READER RESPONSE TO THIS ARTICLE

READER RESEARCHES MORMON WEB SITES

Dear editors: Wow, its obvious that Charlotte Haven was no Mormon lover! While doing some online reading about the church I ran across a passage which described a visit to Saco, Maine, by church leader Brigham Young, prior to Charlotte's visit to Nauvoo. I wonder if Charlotte could have made an initial contact with church members at that time?

I just visited the Mormon church's web site which says, " Today church members honor and respect the sacrifices made by those who practiced polygamy in the early days of the church. However the practice is outlawed in the church, and no person can practice plural marriage and remain a member. The standard doctrine of the church is monogamy…" It  then goes on to quote the relevant passages in the  "Book of Mormon."

The church also makes the distinction that original church policy, proscribing monogamy, as written in that book, predated the actual practice of polygamy by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, who had supposedly received the idea from God in a revelation.  Subsequent church leaders received additional revelation that polygamy was actually against God's wishes, and so the president of the church in 1890, Wilfred Woodruff, "issued what has come to be known as the 'Manifesto," a written declaration to Church members and the public at large that stopped the practice of plural marriage."

The web site also states that "polygamists and polygamist organizations in the western  United States and Canada" sometimes have the nickname "mormon" applied to them though "they have no affiliation whatsoever with the Church."
Thanks for some interesting reading!
Ryan Thomson