UTAH POLYGAMISTS-Salt Lake Tribune

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http://www.polygamyinfo.com/frontdoor.htm
Polygamous supporters in UTAH:
10 VITAL REASONS TO DECLARE THE TRUTH CONCERNING POLYGAMY
Polygamy in Utah
http://www.patriarchywebsite.com/polygamy/10reasons.htm
In a rural society, the relationship of men and women is abused in one way, and in modern society, it is abused in another way. It is being abused everywhere in the world, whichever form it adopts. In the rural society, polygamy is often abused. In this modern society, polygamy is forbidden, so I will address this side of the coin. Where there is abuse, there the truth will be declared. As a minister of the Gospel, this issue is not so much a personal belief or preference but a deeper truth to stand upon and be responsible for. The list is by no means exhaustive and it is impossible for any responsible man, after knowing it to keep quiet

http://www.polygamyinfo.com/past_media%20plyg%2019trib.htm

Dennis Matthews lives in an enormous Utah
County house with five wives and 18 of their 23
children. Each wife has her own room, and Mr.
Matthews shares affections with all on a rotating
basis.
Mr. Matthews, who started his polygamous
family nine years ago, says the most difficult
aspect of polygamy is introducing a new wife
– and occasionally her children – to the family.
It takes time for everyone to get used to her
personality and needs.

Utah cases challenge whether anti-polygamy laws are constitutional:

CNN.com - Utah cases challenge whether anti-polygamy laws are constitutional...

(FindLaw) – Several prosecutions and lawsuits against polygamists, now pending in Utah, are notable for the constitutional defenses that have been – or could be – raised.

Polygamy is the practice (usually religious) of having multiple spouses (usually wives). There are two possible lines of constitutional attack on anti-polygamy statutes. One derives from the First Amendment’s religion clauses. The other derives from Due Process “right to privacy” concepts – and in particular, from the Supreme Court’s recent holding in Lawrence v. Texas that adults have a privacy right that extends to private, consensual sex acts.

In the end, neither of these lines of attack will – or should – be successful. Still, it is worth taking a close look at each to examine the extent to which the Constitution allows states to shape – or forbids them from shaping – the definition of marriage, and regulating who can marry whom.

The argument against anti-polygamy laws
First, let’s consider the argument against anti-polygamy laws deriving from the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment.

The basis of this argument is a historical fact: When Congress outlawed polygamy in the Territories in the Nineteenth Century, its motive in part was to suppress the Church of Latter-day Saints – which at that time believed in the sanctity of polygamous marriages. Modern anti-polygamy statutes, the argument holds, continue to bear this taint.
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Polygamist sect forces mayor’s resignation
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/printSN/5777.php
Polygamist sect forces mayor’s resignation
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The mayor of one of the twin polygamist communities straddling the Utah-Arizona border has resigned in an apparent power struggle within a fundamentalist offshoot sect of the Mormon church.

On Saturday, the church’s prophet, Warren Jeffs, ousted Mayor Dan Barlow and about 20 other men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in an apparent move to solidify his position as church leader. Jeffs took over in 2002 after the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs.

Barlow, the only mayor in the 19-year history of Colorado City, Ariz., resigned Monday.

Kevin Barlow, the town clerk, said a new mayor will be selected by the seven remaining members of the council. Until then, he told The Spectrum of St. George, Utah, Vice Mayor Edson Jessop is in charge.

Among the others Jeffs excommunicated were four of his own brothers, and Barlow’s son, nephew and three brothers, Robert Curran told The Salt Lake Tribune. Curran is a member of Help the Child Brides, a St. George, Utah, organization that opposes underage polygamous marriages and is monitoring the situation in nearby polygamist towns.

The men were ordered to leave town without their wives or children. The church owns most of the buildings, including residences.

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Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - Wikipedia

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a sect of Mormonism, and America’s largest polygamous group. The current leader of the church is Warren Jeffs, who became leader on the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs in 2002. The headquarters are in Hildale, Utah, which is a twin city with Colorado City, Arizona.

Membership and Headquarters
The number of members of the church is unknown; however, their population is estimated at between 6,000 to 8,000 in the twin communities of Colorado City, Mohave County and Hildale, Washington County. The church also has a colony in Bountiful, Canada. In each of these towns, the church is the primary influence and reason for being.

