just to bug DBrinto, how many people know about the mountain meadows massacre?
for those that dont know it was when the mormon church wanted to create its own nation around utah and idaho. so brigham young said that no american pilgrams were allowed to travel through utah on their way west. but lacking any modern communication pilgrams already on the move didnt hear about it. so when a group of 120 pilgrams traveled into the state accidently on their way west, a local mormon town decided to act upon it. they sent a letter to ask brigham young what to do, but it being 1857 it took awhile for shit to get to salt lake city and back, and the local mormons had to make a decision. so they did what any sound thinking person would do, they hired indians to kill the pilgrams for them. when that failed due to the defenses of the pilgrams a group of mormons came into the wagon train an encouraged the people to come to their town in order to resupply and have better protection against the indians. so when the pilgrams lowered their defenses and began traveling towards the town, the mormons attacked. the estimites of dead are from 120-230 men, women and children. only 17 children were spared because they were younger than six years old, so they couldnt remember what happened. later, when US troops came to the town to reclaim the 17 children and put them with their rightful families they found that the children had been adopted into polygomist families. there were reports of children pointing to their adopted parents and saying "those people made me watch them kill mommy".
in the defense of the mormon church, when brigham young's letter was sent back it said to let the wagon train continue, but never the less the town acted upon what their religious leaders told them to do. and the mormon church has yet to apologize for the situation. ill post some other mormon bashing later, but im sleepy right now