In fact the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith enjoyed bedtime snuggling with male friends throughout his life. Early in 1826 the twenty-year-old bachelor boarded with the Knight family, whose eighteen-year-old son later wrote: ‘Joseph and I worked together and slept together’. In a 1843 sermon, Smith (then the husband of many wives) preached that ‘two who were vary friends indeed should lie down upon the same bed at night locked in each other’s embrace talking of their love & should awake in the morning together. They could immediately renew their conversation of love even while rising from their bed’.
That was how Apostle Wilford Woodruff recorded his prophet’s words. The official ‘History of the Church’ still renders Smith’s words this way: ‘It is pleasing for friends to lie down together, locked in the arms of love, to sleep and wake in each other’s embrace an renew their conversation’. The night before he was murdered by a mob in 1844, Smith shared a bed with thirty-two-year-old Dan Jones, ‘and lay himself by my side in a close embrace’.
Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, even dreamed of sleeping with non-Mormon men as a way of resolving conflict. In 1858 the church historian wrote: ‘President Young said he dreamed last night of seeing Governor Cumming. He appeared exceedingly friendly, and said to President Young we must be united, we must act in concert; and commenced undressing himself to go to bed with him’. D Michael Quinn, ‘Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth Century Americans: A Mormon Example’ pp87
Some Mormon leaders ... had ardent dreams of same-sex kissing. For example, in 1847 Brigham Young dreamed that he met the deceased Joseph Smith and ‘kissed him many times’. In 1896 stake president Charles O Card recorded: ‘I dreamed that president Woodruff & I met & embraced each other & Kissed each other in a very affectionate manner & I remarked he was the sweetest man I ever kissed. I thought in our embrace it was from the pure love of the Gospel’. Despite the homotactile dimension of this dream, Card was a polygamist who had no known homoerotic experiences. ibid. p92
In 1954, the sociologist Kimball Young first suggested that Mormon marriage sealing ceremonies (which began in 1843 and bind husband and wife for ‘time and eternity’) included same-sex marriage. For example, Brigham Young preached in 1862: ‘I will here refer to a principle that has not been named by me for years. With the introduction of the Priesthood upon the earth was also introduced the sealing ordinance.’ Although modern readers would expect to hear next about eternal marriage, Young did not mention marriage or women. Instead, he said: ‘By this power men will be sealed to men back to Adam.’ In another sermon he preached that ‘we can seal women to men, but not men to men, without a Temple.’
Such statements caused his sociologist grandson to observe, ‘Here is evidence of deep, psychological Bruederschaft [brotherhood]. There are obviously latent homosexual features in this idea and its cultural aspect has many familiar parallels in other religions.’ Kimball Young added that Mormonism ‘had strong homosexual components’ but acknowledged: ‘Most Saints, including Brigham himself, would have been shocked by such an interpretation’. The grandson regarded homosexuality as unappealing as the Mormon practice of polygamy that was the topic of his book. ibid. 136-137
Joseph Smith ... once referred figuratively to himself as married to a male friend. Beginning in 1840, twenty-nine-year-old Robert B Thompson became the prophet’s scribe and personal secretary. Their relationship was so close that Smith told his friend’s wife: ‘Sister Thompson, you must not feel bad towards me for keeping your husband away from you so much, for I am married to him.’ She added that ‘they truly love each other with fervent brotherly affection.’ Concerning Thompson’s death in 1841 Smith made this unusual explanation to his next secretary during a discussion of ‘loose conduct’ and sexual transgressions: ‘He said [Robert B] Thompson professed great friendship for him but he gave away to temptation and he had to die.’ ibid. p136
I know of no historical evidence that Mormonism’s founding father ever said an officiator could perform a marriage-like ordinance for a same-sex couple. Nevertheless, I realize that some believing Mormons regard it as emotionally appealing or spiritually inspiring for there to be a priesthood ordinance to seal same-sex couples similar to Mormon’s opposite-sex ordinance of marriage ‘for time and all eternity’. ibid. pp138-139
After returning from a Hawaiian mission in 1885, [Brigham Morris Young] performed as a female impersonator in Utah for decades ... Young apparently began this entertainment cross-dressing after ... he, his wife, and their children returned from [their Hawaiian mission]. ibid. p147 note 26
For several decades only the Patriarch had a set compensation, while other General Authorities depended on haphazard donations from the rank-and-file or ad hoc appropriations from general Church funds. In 1835 the Presiding Patriarch was authorized a salary of $10 ($200+ in today’s currency) a week, plus expenses.
Both the Presiding Patriarch and local stake patriarchs charged a fee. In the 1840s the fee was $1 per patriarchal blessing at Nauvoo; by the end of the nineteenth century it had increased to $2 per blessing. Joseph Smith senior gave patriarchal blessings without payment of a fee, but would not record them. ‘Uncle’ John Smith commented that he ‘lived very poor ever since we left Kirtland Ohio,’ in January 1838 until January 1844. Then his nephew Joseph Smith ordained him a patriarch ‘through which office I obtained a comfortable living.’
In addition, patriarchs received fees for giving unrecorded blessings of healing to the sick. In fact, Apostle Francis M Lyman commended Patriarch Elias Blackburn for ‘doing a great deal of good among the sick, without receiving very much pay for his services.’
Patriarchal blessing fees ended in 1902, although patriarchs were allowed to accept unsolicited donations. Not until 1943 did church authorities prohibit patriarchs from accepting gratuities for giving blessings. D Michael Quinn, ‘The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power’
I found that Joseph began a practice of sealing men to men during the last two years of his life in Nauvoo. Antonio A Felix
The admonition to eat little meat is largely ignored, as are some other points of the revelation. John J Steward, Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet p90