Was Joseph Smith Really a Polygamist? A Conversation with Michelle Brady Stone

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett, and I am here as always with the free Ian Wilkes. Based on our last conversation, Ian, you know, I'm sitting here panicking about what it's like to live in a, in, in a, well, we got a little heated in that last conversation. At least I did. You were trying very, very hard to be respectful and, and I'm very grateful for that. Uh, but you are also across the border and I'm kind of jealous. I'm hoping that you're going to let me come be a refugee up there.

Well, you're more than welcome. I thought when you said free, you were referring to the Trump election. Uh, and again, I was trying to—

well, I am.

I know you are. Uh, and I was trying to find anything positive that might come from that. Um, since our podcast, and I mentioned this on, I did share this with you on our, uh, uh, Messenger, there's been a significant spike in Americans, uh, uh, inquiring about residency in Canada.

Right.

Like 10,000 hits in one day.

Yeah. And you know, I want to escape to Scotland, but none of my family seems to want to go with me.

Yeah.

Scotland is, uh, I'd love to, I'd love to move to Scotland. It's a bit windy and, uh, a bit windy.

It's a bit chilly. Uh, I have, I think, sort of a reverse seasonal affective disorder in that I love rain unless I'm tracting in it, and then I don't love rain. Scottish weather. I just adore weather like that.

Yeah, no, me too. Me too. So yeah, so yeah, Canada is, yeah, if you wanna come to Canada, you hang out with us and, and, and get a little bit of freedom. And you know, we'd happy to have you, but yeah, and, and very excited about today's podcast.

Yes, today's podcast has absolutely nothing to do with that. So I just wanted to sort of get that outta the way. I'm very excited because we've got a really fascinating guest. That I've gotten an opportunity to get to know in the last couple of days. She is, uh, I don't know what the official title is, but she's somebody who's got a very large following. She has 118,000 followers on YouTube for her channel, and she does a podcast show called 132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy. And our mutual friend Stephen Pynecker said we need to talk to her, and I think He was right because she, I think, is a very important voice in the conversation. Uh, has got a really fascinating perspective. And so I'm very grateful that she's willing to join us here on our podcast. Please welcome everybody, Michelle Brady Stone. Michelle, how are you?

I'm well. Thank you for inviting me. And I have to say, I felt really left out of that beginning conversation because I was laughing because in 2016, I was with that election. I was searching, how do I move to Canada? I currently, my husband is looking for properties in Scotland, so.

Oh, is he?

So there we go. Yeah. He, he's desperate to move to Scotland. I, I get too cold, but I'm willing to go.

I, well, so, so maybe you and your husband and me will probably have to end up as roommates.

Oh, okay.

We'll, we'll see what happens. Uh, but, uh, but with all the immigration talk out of the way, just wanted to bring you on and give you an opportunity. I, I'm very interested. You know, we've had some conversations now about your perspective and where you are in the church. But I think there are probably a number of people who'll be listening to this who don't know anything about you. And I just want to give you the floor and give you an opportunity to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of background on who you are and where you're coming from.

Okay. So, um, it's a little bit tricky to introduce myself because I think people want to try to, when we meet someone, we want to try to categorize them and try to understand them. And I am the first to admit I don't fit very well into any category. So here is a quick introduction. I am a mother of 13 children who I've spent my life homeschooling. I still have 6 children at home. I have been a lifelong member of the church. I am very recently descended from fully Mormon polygamists, not fundamentalists, but my great-grandfather was called by Joseph F. Smith to go to Mexico and take a second wife in 2000, I mean, in 1906. 2000? In 1906, which some of your listeners may know is 2 years after the Second Manifesto. So my grandfather was a post-manifesto polygamist called by the president of the church who told him, I'm not calling you as the president of the church. I'm calling you as the president of the priesthood is what we've been passed down in our family. So I was raised believing that polygamy was the highest, holiest law of the gospel, that we would live in Zion, that we would live in the celestial kingdom. And I just, I, um, I was taught beautiful stories of my great-grandmothers and thought someday I'll understand and it's going to be beautiful. And I genuinely thought that it was a shame that we couldn't live the higher laws. So that Jesus could come. That was my perspective for a very long time. And anyway, so I have gone through several different iterations of my faith. I, so that's my most sort of conservative perspective. I also have listened to many voices since pretty much the beginning. I'm a voracious student of the scriptures. I also have listened to John DeLynn since the very beginning, or at least I did for many, many years. I read a couple of Denver Snuffer's books. I, you know, like I'm kind of, I've kind of been been everywhere. I have, I will admit, I have struggled to stay in the church. There have been multiple times when I have felt very strongly that I needed to leave, but I am one who feels like I receive answers from the divine. I guess I could call myself a mystic. I've always been told to stay in the church is the answer I've received every time I've hit one of those breaking points. I have, anyway, I have gay children. I am navigating many different worlds in many different ways. So to cut to the chase, about, gosh, it's been over 10 years ago. My husband one day came to me and said he was reading the Book of Mormon and he said, I don't think polygamy was ever of God. And that floored me. And in my TBM mindset, I thought, I need to save my apostate husband before he goes fully apostate. And I started studying the scriptures in order to prove to him that polygamy was indeed of God, as I knew because my faithful ancestors and, you know, and the presidents of the church had always taught. So I started studying, and, um, this has got to be more than 10 years ago. Anyway, I became— I was astonished at how little I knew about it, how naive I was, how ignorant I was. And the more I studied, the more it became clear to me that polygamy was never of God. It threw me into a, um, one iteration of a faith crisis, because how could I be so certain about something and be so wrong? And how could I think I know better than all of the church leaders that have said this forever and everybody else. And so I had to, um, seek out support and voices. Anyway, I started a Facebook group in that space to be able to talk about it. And as a result, many polygamists actually joined, particularly polygamist men, and they tagged their friends. And I ended up being able to engage with the very best scholars of polygamy, the theologians who, who argue in favor of polygamy. So I was able to encounter all of the best arguments in favor of polygamy, which is really valuable for me as a critical thinker. I like to encounter the best arguments on the other side. So I was able to really solidify my views and go, that's the best you've got? Those are the arguments in favor of polygamy? So, um, so for a long time I was in that space where, as I, I didn't delve into the history fully, but I knew that Joseph Smith started polygamy and I knew it wasn't of God. And I was in that space for a long time. I also, I also knew that whatever Joseph Smith was doing was different from what Brigham Young and the later Utah polygamists did, but he was obviously the originator. Anyway, I had an unusually difficult 2020 and 2021. I know it was difficult for everybody. My circumstances were quite extreme during those years. I lost a child in 2020 and I lost another child in 2021. The tragedy of that was magnified by what was happening in the world. And so that was one of the times that I felt like I needed to leave the church. It just, it was a very difficult time. But Anyway, after that period, I just felt very strongly, kind of as I was recovering and I was, you know, I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't out of my trauma or anything like that. It was just kind of trying to understand my relationship with God. I navigated that. And after I came through that, I just felt a strong confirmation that I needed to talk to other women about what I had learned about polygamy. And that was, that was kind of the instigation for my channel. It's called 132 Problems because it's Section 132. For anyone that isn't aware, that is where Mormons get polygamy. That's the only place in our scriptures that is polygamy positive. And then I started my podcast knowing that polygamy wasn't of God, but knowing that Joseph Smith had started it. A year into my podcast, after intensive study, I, um, I came to the conclusion that actually Joseph Smith hadn't started it. That was very challenging for me to, to, um, come to believe. It took a lot to convince me of that, and it took a lot more to convince me to speak aloud about it because I knew, I knew the giant pile of crap I would be stepping right into the middle of, right? Like, I'm fighting on every single front. So anyway, so about, so for about the last year and a half, that's the space I— well, for the last two and a half years I've been doing my podcast. For about the last year and a half, I've been— I've become a full-time historian delving into the documents of the Restoration. And it's been actually— I spend usually between 60, 70 hours a week researching, preparing, doing what I'm working on. And, and it's become— anyway, it's very fulfilling, it's very satisfying, it's very important. I've developed a very thick skin. I'm, I'm a lot of people's favorite person to hate. I have a lot of person, a lot of people coming after my membership in the church. And, and that's, anyway, that's kind of where I am at this point.

All right. That seems to be a very succinct summation. And, uh, I know what it's like to be a person that everybody loves to hate. So I have solidarity with you in that regard. Uh, so 60, 70 hours spent a week doing this. Uh, that's a lot of hours, uh, especially with somebody with 6 children at home. Uh, how do you juggle that?

Well, I should clarify, I, um, I, after the, after the difficult time of 2020 and 2021, I no longer homeschooled my children. That was part of that process of just So my children are in school now, which gives me, frees up a whole lot of time. And as a mother of a large family, I've always been pretty productive, pretty good at getting a lot of things done and not much of a sleeper. So, so my kids know I'm always available. I'm always interruptible, but I usually have, I'm usually on my computer, unfortunately. So other than when I'm directly interacting with them and doing things with them. I'm able— I don't make any money from what I'm doing, but I do have enough coming in that I've been able to hire house help. So I have help cleaning my house, which has freed up a lot of time as well. I really appreciate that.

