by Anonymous | Jul 21, 2025 | Joseph Smith
Bottom Line:
Accusing Joseph Smith of sex trafficking is not just legally inaccurate — it’s historically reckless. His plural marriages were religious, not commercial. Women were not exchanged for money, nor held against their will. Even if modern audiences find 19th-century polygamy disturbing, it simply does not meet the criteria for sex trafficking under U.S. law. To equate the two trivializes real human trafficking — and erases the actual voices of the women involved.
| Podcast |
Mormon Stories |
| Episode |
“Did Joseph Smith Engage in Human Trafficking?” (Ep. 1794) |
| Title |
Did Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Qualify as Sex Trafficking? |
| Category |
Historical Polygamy / Legal Accusation |
| Quote |
“What we’re asking is a legitimate question: was Joseph Smith’s behavior in Nauvoo something that would qualify under today’s standards for human trafficking?” — John Dehlin, |
| Core Claim |
Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy, including recruiting converts from Europe and marrying young or vulnerable women, would qualify as sex trafficking under modern U.S. legal definitions. |
| Conclusion |
The Claim is False / Legally Misapplied |
| Logical Questions |
- Does Joseph Smith’s religious polygamy meet the legal elements of sex trafficking under U.S. federal law?
- Did the women he married describe themselves as coerced or trafficked?
- Are 19th-century marriages equivalent to modern criminal acts involving force, fraud, or commercial sex?
|
🔍 Core Rebuttal
⚖️ What Is Legally Considered Sex Trafficking?
According to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), sex trafficking requires:
- A commercial sex act;
- Obtained through force, fraud, or coercion;
- OR, if the person is under 18, any commercial sex act, regardless of coercion.
Critically, “commercial” means for monetary or financial benefit. Marriage — even with sex — does not qualify unless money, goods, or services are exchanged for the sexual activity (see DOJ TVPA Guidelines, 22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)).
“Though many modern scholars criticize polygamy on moral or ethical grounds, it does not meet the statutory definition of sex trafficking without clear evidence of commercial exchange or criminal coercion.”
— Mormoner.org
👨⚖️ What About “Spiritual Coercion”?
The panel claims that Joseph’s sealing proposals — especially promises of salvation — are equivalent to force or coercion under modern law. But this is a serious misapplication:
- Religious influence is not equivalent to legal force.
- The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly protected religious assent as voluntary, even when countercultural (Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990)).
Did Joseph Smith exert strong religious influence? Yes. But influence is not coercion unless backed by threat of violence or restraint — which no woman ever accused him of.
“He asked me to pray and get my own witness. I did, and I received a calm, sweet peace that never left me.”
— Lucy Walker, Affidavit, 1902 [source]
🔍 Were There Trafficking “Networks”?
The podcast suggests Joseph Smith orchestrated a trafficking operation through missionaries who “recruited” vulnerable European converts to Nauvoo under false pretenses. But that claim ignores several facts:
- Women traveled voluntarily as converts, not as sex slaves.
- The Nauvoo Expositor used trafficking rhetoric for political exposé, not legal accusation.
- There is no evidence that women were chained, sold, exchanged for money, or imprisoned — all required elements for trafficking cases.
Even critics like Todd Compton (In Sacred Loneliness) describe the relationships as emotionally and spiritually complex, not exploitative transactions.
🤝 What Did the Women Say?
The podcast repeatedly ignores the words of the women themselves:
- Zina Huntington described her sealing as divinely confirmed.
- Helen Mar Kimball later defended plural marriage as a revealed principle.
- Emily Partridge admitted to conjugal relations with Joseph, but never accused him of abuse.
Their full testimonies are preserved at JosephSmithsPolygamy.org and Mormoner.org.
📚 Sources
by Anonymous | Jul 21, 2025 | Joseph Smith
Bottom Line:
Framing Joseph Smith as a sexual predator using modern grooming standards is intellectually lazy and ethically dangerous. It imposes today’s moral frameworks on a world that operated by very different standards. The women involved were not passive victims—they were spiritual agents acting on faith, conviction, and choice. Their voices, not today’s trauma-informed speculation, deserve to be heard.
| Podcast |
Mormon Discussion Inc, |
| Episode |
“Predatory Techniques of Mormonism’s Prophet Joseph Smith” |
| Category |
Historical Polygamy / Abuse Allegation |
| Quote |
“We’re not here to cherry-pick… What we are doing is examining a pattern—a consistent, documented pattern of behavior… put side by side with what we know and understand about grooming, spiritual coercion, and predatory behavior.” — Bill Reel, 00:00:33 |
| Core Claim |
Joseph Smith’s plural marriages match the U.S. Department of Justice’s definitions of grooming, suggesting that he was a sexual predator who exploited vulnerable girls and women under the guise of revelation. |
| Conclusion |
The Claim is False / Conjecture |
| Logical Questions |
- Does Joseph Smith’s 19th-century polygamy fit a modern legal or psychological definition of grooming?
- Are there contemporaneous accusations of sexual predation by Joseph Smith from reliable sources?
- Can the spiritual convictions of Joseph’s plural wives be dismissed as coercion simply because they were young or vulnerable?
|
🔍 Core Findings
⚖️ Modern Definitions ≠ 19th-Century Religious Practice
The hosts conflate 21st-century legal definitions of grooming—which involve deception, secrecy, and predatory manipulation of minors—with religiously-motivated plural marriage in a 19th-century theocratic community. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, grooming includes isolating, gaining trust, and exploiting children for sexual purposes. While troubling if applied today, this framework cannot be reliably retrofitted to historical religious practices.
