In 2011, the Sister Wives Blog started out as a place to talk about the TLC reality show "Sister Wives", Kody Brown and his wives Christine, Robyn, Meri and Janelle. Today we not only discuss the show, we discuss Polygamy in our society, and the public perceptions of the Mormon Religion. We discuss "Polygamy USA" and will be covering "My 5 Wives."
This blog is geared towards the adult reader, so please, no one under the age of 18 years. Thank you!
Let's preface this all with "allegedly" - it came from a VERIFIED SOURCE!!!
1 – How the Browns were picked to do TLC.
Apparently TLC expressed an interest in doing a documentary on polygamy, and they approached the Safety Net Committee. The Safety Net Committee chose several families which they thought presented a favorable polygamous marriage.
A questionnaire was sent out to 2000 polygamous families in Utah presenting potential families for the documentary series. The Browns received the majority of the votes, and thus they were presented to TLC as the model polygamous family.
2 - TLC is looking for another polygamous family from the Centennial Park community as they are not happy that the Brown women all want to live in separate houses. TLC wants everyone in one house, one big happy family, but that is not what the wives want. Apparently Kody is not happy that the wives all want separate houses as well. The Safety Net is considering who might be next for TLC.
3 - The rent for the houses in Las Vegas (6000-8000 dollars per month) is paid by the Browns, not TLC, rent is paid out of their earnings from the program. TLC wanted to have them all in one home, or TLC will seek out another family.
4 - Janelle is leaving Las Vegas and moving back to Utah because of her son's mental health issues, might be leaving Kody permanently. Son is distraught over move to Las Vegas and media exposure, is suicidal.
Let's keep Janelle and her son and all her children in our prayers!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a young girlie, I grew up in a small town in the North. Every county had the same churches, a Christian, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, and a Quaker Church. My knowledge consisted of knowing the Catholic Church and the Seventh Day were very different- different books, beliefs; but all were thought of as Christians. I’d say I had been to them all at some time or another. Not a dime’s worth a difference in any of them. Same practices, teachings, and rituals, like communion every Sunday. Oh, some may have used bread instead of the cool little crackers, or not played instruments, but, you get the point. Any major differences weren’t something that disagreed with the Bible. And we all used the same Bible. I was taught that it was a man’s heart and beliefs that God would look at. All were trying to be good Christians.
Since I was the youngest, I tended to stay out of the religious and political discussions at my house. My brother coming home from Cornell U in the 60’s thought he knew everything, and the discussions were lively. Maybe I should have listened more, but I was only 6. To the point of watching the show, “Sister Wives” the only facts I knew about Mormons was that the Osmond’s were, and that their LDS genealogy site was filled with mistakes. In other words, I was a Mormon “dummy”. I had no idea what their theologies were. I’ve been trying to learn about the Mormon religion ever since. It’s puzzling because everywhere you read, you get a different explanation.
Questions keeps popping up in my head.
WHAT do all Mormons believe, and why are the different churches of Mormons calling the other churches NOT Mormons?
Now, we know there are (and I assume more); LDS, FLDS, Independent Fundamentalists, Johnston Group, Kingston Group, I’m sure many others. The LDS, Latter Day Saints, quit practicing polygamy in 1890 for Utah to become a state. NOT because their religion really changed in any way. The rules changed. In fact, the Mormon religion was steeped high in polygamy.
Here’s some Basic Mormon Beliefs, Polygamist or not- that differ with Christianity that I didn’t know prior to the show:
1.Mormons can become gods and goddesses.
2.Goddesses will spend eternity in full submission to their god-husband.
3.Mormon women will give birth "forever and ever" to spirit-babies.
4.Mormon men can have multiple wives in heaven-eternal polygamy.
5.Heavenly Father is an exalted man who lives with his goddess wife, Heavenly Mother, on a planet near the great star Kolob.
6.American Indians are descendants of the wicked Lamanites, who were Israelites that God cursed with dark skin.
7.God the Father had sex with Mary to conceive Jesus, who is the half brother of Lucifer.
8.All Christian churches are an abomination.
9.Mormons need 4 secret handshakes to get into the Celestial heaven.
10. Joseph Smith revealed that the actual Garden of Eden is in Jackson County, Missouri.
11.The Mormon religion was founded in upstate New York in 1830, when Joseph Smith published a translation of writings he said he found and translated from Egyptian-style hieroglyphics into English. After publishing what he said was an English translation of the plates as the Book of Mormon, he organized branches of the Church of Christ, a church whose adherents were later called Latter Day Saints, Saints, or Mormons.
12.Joseph Smith had a revelation that men should be polygamists. (Someone is writing on Joseph, we’ll leave that for later).
13. You must wear the Special undergarments for protection and remembrance of your covenants, which have resemblances of free Masonry symbols. That’s enough for now, there’s many more!
All this was very hard for me to absorb, polygamy or no. Basically, Joseph Smith created a Mormon book, started the Mormon Church with these just a speck of his teachings, and had a revelation they should all practice polygamy to get to their planet and be gods.
