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Polygamy absolutely essential to godhood | A FAIR Analysis of: One Nation Under Gods, a work by author: Richard Abanes
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Above the law |
The Endowment House was taken down because:
There is no evidence, though, that leaders of the Church agreed to stop plural marriage at any point prior to the Manifesto, or that the Endowment House was taken down as part of a "deal" with the government.
This claim is misleading on a number of grounds.
Since June 1889 Wilford Woodruff had begun restricting the solemnization of plural marriages in Mexico. By September 1889, the First Presidency was also refusing to issue plural marriage recommends for Utah. However, marriages for which recommends had already been issued were performed as late as 2 October 1889.[1]:36
The First Presidency’s policy, which had been a matter of somewhat informal discussion among themselves, was first formally expressed to the Twelve on 2 October 1889:
Wilford Woodruff’s decision to restrain further plural marriage was a continuation of a policy initiated under President John Taylor, who had begun to restrict new marriages even while publicly refusing to back down to federal pressure.[1]:37[2]
Thus, the Jesperson marriage was the source of considerable negative publicity for the Church. As political pressure on the Church increased, and the anti-Mormon political party grew in strength for the Salt Lake City elections, the leaders of the Church wanted to increase the number of friendly voters within the city. "The need for work projects," to employ such workers "was one of the circumstances that led to the demolition of the old Endowment House, where polygamous marriages had reportedly taken place."[3]
As B. Carmon Hardy noted, however, the loss of the Endowment House was of little moment:
So, though leaders of the Church were attempting to be conciliatory by not performing marriages in the United States and refraining from teaching polygamy publicly, they had made no agreement with the U.S. government. Some leaders-—such as George Q. Cannon-—wanted to deny the specific charge about polygamy being practiced in Utah, without repudiating polygamy as a doctrine, or specifically promising to obey the U.S. laws forbidding plural marriage.[1]:42
Notes
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