Sunstone Magazine

One comment

1. July 29, 2016 at 12:40 PM

   Stacy Norton says:

   I’m the only active mormon in current existence (most likely) who is actively seeking marriage licenses for second wives. I have a profound story dealing with rageful opposition from bishops and stake presidents because of my testimony of section 132 and plural marriage. I’m not obscure but amazingly, most of the sunstone community has never heard of me OR the work I’m doing to bring marriage equality for 2nd wives. I have run facebook communities for years, including the well known page “Marriage Equality for Multi Wife Families.” I was HEAVILY intimidated by my bishop and stake president (and an unnamed member of the seventy who put the pressure on my stake president) for my page “Mormons Building Bridges with Polygamists” (though ironically never explicitly told to take it down). My newer page “Mormons for Free Speech on Plural Marriage” is possibly the most compelling for LDS audiences.

   So you’d think Sunstone would be begging me to come speak. {crickets}

   I recently ran as a Republican for the Utah state legislature against an entrenched big $ incumbent in West Jordan. No one expected my campaign to get anywhere, but I got tremendous support from delegates while I sat in their homes, and a surprising number of votes at convention, considering I was a total unknown to most people.

   There is absolutely no one inside or outside the LDS church other than myself, who has anything close to my experience or my understanding of plural marriage moving forward, specifically as it pertains to those INSIDE the lds church. No one takes anything close to my angle, or is even in the same universe of what I have experienced and what I know regarding this church’s actual doctrine of plural marriage, because no one, ESPECIALLY INSIDE THE CHURCH, has my specific motivation of an active mormon who RIGHT NOW, wants a marriage license for a second wife. SURE, lots of people talk about polygamy vis a vis mormonism, but worn out polygamy discussion is ALWAYS confined to this narrow box:

   1. People talking about mormon related polygamy are almost always from the FLDS perspective. Yea, it’s the largest organized group of polygamists, and a media favorite because of some of their flamboyance, but that group has been talked about endlessly. They’ve been given tons of endless media attention. They’re not forward thinking and don’t even want marriage licenses for their 2nd wives. Most religious mormon-esque polygamists don’t want marriage licenses either (as I have personally witnessed).

   2. People talking about mormon related polygamy are effectively NEVER looking forward to polygamy returning to the LDS church. They rarely come from the perspective of being a believer in the current LDS church as I do. I had my current bishop tell me, and I QUOTE: he would “lose his testimony and leave the church if polygamy ever came back.” This was an unhinged response to my question of what the church would do if a member obtained a LEGAL marriage license for a 2nd wife (he seemed to subconsciously know that a MEMBER with a legal marriage license for a second wife would mean the church would have to recognize plural marriage again, because GONE would be the ability to excommunicate polygamists for “breaking the law of the land” or even the law of chastity). I have actively recruited, encouraged, and even tried fundraising, for lawsuits to obtain marriage licenses for 2nd wives. I may end up suing the state of Utah myself for this very thing.

   3. People talking about mormon related polygamy are effectively never meshing the supreme court’s marriage ruling with this issue (because almost no one except myself wants marriage licenses for multi wife families<—a term I coined several years ago, and made it the name of my flagship facebook page).