This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Back when polygamous sects started appearing on reality TV and the FBI swooped in with a dramatic raid on that Texas compound, we thought the government would finally take care of the problem and we would stop hearing about polygamy. But instead the opposite happened. Suddenly, polygamy has become plastered on every newspaper in the country. Tom Hanks produced a top TV show about it. Today, the media does not mention ‘Mormon’ without some kind of reference to polygamy, like it’s an original sin we can’t get away from. It is there all the time.
This is a problem we desperatly need to confront as a community because it has gotten way out of hand. With most other groups of people, if they were treated this way by the media they would be outside the HBO studies protesting, but members of the Church don’t like to protest. Last time we went out protesting, we found our names on a California blacklist. With little push-back given, the media has pushed it and pushed it, and I believe they will continue to push it.
Search the term “Mormon” on Google and you get images goofy-looking white guys in sexual poses. Google links to Wikipedia, which is full of lies about members of the Church. (For example, the first Google search result for Cumorah is a Wikipedia article that pushes a blatantly-false hoax about an African island.) This is the impression people have of Mormons because this is what the entire media establishment portrays nonstop. There is no denying that the overwhelming media image of Mormons is false, dehumanizing, and extremely negative.
Our History With Polygamy
I don’t think these dehumanizing portrayals are random. Why polygamy? Well, the first reason is obvious: our history with it. Well, what about other religions that have practiced polygamy? Why don’t they get harassed about it? Plenty of other religions engaged in polygamy, but they didn’t have a huge army of American soldiers come crashing down on them because of it, did they? The federal US government started regulating marriage because of Mormon polygamy, and the Edmunds Act was passed to register all marriages and arrest suspected polygamists without evidence and without trial. Our ancestors were arrested, our ancestors’ wives were forced to testify against them, and their land was stolen because the government didn’t like their marriages. This horrible history has created great anxiety and taboo among Mormons and lingering bigotry in American society against Mormons. A quarter of all Americans think Mormons still endorse polygamy, while the truth is polls show more Mormons are against polygamy than the general public is.
There is also a general anxiety in America about sexuality. Movies and TV shows portray men as power-hungry brutes and women are doing whatever they can to survive this patriarchal landscape. Polygamy has come to symbolize the horrible things we are capable of. So when an average American watches a TLC show about polygamists, he wonders if it is possible to insatiate his lusts while sitting as leader of a nice traditional family with happy kids, and he quickly realizes that there is a dark underbelly to all of this that he needs to stay away from. Mormons come to symbolize this lust and dark underbelly.
Of course, the truth is completely opposite. Traditional Mormon communities are some of the safest places you can be. BYU experienced 1 rape in 2015, while UC Berkely saw their rape rate skyrocket from 2 rapes in 2012 to 15 rapes in 2016. You would think the media would be alarmed by this problem in UC Berkeley, right? Well, the Salt Lake Tribune received a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for their 2016 reporting on rape at BYU campus. Suddenly it’s a Mormon problem.
Mormonism is very positive for masculinity and femininity. Boys were, until recently at least, mentored by men in scouting programs where they learned discipline and skill, and women were counseled by women in a great environment. The media’s problem with this is boys and girls who are mentored by positive role models are less likely to purchase trash television shows, spend time on Instagram, and model their lives from Brad Pitt. How dare those Mormons think they know how to raise children better than the “village”?
Bad Associations
Responsibilities the church teaches boys:
The next problem is all of these small splinter-groups that call themselves Mormon. Most members of the church I know think it’s alright for them to use the name Mormon. After all, don’t they believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and the Book of Mormon to be the word of God? If they did, they would recognize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as the true church today, but to me this isn’t the main reason. What about the millions and millions of Muslims around the world who get a bad reputation because a tiny group of extremists do acts of terrorism? Is that fair? Many conservatives say mainstream Mulsims need to vocally denounce the extremists and distance themselves from them, but what about Mormons and these splinter-groups? Don’t we need to distance ourselves from them? I think in a way we are trying to have our cake and eat it too. We want to tolerate these people for recognizing pieces of the true gospel while condemning them for the attrocities that they commit.
