Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyFebruary 7th, 2012
A Mormon family with two wives and nine children, about 1889
The LDS Church has responded to the Prop 8 ruling:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice determined in a general election that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We have always had that view. [Emphasis mine.]
Ahem.
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Roger Klorese
February 7th, 2012
Well, to be fair, they always HAVE believed that a marriage is between a man and a woman.
They’ve just believed that a man can have more than one of them at a time…
TN
February 8th, 2012
It boggles my mind how undoubtedly smart people think that it’s OK to have tyranny of the majority. What if we had had a vote on Mormon’s existence in 1850? There would’ve been no more Mormon church in the United States.
Gus
February 8th, 2012
Funny how they think they can ‘reject’ the law and the Consitution.
Jonathan Justice
February 8th, 2012
While we are looking at the somewhat delirious effort to continue privileging heterosexual marriage it is more than a little important to recognize that what the familial aggregation pictured here is about is child labor. Whatever metaphysical benefits may accrue to the “faithful” adults pictured, we may be pretty sure that each of the surviving children is going to contribute a decade or considerable labor to the familial enterprise before they go rocketing off to take charge of a similar aggregation of their own. Middle class people were already working to reduce the numbers of children they bore because they recognized that handing down middle class life required privileging children rather than exploiting them. Louisa May Alcott’s children’s novels were full of smaller families, cooperative child care, diligent study, and serious expectations of going to college years before the picture was taken.
TampaZeke
February 8th, 2012
How many wives did Brigham Young have?
Oh yeah, 27!
Richard Rush
February 8th, 2012
I think it’s reasonable to assume that marriage between one man and multiple simultaneous wives would still be practiced among Mormons if it had not been for external pressures to conform to the one-wife-at-a-time demands of the conventional Christian majority. If Mormons really believed all the other church teachings, starting with the tale of the gold plates, why else would polygamy have been abandoned?
I suppose their thinking is that if Mormons had to conform to the will of the majority, then everyone must.
Reed Boyer
February 8th, 2012
“Always?” Perhaps in some alternate universe, with time lords and TARDISes. Or perhaps “always” isn’t as eternal as it used to be.
andrewdb
February 8th, 2012
Everyone talks about the Mormons, but Martin Luther had some interesting opinions on bigamy too, which is really interesting when you consider that Michelle Bachmann is a member of the conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_I,_Landgrave_of_Hesse#Bigamous_Marriage
Claire Vinet
February 8th, 2012
This response of righteous indignation from the people who wrote the book on alternative marriage just amazes me. These people need to mind their sacred underwear and stop trying to trample on the rights of others.
PLAINTOM
February 8th, 2012
Mitt Romney’s grandfather must be rolling in his grave surrounded by his multiple wives.
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