Distinctive Doctrines
The church teaches plurality of wives as a general requirement for the highest eternal salvation of men. It is generally believed in the church that a man should have three wives to fulfill this requirement. Leader and Prophet Rulon T. Jeffs married 22 women and fathered more than 60 children. Critics of this belief say that its practice leads unavoidably to bride shortages and likely to child marriages, incest, and child abuse.

The church currently practices “The Law of Placing” under which all marriages are assigned by the prophet of the church. Many outside of the church, and some inside, view this practice as unduly authoritarian though it helps address by edict the problem of wife shortages. Under the Law of Placing, the prophet elects to give or take wives to or from men according to their worthiness.

According to FLDS accounts, Brigham Young visited the site of Hildale and Colorado City and stated that “this is the right place [and it] will someday be the head and not the tail of the church [and]…the granaries of the Saints.”

History
The area of Hildale and Colorado City have a long history of polygamy, dating from the early decades of the 20th century. The cities were once known as Short Creek, founded in 1913 as a ranching community; however, it soon became a gathering place from polygamist members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1935, the LDS Church excommunicated Short Creek’s polygamist residents who refused to sign an oath renouncing polygamy, after which the FLDS Church was organized by John Y. Barlow, who would be the leader, and his friend Joseph White Musser. The location on the Utah-Arizona border was ideal because the group could avoid raids by one state by moving across the invisible state line to the other.

In 1953, Arizona police authorities organized what became known as the “Short Creek Raid”, in which numerous leaders were arrested and taken to Kingman, Arizona. However, public sentiment turned against the authorities after newsreels showed children being taken from their mothers and fathers being thrown in jail.

In 2003 the church received increased attention from the State of Utah when police officer Rodney Holm, a member of the church, was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old and one count of bigamy for his marriage to and impregnation of plural wife Ruth Stubbs. The conviction was the first legal action against a member of the church since an ill-fated 1953 raid from Arizona that doomed the political career of Governor Howard Pyle.

Allegations of welfare fraud, tax fraud, incest, statutory rape, physical, emotional and psychological abuse–hidden by a veil of secrecy, isolation, and deprivation–in the FLDS dominated communities have been widely reported in 2004 throughout United States media. It has been estimated that 33% of the men, women and children in the group are receiving state and federal aid, though 0% unemployment was reported in the 2000 census.

On January 10, 2004, the church suffered major upheaval when Dan Barlow, the mayor or Colorado City, and about 20 men were excommunicated from the church and stripped of their wives and children (who would be reassigned to other men), and the right to live in the town. As a result, a few teenage women reportedly fled the towns with the aid of anti-polygamy advocates. Two of the young women, Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm, soon found themselves in a broadly publicized dispute over their freedom and custody. They fled state custody together on February 15, and have been on the run in multiple states since.

In November 2003, members of the church purchased the 1,371 acre Isaacs ranch 4 miles northeast of Eldorado, Texas on Schleicher County Road 300 and sent 30 to 40 construction workers from Colorado City-Hildale to begin work on the property. Improvements soon included three 3-story houses–each 8,000 to 10,000 square feet (740 to 930 m²), a concrete plant and a plowed field. After seeing high-profile FLDS watchdog Flora Jessop on the ABC television program Primetime Live on March 4, 2004, concerned Eldorado residents contacted Jessop. She investigated and on March 25, 2004 held a press conference in Eldorado confirming that the new Eldorado neighbors were FLDS adherents. On May 18, 2004, Schleiser County Sheriff David Doran and his Chief Deputy visited Colorado City, and the FLDS church officially acknowledged that the Schleiser County property would be a new base for the church.

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http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy4.html
A brief history of the polygamists in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah
April 5, 2002
By Rick Ross
Colorado City, Arizona has been the home for a notorious polygamist sect for more than 60 years. The mainstream Mormon Church (LDS) excommunicated its members and government officials have arrested its leaders three times. But the self-proclaimed “fundamentalist Mormons” still tenaciously cling to their exclusive doctrines, which they believe will afford them space within the highest level of heaven.