So where is your husband in this? Is he— is your— is your husband equally passionate about this, or does he just think, oh, here's Michelle going off on her little hobby horse, or—

Yes, the second. He's, he's very, he's very sweet. He's very supportive. He, doesn't want me to talk to him about it all the time, you know, very understandably. I, I laugh that he created a monster. It's his fault. He started all of this, right? He was the one that, that read the scriptures and came and told me that I was wrong about polygamy. So no, he's on board. We have a very similar perspective, um, of the gospel. We are both active in the church. We both, um, navigate that in a nuanced way. Um, and so, so it's not been, we don't have an interfaith marriage by any means, which I, I'm really thankful for.

Does he agree?

I mean, I, I support people who do, but.

I'm sorry to interrupt. Does he agree with you that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy?

He agrees with me that polygamy was never of God. He is not yet fully convinced that Joseph Smith doesn't practice polygamy, but he also doesn't listen to my podcast. So, I mean, he does sometimes, but whenever he's like, I'm not convinced, I'm like, well, you're not listening.

So, well, I mean, we talked a little bit before. I mean, I've got this weird hobby horse that has nothing to do with the church, but I'm what they call an Oxfordian. I believe that William Shakespeare was the pen name of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. I'm even writing a book about it. And, and, uh, my wife is like, well, you know, good for you. I couldn't care less. And pays absolutely no attention to it. It, it, it's like, well, whatever makes you happy and whatever you'd like to do, then go ahead and do it. So it's just really interesting to see how those kinds of, when you find something that, that really animates you and is something that you're very passionate about, uh, it's sometimes difficult to find other people who are able to share that. But you seem to have found quite a following. And do you have, of those 118,000 followers that I can see on YouTube, how many do you actively sort of engage with on a regular basis?

Oh, it depends. I think I have an interesting situation because, because I haven't had the time or energy to do them recently, but I did a lot of shorts as well. And those got way more views than my, you know, sometimes my videos are 2.5 hours. They're often an hour and a half to 2 hours. So So not that, not everybody that watches the short, say, will watch the full videos. So, but I do have definitely a very large, um, support system and a very large community of people who are very passionately engaged in these topics. I shouldn't even say it's my community. It's not like, it's not like I'm the first person that's been in this space. I thought I was when I started my podcast. I thought it was insane. Like I thought it was the dumbest thing ever to start a podcast on polygamy. In 2022. You know, I couldn't— like, it seemed totally irrelevant. So it's actually been amazing to see how extremely relevant this topic is to so many people. It really is kind of a— I don't know, it's just— it is as important now as it ever has been. And it's as interesting— it's more interesting now than it ever has been because we have so much more access to sources. Like everybody can dig it. You know, when I do my episodes, I'm able to show people the document I'm talking about and I'm able to link to it so people can go do their own research with that, which I think is, is tremendously valuable. We're no longer dependent on gatekeepers to, um, they have the sources, they tell us what they say. I really like that we can go do our own research in this day and age. It's a huge blessing to us.

Yeah. You've talked about how the Joseph Smith Papers Project is a real game changer. And I think that's absolutely true. So yeah, we have access to sources as laypeople and we don't have to rely on historians necessarily to filter out what information they feel is, is useful or is not. So, and I think what you're doing, it's, it's, I mean, I, I am not in, in this space and as I've told you before, My faith is not contingent in any way on whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I still firmly believe that he was, but, you know, I'm not really— I mean, this isn't something where I've investigated the sources as meticulously as you have, or something that I feel really compelled to explore. But it does seem to be a subject that is gaining traction. And surprising a lot of people, including traditional historians. I think I've seen Richard Bushman comment on how surprised he is that all of a sudden we're revisiting polygamy and whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist so long after the fact. And more and more people are, I think, coming along to your point of view on that. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's just that there's more access now, or is there something else driving this?

Well, no, I very much agree with you. I think, and I won't take the time to trace the whole history of what has happened in the polygamy discussion, but you know, it has been contested from the very beginning, right? This was contested during Joseph Smith's lifetime, accusations that he was a polygamist, his denials, and that has continued since with this debate. And in the, um, in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, people— the, the, um, I mean, the debate continued to some extent, although it's been— I, I guess I am tracing it a bit. It's been an interesting topic because the church was a polygamist, and the church was the most determined to say that Joseph Smith was a polygamist during the polygamist era of the church. Then we got into the early 1900s and the mid-1900s, And it continued on that Joseph was not a polygamist and those were anti-Mormon lies, right? And then, and that continued on for quite a while. Then we got that, um, that period of openness, Camelot, in Mormon history when, um, we had Leonard Arrington and D. Michael Quinn was being given access. So new, um, sources were found and they were the Mormon polygamous sources in the— like, from my perspective, the Mormon polygamists in their effort to prove that Joseph Smith had, had been a polygamist, started to create a lot of evidence in order to prove that. And that's what was found again, rediscovered in the '70s, '80s, '90s. And then at the same time, the RLDS Church was going through a change where they were going much more progressive. Their top leaders had been changed— it's been trained in progressive Methodist schools. They wanted to become much more ecumenical and much less Mormon. So they were motivated to step away from Joseph Smith. I don't want to speak on behalf of them. This is my understanding. And Maybe a member of the Community of Christ would have a slightly different take on it, but they did go extremely liberal, extremely quickly. And as a result, the church really broke. And, um, some of— most of the largest congregations and the highest tithe-paying congregations split off from the church and they continue to be RLDS. They're called the Restoration Branches. And the Community of Christ, the biggest issue wasn't even Joseph's polygamy. It was actually the ordination of women. And that happened in the '80s, right? So the Community of Christ says that Joseph was never a polygamist, but many of their congregations also don't really look to Joseph Smith as a prophet either, and they don't really rely on the Book of Mormon in the same way. They are, as I said, much less Mormon and much more ecumenical, whereas the Restoration Branch is the RLDS Church, still adamantly claim that Joseph was a polygamist. That's where Richard and Pamela Price, came from, who wrote the series Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy. And so it's been an interesting coming together now because in the '90s and the early 2000s, everyone thought that the case was closed, right? The opposition dropped their case, the tug of war between the RLDS and the Mormon Church. RLDS dropped, and the LDS then said, okay, it's settled that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. But since that time, very little work has been done. And since that time, we've had the, the, um, Price's books, which, you know, aren't perfect and they are very, um, focused on their religion, but they have done incredible work to bring out sources that we as Mormons were not aware of. We've just always ignored the RLDS sources, right? And then, and then we also had Hugo Perego's work done that showed us that there are actually no descendants, no polygamous descendants of Joseph Smith. He and Emma had 9 biological children, 11 children total, but we have shown through DNA that there are no other children. We've had the Joseph Smith papers open up online where we are seeing things that we have never seen before that were never part of this discussion. I say often it's very easy to believe someone's guilty when you've only heard the prosecution, right? We are getting in and digging out sources and people are learning things that they never knew before. So, so this, this combination of factors has, has given us all a whole new landscape that we hadn't seen. And the case most people who just have read the historians, they've read Richard Bushman, they've read D. Michael Quinn, they've just assumed they're the experts and they know that this is settled and this is ridiculous. And I understand that perspective, but the people that are really digging into it, including the historians, some of whom I'm working closely with, the more they dig into it, they realize this is not what I thought. I thought we had such a strong case. I thought this was settled. And they are realizing, holy cow, this is not settled at all. There is far less evidence for Joseph's polygamy than I assumed that there was, and there's far more evidence against it. Most of them aren't ready to, um, change their perspective on it, but more and more are realizing that there is absolutely a discussion to be had. And that's, that's what I'm trying to do is say we need to have this discussion because the case for Joseph's polygamy is not nearly as strong as it, as it should be. Think we— everybody needs to engage so that all sides can separate the wheat from the chaff. We can learn what are the good sources, what are the good arguments, and what are the weak sources and the weak arguments.

Well, I want to bring Ian in on this because I'm very interested, Ian. You know, you are no longer in the church, and I don't know how much this issue animates you or has anything to do with it, but as Michelle's talking about all of this, what does this do to you?

Yeah, Michelle, I bring a very different perspective, I think, to this conversation. I joined the church at 16 in England, and, uh, you know, went on a mission, uh, came home, got sealed in the temple, served as bishop, served on the stake presidency, you know, did a lot of research, spent some time actually over the years, uh, studying polygamy. And, uh, to it— or not, not to the amount of 60 or 70 hours, I must add. Um, that's a— that's like a full-time job. But, uh, I was always fascinated in polygamy because it was from a non-member Church of England, um, no history or relationship with the church whatsoever, and observing the missionaries trapped in the neighborhoods where I was growing up and seeing them as strange cultish figures and hearing stories about polygamy that they were trying to, um, persuade English girls to go to Salt Lake through these tunnels. And, uh, at the end there'd be, uh, these, uh, women or girls would have to—

