K-TALK
LDS Apologist Van Hale on Polygamy
Van Hale hosts his own Salt Lake area radio program called "Mormon Miscellaneous."
On August 21st, 2005 Mr. Hale discussed Josph Smith's polygamy and defended
his earlier statement that sexual access was not the reason for it.
Transcript
of Van Hale's Explanation for his Statement regarding Joseph Smith's
Polygamy
Van Hale Radio Show August 21, 2005 (First 13 minutes)
(Pretty close to verbatim)
Van Hale:
I’m not going to pursue any particular subject. I may, if I have
the opportunity, go back to a little (he chuckles) a little –
I don’t know what you’d call it - it’s not an exchange
but a peculiar situation that has to do with a person by the name of
Randy Jordan who is responding to someone whom he calls Van Hale. It’s
not myself, obviously, because he can’t get any of my beliefs
correct so I don’t know, he’s, he’s talking about
somebody else.
I think he thinks that he is talking about me but if you are addressing
yourself to a person’s point of view, as he insists that he is
doing, and you don’t believe what the person’s written,
you don’t, you’ve never talked with him about his ideas,
you don’t listen to this broadcast and proceed with comments and
arguments and claim to be addressing yourself in criticism and debate
with Van Hale and yet you are hiding out somewhere where there is not
allowed an actual discussion between two individuals, it’s hard
for me really to begin to understand that kind of approach. But anyway,
that’s his approach. He claims he’s addressing himself to
me but he obviously, from his lengthy comments I have, oh let’s
see, what do I have that he’s posted recently. I have five, eight,
eleven pages in which he’s attacking my point of view and yet
he doesn’t address himself really to anything that I believe.
So I guess maybe what I will do is read to you a couple of comments.
The subject of polygamy just simply isn’t going to go away. There’s
no sense thinking that it’s going to. It’s probably discussed
as much now as it was 10 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago.
It comes up all the time. There are many books being written and articles
being written on the subject and of course, a tremendous amount that
is being discussed on the Internet on the subject.
I am going to just take a look at one of these little items that I
was referring to. This is a post of Randy Jordan on exmormon.com on
July 17, so it’s not too long ago. And... he makes this comment.
He says, “Hale said on his show a few months ago, paraphrasing...”
(Hale interjects: That’s interesting that this is a paraphrase)
(continues reading Randy’s post) “... that he had studied
Joseph Smith’s polygamy practice for many years and he had found
no evidence that polygamy served to provide Smith with increased sexual
opportunities. Hale’s attitude flies in the face of documentation
of many of Smith’s closest friends and disciples which has been
detailed by such LDS historians as Todd Compton and Richard Van Wagoner.
Since many of Smith’s close loyal associates as well as many of
his former plural wives testified that those relationships were sexual,
Hale is simply in intellectual denial of the facts regarding excerpts
from Compton’s research.”
(Van Hale):
Well, Todd Compton, I have, of course, talked with him, talked about
his work, quoted from it, cited from it many, many times over the last
several years and his book is certainly a significant contribution to
the discussion and research in the field of Mormon polygamy, particularly
that that was practiced in the early days and was initiated by Joseph
Smith but Randy substantially misstates my position. I have never made
any assertion of any sort that I had found no evidence that polygamy
served to provide Joseph Smith with increased sexual opportunities.
What is clear in looking at polygamy throughout Mormon history is there
are, there is a predominant point of view among those who are non-LDS
and those who are ex-Mormons, and I am referring to those that are,
like Randy Jordan, talking about the subject on such sites as exmormon.org
and other numerous sites on the Internet but the position being taken
is that Joseph Smith was some kind of a sexual addict or, and that is
a term that I am, uh, that Randy Jordan uses in his. He says, he says
this: (reading from one of Randy’s posts):
“Hale knows that if he admits that Joseph Smith was a sexual
addict that reflects poorly on Smith’s character and his alleged
prophethood so Hale’s tactic is to reject or downplay the information
so that he can maintain his testimony.”
