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LiberalNation
02-24-2007, 07:06 PM
The mud’s already starting to swing and it ain't even that close to election time yet. Who cares if his grandfather had more than 1 wife.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070224/ap_on_el_pr/romney_polygamy;_ylt=Age44d.vFDN0By9Ad_dHqA534T0D

SALT LAKE CITY - While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.

Romney's great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt's brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.

Romney's father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mormons fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued "The Manifesto" banning polygamy.

"When you read the family's history, you realize how important polygamy was to them," said Todd Compton, a Mormon and independent historian who wrote a book about the polygamous life of the church's founder, Joseph Smith. "They left America and started again as pioneers, after they had done it over and over again previously."

B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was "a very important part of Miles Park Romney's family."

Hardy added: "Now, very gradually, as you moved farther away from it, it became less a part of it. But during the time of Miles Park Romney, it was an essential principle of the Romney family life."

Other Mormons have run for the White House, including Romney's father in 1968 and Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, in 2000. But Mitt Romney's stature as a leading 2008 contender has renewed questions about his faith and its doctrines.

At the same time, polygamy remains a part of current events.

HBO is airing a television series, "Big Love," that features a man in Utah — where the Mormon church is based — with three wives. Self-proclaimed "Mormon fundamentalist" Warren Jeffs, formerly on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, is facing multiple felony charges for sex crimes related to underage marriages among members of his breakaway church's 10,000 members in Utah and Arizona, who openly practice polygamy.

Romney has joked about polygamy, saying in various settings that to him, "marriage is between a man and a woman ... and a woman and a woman." But in serious moments he has called the practice "bizarre" and noted his church excommunicates those who engage in it.

An introductory film played at his fundraisers and campaign appearances features his wife, Ann, talking about their 37-year marriage. Romney himself notes they started as high school sweethearts.

This month, Ann Romney tried a different tack, taking a lighthearted jab at her husband's main Republican competitors, Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as she introduced Romney at a Missouri GOP dinner.

The biggest difference between her husband and the other candidates, Ann Romney said, is that "he's had only one wife."

McCain has been married twice; Giuliani three times.

The Romney campaign had no comment for this story.

Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon church in 1830, quietly introduced polygamy. He believed it had roots in the Old Testament and was necessary to reach the highest salvation in heaven. Smith is believed to have had 33 wives.

Brigham Young expanded the practice after the church's migration from the Midwest to Utah, which began in 1846. He is said to have had 55 wives. Historical texts show Young also asked Orson Pratt to publicly proclaim the church's belief in polygamy in 1852.

In 1862, while Utah was a territory, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, banning plural marriage. In 1882, Congress also passed the Edmunds Act, an anti-polygamy law. That was followed in 1887 by the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which disincorporated the church and threatened to seize its nonreligious real estate as part of the crackdown on polygamy.

In 1890, Mormon President Wilford Woodruff issued "The Manifesto," in which he declared the church no longer taught or permitted plural marriages.

Nonetheless, the law of polygamy — Smith's revelation that God authorized polygamy — remains in Article 132 of the church's Doctrine and Covenants. In addition, Mormon widowers who remarry today believe they will live in eternity with their multiple wives.

Mormon genealogical records, among the most detailed and complete of any religion, show that two of Mitt Romney's great-great grandfathers, Miles Romney and Parley Pratt, had 12 wives each.

Compton, the polygamy scholar, disputes that. He believes Miles Romney only had one wife because the records do not show the dates for his other 11 marriages or any offspring from them.

Miles Romney and his one clearly documented wife, Elizabeth Gaskell, had 10 children. Among them was Miles Park Romney, one of Mitt Romney's great-grandfathers.

Miles Park Romney had five wives. With his first wife, Hannah Hood Hill, he had 11 children. Among them was Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney's paternal grandfather.

Hannah Hood Hill's autobiography offers an eyewitness account of the Romney family's polygamous past. Hardy, the Cal-State historian, found it amid research for his upcoming book, "Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy."

Hood Hill wrote of Miles Park Romney: "I felt that was more than I could endure, to have him divide his time and affections from me. I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a woman's heart ache, it is for her husband to take another wife. ... But I put my trust in my heavenly father, and prayed and pleaded with him to give me strength to bear this great trial."

Miles Park Romney's final marriage, to Emily Eyring Smith, came in 1897, more than six years after "The Manifesto."

Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney's grandfather, was not a polygamist. He married Anna Amelia Pratt, the daughter of polygamists and the granddaughter of Parley Pratt, the apostle with 12 wives. Their marriage took place Feb. 20, 1895, in Dublan, Mexico.

Gaskell Romney had moved to Mexico with his parents in 1884 amid the proliferation of U.S. laws prohibiting "unlawful cohabitation." Anna Pratt was born in Utah, but had emigrated to Mexico and lived in one of nine Mormon colonies established over the border.

Gaskell Romney and Anna Pratt had seven children, including George Wilcken Romney, the former Michigan governor. He lived with his parents in Mexico until 1912, when the family returned to the United States.

George Romney married Lenore LaFount, who does not appear to have polygamy in her family tree. The couple, now deceased, had four children, including Mitt Romney.

stephanie
02-24-2007, 07:13 PM
Well.....

No one can top Billy Clinton...

He got a blowjob while sitting at his desk in the Oval office, while he was married, and The President of the United States...

As well as having numerous extramarital affairs....

I wonder if he might of had more than one wife, while married to Shrillary????:eek:


:dance:

darin
02-24-2007, 07:42 PM
Who the hell cares? lol :) Libs LOVE bringing up stuff that doesn't matter, and making a case of it. :(

stephanie
02-24-2007, 07:49 PM
Who the hell cares? lol :) Libs LOVE bringing up stuff that doesn't matter, and making a case of it. :(

Really...
Their digging deep with this one....

Their going back what, 100yrs...:poke:

Abbey Marie
02-24-2007, 08:34 PM
:laugh2: Now we know which Republican candidate they are most worried about.

This is really grasping at:

http://www.tts-group.co.uk/Content/Files/images/legacy/thumbs/PDS.jpg

stephanie
02-24-2007, 08:39 PM
:laugh2: Now we know which Republican candidate they are most worried about.

This is really grasping at:

http://www.tts-group.co.uk/Content/Files/images/legacy/thumbs/PDS.jpg

:laugh2:

Abbey Marie
02-24-2007, 08:43 PM
Yet Robert KKK Byrd, who himself was a member of that illustrious group, not some long-ago ancestor, gets a pass. Go figure.

avatar4321
02-24-2007, 08:52 PM
Jesus Christ's family tree had polygamy branches as well. So what?

stephanie
02-24-2007, 08:56 PM
Yet Robert KKK Byrd, who himself was a member of that illustrious group, not some long-ago ancestor, gets a pass. Go figure.

You know it...He has all these yrs...
But then they'll come at you and say, people can change..
But yet, they trun around and write a hit peice like this...:lame2:

Hobbit
02-24-2007, 11:04 PM
Jesus Christ's family tree had polygamy branches as well. So what?

In fact, of the three women, besides Mary, mentioned in Jesus' geneology in the Bible:

Rahab: Prostitute and pagan who saw the might and faith of the Israelites, and thus betrayed her city to Hebrew spies in return for her life and that of her family.

Ruth: Pagan who violated Jewish purity laws by marrying into a Jewish family. Following the death of her husband, she journeyed with her mother-in-law back to Hebrew lands and became accepted into the Jewish tribes.

Tamar: Judah's daughter-in-law. Her husband, Er, was killed by God for his wickedness. His brother, Onan, was bound by duty to give his brother's widow a child, but he 'spilled his semen on the ground' when he slept with her, so he, too, was struck down. Judah offered to let her live at his house until his third son reached maturity, but she was afraid that he, too, would die. When she heard Judah was going to have his sheep sheared, she went to the city gate where he was going, and dressed herself as a prostitute (which included a face covering, so he could not recognize her). He hired her, and as collateral for payment (of one goat), he gave her his staff and seal with a cord. She was gone when he came back with payment, but three months later, when Tamar was found to be pregnant by prostitution, he was about to burn her to death when she presented him with the staff and seal. The pregnancy was twins, and one of them was an ancestor of Jesus.

And again I reiterate. The Bible is rated 'R.'

avatar4321
02-26-2007, 07:43 PM
I think Liberals are pretty darn scared of Governor Romney. Does anyone think that if he was a Democrat they would care if his great-great grandfather had more than one wife?

If you don't think so you might want to read this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=431908&in_page_id=1770

What do you know, Barrack Obama's Father married more than one woman... now why do you think the media is focused on Governor Romney's GG Grandfather and ignoring Barrack's father? hmmm... Why would they do that?