where did the tunnel thing come from? I've heard—

I don't know what this— in the, in the— yeah, this is all across the UK, uh, probably all around the world. But there are, there are strange mysteries that, uh, these modern mysteries would, would take people, um, not kidnap them necessarily, but would brainwash them. This is, I think, I think that actually this is what a lot of the Brits think, uh, A lot of people still think this and feel this, that there's some brainwashing involved and that, um, back in the '80s when I joined the church, that there was an effort by the church to bring, uh, girls, women over to encourage them and persuade them to enter into polygamous marriages. That was the— so the polygamy was the thing that everyone knew about the Mormon Church. So as soon as you mention Mormon Church in the UK, England, Scotland, whatever, and you saw this on your mission, Jim Bennett, a lot, I'm sure. Polygamy was the number one thing. And the church did studies in the UK and across Europe and probably across the world and found that polygamy was one of the biggest barriers, limiters, constraints why people didn't want to join the church. Because polygamy is seen as a very strange, odd practice, notwithstanding it has some of its origins in the Bible. Of course, and I think you mentioned that on your blog I've been reading earlier. So, you know, this is an outside church world perspective. Polygamy, I think it's been a huge topic and issue and still attracts significant interest from all kinds of people in and outside of the church. It's very strange. I know when Elder Oaks, he set me apart on the stake presidency,. And a question I wanted to ask him, and I didn't get the chance, but I would have asked him this, is, you know, Elder Oaks is sealed to two women. So I know we, you know, the church, for political reasons back historically, again, I'm not an expert here, came under pressure to stop practicing polygamy. It then issued the manifesto the church still practiced it for a period of time, uh, and, and, and that's my understanding from the, the essays. But at some point it became, um, a, an official position that it doesn't— no longer practice polygamy. Notwithstanding, when you go to the temple even now, you can actually be sealed, uh, to two or more women. Uh, you can't do it in the reverse. And so a question I wanted to ask Elder Oaks is, you know, Uh, and this is my understanding from speaking with General Authorities, that the church still privately, personally believes in the principle and practice of polygamy, albeit it can't practice it on, on the earth today for legal reasons. But in, in the eternities, that's part of the, um, requirement to, uh, achieve eternal life with God. That, that's a principle that we have to follow. Personally, I always I thought it was, um, I didn't take it seriously. The people I grew up with who were in the church when I joined the church didn't take it seriously. We always said, you know, when you die and if that polygamy, uh, uh, principle and practice is required, our minds will be differently, we'll think differently, we'll feel different. Um, this was the default response to the questions of polygamy in seminary or institute or any time it came up. Look, we know God's mind is not our mind. His laws are higher than ours. When we die, we'll think like him, we'll feel like him. It won't be an issue. I was never interested in polygamy. You know, the idea of having loads of wives just didn't appeal to me, and I won't get into why. It just sounds very expensive to me as well. And I just, you know, I'm trying to, you know, coordinate a relationship with one, albeit successfully. And I'm quite happy to be married in a, you know, a regular marriage, non-polygamy. I just, if I had the choice of, you know, in the afterlife of not having polygamy, I wouldn't be interested in polygamy. But I was always fascinated in the principle in the temple where you can be sealed to more than one woman and more than one wife. And that's, they still practice that today. I guess that, uh, to Jim Bennett's question, so questions that come to my mind, Michelle, is what's driving you to have these conversations? You spend all this time, clearly very passionate. You've delved into the details. You talk about deep dives on your, on your, um, on your website. What's behind it? Are you trying to, is it a doctrinal thing? Is it something that to help you reconcile your faith? Do you think the church has completely made a mistake in coming out and accepting— I think they've accepted, I think the official church position is that the church has accepted that Joseph Smith did practice polygamy. I've read somewhere on the essays that he had 33 wives, um, or 32 wives. So my questions are, if, if you can, is, is what's driving you to, uh, uh, in your research? What are you trying to achieve? What, what are your objectives? How do you reconcile your findings and your research with the church's official position? And what are your thoughts about, uh, men, worthy priesthood men, being able to be sealed in today, in 2024, be sealed to, uh, more than one woman? So there's 3 questions come to my mind. I'd love to get your responses.

Those, those are great questions and that's a lot. So I'm going to do my best. Remind me if I don't cover all of them adequately because I have so much to say, so much in my mind. First of all, the church's— I, I— polygamy is just an awful mess for the church. Terrible, terrible mess, right? It's just as you said, it's a black eye and has been for a very long time for the church. And it's left the church with this mess to try to clean up and there's no good way to clean it up right now. And, and I think in the way that the church is approaching it, right? And so, um, so we, we are left with this statement. The statement of the church right now is monogamy is the rule, but polygamy is the exception, right? And that is— I just, I, I, for so many reasons, think that that's a terrible, um, statement to— stance to take. First of all, it— like, the best thing the church has going for it in regard to polygamy is the ignorance of the people. We just don't know the history, we don't know the scripture, so we are able to believe things like that. That statement cannot be supported scripturally at all. It's based on a very bad mis— um, like, resting of one verse of Jacob chapter 2, which takes it completely out of context, right? And, and we could get into that. And also, it is extremely damaging to women when we do start digging in and do start understanding this. And so, yes, the idea that Men can be sealed to two women. Like, the church is, I mean, you know, sort of has one foot in polygamy and one foot out of polygamy, right? And like Elder Cook has said, the highest councils of the church believe it has served its purpose. It's not going to come back again. But then we get statements with President Nelson is the first one for a long time who has either paraphrased or referred to or actually quoted verses of Section 132 that previous prophets for many decades have not approached with a 10-foot pole. So our current leadership seems to be a little bit more in favor of eternal polygamy than our past leaders have been. And I guess we have yet to see where it goes. I think it just depends on the perspective of whoever the current leader is, is what we've seen. So, so I, I do think that the church has a big problem with polygamy. And I think that in general, the best way through these things is with transparency and truthfulness and letting go of false traditions. I like to, I don't want to be offensive in any way, but I think one of the horrible things that has happened in the church is our temple ban, our history of racism, right? And if the church were still saying things like, well, full inclusion of all races is the rule, but racism is the exception, and if God ever wants us to to exclude a certain race from the temple. He'll tell us to do that, and that's in God's— and we just can't worry about what that would mean for people, right? And saying, well, the reason that existed is because people were fence-sitters in heaven. They were less valued. Like, we have these really, really bad ideas of man, and then we blame them on God, and then we try to justify them. And I think that that is a very destructive approach to take. And as a woman, it is offensive to me that we are willing to say the things that Brigham Young said about certain races were deplorable. We mourn over those statements. We condemn them and disavow them, and we wish they hadn't happened and they were wrong. We don't— like, we haven't said it in those clear of terms. But yes, Paul Reeves' book has been published by Deseret Book. Let's talk about race and priesthood, right? I know that, um, Jim Bennett brought that up yesterday. We're willing to say that. And yet when it comes to women, the things that Brigham Young said about women put the things that he said about other races to shame. We have a huge catalog, a catalog of extremely destructive, deplorable things said about women, where we're not willing to make those same statements. And while we have, in many ways, I don't think we're fully there yet. I've had conversations with, um, members of the church of African descent. And there still is a difficulty. I, like, I mourn over the fact that here the church was in Utah during the Civil War in America. The church could have been this, the city on a hill, this candle on a hill of inclusion. And I think it's a tragedy that we don't have the descendants of our, or of James Bennett James' children and all of these amazing saints that we had, right? I think it's a tragedy. I am glad that we no longer hold to those statements. I think it is deplorable that the church has not in any similar way integrated women and overcome the bad statements and the bans on women. We are so ignorant of our history and we haven't dealt with it in ways that we need to.

And so we continue on with Oh, we have some connection issues, Jim, I think.

Yeah, this happened yesterday.

And themselves. Oh, oh, go ahead. Sorry, I guess we're losing each other.

We lost you again.

Oh, you, you were saying, sorry. No, you were saying it, it, it does an injustice towards women if we don't understand and acknowledge, you know, that, that the, the, um, historical statements with women, not Brigham Young, and, and you were Got a little bit disconnected, but that you were talking about, I think you're trying to answer the question is what's driving you, you know, to, I think you're trying to bring that justice to, to women and, and, and you're saying that we're ignorant of, you know, of, of some of the historical, uh, facts. We just don't know enough and we need to talk about this.

