"The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.” (Brigham Young, second president of the LDS Church, in Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 269, August 19, 1866).
“Polygamy is a divine institution. It has been handed down direct from God. The United States cannot abolish it.”
President/Prophet/Seer, John Taylor
Mitt Romney’s gender gap with women ultimately originates with his Mormon heritage as illustrated in the above quotation. Brigham Young was not only the second Mormon president, he was its Seer, Prophet, and Revelator. Just like the founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith, was a Seer, Prophet and Revelator. Both men claimed to have revelations giving them the privilege of having multiple sexual partners. Joseph Smith, Jr. claimed that having multiple wives was “the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth,” because it was absolutely essential to fulfilling a man’s destiny of being a God. President/Prophet/Seer John Taylor was adamant that polygamy must be everlasting when pressured by the federal government to abandon an “essential” of his faith. He claimed God spoke to him saying: “All commandments that I give must be obeyed unless they are revoked by me or by my authority and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant for I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated not done away with but they stand forever.” “I have not revoked this law nor will I for it is everlasting and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof, even so amen.” Thus, God’s spokesmen marshaled all the religious, social, and psychological resources imaginable to coerce Mormon women to accept polygamous marriages.
Even contemporary, official Mormon church sources explain that Mormons practice polygamy only because God commanded them to. Thus, the multiple wives of the first seven Mormon presidents, prophets, and revelators were indoctrinated that they must cooperate with their husbands quest for godhood and multiple wives--because God commanded it. Refusing obedience to God’s commands would destine them to hell. According to the Mormon church website, the revelations of these polygamous revelators supersede and augment the Bible. When asked why these men practiced polygamy, they respond: “At various times, the Lord has commanded His people to practice plural marriage. For example, He gave this command to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon (Doctrine and Covenants 132:1).” Doctrine and Covenants is part of the Mormon “Bible.” Thus, this is cited as the source of God’s commands, a “Thus saith the Lord.”
If you read D&C 132 (Doctrine and Covenants), you will discover the odd revelation that Joseph Smith, Jr. wrote out to convince his wife that she would go to hell if she did not “consent” to let him have multiple wives. Smith starts out by arguing that there is Old Testament precedent, (paraphrased and revised in D&C), for God commanding polygamy: “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law; and from Hagar sprang many people.” In other words, in Smith’s prophetic exegesis, polygamy was God’s idea, he commanded it, his command was “the law,” and Sarah obeyed. Smith also taught that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man,” that the “mind or the intelligence which man possesses is coequal with God himself (Smith’s King Follett Discourse).” Men are gods and God was once man. But to realize men’s divinity fully they had to be polygamous, create “many people” via celestial, eternal marriages who would populate planets, solar systems, and mini-universes over which the polygamous man would reign eternally as a local god, like the “God once man” now rules over our known universe. This is the point of Smith’s emphasis that “from Hagar sprang many people.”
Smith continues in D&C 132 to emphasize that far from being sinful, sexual intercourse with multiple wives is righteous! “Abraham received concubines, and they bore him children; and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” “David also received many wives and concubines, and also Solomon and Moses my servants, as also many others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this time; and in nothing did they sin (emphasis added).” “David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power.”
The “keys of this power” is critical. Joseph Smith conveniently had already received in previously revelations, and in this revelation, the authority to control the keys of power: the ability to decide which men should get which multiple wives. His believers and especially his wife had already acknowledged that God had given him divine authority; she could hardly back down on this. Therefore, if Joseph Smith, Jr. announced to her that God had given him a revelation that he should have multiple sexual partners, for a holy, celestial purpose, of course, she would have to accept it. Indeed, the historical context was that Seer Smith had already secretly been taking extra conjugal partners and was trying to convince his wife to consent. He and his brother hit upon the concept of a revelation directly specifically at Mrs. Smith commanding her to comply with Mr. Smith’s desires. God said, via prophet Smith, “let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those [additional nubile virgins] that have been given unto my servant Joseph.” “But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; [not saith Joseph Smith],for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.”
Eventually, most of the alpha males of the early Mormon used their god status to convince their first wives of their religious obligation to help their husbands develop their godhood into a more exalted godhood by taking additional wives who, when the patriarchs were between thirty-six and forty-five, were 19 years old on average. After all, "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.” Note that only men are becoming gods; the women are merely helpmates assisting them in their ascent.
Thus, an authoritarian patriarchy became firmly established in Mormonism that outlasted the “everlasting” divine command of polygamy. Mormon leaders preached: “If any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned (Brigham Young 1855).” “Celestial marriage,” a euphemism for multiple eternal wives, “is for the fullness of the glory of god, it is the crowning glory, a man has no right to one wife unless he is worthy of two.” Men who disregard the divine command to take multiple wives “are in the same situation as if they broke any other law, they are transgressors (Francis M. Lyman, president of the Quorum of the Twelve).” “Instead of a plurality of wives being a cause of sorrow to females, it is one of the greatest blessings of the last dispensation, it gives them the great privilege of being united to a righteous man (Apostle Orson Pratt).” “Unless that principle [of multiple wives] is observed and acted upon, you can proceed no further with the full fellowship of God (Prophet Joseph Smith to Apostle John Taylor).” Women blocking their husbands further ascent into godhood were seen as contemptible. Men allowing their first wives to prevent them from acquiring more wives, and the higher godhood concomitant with them, were viewed as wimps. Said Prophet and Seer Wilford Woodruff: “Any man who permits a woman to lead him and bind him down is but little account in the church and Kingdom of God.” Thus women were systematically brow-beaten with prophetic “Thus saith the Lords” and subjugated into a reflexive submission. Sarah D. Rich, wife of Apostle Charles C. Rich explained that she would never have participated in polygamy except that the Lord’s Prophets convinced her that it was “one principal of his [God’s] gospel once again restored to earth, that those holding the preasthood [sic] of heaven might by obeying this order attain to a higher glory in the eternal world.” And, of course, like in the Catholic Church, only males could hold the priesthood and the keys to loose and bind the divine order on earth as it is in heaven. Thus, male dominance was institutionalized; men were indoctrinated that they alone had certain priestly prerogatives. Women were inculcated that their men were literally the voice of God to them. In our continuing series on Mormon doctrines we will see how years after these revelations were given, male prophetic authority was used in the 1970s to quash independent Mormon women’s organizations and female leaders who lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment; how their financial and organizational resources were subjugated to male authority.
The divine right of kings was the ideology underlying the European monarchies. Mormon males are inculcated that they are literally gods now in the process of becoming even more exalted gods; they have a certain priesthood that has been endowed with the keys of power equivalent, if not greater, then the “keys of the kingdom” which the Vatican teaches that Christ confided to St. Peter and his successors, the infallible popes.
The women of 2012 can sense this male superiority that pervades, unquestioned and unquestionable, Mormon teaching and tradition. It is pervasive, both explicitly and implicitly, in a whole range of attitudes, actions, and positions of the Romney candidacy.
Romney's great grandfather, Miles Park Romney, was among the most fanatical polygamists who went so far as to exile themselves to Mexico specifically in order to continue to practice polygamy and an authoritarian priesthood aiming at attaining ever greater degrees of divinity via celestial marriages. It’s in his spiritual blood.
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