Homosexuality in Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo - John C. Bennett Pt 3 | LDS Discussions Ep. 51

Unspoken Desires: Sexuality and Power in Joseph Smith's Nauvoo

The final years of Joseph Smith's prophetic leadership in Nauvoo, Illinois remain one of the most scrutinized and contested periods in Mormon history. Yet one dimension of that era, the presence of same-sex dynamics within the highest echelons of church leadership, has received surprisingly little attention in official LDS historiography. According to recent LDS Discussions scholarship, documented accusations of homosexual relationships during the Nauvoo period, particularly involving Smith's trusted counselor John C. Bennett, reveal troubling gaps between what church records acknowledged and what contemporary sources reveal about sexuality and power in early Mormonism.

The question is not merely academic: it forces us to confront what the historical record actually shows about Joseph Smith's teachings on sexuality, the discipline mechanisms deployed against rivals, and the gap between public doctrine and private practice in the founding era of the Latter-day Saint movement.

The Bennett Question: Power, Position, and Accusation

John C. Bennett's trajectory from Joseph Smith's most trusted lieutenant to excommunicated adversary has long puzzled historians. Bennett served simultaneously as Nauvoo's mayor, city judge, militia commander, and co-president of the church, positions that consolidated extraordinary temporal and spiritual power. Yet when the break came in 1842, the charges levied against Bennett notably excluded sexual misconduct with men, even though contemporary newspaper accounts and historical sources documented such accusations.

This silence is deliberate and significant. The excommunication records specify Bennett's crimes as polygamy, abortion facilitation, and "spiritual wifery", a doctrine allowing sexual relations outside traditional marriage under religious sanction. But the contemporary sources cited by historians like D. Michael Quinn indicate that same-sex accusations circulated openly in Nauvoo, particularly in newspapers and private correspondence. The fact that these charges never appeared in official church proceedings raises an uncomfortable question: why would church leaders carefully exclude accusations from their formal record when those same accusations were being leveled in public?