Submitted by Tracy Hall Jr, Apr 28, 2007 16:33

>The Nauvoo Expositor was a local newspaper who published an article about Joseph Smith's polygamy.

Read it for yourself. Then decide.
http://homepage.mac.com/jhjenkins/LDS/expositr.txt

[Joseph Smith is ] "one of the blackest and basest scoundrels that has appeared upon the stage of human existence since the days of Nero, and Caligula."

"Let us arise in the majesty of our strength and sweep the influence of tyrants and miscreants from the face of the land, as with the breath of heaven."

The Expositor demanded revocation of the Nauvoo City Charter, which was the only defense against state-sponsored persecution. Consider Missouri Executive Order 44: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_Order

The Expositor also sent a coded signal to anti-Mormon vigilantes" [Smith seeks] "the utter destruction of the rights of the old citizens the county." "Rights of the old citizens" had been the rallying cry of the Missouri mobs.

The response of the Warsaw Signal speaks for itself: "War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!!—Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to ROB men of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. LET IT BE MADE WITH POWDER AND BALL!!!"
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL/sign1844.htm#0611

>Polygamy was the root reason that Mormons were run out of so many states.

Your logic eludes me, as the Expositor made the first public allegation of polygamy. No, the reason the Mormons were "run out of so many states" was religious bigotry, inflamed by ministers jealous of their flocks. They still rail against "sheep stealing" by Mormon "thieves and robbers."
http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/dean/11536256/

>It is strange that someone who is in jail under "protective custody" would have a weapon.

In light of events, it doesn't seem strange at all that Smith might not trust the governor's promise of protection. Ford wrote, "They [Joseph & Hyrum] were accordingly duly informed that if they surrendered they would be protected, and if not, the whole force of the State would be called out, if necessary, to compell their submission."
http://tinyurl.com/yw965n [short alias to long URL at rickgrunder.com]

The "weapon" was a small 6-shooter pepper-box pistol smuggled into the jail cell by a friend. With this they faced 200 black-faced militia, armed to the teeth!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith,_Jr.#Attack_by_the_mob

>Parry Pratt

You mean Parley Parker Pratt.

>was killed in Arkansas in 1857 after he married a woman who was already married.

Eleanor McLean considered herself divorced from the alcoholic and abusive man who stalked her across the country, seized her children by force, then stalked and murdered Parley P. Pratt. Read the facts. Then decide.
http://jared.pratt-family.org/parley_histories/parley-death-stephen-pratt.html

>http://www.septemberdawn.net/
>Watch the movie. Then decide.

No, read the facts, Then decide.
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=509

The Mountain Meadows Massacre is indeed the darkest blot on Mormon History. But this movie is a dark blot on Hollywood. Brigham Young "spared no horseflesh" trying to stop the massacre. No responsible historian thinks otherwise.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701908.html

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