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Comment by richeyrw | Hacker News Reader

There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info. I'm looking for documentation of that specific claim.

I did follow the links, but I didn't see anything promising.

A quick Google search returned a Wikipedia article[0] listing 49 women that were allegedly married to Joseph Smith, plus other articles detailing his marriages, so there's one good lead to follow up on.

Wikipedia also has a table of other early church leaders with the number of wives they had[1], which at least gives you some leads to dig further to validate their claims.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith%27s_wives

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latter_Day_Saint_pract...

It's actually hard to find anti-mormon anything. There isn't as many people who have something in particular against the Mormon church as Mormons were raised to believe (including me - I'm an ex-mormon). Most of the compaining is by freethinkers who are against religions that are overly strict or exclusive (Mormons are encouraged not to date or marry outside of the Mormon church even though Mormons call themselves Christians, for example).

It exists in some areas. I was raised in an area of the south where a large Baptist church wielded a significant amount of influence. I often saw anti-Mormon flyers passed around. I don't know if it's very common, but those messages have been out there for a long time.

I'm not Mormon and never was but I've seen plenty of anti-Mormon statements and bias. I live on the East Coast and I head plenty of comments about Romney and Mormons during 2012.

There is plenty of anti-Mormon sentiment among American Protestants who happily deny Mormon status as Christians while willfully ignoring that their own particular stream of Christian practice is only a small slice of the doctrines that have been developed over the millennia.

It's not just protestants. The Catholic Church also teaches that Mormons are not Christians, because they don't have valid baptism[1]. I wouldn't be surprised if the Orthodox teach the same, but someone else will have to speak to that.

[1]https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-doesnt-the-catholic-church-a...

> There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info.

Off-topic, but I visited Salt Lake City last year and I was surprised by a bookstore that had both a Mormon section and an Anti-Mormon section. I'd never seen an Anti-Mormon section in a bookstore before, and I certainly didn't expect to see it in SLC of all places. But in retrospect, it kind of makes sense that people would have stronger opinions about Mormonism—good or bad—in places where its influence is greater.

I've found Salt Lake City to have a surprisingly diverse population and to be fairly politically moderate. Most smaller towns in Utah though are much closer to what many people think of when they hear Utah.

A lot of people in that sub Reddit have researched the church's history. Maybe the way to go is to post a question there and see if anybody can get you a source in support of the claim, or a source that refutes the claim. No need to redo legwork that's already been done.

Fair point. I will give it a shot.

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