Yes. Yes. I, I do think that it keeps women in a position of uncertainty in their relationship with God. Right? How does God view me? If I read Jacob chapters 2 and 3, then I as a woman see that God cares about my feelings, my experience, my, right, what my heart yearns for. If I read Section 132, I see that God views me as property, as virgins to be given willy-nilly to men, as with no regard to my views and with threats that I'll be destroyed if I don't just comply with whatever my husband wants to do. When I Look at how the church treats Emma Smith, still based on terrible statements made by early church leaders. For me, I've explained this to Jim Bennett a little bit yesterday, as I approach my research, just automatically because of experiences that I've had and, um, when I was losing children in those incredibly tragic years. Um, this might sound strange to people, but truly, like, somehow, this was before I had started my historical research, but Emma Smith got me through that. Like, repeatedly, I would just have this overwhelming feeling of, Emma made it, I can too. You know, I just developed a real closeness and appreciation and sort of awe for the sacrifices and the, um, toughness and the faith of Emma Smith. And she really became important to me. So as I started to dive into the research, it was actually studying Emma Smith, studying her life, studying all of the things that were said about her during her life compared to the polygamist narrative of her. That was the thing that actually convinced me this is not true. These are not true. Statements. These are lies. And if they're lies about Emma, they're very— but they're also lies about Joseph, right? And, and I started to study it from that perspective. So I automatically center Emma Smith in my perspective on this topic when I look at polygamy. And we have stories that say God sent an angel with a drawn sword that threatened to kill Joseph Smith if he didn't betray his wife. I'm sorry. I mean, it makes me want to swear, like, Oh crap. No, that is not who God is. Right? And so Jim Bennett discussed the CES Letter yesterday, right? So that's why the CES Letter is effective because, okay, I can believe that a man claiming to be a prophet might tell his wife that, but I will not believe that God did that. And in the LDS Church, our stance is still that God did that. God sends angels with swords threatening prophets that they will be beheaded if they don't betray their wives. What is that? How are we supposed to believe that, right? And so for me, when I, as, as a person of faith, when I look at the Book of Mormon and I read that in, um, 3 Nephi chapter 26, it tells us that we will receive this portion first and it is to our condemnation if we don't receive more. If we believe what we've been given, then we will receive more. Or every Doctrine and Covenants— and, uh, when I read Doctrine and Covenants 84 that tells us that we are under condemnation for taking lightly the things that we have received, namely the Book of Mormon. And when I recognize that the Book of Mormon, bar none, is the most anti-polygamy book of scripture that we have in the entire canon, it has a lot to say about polygamy, and it leaves no question. We, we go from opening chapters which have Lehi— if, if we get into the scriptures, I can talk to show you that polygamy is actually one of the main reasons he left Jerusalem, and one of the main reasons that Jerusalem was threatened with that is in there. He was told to raise up seed in the covenant. We're supposed to raise up seed. And God said, I will, I cannot raise up a seed with people who don't honor my covenant of marriage. Then we go to, um, King Noah, who, what it says, he did not do that which was right in the sight of God, for he had many wives and concubines, right? We go to Ripley Kish, who did not do that which was right in the sight of God, for he had many wives and concubines. But out of the blue, we have a scripture that starts out talking about the doctrine of having many wives and concubines. That is what verse 1 of Section 132 says, and that's what it calls it, right? How do we reconcile these? And so then when people get in and learn things, I'm just going to go on a little bit of a sidetrack, but we don't, we don't know any of our history. We don't know that in the original Doctrine and Covenants that was published in 1835 and again in 1844, we had a statement on marriage that was put in by the leaders of the church Joseph Smith was the head of the committee that was, um, creating, you know, um, what's the word, editing, I guess, putting together the Doctrine and Covenants. That section was universally voted on by— it had common consent. Every organization of the church voted on it. It was called the Statement on Marriage, and it absolutely condemns, denies, and decries polygamy. It says that in this church we say that one man shall have one wife and one woman but one husband, and Except in the case of death, when either is lib— at liberty to marry again. That was Section 101 in the writ— in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, included as 109 in the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith was killed in 1844, so throughout his lifetime, that is what he included in his— the scriptures. It was not until 1852, several— 5 years after the Saints had come to Utah, 8 years after Joseph Smith's death, that for the very first time, Brigham Young pulled Section 132 out of his desk and said, I've had this here, nobody's known about it, nobody knew it existed, but I've had it, right? We also have so many sources showing us how Brigham Young and his team of historians were altering documents, getting rid of documents, changing the history. We— that is, that is very easily, um, provable. I could show you that that was happening. And so, and then it wasn't until 1876, the year before Brigham Young died, that Section 132 was first added to the Doctrine and Covenants, and Section 101 was removed, right? And that most people don't know that. And so, so we think of this as like scripture. You can't talk about script— say that this canonized scripture shouldn't be this way, right? Even if, even if people want to believe that, um, Section 132 did come from Joseph Smith, which I, I think is absolutely ridiculous as I have delved into that He intentionally never published it. He didn't include it in section— in, in the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants, right? We can't claim that he wanted it published and canonized. So even on that alone, we could say, should this really— should we really have canonized scriptures that claim that the practice, the doctrine of having many wives and concubines is of God, that claims that women are property to be given willy-nilly that threatens women with destruction if they won't get on board with their men's infidelity, right? Do we really want that canonized in our scriptures? So I guess what drives me is this genuine belief in the Book of Mormon. I believe what it says. I think it's important for us. I think it is profound that the Book of Mormon has so much to say about polygamy when we claim that it's written for our day. And I fear— and it calls it an abomination. And so I feel like we're walking around carrying our little pet abomination in our own back pocket while decrying what we see as abomination in the rest of the world. And I see so many areas where we desperately need further light and knowledge. We are in so much need of more truth to be revealed. And I don't know how we can get it when we won't accept the truth that we've been given.

Your passion comes across very strongly. You are a very fierce advocate for your position, and I I don't think it's possible not to respect that. And I'm grateful for that. I went and saw a movie last night. Ian and I have talked about doing a podcast on this movie. It's the new one out with Hugh Grant. It's the—

what's the movie?

Heretic.

I haven't seen it yet.

Well, I believe, and Ian will have to— Ian, you're seeing it today, aren't you?

I'm seeing it tonight, yes.

You haven't seen it yet?

I'll See You Tonight.

You know, I think in some ways it is the finest depiction of Latter-day Saints on film that I have ever seen, because these are— I mean, it's not that these people are perfect, but they are very much recognizable as Latter-day Saints, the two sister missionaries. And I don't like horror movies that much, and it got really kind of gory near the end. And so there's kind of issues there. But they had this big lengthy discussion about polygamy, and the sister missionaries were essentially making the arguments that you're decrying, this idea that it was necessary, that, you know, monogamy is the rule but polygamy is the exception. I don't think they said that specifically, but they did say that polygamy was necessary in order to raise up seed and to have lots of children, which, and I'm going to agree with you, I think, here that the data shows that that is not the case, that polygamy did not actually increase the population. So people sort of look at that Jacob chapter 2 escape clause as a reason to say, well, here's when polygamy is okay because when we need to raise up seed. The historical data does not bear that out. But Hugh Grant, the bad guy says, look, I have the— initially, he's very pleasant with the sister missionaries and is talking to them about how wonderful it is that they believe and isn't it nice and I'm looking for faith. And then he says, can I ask you an awkward question? And the question is, what do you think about polygamy? And that's the beginning of sort of the deep dive into the darker parts of where the movie goes. But the thing that he raises is he says, he says, uh, Joseph Smith was caught with Fanny Alger. He says Fanny Alger's name, or Al— I've always thought it was Alger.

It is. We had, uh, Lindsay Hansen Park started saying Alger, so now we say Alger. John Bradley talked to some descendants that say it's Alger. I've talked to other descendants who say it's Alger. The connection Correct phonetic pronunciation is Alger, so I stick with Alger.

Well, so I have not reviewed all of your material, and yesterday you asked me what is the strongest evidence you have that Joseph Smith is a polygamist, and I didn't answer because I'm not really invested in that question in the same way you are, and so I wasn't trying to prove my point. But after watching that, I went, I would very much like to hear Michelle's take on Fanny Alger, Alger, because whether or not Joseph was a polygamist, I think the historical record is very clear that whatever relationship he had with Fanny was enough to drive Oliver Cowdery out of the Church. We have Oliver Cowdery's statement about the dirty, nasty, filthy scrape or affair, depending on which version of the document you're looking at. But my understanding of that event is that Oliver was troubled by it, considered it adultery, was called before a church court to discuss it, and Joseph Smith didn't deny the relationship, but he denied adultery. And, you know, I'm getting this from Richard Bushman warmed over, so I'm probably getting the details wrong. But certainly there's some kind of relationship between Joseph and Fanny that if it's not a polygamous relationship, it's an adulterous relationship, or is it something else? So that to me is— I've got to find a way to reconcile that, and I'd be very interested to hear your perspective.

Sure. And this is something I would, I would love to get into the documents on, because it's hard when I just talk about it. It might sound ridiculous. What's better is when we get into the documents. Can I first take a tiny little sidetrack and respond to the Raise Up Seed comment and then come back to Fanny Alger? So, um, so, so this is one thing that I think is really important. It's not merely that. So all of the excuses that we use to justify polygamy have fallen by the wayside, right? It's needed to take care of widows. Well, no. Because there were more men than women in Utah, they weren't marrying the widows. They were marrying the little girls, the teenage girls, particularly those whose fathers had died. Also, you don't need to marry a widow to take care of her. If you tell a widow she has to marry you in order to have food and shelter, that's prostitution. Not right. We also have a perfect example of King Limhi taking care of widows by just asking the men to provide for more in the Book of Mormon, not by marrying them. So that's one excuse. Another is we needed more children born. It's been shown that actually fewer children are born. And also, just, I wanted to point out in that escape clause, if you go to 1 Nephi 7, when Lehi tells his sons to go back to, um, get Ishmael and the girls, and his daughters, right? And it says that he should not take his family into the wilderness alone, but that his sons should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise. Lehi and his descendants were directly commanded to raise up to raise up seed. So we can't keep saying that at some other time when God will command people to raise up seed, he'll command polygamy. We have every time God has commanded people to multiply and replenish and every new beginning, it was done in God's perfect establishment of monogamy. Adam and Eve, right? Noah and his wife and all of his sons. And there, there were 8 souls on the ark. Each of Noah's 3 sons had 1 wife. Each of the animals were 1 and 1. It wasn't 1 male and 7 females to, to populate the earth, right? Then we have Sariah and Lehi, their sons with one wife each. You can read through and see that the numbers are perfect. So, so this is like an amazing job of resting the scriptures that the early polygamists did. We also have Hyrum Smith on record, um, Levi Richards recorded a sermon that Hyrum Smith gave when he said that Jacob, the Sermon of Jacob, is to be seen as a perpetual principle. And he says if If an angel were to appear to you and teach you polygamy, you should be sure to see his cloven foot and the cloud of blackness, because people were going around saying that, you know, there were people— there were underground polygamists in Nauvoo. The, the only difference between people who claim that Joseph was a polygamist— they claimed that there were underground polygamists in Nauvoo and it was being kept a secret and Joseph was in on it. And the big difference is, I think actually polygamy was being kept a secret from Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, not that Joseph part of it, and you can see that by the fact that there were hardly any polygamous marriages during Joseph's lifetime other than those that we claim, and, and any claims for marriages don't start until like 1869, way after the fact. But as soon as Joseph dies, polygamy goes crazy in Nauvoo, and there start to be so many polygamous wives taken and so many babies born. So that's, I know that's a little bit of a sidetrack, but these are some of the things that I think are important to get into. So Fanny Alger. Was actually a struggle for me in, in this, in every way. How do we make sense of this, right? Is it an affair? Is it a polygamist wife? How do we make sense of it being a polygamist wife when the— when polygamy hadn't been revealed yet? Then we have to go to these other terrible sources. So it's a problem for everybody except the, um, anti-Mormons or the non-Mormons, the people who have left the church who are just like, Joseph Smith was a con man and a womanizer and He was always sleeping with the babysitter.

