11/17/10
The Guardian Blames Mormon Church For Elizabeth Smart's Torture, Calls Joseph Smith Worse Than Mitchell
Earlier, Guardian's "Mormon" reporter called the church "harmful" toward gays and falsely reported that the church spent millions of proposition 8. Bigoted Guardian author Holly Welker had also claimed the church's "threats... are short-sighted and narrow" against gays.Today Holly Welker of the Guardian took the appalling religious bigotry a shocking step further, blaming the church for the rape and torture of Elizabeth Smart, reviling "the Latter-day Saints doctrine that enabled her abuse."
Contradicting Smart's testimony in the case, Guardian claims her abductor had a "thorough "Mormonness"" about him. Guardian misquotes Smart's testimony, and reports Mitchell targeted Mormon girls '"so they would have the basic LDS beliefs already" because "the LDS Church was the true church."' Actually what Mitchel said: "the LDS Church was the true church, but since the death of the deceased prophet Ezra Taft Benson that the mantel had fallen on him. That the church was the true church, but everyone had gone astray."
Guardian wryly points out that "Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith" had two wives who "were, like Smart, 14 – a fact many Mormons prefer to overlook." Holly claims this motivated Mitchell, who "believes he is the divinely appointed prophetic successor to Joseph Smith... Comparisons of Mitchell to Smith are, therefore, unavoidable – and, I would argue, absolutely necessary." But this is false! Smart actually testified that Smith's polygamy was actually never an issue for Mitchell.
Guardians falsely claims "polygamy has been discontinued but not renounced by the LDS church." It falsely claims that still "an adult man can command reluctant teenage girls to marry him... men exert sexual and physical control over women, and Mitchell followed it." She carries this shocking comparison between Mitchell and Joseph Smith yet further: "Mitchell used both actual and threatened physical violence against her, his victim. Smith also used the threat of physical violence... he told women that if they didn't marry and consent to sex with him, they would be responsible for his death." Absolutely false!!
The shocking bigotry continues!
Smith was not above using another type of violence: spiritual violence. Smith sometimes threatened those who opposed his plural marriages – including the women he courted – with eternal damnation. The threats against his wife Emma Smith are especially grim... these threats were thoroughly dire and utterly terrifying. Their impact and profundity cannot be overestimated: the psychological and supernatural scope of this spiritual violence exceeded any threat Mitchell was able to make against Smart.
Joseph Smith is worse than Mitchell, who kidnapped a little girl and daily got her drunk and raped her with threats of killing her???
This extremely hateful journalist argues that this comparison does not "trivialise her trauma" because sexual trauma is not "a contest." She flat out claims the church "harmed and betrayed" Elizabeth Smart because "many of the means of abuse, control and coercion Mitchell used against Smart were scripted and practised by Joseph Smith."
Holly Welker's hateful tirade stems from her bitterness as an ex-Mormon. Mitchell is actually an ex-Mormon just like her. Perhaps she actually feels ashamed that she wrongfully blames the church for her own shortcomings and disasters?
http://apcheck.blogspot.com/2010/11/guardian-blames-mormon-church-for.html
