly with the full premise of the your article “PHM: The Next Insanity” (TTP, February 13, 2004) it contains a fallacy about the Mormon church. You said “Monogamy remains the basis for marriage — which is why we, along with most every culture this side of Mormons and Moslems, illegalize polygamy.” To let you know, Mormons also have outlawed polygamy for many decades. Here is a reference for you on where the church actually stands on the subject of marriage, the document is titled “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, and the full text can be referenced here:

http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Liahona/1996.htm/liahona%20june%201996.htm/the%20family%20a%20proclamation%20to%20the%20world.htm

Please note that it states in the opening paragraph “WE, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

“A man and a woman.” Singular. Those that deviate are not following the teachings of the church. Thank you for speaking out on a subject that concerns all of us.

Dear Kurt,

I in no way meant to disparage the Mormon religion. Polygamy has been a problem for the Mormon Church since its inception. Its founder, Joseph Smith, was reported to have dozens of wives. The best book on the subject is “Mormon Polygamy: A History” by Richard Van Wagoner (Signature Books, 1992). It is true that the Mormon Church suspended polygamy after the Supreme Court canceled the citizenship rights of polygamous Mormons in 1890. This was called The Great Accommodation whereby the solemnization of “plural marriage” was “suspended for an indefinite interval.”

Polygamy was not thus made illegal, only “suspended.” Further, note that the quote above solemnizes “marriage between a man and a woman,” but does not preclude plural marriage. The First Presidency needs to insert the word “only” in the text: proclaiming that “only marriage between a man and a woman” (or better: “marriage between one man and one woman only”) is ordained of God.

Thus many practicing Mormons, known as Mormon Fundamentalists, reject The Great Accommodation. Current estimates are that between 30,000 and 60,000 Mormons in Utah and elsewhere are in polygamous marriages. It is true that the leadership of the LDS Church has proclaimed such “fundamentalists” to be excommunicated and not “true” Mormons, while the fundamentalists believe the opposite.

The schism will perhaps not be resolved until the LDS leaders remove Joseph Smith’s revelation of July 12, 1843 sanctifying polygamy from the canonized Doctrines and Covenants, one of the four standard books of the Mormon Church.