How old were you when you first learned JS practiced polyandry?

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Yes, he was. But it was only after years of repeated adultery. It wasn't just a one time oops for Carrington.

Was this common knowledge amongst the Twelve/First Presidency?

[Sleeping in EQ]

This is from Quinn. I can check Quinn's source when I get home.

15 Jan, 1897 - Apostle Brigham Young Jr. temporarily resigns as vice-president of Brigham Young Trust Co. because first counselor George Q. Cannon allows its property to become "a first class" brothel on Commercial Street (now Regent Street), Salt Lake City. Apostle Heber J. Grant is invited to its opening reception and is stunned to discover himself inside "a regular whore-house." This situation begins in 1891 and for fifty years church-owned and controlled real estate companies lease houses of prostitution.

[Detroitdad]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

and the Lord permitted the Church to own a brothel for decades.



and...

Talk about diversification. Of course there is the public health aspect as well.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Was this common knowledge amongst the Twelve/First Presidency?

Probably.

Elder John Henry Smith reported it to Pres. John Taylor. One of Joseph F. Smith's wives reported it to her husband. There were inquiries in 1873 and 1883.

[Detroitdad]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

This is from Quinn. I can check Quinn's source when I get home.

15 Jan, 1897 - Apostle Brigham Young Jr. temporarily resigns as vice-president of Brigham Young Trust Co. because first counselor George Q. Cannon allows its property to become "a first class" brothel on Commercial Street (now Regent Street), Salt Lake City. Apostle Heber J. Grant is invited to its opening reception and is stunned to discover himself inside "a regular whore-house." This situation begins in 1891 and for fifty years church-owned and controlled real estate companies lease houses of prostitution.

I wonder how Joe and Chris Cannon feel about this little tidbit about their famous ancestor. If true, of course.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

I'm just curious how you, Santos and whomever else can feel so certain that God just threw up his hands and let Joseph Smith et al commit what has been termed in scripture the most grevious sin next to murder without direct intervention for so long when there is no recorded precedent for God doing so in the past?

There is no historical/scriptural precedent.

We have ample historical/scriptural precedent indicating the exact opposite, however. We have the story of Joseph Smith pleading with God to let Martin Harris have the 116 pages, despite being told "no" twice and when Martin Harris lost the pages, Joseph Smith lost his ability to translate the plates for a season. That incident is a mere trifle compared to mass adultery in the grand scheme of things.

The assertion that God somehow just let 'Joseph do what Joseph got to do' is unfathomably intellectually and scripturally incongruous.

I don't feel so certain about it. It's just one possible explanation for what occurred, and to me it's the easiest, most logical, so I'm going with it for now.

I also wouldn't term it mass adultery.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Carrington was excommunicated. I don't know who the General Primary President was that was a lesbian, but did they escape disciplinary action?

As far as I know, Louise Felt and her 1st Counselor, May Anderson, were never subjected to Church discipline.

[Goatnapper'96]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

As far as I know, Louise Felt and her 1st Counselor, May Anderson, were never subjected to Church discipline.

This story gets better...Louise Felt what? Get it? I kill me!

[UtahDan]

As Drum said, we come from Polygamous stock so that we practiced it was never a foreign concept. But I think that Arch is asking a different more specific question than just when we learned of polygamy.

As I say, I had always know of it generally. The first exposure I had to what I think Arch is referring to was in a "Mormon" section of a Barnes and Noble in SLC which I was perusing when I came upon Quinn's The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. I just sat and read a little and was fascinated by a lot of the details of history I had not encountered before. This must have been 1996. I bought the book and while I was skeptical of some of what Quinn claimed, he seemed well documented.

This book introduced me simultaneously to the ideas that (1) Joseph had many wives, some of whom were already married and (2) that this fact was not only not readily acknowledged at the time or subsequently, but was in fact strenously denied. As I have learned more about this over the years, that it occurred seems indisputable, but the particulars (were they all sexual relationships for example) are very ellusive and probably unknowable.

Much more interesting to me than that issue was the idea that there was a succession "crisis", that there were many who asserted plausible claims to leadership and that it was three years before Brigham Young began to refer to himself as president of the church. Also interesting that John Taylor did not become president of the church until three years after Brigham died.

I don't fault the church for streamlining some of this for purposes of presentation. But it is a bit like saying that the 13 Colonies were controlled by King George, III and that when they became the United States of America that we had a president instead of a King. If this was all you knew, and then someone handed you a copy of the Federalist Papers, or a Thomas Payne pamphlet or General Washington's journal from Valley Forge, you might be forgiven for thinking that all the most interesting parts had been left out.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Detroitdad

Talk about diversification. Of course there is the public health aspect as well.

If you can't beat them, join them. One nice thing about it though, we leased only "first class brothels." Good thing it was first rate. Hate to have seedy joints down there.

And SLC bankers financed many of the Strip properties in Vegas.

Hmmm.