New, positive reader reviews

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby
strikes down Utah's (un)constitutional
same-sex marriage ban
(Be sure to check out the cartoon below)

In response to both, we urge you to click here or on the thumbnail image at right to see Pat Bagley’s new cartoon in The Salt Lake Tribune. Moreover, we cannot help but wonder: aren’t Mormon officials and Governor Herbert violating Utah’s anti-sodomy laws by walking around with a stick up their butt?

Click image to view

The LDS (Mormon) Church officially
ended polygamy in 1890.

Which just officially changed.

“In 1890, the Lord inspired Church President Wilford Woodruff to issue a statement that led to the end of the practice of plural marriage in the Church. In this statement, known as the Manifesto, President Woodruff declared his intention to abide by U.S. law forbidding plural marriage and to use his influence to convince members of the Church to do likewise.”

“We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.”

“After the Manifesto, monogamy was advocated in the Church both over the pulpit and through the press. On an exceptional basis, some new plural marriages were performed between 1890 and 1904, especially in Mexico and Canada, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law; a small number of plural marriages were performed within the United States during those years.”

The United States outlawed polygamy in 1862. Three years later, a few Mormon families would flee to Juarez, Mexico, where they could practice polygamy prosecution-free and remain in full fellowship with the mainstream Mormon Church. The polygamous emigrants’ leaders included Helaman Pratt, who surely never dreamed that half a century later his descendants would return to the United States, where eventually grandson George W. Romney and great-grandson Mitt Romney would become prominent politicians and Republican presidential candidates.

But the vast majority of Mormons remained in Utah Territory, where the Mormon Church ceased practicing polygamy in 1890—officially, anyway. In reality, the church looked the other way while phasing out polygamy over the next several decades. Ever since, rogue groups have been breaking away and reinstating it.

In 1993, my husband and I joined one of them ...

U.S. District Court judge rules Utah’s
anti-polgyamy law unconstitutional

Yesterday U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups issued a 91-page ruling in which he found key parts of Utah’s polygamy ban unconstitutional. Polygamist Kody Brown and wives of Sister Wives fame had brought the case before the court. Specifically, Waddoups ruled that the state cannot ban cohabitation, which includes “religious cohabitation.” Waddoups also distinguished between marrying and purporting to marry, thus steering clear of opining as to whether or not a state must issue multiple marriage licenses. Readers of this blog and of our book “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass are well aware of Utah’s historical, back-and-forth love-hate relationship with polygamy. Surely more back-and-forth is to come, so stay tuned. Click here and here and here to read The Salt Lake Tribune’s reports on the ruling.

Kody Brown and wives aka “religious cohabitators” U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups

Mormon Church blames racist
policy on Brigham Young

All his fault? Hardly.

BookBusiness features
“It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon 
Ex-Polygamist Ex-Wife