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Old 01-05-2009, 02:22 PM
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Saguaro Saguaro is offline
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Regarding the 95% number, I don't know if it's that high but there are certainly people in the church who do not know that Joseph practiced polygamy, my wife was one of them. She was raised in the church, very active, attended seminary, did all the right things, but did not know until about 8 months ago that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage, so she did some research and was shocked, it really rocked her testimony. I remember hearing something about it at one time, but never really gave it much thought or bothered to look into it.

Even if people do know about it, I would guess many don't know how and to what extent he practiced it. Details like marrying women who were already married, initially hiding it from Emma, marrying a girl as young as 14, claims of fathering children, etc. Those are things that we definately don't talk about at church, so people are only going to find out about them if they do independent research, and then they are often not prepared for what they find out. Rough Stone Rolling does a good job of addressing these and other issues.
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