As Richard L. Bushman explains in Rough Stone Rolling, Joseph’s marriages were often “dynastic and symbolic” and did not resemble modern romantic or exploitative relationships (Bushman, p. 439). Moreover, the average age of marriage for women in frontier America hovered around 18–20, and marriage below that age, though rare, was not viewed as inherently abusive in that culture.
🧾 Testimony of the Women
Most of the women mentioned in the episode, including Lucy Walker, Helen Mar Kimball, Mary Elizabeth Rollins, and Zina Huntington, later testified publicly that their marriages were consensual, spiritual, and rooted in personal revelation. Lucy Walker wrote that after a personal struggle, she had a confirming spiritual experience:
“My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that I never knew before… I had a testimony for myself.” – Lucy Walker Autobiography
Helen Mar Kimball acknowledged the difficulty of the principle, but wrote of her trust in her father and her belief that Joseph was acting under divine direction (see her writings in Women of Mormondom and Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, Vol. 2, pp. 356–364).
To ignore or reinterpret these testimonies as purely coercive dismisses the actual experiences and religious convictions of these women — a double standard not typically applied to male pioneers of the same era.
📜 Late, Unverified, or Unbalanced Sources
Key accusations in the podcast rely heavily on retrospective affidavits or thirdhand summaries from decades after the events (e.g., Martha Brotherton, William Law). Martha’s affidavit, used to frame Joseph as physically coercive, was published by apostate John C. Bennett in History of the Saints (1842) — a highly polemical source. Even hostile contemporaries like Hyrum Smith and others noted contradictions in Brotherton’s story and that she changed her account (JSP, Church History Library, Minutes, 1842).
Other sources used include out-of-context diary snippets (e.g., William Clayton’s mentions of Flora Woodworth) that do not establish abuse or sexual intent (Hales, Vol. 1, pp. 405–415). Even Clayton’s own diary simply notes visits and gifts — not sexual acts or coercion.
👼 “Angel with the Drawn Sword” and Coercion
The angelic visitation motif (used by Joseph in his explanation of polygamy) is interpreted in the podcast as spiritual blackmail. But this ignores the religious logic of Joseph Smith’s worldview. The “angel with the drawn sword” appears years after he had already begun plural marriage, and was used to emphasize the divine urgency, not manipulate individual women.
As Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner testified: “He [Joseph] told me that he was afraid when the angel appeared to him three times and threatened to slay him if he did not go into plural marriage” (Lightner, 1905 address, cited in Hales, Vol. 1, p. 208).
This was not a line used individually to coerce women, but a private justification for the commandment’s divine origin. Most women, like Zina Huntington, agreed voluntarily after independent spiritual seeking (see Bushman, pp. 440–442).
🔐 Secrecy and Social Protection
The podcast equates Joseph’s denials of polygamy with manipulative secrecy. But denial was strategic. Polygamy in 1840s Illinois risked legal prosecution and mob violence. Brigham Young and other early leaders reported threats and violence even before public announcements. Keeping plural marriage secret was as much about protection as it was doctrine (see JSP, Nauvoo Legal Records, and Hales, Vol. 1, pp. 378–390).
📚 Sources
by Anonymous | Jul 21, 2025 | Video
Okay, real talk. Let’s clear something up.”
Mormon Stories loves to throw around the word cult when talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But let’s be honest—that’s not just wrong, it’s lazy.”
Cults trap people. The Church? You can leave. You can come back if you want. And transparency? The Church literally puts everything online—its teachings, financials, policies. Try finding that in an actual cult.”
It teaches you to get educated, be kind, serve your neighbors, and build strong families.
Mormon Stories Calling the Church a a cult constantly, is just emotionally loaded and intellectually cheap. Real cults don’t encourage you to think, grow, and love deeper. This one does.”
So if you’re out here trying to understand faith or just looking for through, don’t settle for slurs.
by Anonymous | Jul 20, 2025 | Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith Secrecy
Did Joseph Smith Use Secret Knowledge to Control His Followers?
Claim: Joseph Smith claimed exclusive access to God, withheld evidence like the plates and seer stone, and used it to manipulate his followers.
Reality: Historical evidence shows that 11 official witnesses saw or handled the gold plates, and many were aware of Joseph’s use of the seer stone. The Church has openly acknowledged these tools today. Read the witness testimonies here.
Prophetic authority, like that claimed by Joseph Smith, is consistent with biblical precedent. Leaders such as Moses, Elijah, and Paul also spoke as conduits of divine will, often calling for obedience through their revelations.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” — Matthew 7:16
Joseph Smith’s revelations were often public and recorded by scribes, later published in the Doctrine and Covenants—a pattern that reflects transparency, not manipulation.
Conclusion: The accusation that Joseph Smith used secrecy and withheld evidence to control his followers is not only incomplete, but deeply misleading when weighed against the historical record.
by Anonymous | Jul 20, 2025 | Uncategorized
Mormon Stories Podcast Claims “Church Courts Just for “Weeding Out Non-Followers”?
Claim from Episode 2027: Todd McCormick stated, “I think the whole point of this [church court system] is just to weed out people who don’t follow the prophet.”
The Real Purpose of Disciplinary Councils
This characterization is not only cynical—it’s incorrect. The Church’s membership councils (formerly called “disciplinary councils”) serve to help individuals repent, protect others from harm, and maintain the integrity of the gospel.
These decisions aren’t made lightly. They require love, inspiration, and discernment. Disagreeing with the prophet isn’t grounds for expulsion—open rebellion against Church teachings while misleading others is a different matter entirely.
The Guidelines Say Otherwise
Bottom line? If Church councils were about “weeding out,” we’d all be toast. Thank heavens for a gospel of patience and progress.
