The Mormons are fascinating for many reasons and highly skilled at building a certain kind of American community. One of the things they are best at is spinning their clean scrubbed version of history, which as with many groups has as many despicable acts as heroic ones. They were indeed quite persecuted on their flight across the continent, but that traumatic origin story doesn't justify to me some of the less attractive aspects of modern day LDS culture. Some interesting reading:
All this somewhat strained perfection does have a cost, however. Utah leads the nation in rates of anti-depressant use and several types of cosmetic surgery. [1]
“[Mormons] are just the worst type of people, from what I’ve experienced and what other people have also experienced.”
Can you imagine that being printed about any other minority in any serious publication? This article was published days ago and I’m still in awe at that line. (From the second link)
What I can’t imagine is your comment to be in good faith.
The quote is from the Mormon girl, specifically referring to the “Mormon church” as opposed to your “[Mormons]”, in the context of all informed officials of said church deliberately having allowed her and her infant sister to be raped for seven years, by explicit written church policy according to the article.
If your takeaway from that was that printing the quote is offensive to Mormons, mine would be that you are either trolling, reading below the article’s grade level, or morally in support of the church’s decisions.
The persecution was also rooted in the cult's founder, Joseph Smith, having a thing for "seducing" young girls (14 year olds and even younger) and attempting to add them to his collection of 40 odd wives.
His creepy heavenly-sanctioned pedophilic actions and vibe were not well-received by outsiders.
The 14 year old you are referring to is my 3rd great grandmother, Helen Mar Kimball. Her personal journals and her other writings don't agree with your characterization of what took place.
I've gotten used to her being defamed, but it still bothers me.
If you are interested in what actually transpired: Her father, Heber Kimball offered Helen to be sealed to Joseph, to create a spiritual link between the Kimball family and the Smith family. Helen understood it to be like a spiritual betrothal. Nothing much changed about her life after the sealing. She still lived at home with her parents, she went to school and did chores.
She later married Horace Whitney, my 3rd great grandfather, when she was 18 years old and had 11 children with him! She was the first of three wives.
Yes, my great grandparents were polygamists. You can call that strange if you want, but stop defaming her or spreading lies that she was "seduced" or taken advantage of by anyone. Use someone else to disparage Joseph Smith.
Somehow those blessed with being a "prophet" throughout the millennia are always instructed to have sex with young women/girls because the path to heaven is always in their pants. Funny how religion works across the ages.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/18/us/latter-day-saints-charity-...
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/years-sex-abuse-mo...
https://religionnews.com/2017/06/20/10-reasons-mormons-domin...
All this somewhat strained perfection does have a cost, however. Utah leads the nation in rates of anti-depressant use and several types of cosmetic surgery. [1]
1. https://www.healthresearchpolicy.org/top-3-most-requested-co...