(Van Hale):
It’s interesting that this Randy Jordan seems to be such an expert
on Van Hale, whom he doesn’t listen to and hasn’t read any
of his, anything he’s written. He seems to be such an expert on
Van Hale that he knows what Van Hale thinks. Well, I’m Van Hale
and I’m just simply saying he’s not talking about me. He
can’t be because he isn’t accurately presenting what I believe
or think so he’s either talking about another Van Hale or he just
simply, for some reason, is determined to twist and distort and fabricate
things and present these things as being the thinking of Van Hale and
then proceeds to attack these and say such things as that Van Hale doesn’t,
is, uh, well, let me see if I can pick out some words here. He’s
basically saying that I don’t know anything about polygamy and
that I’m trying to cover up things. He says, he refers to my view
of polygamy as a Pollyanna type view of polygamy.
But the point that I wanted to make here is, on this is that you basically
have this idea just prevalent throughout the 19th Century, it’s
certainly prevalent today, that Joseph Smith initiated polygamy for
the purpose of providing, that it was solely for the purpose of extending
his opportunity for sex, that that’s what it was about and my
point that I had made some time back that is being twisted and distorted
is that you go back through LDS history and you look at the revelation
in Section 132, look at the letter that Joseph Smith wrote to Nancy
Ridgdon on, explaining plural marriage. You look at all of the numerous
sermons and articles and things that were written during the polygamy
period of the 1900s and you simply cannot find anywhere in there in
which any of the LDS perspective being presented by, ties into this
or buys this idea, buys into this idea that polygamy was initiated originally
for the purpose of satisfying anyone’s sexual desires. That was
not the purpose of it. And that’s clear throughout and consistent
throughout the literature.
We’ll come back to this in a minute (commercial break).
I left off right before that commercial with the idea that there has
to be a reason why we don’t have evidence, strong evidence, like
we, for Joseph Smith having sexual relations, sexual marriages with
these plural wives. Why don’t we have more evidence for that than
what we have? We have a lot of evidence that Brigham Young had wives
in which the marriage was a sexual marriage. In fact, Randy Jordan brings
this out. He talks about Brigham Young having 57 wives from, err, children
from 16 wives but one thing that he doesn’t bring out is that
Brigham Young had 56 wives and he had children only by 16 of them so
there were 40 wives that he didn’t uh, some of them may perhaps
have not been able to have children but certainly not all 40 of them.
The vast majority of those were, I’m speculating a little bit
but I, I think the speculation is certainly reasonable that of these
40 wives, most of those wives, the marriages were not sexual marriages.
They were marriages for uh, for some other reason and when you bring
into the whole idea of plural marriage the idea of marriage for, for
eternity, that opens up a whole other area that has to be dealt with.
There were many women who were sealed for eternity only to Joseph Smith
and others who were, with the idea that plural marriage would be something
that would be practiced in the eternities.
But basically, the reason, the primary reason given for the institution
of plural marriage, and this, we find this advocated in many, many places.
I could present quite a number of references on this but the principle
reason was to provide righteous women the opportunity to have a marriage
relationship and to have children and a family, be married to a righteous
man. Now I have never advocated the idea that the imbalance of men and
women was the reason for plural marriage in just, in that sense, but
the imbalance of righteous women and righteous, wanting to be married
to and have children with a righteous man, that imbalance is what is
uh presented uh throughout the history of uh plural marriage as the
basic reason.
So, yes, of course there was a sexual element intended in the ideal
plural marriages. The ideal plural marriages were marriages wherein
a woman who wanted to have, be married to a righteous man would be married
as a plural wife to a righteous priesthood holder and she would have
children by that man and that was because there were not enough righteous
priesthood holders for the number of righteous women who wanted to have
husbands and families with a righteous man. Now that’s a substantially
different perspective than the idea that has been held by cynics and
skeptics and critics and people who are opposed to the LDS faith who
have taken the position that it was just all about providing greater
sexual opportunity to satisfy men’s sexual appetite.
So that was my point on that and somehow it seems that some people
are unable to understand what my point is or even, or maybe they understand
it and simply will not acknowledge that point and address themselves
to that issue.
OK, I’m happy to hear from you. Whatever is on your mind is appropriate
this evening. Our subject is open. I’ll come back to this if I
don’t have somewhere else to go.
See
Public Responses to Van Hale's Comments
Mormon
Van Hale