Oh shoot, we've lost you again. Yeah, yesterday, Ian, it went out, her phone.

When I—

Oh, I'm sorry, you were about to say sleeping with the babysitter and then you froze.

Oh darn it. Yeah, well, so anyway, the post-Mormon position is the one that makes what's the most easily explained. In the Fanny Alger affair. So how do we make sense of what she was, right? Was she a wife? Was she an affair? Was she whatever? And so I, when I really dug into the documents on that, and I, I can share a couple of, um, different experiences. One challenge I have, I'm hesitant to share insights I have. One challenge I have is it's so easy for people to view me as someone who just is acting out of motivated reasoning because I just desperately need Joseph Smith to be a good guy and I have him on a pedestal. So I need to make that make sense. And I, I just, that annoys me so much. I'm so frustrated by that. I, I feel the same way about that as I do about people saying about people who leave the church that they just did it because they wanted to sin and they just never had a testimony to begin with. We make up stories about people so that we don't have to actually see them as people and engage with them. Right. So I guess I'm requesting people to please not, please do me the honor of not telling me that that's who I am when I'm, when I know that that's not who I am, right? But I will say that, um, before I— the history is overwhelming, and the thought of digging into the history just overwhelmed me when I was, you know, when I considered studying out Joseph Smith and this question before I had, before I had decided one way or the other. And I'll share this experience, and then I'll share a little bit of the historical record because this was the order it came in for me. I was reading a book that, um, someone sent me that was, um, it's Whitney Horning's book about called Joseph Smith Revealed. And she wrote a book saying Joseph wasn't a polygamist, right? And I was very skeptical of that idea. So I started reading it. There were themes that I really appreciated. There were other things that I didn't agree with as I read it, but I got to her Fanny Alger section and, and, and it just bothered me again. That story has always bothered me. Me, right? Like, how do I make sense of this? And, um, and so I was actually on an airplane, I was flying, and I just set the book down because none of it was making sense to me. And I just prayed and I said, Lord, will you help me understand what happened with Fanny Alger? You know, like, can you show me? And this is kind of how I work. So I'm going to share this at the risk of being totally dismissed by people, but I want to continue on, like, listen to a little bit more of it. Anyway, when I prayed that Immediately, a scene from my freshman year of college that I didn't even know I remembered came right to mind. And Jim Bennett and I talked about it yesterday. We were both in theater. I was a music dance theater major at BYU. And I was in a musical my freshman year. And there were 4 girls. We were working on a dance number. And we had a pianist who was a guy. And we were going over the vocals after our rehearsals. We were all gathered around the piano. And being— Freshmen in college, we were all kind of flirty, I guess, you know, one of the girls was giving the pianist a back rub. The rest of us were there laughing and giggling. And all of a sudden it was, it was not anything other than just, you know, like it was innocent flirtation. But all of a sudden that pianist sat up straight, lifted the girl's hands off of his back, walked up and turned white, walked, stood up and walked toward the door. And his wife had come in. And so his wife had walked in and he kind of realized, I'm having this flirting, you know, these girls are all flirting with me. And so, and I remember my heart sinking and just being like, oh no, I hope that's okay. You know, it was really a good lesson to me of like, oh, I need to be more aware of, you know, this situation. Anyway, that came right to my mind and I had not even remembered that event. And so it gave me an opening of a way to possibly think about Fanny as, like, I just had this— I'm not saying this is what happened with Fanny. I'm saying this is what I feel the Lord brought to my mind to give me an opening of a way to think about Fanny. And, and what kind of I envisioned is the possibility that, like, we do know some things about Fanny. She was very attractive. She was very outgoing. She was very flirtatious, right? And so if she was flirting with Joseph, Emma saw that and was upset by it. Just like the husband, you know, even though Emmett and that, um, you know, and then, and, and so, so just that possibility. And then what was fascinating is as I dug into the historical record, that is the best explanation I can find in the entire historic, based on the entire historical record. And I can give you a couple of examples about it. I won't go into the whole, into the entire thing, but yes, it is true that the, um, Fanny Alger situation came up in front of the Kirtland High Council, right? This was in Kirtland before they had gone to Nauvoo. And, um, when it was brought up by Oliver Cowdery— but Oliver Cowdery wrote an extensive letter to the Kirtland High Council about all of his allegations about Joseph Smith. He doesn't say anything about Fanny Alger. That is not one of his, um, main issues. It was brought up in the in the High Council discussion, but Joseph Smith explained it adequately to ease all of those High Councilmen's concerns, to the point that they just described it as the girl business, which to me could mean this, this little girl business thing that happened that was not a big concern. It's important, important to recognize some of the people who were in that High Council meeting, including Thomas B. Marsh, for example, and several others who left the church not soon after that, who were motivated and were doing everything they could to, um, to badmouth Joseph Smith, right? Thomas B. Marsh admitted that he spread several lies about Joseph Smith. Oh my goodness, if there had been adultery in there, isn't that one of the things they would have accused Joseph Smith of? And none of them did. And so we can go into the entire history of all of the documentation of that. It's not good documentation. But it shows very clearly that there is almost nothing here. The actual, the actual, um, clear stories of, of, um, Fanny Smith come from Mosiah Hancock, Levi Hancock, and then Mosiah Hancock, like, decades later, building on previous claims. You, you just see that the documentation is extremely poor. And while I get annoyed when people accuse me of motivated reasoning, what I see actually is a lot of motivated reasoning on all of the other sides, the people that won't engage with me. The LDS Church under Brigham Young was extremely motivated to claim that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Their abs— their, like, their, um, credibility, their, their, um, validity as the church, the success— the successors of Joseph Smith depended on it, right? And then we go to today where the LDS Church is still motivated to say our The prophets could never lead us astray. Our church leaders didn't do anything wrong. They still need to claim that Brigham Young was right. And so Joseph was a polygamist. And then for many, many people who have left the church, that is such a traumatic, huge process for many people to go through a faith crisis, to leave the church. The last thing they want to do is say, oh, would Joseph Smith maybe not have been actually the person I thought that he was, right? And I'm not asking anyone to come back to the church. I'm not. I'm not, um, doing any kind of evangelizing of that sort. I don't have an end goal of where I want people to be or what I want people to believe. I just want us to look honestly at the documentation and have the rigorous conversations that need to be had without the motivated reasoning I see everywhere. Because for so many of the people that are also now fighting against the church, the main thing that they absolutely need is to claim that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. It's one of the biggest things that we have to say Joseph Smith was a bad guy. And I think it's a shame that the big podcasters in the post-LDS space won't have me on because, you know, as, as someone has said, we can't let this get any oxygen, right? They're, they're not willing to engage in these honest discussions because of their motivated reasoning. So I don't know if that helps with your Fanny Alger discussion. I would love to get into the documentation because I think it's interesting to see how, how we those, um, the, the documentation actually is and how, how it's not a good fit at all to claim she's a plural wife. The documents do not show that, and the documents do not show that it was an affair. The best explanation is actually turns out to be the one that my mind opened up to, that there was some flirtation, rather innocent flirtation, but that was inappropriate and was explained to completely satisfy the counselors that maybe Oliver Cowdery misunderstood.

There's a, there's a huge disconnect in, in this conversation and what I understand what the church's position. And I think that's where your work is focused. You know, there's historical, uh, and a seemingly factual disconnect. You've got this, uh, you've made this claim that Joseph Smith, um, wasn't a polygamist. The church has, I think, for years did, uh, agreed with you. I think it, it is, it's, um, taught or suggested that Joseph Smith wasn't a polygamist. That's what I understood investigating the church. And during my early years in the church, didn't know or even heard actually that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I understand that happened from Brigham Young going forward. Church has now, uh, for a number of reasons now come to the position that officially the church states that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. In fact, there is, uh, some of the work that the church has—

you glitched out there, Ian. The church, the church's statement stated—

yeah, so, uh, historically the church has, um, uh, had a, a position that Joseph Smith— at least I was taught that Joseph Smith when I was younger in the church and investigating the church in, in my early years in the church, that Joseph Smith that didn't practice polygamy. Um, and now for different reasons, um, other facts came to the surface and the church position now that Joseph Smith did in fact practice polygamy. Um, how familiar are you with the work of, um, Brian C. Hales? I've got an article of his which is titled Encouraging Joseph Smith to Practice Plural Marriage: The Accounts. Apparently there are several accounts, Jim, uh, of the angel and the drawn sword.. And, uh, Brian Hale says here that in this historical document, which I think the church accepts, or in part, he says that the historical record indicates that Joseph Smith contracted his first plural marriage in 1835 or in 1836 in Kirtland, Ohio, with Fanny Alger. Uh, he says upon learning of this relationship, his legal wife Emma and a close friend of Oliver Cowdery rejected it, considering it adulterous. We've just got into some of that. So the, uh, the church, uh, uh, position or teachings were that Joseph Smith wasn't a polygamist. It now states clearly that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. You are saying he wasn't. You're saying that the history suggests that otherwise. The two questions that come to mind is, um, what, just as a comment here, it, it appears that Joe Smith had an affair with Fanny Alger and to cover it up, got together with some of the brethren and said, look, he's had a, a sexual relationship with Fanny Alger. She's, how old is she at this point? Is she 14?

