Those of us who have followed the history of Masonry in Utah will take note that Grand Master Cook, the first Latter-day Saint ever elected to that office, quotes President Gordon Hinckley in his inaugural address.
Hell hath indeed frozen over. 
In my last blog post, I mentioned RLDS Conservatives Richard and Pamela Price, and their book Joseph Smith Fought Plural Marriage.
One interesting matter which they raise is their reported discovery of a court case brought by Chauncey Higbee against Joseph Smith (chapter 13 in their book). They reportedly found these in Nov 1962.
My friend and colleague, Greg Kearney, stated that he is a Democrat because that party is the best way to fulfill Deity’s mandate to care for the less fortunate and to work justice [See James 1:27 and other Scriptures]. Greg is right; too many of us tend to not want to “get involved”–the Kitty Genovese murder is eloquent illustration of the need to help others. The Democrats, of course, have rather detailed plans to achieve what Thomas Sowell calls, “cosmic justice.”
Introduction
Since Mike Parker’s blog post on plural marriage has garnered more comments than all our other threads combined, my keen market research skills have told me that polygamy posts are traffic gold.
One of my research interests at FAIR is plural marriage, and I’ve been reading as much of the primary and secondary literature as I can get my hands on.
I thought our readers might be interested in a periodic look at a few of the things that I’ve found interesting, weird, or different from the common portrayals of plural marriage. In particular, primary sources that may have been misread or misrepresented, are also worth looking at. I hope that readers will spot things that I haven’t, or correct some of my own blind spots.
I’ll try to post at least once or twice a week, until people get bored, I run out of material, or FAIR tells me to stop so this doesn’t become the All Plural Marriage, All the Time blog.
Here’s a wonderful example of the sort of unbiased media attention coming our way due to Mitt Romney’s White House bid:
In a front-page article the Asia Times, a fairly significant voice in Far East news, their reporter reviews the history and doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The primary source material appears to be an article on the Catholic.com apologetic web site entitled “The Wacky World of Joseph Smith,” and the infamous South Park episode “All About Mormons.”
Yes, someone has clearly done their homework.
In my Scripture study the other day, Jesus’ statement, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” [Matthew 7:12], brought the bygone incident I describe below to mind with incredible intensity. It is a shame that so many critics of the Church seem to have purged this verse in the Sermon on the Mount from their Bibles–and this is a very sad thing. Dates and other information are obscured here, to protect the guilty and the innocent.
Usually FAIR refrains from giving anti-Mormon critics free publicity, but Florida televangelist Bill Keller is so over-the-top that I can’t resist sharing his latest web site:
Last May Keller made headlines claiming, “If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!” The web site is his follow-up to that statement. (It even lists a “Judas Gallery” of Christians who have sold out to endorse Romney.)
Rarely is anti-Mormonism this much fun, outside of the likes of Ed Decker and Loftes Tryk.
Recently a question reached me as to how any Mormon could be a Democrat. Here is my reply to that question. -GMK
I have been a liberal, labor Democrat my entire life. I come from a long line of Democrats, and before that socialists (my grandfathers and grandmothers). I will attempt to answer your question, which has been posed to me quite often. Read the rest of this entry »