Thought we needed another topic/cult to collectively beat up on:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/chi-0609240351sep24,0,969308.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines


I had no idea there were that many doing this crap.

The last number I'd heard was something like 12,000 polygamists, though that might have referred to the number of families. The article raises a good point about enforcemnt:
"We don't have the resources, nor do I think that we should use our resources, to convict every polygamist in Utah, put them in jail and put 20,000 kids into foster care," Shurtleff told a Canadian reporter recently when asked the state's approach to cracking down on polygamy. "What we're focusing on are crimes against women and children and tax fraud and other crimes involving misuse of public money."

I guess if enough people break the law.....it isn't a law any more. My problem is these kinds of practice lead to :

taking his 16-year-old niece as his 15th wife.

I would bet that the vast majority of this clown's previous victims were related and underage....as I would bet the vast majority of "wives" in these communities are.

Here's one thing though...assuming the "wives" aren't underage or closely related, what defines the "polygamy". Under secular law he's married to one "wife" and the rest are legally not bound to him. So it's not unlike say, swingers sleeping around, or unmarried people having sex and popping out kids. Now if he tries to apply for a marriage certificate for another wife, then it's breaking the law, correct?

The sad part is, most of these people would have a hard time finding a mate anyways.
Being recently divorced , myself, I couldn't imagine having 15 women with their vairous moods, issues, and complaints as my wives....
And can you imagine 15 seperate divorces? Jeesh!

If the only law they are breaking is having multiple wives, who gives a damn. Now if you are forcing folks to do something, or marrying underage girls then we have a problem. Got a good friend, his wife and her girlfriend are both Bi and she lives with them. If you cohabit in Texas for 7 years you are legally a common law marriage, he has a child with each etc. is he a polygamist, probably in most folks eyes, but he and both ladies are happy and hte kids are some of the politest I have ever met and taught.

But as I told him, hell I can barely deal with 1, I sure as hell dont want two mad at me at any one time. And no By you may not tell Ginnie I said that.

Rev

If the only law they are breaking is having multiple wives, who gives a damn.
Forgetting the underaged aspect of this, these people do (from the article):
...and hundreds of boys have been excommunicated and cut off from their parents in an alleged effort to reduce the elders' competition for wives.
I've read of this before -- young men basically booted from their society by elders "mopping up" available women, many of them in their teens. It puts the lie to statements like:They say plural marriage fulfills the mission of all Mormons to be fruitful and multiply and to ascend to the highest reaches of heaven.

Hey Rev :)

I think that there are separate legal and cultural issues in this situation, and that the attitude of the folks actually trying to do the 'enforcing' in Utah and northern Arizona is on the right track - by concentrating on verifiable crimes (such as child abuse, domestic violence, tax fraud, etc), they stand a better chance of getting to the heart of what is 'bad' about this flavor of LDS splinter-sect polygamy.

I too, know several happy and totally consensual triads; truthfully, I don't think you'll find too many people in the US who object to such arrangements as long as they're not forced to 1) legally recognize multiple partner marriage (as in tax breaks, etc; while I support multiple partner committments, one's best option is to form a corporation to protect communal assets atm) or 2) perform/recognize them in the more conservative churches.

However, as others have mentioned, many (not all) of the 'Mormon' or 'Orthodox LDS' polygamists live under circumstances where determining consent is dubious at best (young girls are groomed for and married off at 13 or even younger to much older men who have demi-god like status in the community), and where the wives and children are often abused, deprived of basic necessities, and kept like prisoners on their compounds.

The people in these communities, much like the Amish and Mennonites, know nothing else while they are growing up, but unlike those groups, who recognize that their life might not be for all of their children, and require their young adult children to live for a time in the 'modern' world before coming back and 'choosing' their primitive sect, these 'Orthodox LDS' do not give their children this option (save the boys, who are almost always forcibly cast out ill-equipped to deal with the outside world).

The behavior of these 'patriarchs' of the OLDS splinter groups is reprehensible and is not condoned by the Church of Latter Day Saints btw, nor is it justifiable in terms of existing legal and human rights statutes independent of the issue of marriage itself.

Finally, I think that by concentrating on personal and property crimes rather/in preference to the issue of the marriages themselves, the law enforcement agencies in these states are trying to have something to stand on that still allows them to be sensitive to traditional Mormon attitudes towards polygamy (and some of these plural marriages are of a reasonable size and more or less truly consensual), as well as the traditional Western credo of respecting personal freedom and privacy.

Regards,
Nydia

Oh I agree that if you are forcing someone to marry, or doing anything with a minor you should be humm trying to find the right words, thinking along the lines of drawn and quartered.

Rev

It is important, as Nydia pointed out to remember that these Nutjobs are in fact *not* members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints (aka "Mormons") The only smimilarities they share is the name they've appropriated, and sometimes they use the same literature... Sometimes, some of them just use the name, but whatever their excuse is, if multiple adults want to live together and raise children. Who gives a shit. But when you start forming compounds where you restrict the education, lives, and well being of the people inside, then we have a problem.

And seriously, dealin with one woman at a time is hard enough, who in their right mind would want more than that.. (on a regular basis) And on top of that, a bunch of emotionally immature teenage girls? *Shudder*

I would love to have a couple more wives...only to convince my current one now is the problem.

Charles, 41, a computer programmer with three wives and 14 children,
What's up with this freekin' slacker?! He better get with the program already...

My Stepmother's sister was/is a Mormon. I attended their church upon occasion while visiting my "cousins". There's some serious whack-jobs in there, Auntie included. But hey, different strokes for different folks. I gave them the exact same attention I gave the Baptist church I attended. /snore

Polygamy on the whole, I can't fathom. Too many women, too many women.