They are apostates. That makes them no longer Mormon. When we talk about “apostates” we think of people who reject the gospel, but perhaps we need to be careful about our termonology there too. When I read in the scriptures about apostates, I don’t read about people who merely decided to lead a secular lifestyle. I read about people who persecutated the Saints and sacrificed their children to Moloch. We need to recognize merely becoming a disbeliever is not the same as becoming a polygamous cult. Apostasy is reaching the level where strong condemnation is appropriate. I am appalled and totally disgusted by Warren Jeffs and what his cult reportedly does, and I want no association with them whatsoever.
Heber C. Kimball prophesied in 1856: “The time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy to the people of God.” President Gordon B. Hinckley linked this prophesy to sexual sin: “We can oppose the tide of pornography and lasciviousness, which is destroying the very fiber of nations… We need not compromise. We must not compromise.” Indeed, why do we need to compromise? Why are we compromising our very name?
As well as bad associations, this weird insistence on including them as Mormons also invites all kinds of lies about our history and beliefs. These splinter-groups are behind most of the phony quotes and false narratives that Antimormons propagate. The RLDS placed a sign “Church of the Latter Day Saints” on the Kirtland temple to make it look like we keep changing the name of the church. RLDS Clark Braden pushed a fake quote to make it look like Martin Harris “had as much evidence for” Shaker scripture as the Book of Mormon. RLDS historian Richard Howard reportedly pushed the narrative that Oliver Cowdery used a divining rod. This Richard Howard also pushed the narrative that Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat to translate. The media is going to run with whatever tale these apostates come up with. After all, even we recognize them as “Mormons” don’t we?
Why do we keep including these people as “Mormon” so that they can spread lies about our history? It reminds me of Zeniff who sought to build associations with the Lamanites which led to his people being placed into bondage. I think we should seek civility with splinter-sects and be as peaceful as we can, but we are really hurting ourselves with all of these compromises. We also were charged a record $35 million for an early Church record they sold us. Do friends do this to friends?
‘Mormon’ Is Not A Category Like ‘Christian’
The problem with using Mormon as an umbrella term that includes many churches is that it replaces the term ‘Christian.’ On surveys and forms, we now see listed out “Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Mormon,” as if Mormon is not part of Christianity. It’s easy for us to say “Oh well, people just need to recognize Mormonism as a sub-category of Christianity” but, do they? I mean, should Mormonism be recognized as a sub-set of Christianity? Why do we need this category? When the Protestants split from Catholics way back in the Middle Ages, did Catholicism become a sub-category of Christianity? No, Protestants simply became known as a different church. They didn’t feel the need to keep the name Catholic. Do people ask Protestants about something a Catholic did? Do people ask Catholics about something a Protestant did? Then why do people ask me abot something they saw on an episode of Tom Hank’s show? And why do these splinter-sects feel the need to keep the name Mormon?
Mormonism is a Christian church. The RLDS, or know today as Community Of Christ, is a Christian church. The other splinter-sects are Christian, I suppose. It really weakens our position to tell Southern Baptist evangelicals we are Christian when we use the nickname of our church as a category parallel to the term Christian instead of as a Christian church.
It is easy for us to fall into the trap of reading about Mormonism on Wikipedia and believing that’s how we should treat our religion. But we need to stop getting our frame from Wikipedia! Wikipedia is not written by leaders of the church! Wikipedia is written by a bunch of pernicious Antimormons who hate us and want to destroy the church! That’s why they spread false rumors about us. Why are we following the frame of people who spread false rumors about us?
This is where I see the greatest wisdom behind President Nelson’s recent announcement to stop applying the term to ourselves. If we focus on using the full name of the church instead of the nickname Mormon, this will train us to stop treating the name Mormon as a category that equates us to the splinter-sects. It’s not that we are ashamed of the name Mormon or that we are running from it. It’s that we are taking control of the dehumanizing image that the media thrusts on us. Now, the media will continue to do what they do. They certainly won’t follow these guidelines. They will blame us for everything they can. They will lie about us, portray us in the worst ways they can imagine, and inspire as many Americans as they can to hate us. But if we can discipline ourselves to stop accepting their narratives and to stop associating ourselves with apostates, this will go a long way toward solving the problem. This was truly an inspired decision.