When Polygamy was outlawed, the LDS church outlawed it also; hence, many splinter groups came into play that continued on with polygamy. Since it was at the very core of Smiths’ teachings, if you were going to ARGUE, you might say the practicing polygamists are the true Mormons.
HOWEVER, with Clowns like Warren Jeffs and the like, the LDS church is distancing themselves.
So, I looked around to see what a “Mormon” was defined as.
According to Wikipedia: TheMormonsare a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second great Awakening. Most Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints, (LDS Church), while a minority are members of Mormon Fundamentalistor other independent churches. Many Mormons are also either independent or non-practicing. Mormons are often associated with polygamy, although the majority of Mormons are now not.
BUT WAIT: That’s not what the LDS Church says:
Use of the Word Mormon in News Reports. In a Request to the News Media from the LDS Newsroom:
The Associated Press Stylebook has recognized this difficulty and specified that the term Mormon is a nickname that should be applied exclusively to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that it is not accurately applied to any other person or organization (see entries on “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The” and “Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”).
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recognizes that the prosecution of polygamist Warren Jeffs is generating substantial media coverage and that Jeffs’ group refers to its members as fundamentalist Mormons. That is causing problems for reporters trying to help their readers, viewers and listeners distinguish between Jeffs’ followers and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the public mind, the word Mormon has come to mean something very specific It has become a synonym for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Consequently, when Mormonis used to describe polygamist groups, it causes great confusion about our beliefs among the general public and frustration to our members.
Polygamists and polygamist organizations that occasionally make the news are not dissident wings of the Church or fundamentalists. They have no affiliation whatsoever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of their members have never had any association with the Church either. It follows that because Warren Jeffs is not affiliated with the Mormon Church, and since he is not Mormon, reporters should look for more accurate and less misleading descriptions of him in the media.
Nutshell: LDS wants the use of the name MORMON, and no other MORMON group should use it! It bothers them so much they put a press release out!
When I queried, I got some good responses:
“One way scholars have treated that is to refer to a broader “Mormon Movement” with all of the various sects, including the mainstream church, deriving from the religious movement spurred by the beliefs and writings of Joseph Smith. The mainstream church (LDS) clearly gets offended when the other sects call themselves “Mormon” because it has tried so hard to distance itself from its earlier more controversial beliefs and practices, not to mention from all that gets into the newspapers.
Also…"The word Mormon is loaded in arguable definitions and contexts but the original label as proclaimed by the brethren was to proudly differentiate themselves from Christians and choose a hero from the ‘Book of Mormon’ to give this new label a more distinctive separation.”
I am going to tick someone off, I'm really not trying to, it's just my humble viewpoint.
If you are following Joseph Smith and his teachings, you are a MORMON are you not? If you marry underage girls or not, if you practice polygamy or not, your still using the same basic teachings. Like with Christians, there’s good and bad in all Churches. LDS forgets they started out the same way. Kody calls himself an Independent Fundamentalist Mormon. The LDS would say he is not a Mormon. Confusing? Yep.
It reminds me of one of my favorite stories of Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches. Because the star-bellied Sneetches are being prejudicial to the plain-bellied Sneetches, a "fix-it-up chappie" named Sylvester McMonkey McBean appears and offers the Sneetches without stars a chance to have them by going through his Star-On Machine. Shows the reader that racism is not the way to go.
When my boys were little, I came home to find my husband and them all shirtless, with “stars upons thars”. It was the cutest thing I ever saw, I just wish I had taken a picture.
LDS, you shouldn’t be so stingy with the name. It applies to all that adhere to the teachings of Joseph Smith. Actually, the polygamists are following it more, so I say they can call themselves Mormons. There’s good and bad in every group. Don’t be a Sneetch!
If you refer back to my July 18th post, The Browns have said OVER AND OVER in the NEWS, PRINT, and on TV shows that they moved for Business Ventures, that Kody and the wives decided to move long before they did.
HOWEVER, after spending days pouring over Season 2, reminding myself how much I liked the Browns, but felt it hokey how they ran with a bunch of bad tires (again) (remember the trip to MT?) I've put together a few quotes and pictures from the show. So, did they move out of fear?
I started this blog because I liked the show. I liked the family, and probably sympathized with Meri. I don't pretend to agree with everything, but, the family seemed nice. Janelle has said on numerous occasions that she wished people would just ask HER the questions instead of talk about or around them.
Its ridiculous how many times you all said the terms police, investigation, fear, prosecution, the only way to keep the family together was to move, remind us of the raid of 1954, on and on. Rulon’s family was broken up and never got to see each other again… (is that even that true?)
WHY would you lead your viewers down such a empathy, sad filled, tear jerking path... when Christine so often tells us that you just want to show us what is real?? Was it a pre-planned ploy before this next legal move? Sympathy? What? You have confused the very people that keep you on the air, your viewers. A simple explanation would be nice.
SO WHAT WAS THE MOVE FOR, BUSINESS OR THE FEAR? You and TLC, we learned later had talked to the Attorney General’s Office, and they had told you no, they wouldn’t prosecute. Christine knows all of them well from all her AUB, Principal Voices, and Safety Network. We’ve now seen Kody in a video talking to the Attorney General at a Polygamy Summit. Sadly, however, I pray the kids were acting too, because if you fooled them for TV tears, shame on you.
