Tar & Feathers: Agnotology, Dissent, and Queer Mormon Polygamy

In 2014 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) updated their official website to include information about the polygamy/polyandry practiced by Joseph Smith, their founder and prophet, and his many wives. The admission by the LDS Church reconciles the tension between information that had become readily available online since the 1990s and church-sanctioned narratives that obscured Smith’s polygamy while concurrently focusing on the polygyny of Brigham Young, Smith’s successor. This paper entwines queer theory with Robert Proctor’s concept of agnotology—a term used to describe the epistemology of ignorance, to consider dissent from two interrelated perspectives: 1) how dissent from feminists and historians within the LDS Church challenged (mis)constructions of Mormon history, and; 2) how the Mormon practice of polygamy in the late nineteenth century dissented from Western sexual mores that conflated monogamy with Whiteness, democracy and social progression in the newly formed American Republic.

“Rather Than Recognize This Wretched Imposture”

This chapter focuses on Edward Everett, who was perturbed at the idea of Mormons getting their own territory or state under the name of Deseret. It recounts how Mormon leaders had petitioned Congress for admission as a state, with territorial status as a “plan B.” It also highlights the key source of Everett's consternation with the proposed name of “Deseret” and his overall suspicion toward religious zealotry and charismatic religious leaders. The chapter talks about Everett's letter of protest to his friend, John C. Winthrop, regarding the Mormon's request for statehood, which illuminates a formative moment in Utah and Mormon history and a crucial moment for the Whig persuasion. It also looks into Everett's constitutional concerns about accommodating the Mormons that stemmed from his lifelong sense of the sacredness of the Union.

Mormonism and White Supremacy

This book examines the role of white American Christianity in fostering and sustaining white supremacy. It draws from theology, critical race theory, and American religious history to make the argument that predominantly white Christian denominations have served as a venue for establishing white privilege and have conveyed to white believers a sense of moral innocence without requiring moral reckoning with the costs of anti-Black racism. To demonstrate these arguments, the book draws from Mormon history from the 1830s to the present, from an archive that includes speeches, historical documents, theological treatises, Sunday school curricula, and other documents of religious life.

This Is The Place!

The negotiations that took place in order to create the 1947 This Is The Place monument and secure the land on which it stands demonstrate church and state authorities’ attempts to construct place and memory in Utah. While portions of the monument confirm the narrative of the Latter-day Saints as part of God’s chosen people, other portions affirm Mormons as leaders in the civic life of Utah and the larger United States. The monument itself represents the tension and ultimate compromise between these two often competing narratives at a pivotal moment in Mormon history.

The Religious Micropolitics of White Over Black

White supremacy gains power through millions upon millions of micropolitical decisions that people who believe they are “white” make every day. The idea that being “white” was good and valuable took shape over time as people who believed they were “white” preferred one another’s interests over the interests of those who were non-“white” and so began to consolidate group power. This chapter introduces the micropolitics of white supremacy—the day-to-day choices and interactions through which whiteness assumes value. It investigates critical moments in nineteenth-century Mormon history when LDS Church leaders chose to privilege the interests of whites over the lives and concerns of African Americans, setting into place the micropolitical foundations for a fully institutionalized white supremacy.

Epilogue

This is a book about the foundations of Mormon authority, but it’s only the beginning of a long saga detailing the captivating story of Mormon priesthood. It has focused on what has traditionally been called the restoration of Mormon priesthood, which expanded further in the final years of Joseph Smith’s life. Stretching this volume a little beyond its intended scope, this epilogue will briefly open the door for the next phase of authority in Mormon history, tracing the development of Mormon liturgy in five key areas.