She's 16.

No, 16.

Well, we don't, you can't say, cuz we don't know what year it happened, right? Dating it is very challenging.

Okay.

I've heard 14, I've heard 16, and Joe Smith, she wasn't 14, she was at least 16. 16 based on the dating I've seen.

Okay. And Joseph Smith, how old is he at this stage? Joseph Smith, how old is he?

Oh, way too old. In his 30s at that point.

And there, so for lots of reasons, you know, having an affair, adulterous relationship, which is what I've just quoted there from Brian C. Hales, uh, the position of the prophet, um, perhaps, and I'm just kind of making this up, in order for this to look as, uh, be a bit more acceptable than it really was, um, there was this notion that, you know, he had a spiritual relationship with her and it was sacred and it was some form or version of polygamy in order for it to be acceptable. Perhaps that's what really happened. But my question is, with this big disconnect where the church has been quiet at best, now still quiet on the subject of polygamy and quiet and wants this thing to go away, I agree from what you said earlier, polygamy has been a major problem for the church, a major probably the biggest problem that I think in race and the priesthood, right, that they're the two, in my experience, the two big challenges that the church still hasn't, um, understood, hasn't characterized properly, hasn't addressed, and would love for these issues to go away. So it— but it now accepts and teaches and positions that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. It doesn't want to talk about it anymore. He's saying, look, you know, in the essays, in the articles, He was a polygamist. It's done now. It was what it was. It was back then, et cetera, et cetera. It was a different time. And we don't practice polygamy anymore. We don't teach it. But then, as I mentioned earlier, Elder Oaks has two wives. He's sealed to two wives. So, and that's something you didn't address when I asked earlier, if you don't mind. So, so my questions are, what was driving the church to, you know, Brigham Young to introduce polygamy? Um, was— did I characterize that relationship, that incident that happened with Fanny Alger correctly or not? And what's your position on the church's, uh, uh, uh, position, um, that it still teaches in some ways, or in some way, and practices the principle and practice of polygamy in the temple, where a man can go to the temple and be sealed to two wives?

I want to interject very quickly before I let you go wild here, Michelle. Because I know you are familiar with the work of Brian Hales, for one thing.

I am.

But the one point of order I want to establish here is— where did those balloons come from? The one point of order I want to establish here is that I do not think there was ever a time when the church did not teach that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, unless you want to count the time that Joseph Smith was alive. I mean, since, since Brigham Young, I don't know that there's ever been a time— because I grew up in the church, uh, and I can't remember a time when I didn't know Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I think that's unusual because that's not discussed in a lot of families in a lot of circumstances, but it was discussed in mine. And if you— Section 132 has been in print since, I guess it's 1870 when it was added to the Doctrine and Covenants. But it's been in print since then, and it's very clear that the position of the Church in Section 132 is that this is a revelation that was given to Joseph Smith, and therefore Joseph Smith was in fact a polygamist. So, I mean, so I think that It's important to note that, and either one, either or of you guys are welcome to push back on that, but I just wanted to jump in before Michelle, I let you loose to answer Ian's questions.

Can I respond? Well, I'll do my best to respond quickly to each of these things. I will say, I think that there's a difference between being a Utah Mormon descendant of polygamists, right, and having the perspective that we have. And I know that the missionaries for a long time did not teach people. I'm did not teach people that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. And I know that the term anti-Mormon lies has been applied to Joseph Smith's polygamy many times. And I, I can't dig out right now any leadership quotes, but I know definitely that we were trying intentionally to understate, undermine the idea that Joseph was a polygamist. So I don't know that it's like, like, I don't know that it's fair to say, you know, it's like, I even know some, well, I think it's strange for Utah descendants of polygamists to hear other people say they never knew that Joseph was a polygamist. But I think that people who are not out, who are outside of Utah and not descended from Mormons, are very valid and legitimate to say that they were not taught that and they were taught the opposite. Do you have anything to add?

That was not taught. It was hidden. It was, it was not discussed. I think that's absolutely true.

And it was claimed to be anti-Mormon lies, right? Like it was claimed to be untrue. So that was, yeah.

But in terms of, but the official position of the church It was, it has never been, the church has never taught since Brigham Young that Joseph Smith was a polygamist.

Not as an official teaching.

Not as an official teaching, but culturally we have hidden it. We have refused to discuss it. We have obfuscated and we have outright lied in a number of cases.

Yes, I agree with that. And then just really quickly to hit on the Elder Oaks question since I forgot it last time, and then I have a lot to say on the rest of it. You'll have to again, make sure I get all of it touched on, but I think it is a shame, a terrible, terrible shame that we say that men can be sealed to two women and women cannot be sealed to two men. And actually, I have to— I get in trouble for being emotional, but sometimes these things do make me emotional because of the fallout that I see. We have a horrible problem in this church for young widows. Women who lose a husband are in this terrible, untouchable class. Where they have— it's not the Scarlet A, it's the Scarlet W on their chest, where they are forced to choose either to break their sealing with their husband who they loved and who died, and who his family is telling her, "You better not break your sealing with our son." Yeah, I mean, these situations I know. Or having other men in the church refuse to date them and refuse to marry them because he is left alone. The children that they have will be sealed to the first husband. It an absolute mess. Here we have a situation where Jesus told us to care for the widows and the orphans, and we have a doctrine that is built on the backs and crushes the widows in our church. And it is an absolute— it is a shame. I don't have strong enough language. It makes me so upset, right? I have a friend who told me the situation. She was sealed to— she was a widow. She married a widower. And so they weren't sealed and they had children together. One time they were driving home and, you know, it wasn't an issue for them because they were both already sealed, but their little child was talking about their Primary lesson and saying how glad he was that they were an eternal family. And, you know, because that was the lesson. And one of the older siblings that was broke said, you're not— we're not an eternal family. You're not sealed to Dad. And he said, what? And this child found out that he was sealed to some man who had died who he'd never met. Right. And it was devastating and has continued to affect that family's relationship with the Church. This is deplorable and inexcusable and needs to stop. We tell women, "Just have faith." We tell women, like Elder Oaks gave a talk in general conference about how— started out talking about a letter that a woman wrote saying, "Will I have to share a house in the celestial kingdom?" And he laughed and everybody laughed. And we're We can laugh at the genuine heartache of women that this false doctrine causes. It's not okay. And so for me, we are perfectly happy to tell women, just trust God, God will work it out. Well, you know what? That goes for everybody. My— if I were, you know, Empress for a day, and I'm not, and I recognize that, but I wish deeply that the church would recognize that we don't understand everything and we don't know everything, what we think we know. And if we would just allow both women and men to be sealed to another spouse after their spouse dies and say, we trust God to work it out, maybe, you know, receive more light and knowledge, that would be lovely. I think it is a terrible tragedy that we have this inequality in our church, and it's just one of many that needs to be given voice and that needs to be spoken out to. So when you ask what drives me, these are the things that drive me. I think this is not okay. So that's my answer to that question. And then, um, yes, I am extremely familiar with the work of Brian Hales. Unfortunately, Brian Hales is the one who sets the narrative for the church. You know, we, we have these utterly deniable gospel doctrine essays that aren't signed. They're not statements of the church. They're just on the church website. No, you know, So that they can, anyway, and Brian C. Hales was heavily involved in writing the one for the Nauvoo, for Nauvoo polygamy. His, um, trilogy is, oh, I have so much I could say. In my opinion, Brian C. Hales is best seen not as a historian, because he's not, but as an apologist in the negative sense of the word, not the positive sense of the word, right? Ryan has been involved in trying to get me excommunicated from the church. He does not want— he is not willing to engage in discourse and he does not want these ideas spread. He wants people silenced and punished for daring to disagree with him. He doesn't say that about other issues. It's just him trying to protect his status as the one that— this is my perspective. And, you know, I try to— I'm trying to play nicely, but I, this gets really personal. Engage in honest history, engage in discourse. Do not use these sneaky behind-the-scenes power games to try to get people deplatformed from historical conferences, which he did. And he's like beside himself that I haven't been excommunicated. He's constantly talking about what local leaders should do and he's pulling whatever channels he can to try to get people excommunicated. He doesn't know my family. He doesn't know my relationship with the church. I think that is inexcusable again, right? So I think that if we have a good narrative, it should be able to be discussed rigorously and it shouldn't have to be silenced. And so I have personally caught Brian Hales being deeply dishonest with historical documents, claiming he has seen things and claiming they say things that they do not say and vice versa. He is not He claims that the leaders of the church never taught that polygamy was required for exaltation, which is blatantly false. Who— so Brian Hills sets the narrative for the church, and if we want to be in line with the church, we have to believe the church narrative according to Brian Hills. I strongly disagree, which would require us literally to believe that God did indeed send an angel with a sword. He clarifies it was a drawn sword, not a flaming sword. We sources that say both. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But we are required to believe that God sent an angel with a sword threatening to kill Joseph if he didn't betray Emma. And that Emma was at to blame for that, for not getting on board with it. That's what we are required to believe. We are required to believe that polygamy— I mean, we are required to believe things that are in actual complete contradiction to the actual historical record that we can believe for ourselves, that we can read for ourselves. Right? The church's stance on polygamy right now is a complete, complete mess. And it's because they rely on Brian Hales to give them the narrative that they think is the best for them. And I strongly, strongly disagree that it is the best for them. I think it is a terrible narrative for the church to hold to because it is verifiably untrue. And the more that people see that, the more it weakens the credibility of the church, right? We need to be able to trust that the church is telling us the truth. Enough of people feeling like the church lied to them on these things, and we are pushing false narratives on the people. And then we have people trying to enforce those narratives and saying, if you speak aloud and disagree with the narrative I set, I will see that you are excommunicated from the church. I, I cannot abide that. I don't know what— I can't remember what the rest of your question was, Ian, but I'm happy to try to get to the rest of No, I think you've done a fantastic job and your passion, your strength is incredible actually.

