Apologetics for Past Misunderstandings
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 2:16 am
Buffalo wrote:Here is more than you'll ever want or need to know about sexual history with the church -
http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/mormon_sex.htm
We must understand that people in a bygone era had different standards and values, especially if they were far removed from civilization and lived as Apostle George A. Smith called, "Mountain Common Law". We have our present standards and they had their past standards. We do not want to be enmeshed in pastism and they would not appreciate being held to our more confining codes of behavior.
19 Jar, 1851 - Utah legislature enacts law against "Sodomy" by "any man or boy," but removes sodomy from criminal code on 6 Mar. 1852, without explanation. As governor Brigham Young signs both laws. Due to absence of sodomy statue, Utah judge drops charges against soldier for raping LDS boy in 1864. Young claims Utah's legislators never criminalize sodomy and he declines to instruct them to do so for the next twelve years. Utah legislators criminalize sodomy in 1876 only because federally appointed governor asks them to adopt entire criminal code of California which has five-year imprisonment for sodomy. For next twenty years LDS judges give 3-6 months of imprisonment to those convicted of homosexual rape, the same sentencing given to young males and females convicted of consensual fornication. Mormons of this era give no known explanations for any of these legislative and juridical actions/inactions.
For instance, the above could simply be explained as Orin Porter Rockwell offering the alleged perp a unique alternative to being murdered.
8 Oct, 1854 - In what Apostle Wilford Woodruff describes as "the greatest sermon that ever was delivered to the Latter Day Saints since they have been a people," Brigham Young announces from the pulpit: "I believe in Sisters marrying brothers, and brothers having their sisters for Wives. Why? because we cannot do otherwise. There are none others for me to and the opposite idea has resulted from the ignorant and foolish traditions of the nations of the earth." Young's secretary George D. Watt has already married his own half sister as a plural wife. Her letter to Young shows that he was initially "unfavorable" toward allowing them to marry, but this sermon reveals theological basis for Young's authorizing Watt's brother-sister marriage and the three children born of their union.
President Brigham Young had probably learned through the Kirkland Egyptian Papers, that past Pharaohs were prime participants in this Brother-Sister coupling. Helped insure the royal bloodline and polydactyly.
So, you can see that there is a reasonable explanation for all of these "so called" peculiarities.