Anti-Mormonism

Most Americans accept Mormonism as a valid faith, and in 2012 the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney's membership in the LDS Church was described as "non-issue" in that year's election.

[9] Today, the term is primarily used as a descriptor for persons and publications that are active in their opposition to the LDS Church, although its precise scope has been the subject of some debate.

Though sometimes well intended, anti-Mormon publications have often taken the form of invective, falsehood, demeaning caricature, prejudice, or legal harassment, leading to both verbal and physical assault.

[14] Critics of the term also claim that Mormon authors promote the ideal of a promised heavenly reward for enduring persecution for one's beliefs.

[18] Mormonism, or the Latter Day Saint movement, arose in western New York, the area where its founder, Joseph Smith, was raised, during a period of religious revival in the early 19th century.

[21] In Ohio, anti-Mormons focused on the ill-fated banking efforts of the Kirtland Safety Society and other failed economic experiments including the United Order.

[24] Other issues of contention included polygamy, freedom of speech, anti-slavery views during Smith's presidential campaign, and the deification of man[broken anchor].

[25] After the destruction of the press of the Nauvoo Expositor and institution of martial law, Joseph Smith was arrested on charges of treason against the state of Illinois and incarcerated in Carthage Jail where he was killed by a mob on June 27, 1844.

Bushman describes the author's rhetoric as indistinguishable from that uttered by "scores of other polemicists of his time," providing a glimpse into the kind of material considered anti-Mormon.

... By their deception and lies, they swindle them out of their property, disturb social order and the public peace, excite a spirit of ferocity and murder, and lead multitudes astray on the subject in which, of all others, they have the deepest interest."

He described the Book of Mormon as, "the most gross, the most ridiculous, the most imbecile, the most contemptible concern, that was ever attempted to be palmed off upon society as a revelation."

"[29] Bushman describes the characteristics of these anti-Mormon materials as sensationalizing actuality:[30] The critics' writings largely controlled the reading public's image of [Joseph Smith] for the next century, with unfortunate results for biographers.

Joseph Smith became the worst of the type—a religious fraud who preyed upon the sacred yearnings of the human soul.British author Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887), the novel in which the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance, includes a very negative depiction of the early Mormon community in Utah after its migration westwards and the foundation of Salt Lake City.

They appeal to "Joseph Smith's environment and his (wicked or pathological) character, perhaps assisted by a co-conspirator or two", as a sufficient explanation for Mormon origins.

However, "unlike faithful Latter-day Saints, New Age anti-Mormons see the supernatural agents involved in the founding and progress of the Church as demonic, occultic, diabolical, luciferian.

[13]Some other individuals have been seen throwing copies of the Book of Mormon on the ground, stepping on them, and portray using temple garments, which LDS hold sacred, as toilet tissue, and other similarly offensive actions.

Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and John Dehlin are among those who more prominent individuals who have used media appearances or podcasts to oppose the Institutional LDS Church and its doctrines and policies.

The allegedly untrue teachings included that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates and it is historically accurate, and that Native Americans are descended from Israelites who left Jerusalem in 600 BC.

[53] An affiliate group of the radical Trans/Queer organization Bash Back!, claims credit for pouring glue into the locks of an LDS Church building and spray painting on its walls.

"[57] In November 2008, the United States Postal Service delivered envelopes containing white powder to two LDS Church temples—the Los Angeles California Temple and the Salt Lake Temple—and to the Knights of Columbus' national headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, prompting a hazardous materials response and a federal domestic terrorism investigation.

In May 1989, members of a terrorist organization called the Zarate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation murdered two Mormon missionaries in La Paz, Bolivia.

Marvin J. Ashton, speaking as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, began a fall 1982 conference by relating an experience he had with a protester outside Temple Square.

He describes "Lucifer" as the source of at least some anti-Mormon and apostate groups, relates an experience of a Mormon convert being excommunicated and encourages the avoidance of "those who would tear down your faith.”[67] A passage from an early Mormon epistle addresses a claimed tendency of ex-Mormons to criticize the church of which they are no longer a part: [A]postates after turning from the faith of Christ ... have sooner or later fallen into the snares of the wicked one, and have been left destitute of the Spirit of God, to manifest their wickedness in the eyes of multitudes.

From apostates the faithful have received the severest persecutions ... "When once that light which was in them is taken from them, they become as much darkened as they were previously enlightened, and then, no marvel, if all their power should be enlisted against the truth," and they, Judas like, seek the destruction of those who were their greatest benefactors.

[68]In 1985, Vaughn J Featherstone, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the LDS Church, addressed students at the church-owned Brigham Young University, calling anti-Mormon material "theological pornography that is damaging to the spirit.

"[69] In 1992, the church issued a press release describing their scriptural mandate to "[gather] up a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them.

According to Hugh Nibley, a noted Mormon apologist, some of those who leave the LDS Church "become sometimes feverishly active, determined to prove to the world and themselves that it is a fraud after all," while others "hold no rancor and even retain a sentimental affection for the Church—they just don't believe the gospel."

[81] In or around 2000, a Pentecostal congregation in Provo, Utah held a public ceremony of repentance for its negative attitudes and actions toward the Latter-day Saint community.

[82] In 2001, the organization Standing Together, based in Lehi, Utah, was founded by a Baptist minister for the purpose of "building bridges of relationship and dialogue with ...

"[85] Then-Vice President Joe Biden said, in a long response to a University of Pittsburgh student's question about how his own religious faith affected his philosophy of government: I find it preposterous that in 2011 we're debating whether or not a man is qualified or worthy of your vote based on whether or not his religion ... is a disqualifying provision.