And I'm glad you brought up the Brian T. Hills. And I think this, for many of our listeners, they've probably not heard about these issues. This, I have to say, is I'd love to get you back on again actually and do a deep dive on this. It's something that really interests me and I'd be most interested in that.

I just want to go back to another question, and you've answered my question.

Thank you. I want to go back to another key, um, uh, thread that runs through this conversation, um, because I think it connects so many things. Maybe what's— what was the objective of the church with polygamy? You know, you've got these different big disconnects. You've got the Brian T. Hale's position, you've got your position, you've got the church walking this fine balancing act, you know, didn't want to talk about it, wants to go away. Making all these claims, some true, not true. If we go back to the main, uh, thrust of, of polygamy, the main principle, the fundamental objective, if you like, of polygamy, what was it? Was it, uh, something as base as men wanting to sleep with more women and justify that in some spiritual, uh, cloak, etc.? Uh, you know, the infidelity of men you know, men taking advantage of women, etc., or was it more spiritual? Was it a command from God? What was the— in your research, is there any evidence that God did command, um, you know, men to have polygamy? Because we read about in the Bible, you know, concubines, and it's referenced in the Book of Mormon. But so I guess there's two questions. What is, uh, what was the main objective of the church in introducing the polygamy? What was it trying to achieve? And the second question is, do you accept any evidence, especially in research, that God is ultimately behind this principle and practice and that he commands this principle and practice periodically throughout history? Sometimes he wants it, other times he doesn't. So there's two questions there.

So these are more huge questions. I will do my best to answer them as concisely as I as I possibly can. First of all, no, there is no scriptural evidence that God ever has ever commanded polygamy. Quite the opposite. We have scripture after scripture, including in Joseph Smith's Doctrine and Covenants, Section 142, "Thou shalt cleave to thy wife and thy only thy wife and no one else." And even to look upon a woman to lust after her is adultery, right? And polygamy is declared to be abomination. Verse 1 of Section 132 falsely says that God commanded polygamy. He never did. There's nothing in the historical record. You can see how every time polygamy happened, why it happened. It never was as a result of God, and it always led to terrible, terrible outcomes. By their fruits you shall know them, right? So we could go into the biblical discussion, but that would be a big discussion. I'm happy to have it. To the other question of, of where this comes from, so there are many ways to answer this, and I think that different people, all different people are different, right? I think that the majority of the people were convinced that this is actually was of God. There were many people in Utah who did not want to be polygamists but who wanted exaltation, right? There were— that's definitely the case of many, many people. If we go back to the beginning, this is one thing, and, and I don't want to, um, this is a very big and nuanced conversation, so I'll try to give it just kind of from, from a high-level view, if that's okay. Then we could dig in maybe in our conversation if you'd like to. But here's, here's kind of a situation. Incredibly powerful men who seem like they have the world in their home, right? Like we can look at politicians, athletes, actors, whatever it is. A man that reaches the pinnacle does not have limits for the most part, right? He's not limited in his money, in his wealth, in his access. He can have as many cars as he wants, as many homes as he wants. And most men in that position also can have as many women as they want, right? It's a big challenge for a religious man who reaches the pinnacle because he can have as many ho— I mean, Brigham Young built home after home after home after home as people, as one of my great-great-grandmothers was starving to death in a dugout. Lehi literally died of starvation, right? A man at the, at the pinnacle who is religious. Has, like, needs a way to not be limited to one wife, right? And it's not so much— well, there are so many discussions we could go to with this, but I think that polygamy naturally grows out of a religious mindset for men at the pinnacle who find a way that God removes the limits. We have that with David and Solomon. We have it with many others, right? Polygamy is part of the natural man. We can look back in many different, um, societies, Genghis Khan, and I mean, again and again, like, women were seen as booty. And, and the more powerful you were, the bigger your kingdom was, the bigger your army was, the bigger your palace was, and the bigger your harem was. And that holds true in Mormon polygamy, right? So it's not just lust, it's a bigger story. It's power and lust and being at the top, right? Polygamy is a very testosterone-driven institution. I'll go into this really quickly because I did an episode on brain chemistry, Polygamy in the Male Brain, I think is what that episode is called. And it was fascinating to me to study this out. Men's brains, a single man's brain is very testosterone-driven. It's very high in testosterone because testosterone is the conquest hormone, right? The hunt and find, the, you're jockeying for position. Where do I rank in the hierarchy? And I need to get the wife, get the woman, right? That is all very testosterone. Once a man is married, different brain chemicals take over. His testosterone actually lowers and his oxytocin rises because it's no longer conquest and hunt and find. It's now bond, right? So his brain chemistry actually changes and he's no longer jockeying for position that same way. And he's not out on the prowl the same way. He's now bonding. Once that couple has a child, his test— his testosterone again goes down and his oxytocin again rises because it's now bond and protect and provide and defend, right? And you can see this happening when we look at societies where it's like, even, you know, like movies of different cultures where it's the young men who wanna go to war and the old men who are, the older men who are fathers who are saying, hold on, what other options do we have, right? And that is a genuine result of very positive brain chemistry that happens. And so for me as a, as someone who believes in God, I look at this and I have looked at polygamy every single way, sociologically, psychologically, biologically, in every single way. Like all things testify of Christ, all things testify of God's establishment of monogamy, right? A fascinating thing is that studies have been done that show that in polygamy, a male brain does not undergo the same changes because even when a man is married, if he's polygamist, He's still on the prowl. He's still jockeying for position. I, I've mentioned this before. I have a sister who, you know, polygamists are very heavily involved in construction, especially in Utah and the surrounding areas. Right. And she was working in it for a construction company. And so she was dealing with a lot of polygamist men. And she had several experiences of seeing married men still on the prowl. Right. It was, it was very foreign to her. But this is what it is. She, she told me about a story where there was a woman in her prairie dress sitting, nursing the baby, taking care of the toddler, and in walked a pretty girl and her husband, you know, stood up. I mean, it's like this outright flirting that married, monogamous men go through a training and a discipline that changes who they are actually to the level of their brain chemistry, right? And in polygamy, that doesn't happen. And that's That's how we get a King David who was standing out watching the mikveh on the roof, which was the women's ritual bath, shopping, right? And his lust was, he was so used to feeding his lust, to not having limits, that even when there was a woman who was already married, he could not handle not having his lust gratified, right? And so I think polygamy is multifaceted. It's so easy for men to say, oh, I wouldn't want that, right? But when you are, I don't know, you've been married for a while and there's a young pretty girl, when most monogamous men are trained to say, no, I am committed to my wife. Right. But, but when your wife's had a couple of kids, maybe things are a little bit difficult. You're, you're equally yoked and it's hard for a man and a woman to— marriage is hard, right? How much easier to be able to just go get that young girl instead. But you know, who wants to be stuck with a woman in her 40s when you can have girls in there that are 15 and 16? Is kind of this how the mindset changes. And so it's very pernicious and it's, and it's, and it can be subtle until you actually look into it. That was the thing I realized of how naive I was, was in marriage. Marriage is hard. It is hard, right? To keep a relationship healthy. And the thing we have going for us is that we're equally yoked. My husband. Is as invested in our relationship as I am. As soon as polygamy enters, that flies out the window, and what we get is a man who has all of the power and the women who hope to please him and try to be his favorite, and keep sweet grows automatically out of that. And we see the beginnings of it in the early Utah polygamist era, right? And so, so it just, it just devastates human relationships in so many different ways. And so, and you know, we do have this story of Brigham Young meeting his last favorite wife and seeing her at the rail station. And here he is, and you know, I'm sorry, a dirty old man, you know, just like David was a dirty old man. When David was an old man, David in the Bible, they couldn't keep him warm. So I don't know, if you can't keep grandpa warm, what do you do? Like put him by the fire, put blankets on him, give him warm soup? No, with David, what they needed to do was find the most beautiful young girl And so they do go through the whole, um, kingdom to find Abishag, who's, I don't know, 12, 13, 14, and they have her lie with David. He's too old to consummate. But I— these, this is— these are terrible, terrible things to defend. And we get to where we read the early Mormons, they're defending these things. They're proclaiming how much God loves his faithful polygamist leaders because he provides for them in way, right? So yeah, I, I, you have Brigham Young at the train station seeing this 22-year-old girl and wanting her, being able to have her, right? And so it really changes the way that, um, like, like it changes the way that polygamous men perceive the world. And I could go into like Joseph Smith, if we look at his life, this is one of the evidences to me he and Emma really were equally yoked. We could read their letters to to each other, the way they spoke to each other, the way they relied on each other and trusted each other, how Joseph had Emma involved in his business dealings, how he trusted her, how he— Joseph put Emma in as the president of the Relief Society and told the women to sustain her. I'm sorry, polygamous men do not do this with women in general, and particularly with women who oppose polygamy, right? We can go to Brigham Young's sermons that he gave to the, um, I think it might have been the elders and the Seventy. He gave the same, a very similar sermon twice that we have some records available to us of. And if you read what he said, it's the sermon where he told, where he disbanded the Relief Society. He told the men, if you see women huddling together, veto the affair. Like he said, women were not allowed to talk to each other. The Relief Society is, what are Relief Societies for? To relieve us of our best men, right? He blamed the Relief Society. And in one of those sermons, He says, any man who was led by a woman will be led directly to hell. No woman will ever get into the celestial kingdom unless she's led there by a man, and a man who follows a woman will go directly to hell. And then he literally says these words: God knew what Eve was, right? We can see a history of Brigham Young as sort of a woman hater to some extent. We can look at the dynamic between Brigham and his wife and, and compared to the dynamic between Joseph and his wife. So it just, it's polygamy grows out of a different kind of mindset and then it creates a different kind of mindset. And I think it is very contrary to the kind of godly men that God expects, expects his true followers to be.