These Mormon polygamists actually have a history though that goes back to 1847, during the early days of Mormon pioneer and leader Brigham Young. Back in Young’s time he came to Pipe Springs and saw its vermilion cliffs, He supposedly then did something that would later be claimed as somehow prophetic. Brigham Young said, "this is the right place [and it] will someday be the head and not the tail of the church [and]…the granaries of the Saints.‘’

Mormon leaders later sent the notorious John D. Lee into the same area to evade federal law enforcement. Lee was wanted for the mass-murder of 120 settlers traveling from Arkansas on a wagon train through Utah. They were apparently killed because due to their status as unbelievers. John Lee took two wives into hiding with him and started a ferryboat business and settlement. That settlement is still known as “Lee’s Ferry.” Lee himself was finally caught and executed in 1877.

Lee’s Ferry and the so-called “Arizona Strip” became a preferred hiding place for polygamists. The practice of polygamy was eventually stopped by the Mormon Church largely in response to government pressure in 1890, when then President Wilford Woodruff received a “revelation” to end it. Later in 1904 the LDS church pragmatically enlarged that ban and officially disavowed multiple marriages.

The Arizona Strip polygamists would then claim that church President John Taylor, while staying in Centerville during the summer of 1886, had a discussion with God and Joseph Smith about polygamy. They claim God told Taylor to keep polygamy alive, but in secret. This hidden, but true church, would be somehow vital to God’s plan.

The town of Short Creek, which is now called Colorado City in Arizona was founded in 1913 by Jacob Lauritzen, a cattle rancher. But it eventually it became a stronghold for the Lee’s Ferry polygamists, who were excommunicated from the LDS Church in 1935 after refusing to sign an oath against polygamy.

During the Great Depression men from Short Creek came to Salt Lake City for work. They found sympathizers there such as Nathaniel Baldwin, an assembly plant owner who gave them work. John Y. Barlow and his friend Joseph White Musser also became involved. These men later formed the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (FLDS), which would be led by Barlow.

The FLDS Church set up shop in Short Creek, largely due to its isolation. Buffered by the Grand Canyon and with a hundred miles of barren desert between them and the nearest law enforcement in Kingman, Arizona, they felt comfortable there. These polygamists also knew they were near a Stateline, which could easily be strategically crossed if there was trouble.

The Short Creek polygamists brought in more men with their wives by pickup truck to their growing kingdom, which they called “The First City of the Millennium.” A "charitable philanthropic trust’’ was set up called the “United Effort Plan,” which controlled much of their assets. But Short Creek was a burden to the welfare system of Arizona’s Mohave County. Many polygamist women and children collected welfare and whatever was available through government relief.

The Mohave County attorney and the sheriff pressed charges against two polygamist leaders, who were sent to prison for two years. The FBI later raided Short Creek in 1944, and 15 more men were sent to prison in Utah. Nine of those men were later released because they signed a pledge to give up polygamy. But most simply broke that promise and returned to the practice shortly after their release.

The welfare problem became worse and Jesse Faulkner, a superior-court judge in Kingman, complained that there was a "taxpayer emergency’’ regarding polygamist demands upon school facilities, even though they did not pay property taxes. Cattlemen were upset because the did pay grazing fees, which were allegedly used for polygamist schools.

Arizona Governor Howard Pyle hired private detectives to investigate Short Creek. Subsequently, on July 26, 1953 Pyle ordered a massive police raid. He said, “Here is a community…dedicated to the wicked theory that every maturing girl child should be forced into the bondage of multiple wifehood with men of all ages for the sole purpose of producing more children to be reared to become mere chattels.”

Polygamist men from Short Creek were jailed in Kingman, while their plural wives children stayed behind. Arizona officials took days to sort through the families, determining who was related to whom. The LDS Church-owned Desert News supported this government action. But the raid became a public relations nightmare for Pyle, when people saw newsreels of children separated from their parents. The net result was only one year of probation for 23 polygamist men. But the negative publicity ironically helped Short Creek avoid interference from law enforcement for many years to come.

The FLDS Church then sought to eliminate any connection to the “Short Creek raid” by renaming their town Colorado City in Arizona and Hildale in Utah.

Note: Source for this article was “Polygamy: Throughout its history, Colorado City has been home for those who believe in virtues of plural marriage,” Salt Lake Tribune/June 28, 1998 By Tom Zoellner