🥩💱 Meat Commerce¶
Estimated time to read: 4 minutes
Runtu¶
Runtu's Rincon appears to be a wordpress blog run by one John Williams under the pseudonym Runtu. As near as I can tell, he (?) runs a personal blog that often veers into commentary on his life and involvement with Mormonism. The About Page describes Runtu as being "in [his] 50's" as of mid-2008. One of Runtu's posts, Secret Wives, examines the ideas of Joseph Smith hiding his polygamous relationships from his legally, lawfully wedded wife Emma. Here's an excerpt from that blog entry:
Emily [Partridge] affirmed in her Temple Lot case affidavit that she had roomed with Joseph and had carnal intercourse with him the night of their marriage.
According to George D. Smith, “when asked by Temple Lot attorneys in 1892 if her marriage went beyond an ‘eternal sealing’ and involved sexual relations, Emily affirmed that she had ‘slept’ with Joseph after their first marriage on March 4 and ‘roomed’ with him the day of their second marriage, May 11. She was not able to ‘live with him’ after that because of Emma’s close surveillance” (Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, 181, citing Reorganized Church v. Church of Christ, questions 310-11, 480-84, 747-62).
Todd Compton (In Sacred Loneliness, 732) cites Emily’s testimony as follows:
Q: Did you ever have carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith? A: Yes sir…
Q: Do you make the declaration that you never slept with him but one night? A: Yes sir.
Q: And that was the only time and place that you were ever in bed with him? A: No sir.
At the end of the post, Runtu concludes by saying:
It’s clear what happened according to the direct testimony of the women involved (and these are just three of Joseph’s 33 or so wives). In neither case was Emma aware of her husband’s actions, clearly indicating that Joseph “tried to hide his other marriages from her.”
Seems like Runtu was much more savvy on these things than I was in 2010.
Meg Stout¶
Look, I recognize that the internet isn't always a warm, welcoming place. Dear readers, don't be dickwads. Don't make the internet worse than it needs to be. Assuming I've pieced these links together properly, and it forms a coherent narrative, the worst thing you could do in response is track down Meg and harass her. I'm not trying to disparage someone who is actually putting their full name out there amid a heated discourse online.
What I'm trying to say is "behave yourselves."
Stout appears to be a devout member of the LDS faith, and defends that religious practice from criticism online (1, 2, [3], [3.1], 3.2, 3.3, 4, 5). Stout encounters Runtu's post, and feels compelled to make some clarifications to Emily's statement.
It all boils down to the one admission from Emily, where she responded “Yes sir.” when asked if she had engaged in carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith. ... Had Emily not replied “Yes sir.” to that question, she believed that the temple lot of prophesy would be awarded to Joseph’s sons and their Church and therefore forever made unavailable to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Besides this, Emily was by then 70 years old, and knew her way around the English language. Carnal refers to meat. Intercourse refers to commerce or trade (ever visited Intercourse, PA?). Therefore “carnal intercourse” would also be a legitimate description of passing Joseph a platter of turkey or chicken or mutton or beef at a meal, an activity the young Emily had almost certainly engaged in.
This apologetic comment had enough of an impact on Runtu that he made a blog post to reply to it.
I would respond to this point by point, but it just doesn’t merit it. I’m sure my commenter is sincere, but anyone who argues that “carnal intercourse” refers to the commercial exchange of meat is not to be taken seriously. If you have to do such violence to language and logic to support your belief, it’s quite likely your belief is erroneous.
To be clear, Stout doesn't represent "the church." This isn't an official stance. But of all explanations to dismiss polygamy, this one is what I would call the most comical.
I'm not about to print and nail this thesis blog post to my stake president's office door, donning a slightly askew baseball cap and a skateboard, taunting "checkmate, punk!" since the interaction really shouldn't sway anyone this way or that.