I, I, I can't thank you enough for that perspective. I, I think it's really interesting to think of it in that way. And I hadn't thought of it in terms of the. The, you know, the man on the prowl. I think we want to wind this up here a little bit, but we would very much— I would very much like to have you come back and do more of a deep dive on some of this. I want to share a quick story. So my great-grandfather on my father's side is Heber J. Grant, who was— people don't realize was a polygamist, because by the time he became president of the church, two of his three wives had died.

Died.

And so he sort of presented as a monogamist as president of the church, but he was in fact a polygamist, and one of the wives that had died is my great-grandmother. And, um, and at one point my grandmother, who was Heber J. Grant's last surviving daughter, passed away in 1995, I think it was, um, was going through some of his letters his letters to my great-grandmother and letters to his other polygamous wives. And one of Heber J. Grant's grandsons was Truman Madsen, who's my first cousin once removed. And he was going through these letters with my grandmother, and he said to her, Francis, you need to publish these because these are so lovely and they demonstrate that polygamy was not terrible.. And they show how a polygamist relationship was actually— I mean, Heber J. Grant practiced polygamy in a magnanimous and wonderful way, and his relationship with his wives was so beautiful. This would be so good for the Church if you were to publish these. And my grandmother thought, well, geez, I don't know, what should I do? And called Spencer W. Kimball. Who was the president of the church at the time, and Spencer W. Kimball was on her doorstep that same day to talk to her about it. And what he said to her was, you are under absolutely no obligation to publish these. And furthermore, uh, there's a lot of polygamy in my family and it isn't lovely. It's really kind of ugly. And so, you know, this was the time in the Church when it was, "Let's not talk about this at all. Let's tamp this down. Let's not discuss it. Let's hope it just sort of goes away." And that was the counsel that the President of the Church gave my grandmother all those years ago. And I think we are now dealing with a reckoning with this. One of the big problems we have in the Church is that we think if we just don't talk about it, if we just sort of move on, that the problem goes away. We're seeing that not just with polygamy, but we're also definitely seeing it with race. I went on tour with the Tabernacle Choir, and we sang in the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel with Spelman and Morehouse Colleges, these traditionally black colleges in Georgia, and sort of tried to say, okay, here we are with this wonderful racial reconciliation. That we're having with the world, but it's not getting there because we still haven't reckoned with our legacy on that issue. As Paul Reeve has said, how can you root out racism if we don't look at its roots? And I think the same principle applies with polygamy. Again, you have not convinced me that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. You have convinced me that we have not addressed this issue head-on. That whoever, I mean, Brian Hales apparently used to sing in the Tabernacle Choir. I hear lovely things about him as a human being. I think it's terrible that he's trying to get anybody excommunicated, least of all you. Not least of all, I mean most of all you. But, you know, so this isn't an indictment of Brian Hales or anybody else. It's a, look, we don't have a choice anymore. We have to look at these things. We have to confront them. We have to reckon with them. And even if we have to accept, you know, that Brigham Young, you know, introduced polygamy, even though we've taught that Joseph did, or we have to accept that no, Joseph did in fact teach polygamy, and this is a stain on Joseph. But because right now it's a stain on all of us, not necessarily even because polygamy is right or wrong, but because we aren't willing to confront and accept our history.

And can I just add one thing? Because I just really quickly to what you're saying, I do want to say I did not want to get into the question of Joseph Smith for huge reasons, because I knew it would eclipse what I see as the far more important message that I want to get out. My overarching message is polygamy is not of God. And I hope that you're saying that's the— I don't know that you needed to be convinced of that, but, but, but, but that is what our church needs to deal with at its core. As I continue to research, I learned to my great surprise that I also believe it's not of Joseph Smith. But the important— that's not the important issue. The important issue is it's not of God.

I, I don't know if I'm willing to go there fully. I'm willing to consider that. I'm sure, you know, when I got married, my wife said exactly what you're saying. Polygamy is not of God. It was all just nonsense. And I thought, oh crud, my wife's going to hell. She doesn't. She's not a true believer. And the more I've looked at this, the more I've gotten into this, you know, whether something is of God or not is a really large and in some ways personal question. Because, you know, we talked yesterday about Section 132, and you said, you know, is this of God? And I can point you to parts of Section 132 that I absolutely believe are God. I agree. And then I can point you to parts in Section 132 that I think are absolutely abhorrent. And so reconciling that, trying to— I mean, that I think to a large degree is the purpose of mortality, trying to figure out where God's hand is in everything. And so I'm not willing to say that God's hand could not have in any way been involved in polygamy.

And I would offer one thing up, I say.

No, but what I am willing to say that we need to ask that question and we need to confront it and be willing to follow wherever the truth leads.

Yeah. I know we're wrapping up. I just wanted to respond to that one part really quickly and say that's where the historical work helps because it was so, so firm. I don't know, just like amazing to me when I saw the evidence to show that Joseph Smith did teach the beautiful parts of section that are now in Section 132, because Joseph absolutely did. Receive a revelation and teach it on eternal marriage that was later tampered with to create 132. So I just wanted to validate that I have the same perspective on Section 132. And I think that that's important to recognize that that can be shown in the historical record.

Ian, any parting thoughts?

Yeah, just a few. I'll be real quick. Michelle, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. I've learned so much from you. I think you're an extraordinary individual, I mean that, and I appreciate your feelings and respect them, your emotions. You know, these, this is a very important topic and I would love to have a more deeper dive on this for sure. Just so quick thoughts. I, before you came onto the podcast and had the conversation, I believe Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. Now, listening to you, and there's so much more to this conversation than we have time for right now. Now I don't know. I've read the Brian C. Hale stuff. I know the church's official position. Read the essay. I know this is a major, major issue for the church. Publicly, it denounces polygamy. Privately, it, we all know, let's face it, it still believes it and practices it in the temple. I think it would like it to go away. I don't think the church wants to talk about this. You know, we want to put it in a box and lock it up. And I think that that's a mistake from what you guys are saying. I think it's important to talk about this. I am willing to come out and say, and I've always felt this, I'm not sure if I shared this with Jim Bennett, I never believed polygamy was of God, ever. Even when I was a bishop or on the Stake Presidency, I mean, that's irrelevant, that little calling is irrelevant. It's how I felt personally, in my personal testimony, I never accepted the, um, uh, rejection of the Blacks, uh, in regards to the priesthood. Never. It always felt wrong. I've read awful, disgusting, grotesque quotes by Brigham Young, mostly, I believe, from what I've read, uh, in regards to the race and the priesthood that, you know, I found deeply offensive. And I'm, I'm a white guy, right? I can't imagine how those poor Black folks felt when they read that or when they come across that stuff. Recently, you know, the rejection of Blacks for the priesthood and temple blessings is not of God. Yeah, believe you me.

I agree.

Is not of God. I've never believed that. I don't believe it now, but I would love to get you back on if Jim Bennett is open to this and having a deeper conversation because I think this is this and the race of the priesthood, I think the two biggest challenges and barriers that the church faces. And it still hasn't yet— how many years now? 150, 160, 170 years— still, with all of the intelligence that the church has, still hasn't figured it out. And where is it? It's— I think you described it real well— it's a complete mess. It really is. Anyway, I want to thank you so much for coming on, and I hope you, uh, You felt comfortable sharing your thoughts and your feelings.

Oh, I did. I loved our, I loved our conversation. Thank you for letting me go off so many times. I really appreciate you guys.

And we appreciate you. Thank you very much. And we also appreciate all of you spending this time with us listening to Inside Out. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast to be notified when new episodes drop. And we're just grateful for all of our listeners and for everybody that is, is part of this discussion. And until next time, we will look forward to seeing you on Inside Out. And thank you, Michelle, and thank you, Ian.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Michelle.

Thank you.