WE WANT THE TRUTH, TELL US, FEAR OR FORTUNE? Remember Christine telling us she wanted us to see what was real. Show us REAL. Be Brave. Don't become a sitcom. We will like you all the more for it, it would show true character.
My Accumulation of Season 2, What I call, “Fear Fest” I apologize for the lack of form here, I meant to go through inch by inch, but it just took too much time. I think you all can remember and get the drift....
DRAMATIC BLACK SCREEN! Let me remind you, Christine’s exact words were… she wanted to be arrested, “bring it on.” The AUB conference in 2008.
How many times did we see the Lehi police cars? 20 - 30?
(Remember the girls walking to the gas station, where they called Christine in fear Ep10); In the scene, CHRISTINE fills us in on a little story about the picture above.….
“ASPYN texted today, she and MADISON were walking to the gas station, and I can hear Madison yelling, freaking out, going, there’s a sheriff, that’s been driving up and down our road.” (How can you text and hear? Anyway…)
*Christine Dramatically tells us “ That right there is why were moving. That right there.”
Does that not implicate they are moving for fear of prosecution?
*We were told, at least 15 times “When they prosecute the family, they break up the family”.
*Kody is under so much stress… heard that a bunch…..
*They had to pack p the kids and go to a cottage for Christmas, no easy undertaking ….”Leaving where there are no phones… under so much stress.”
* How many scenes were the Policeman in the driveway scaring them.?
Kody, Tearfully, “How do I protect my family?”
Robyn, “All the fear just makes you all on edge, all the more…”
Police siren goes by, be getting paranoid, we’re leaving under duress. Kody
*Remember Robyn saying she actually got mad at God? “Why are you letting this happen to us – god?” Please quit the persecution complex!
Janelle, even! That’s what got us, Janelle! We love Janelle! “I had the fear get to me, the children, our”… she has to stop WHEN have we seen Janelle cry?
Kody “Janelle’s scared to get a big truck because it will change the dynamic, the sheriff is dumb tapping his breaks, not because of the of the dogs, but because in Janelle’s head, there after us”.
“Police driving by again, see the trailer”
Christine, “We’re making decisions based on fear.”
Janelle, “I’m really concerned the sheriff and the Lehi police have been by.”
Christine… “The reason we decided to do this because we didn’t want our kids to live in fear like we lived in fear. And now, if we stay, we get broken up, and they raise their kids in fear. Just like we were raised in fear”.
And.......
Meri screaming “hurry up hurry up!” Police sirens wailing… they are all looking… THE DRAMA!
And the sobbing kids. I mean, if this didn’t get you up, nothing would. It tore me up to see them hurt. They fear their dad is going to jail, and according to what they’ve been told, they would never get to see each other again….
And Garrison, oh my, listen, I have several children. And if I saw one of my boys that tore up, I would of grabbed them right off that stage and said we're done! Do you think these poor children could act that? I don't.
The emotion is those kids were so REAL. I wonder how they felt when they heard…Oh, Kody wanted to move for years! I felt so sorry for them. Since many were starting their first year of regular school, only to be moved again 2nd semester. And Dayton, 4 moves, before this, geez. I could go on and on and on, but you remember. The Season was about fear and prosecution. Leaving Utah out of Fear.
Logan – “The scare factor, why are we moving, if we don’t, they could potentially split us up, which says, you have no choice but to move.”
Kody tells Christine she has a choice in moving. ROBYN, she has a choice just like all of us.
Maddie – “There’s the potential our dad could go to jail and our family split up.”
Aspyn - “We want to stay together.”
Logan – “The scare factor, why are we moving, if we don’t, they could potentially split us up, which says, you have no choice but to move.”
Kody tells Christine she has a choice in moving. ROBYN, she has a choice just like all of us.
Maddie – “There’s the potential our dad could go to jail and our family split up.”
Aspyn - “We want to stay together.”
Kody,”Inspite of the collateral damage, the kids, $$, he feels he knows what needs to happen”
Janelle says, “I don’t”
A scene where Christine sad, “I thought you wanted to move all along. Others stay still, Robyn and Meri shaking heads no. And you are excited to move and you don’t want to do this anymore?”
Kody “I ‘m doing that for the sake of leadership. If I don’t go optimistically, then”
Christine, “I didn’t know you didn’t want to move, and we’re just being optimistic.”
Hunter – “Stay, get separated, go away, stay together.”
“The main reason we’re moving to Vegas is to preserve our family” – KODY
“I don’t feel like this is what we’re supposed to do” – Christine.
Christine and Kody argue over it. It’s going to tear our family apart
KODY “Nobody wants to do it, everybody just sees the need to do it.”
And then there's the saddest one of all........
OOPS, I mean the happiest, he wanted to move for years! Which is it? Why the move?
Just re watch the first 40 seconds of this interview after looking at all these pictures and quotes. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
