Posted on 01/16/2011 5:41:20 AM PST by Daisyjane69
An article from guest author Angela Lash The True Cost of Polygamy Mainstream Mormons (also known as Latter Day Saints) denounced polygamy officially in 1890 but members of fundamentalist sects of Mormonism (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) are doing all they can to make this “alternative lifestyle” acceptable. Using the freedom of religion clause from the 1st amendment, adherents say plural marriage is their right. One such community (of many spread throughout the western United States, Mexico and Canada) is Colorado City, AZ. There, the first amendment is used as cover for molestation, statutory rape, and government fraud. Jon Krakauer, in his book “Under the Banner of Heaven,” brings unmistakable evidence of these crimes as he highlights the sect known as UEP (United Effort Plan) – the world’s largest of the three fundamentalist LDS sects in Colorado City. From his work, the following information came to public light in 2003.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Rulon, who died September 9, 2002, had an estimated 20 wives and some say up to 60 children, though there are no ways to verify the exact number of either. (Reference) Taxpayers Footing the Bill The abuse of the American taxpayer by practitioners of polygamy is addressed by Krakauer in this excerpt from his book: “To avoid prosecution [for polygamy], typically men in Colorado City will legally marry only the first of their wives; subsequent wives, although “spiritually married,” to their husband by Uncle Rulon, thus remain single mothers in the eyes of the state. This has the added benefit of allowing the enormous families in town to qualify for welfare and other forms of government assistance. Despite the fact that Uncle Rulon and his followers regard the governments of Arizona, Utah and the United States as Satanic forces out to destroy the UEP, their polygamous community receives more than $6 million a year in public funds. More than $4 million…flows each year into the Colorado City public school district – which, according to the Phoenix New Times “is operated primarily for the financial benefit of the FLDS church and for the personal enrichment of FLDS school district leaders.” Reporter John Dougherty determined that school administrators have “plundered the district’s treasury by running up thousands of dollars in personal expenses on district credit cards, purchasing expensive vehicles for their personal use and engaging in extensive travel. The spending spree culminated in December [2002], when the district purchased a $220,000 Cessna 210 airplane to facilitate trips by district personnel to cities across Arizona…The federal government built a $2.8 million airport that serves almost no one beyond the fundamentalist community. In 2002, seventy-eight percent of the town’s residents living on the Arizona side received food stamps. Currently the residents of Colorado City receive eight dollars in government services for every dollar they pay in taxes; by comparison, residents in the rest of Mohave County, Arizona, receive just over a dollar in services per tax dollar paid. “Uncle Rulon justifies all that assistance from the wicked government by explaining that really the money is coming from the Lord,” says DeLoy Bateman. “We’re taught that it’s the Lord’s way of manipulating the system to take care of His chosen people.” Fundamentalists call defrauding the government “bleeding the beast” and regard it as a virtuous act.” (More on this investigative reporter’s work on the FLDS can be found here.) Isolation and Deprivation Not surprisingly, Rulon Jeffs taught his followers that the moon landing was a complete hoax. Additionally, Krakauer brings to light that, “according to UEP dogma, wives don’t belong to their husbands [the leader can give them to another man whenever he chooses]. Nor do children belong to their parents; all are property of the priesthood and may be claimed at any time.” Many children in these communities are molested and ‘married‘ at horrifyingly young ages, what we would call statutory rape. In what cannot be called anything less than pedophilia, the human cost is horrific. Practitioners of polygamy take wives as young as 14 years old, depriving these girls of what’s left of their pre-adult years. In fact, many girls are molested before they are 14, then forced to marry their abusers. Prosecutor David Leavitt (brother of former UT governor Mike Leavitt, and prosecutor of the famous polygamist Tom Green) argued that “People in the state of Utah simply do not understand, and have not understood for fifty years, the devastating effect that the practice of polygamy has on young girls in our society” [p. 24]. Leavitt summed it up succinctly when he said, “Polygamy is abusive to children, abusive to women, and abusive to society.” More from Under the Banner of Heaven: “Where in the constitution does it say it’s ok to molest & impregnate young girls?”~Pennie Peterson (former resident of Colorado City AZ) Debbie Palmer became stepmother to 31 kids when she married Ray Blackmore, most of whom were older than she was. Blackmore was the father of Debbie’s own stepmother, so she became a stepmother to her own stepmother & stepgrandmother to herself. Debbie Palmer’s 13 year old daughter, Sharon, was molested by her own husband, and her stepdaughter feared she would be forced to marry him, because “some of her friends in Colorado City had had to marry their stepfathers after being molested by them.” There isn’t room here to go into another human cost of this culture: the many birth defects, miscarriages, and deformed children that result from girls subjected to incest and inbreeding. The fundamentalist culture which teaches young girls that it’s acceptable to be molested, raped, and impregnated by men many times their age, all under the name of religious freedom, is not just abominable, it is simply evil.
And every argument the Courts have used to rationalize gay marriage applies equally well to polygamy.
The fact is that polygamy can only be the culture of a parasite people feeding on a larger, sick host. Statistically, there can only be one woman per man in a stable society - otherwise, an enormous number of young men will go wifeless. Without a more populous surrounding monogamous culture willing to surrender women to them without a fight, the inevitable result is external warfare, or internal massacres of unmatched men or exiling of unmatched men.
I live here in S. Utah. And I’m as much a Libertarian as many of my fellow FReepers are. But there are times that we must draw a line in the sand and say “Okay, this is too far.” Because we are not anarchists, at least not most of us.
It was one thing for me to watch the issues involving polygamy when I was safely harbored in NE Ohio. It’s quite different seeing it here, when it’s “in your kitchen.” Then it becomes real, and one realize how hateful this lifestyle is. It is hateful in many ways, but no one is more victimized by this hate than children.....the offspring of these people.
Whether it is seeing a high school aged girl who has been married off to a 85 year old man (yes, I’ve seen that with my own two eyes) or a 14 year old boy dropped off into the desert, to fend for himself. And for the rest of his life with nothing but the clothes on his back....I might add. If he gets lucky, someone picks him up and brings him into St. George. If he’s less lucky, he gets picked up by someone who takes him into Las Vegas. And yes, I’ve seen this with my own two eyes, also.
Having Libertarian leanings does not demand that we go along with every half-cocked idea out there.
And this is exactly why gay marriage should never be recognized. The fundamentalist Mormons are just waiting for us to be “guilted” into it; then they will make their move.
Bookmark for later, gotta get ready for church right now.
I go to one where we believe one man and one woman make a marriage.
You are so right.
Polygamy seeks to codify into law what amounts to a “math problem.” And it never works out.
And yes, societies that end up with too many single, unmarried men, end up in warfare.
History is our friend.
While all forms of mormonism are pure and utter heresy,
an all-male clergy is utterly biblical.
Show me.
The punishment for polygamy is having more than one wife. LOL
People speak with contempt of the welfare queens of Detroit and Philadelphia, but not so much of the welfare kings of Utah, Idaho and Arizona.
Polygamists aren't even men, in the traditional American sense of the word.
Indulge me for a moment... I admit that I am prejudiced, as my only child is a boy, a cherished son.
To drive along stretches of the I-15 here, plus the many state interstates, and see the 12/13/14 year old boys, walking along the freeway..is too much. They are in their plaid flannel shirts (regardless of the weather, and it gets HOT here by April), usually with a small backpack on them.
They have been kicked out of their own families. Can you imagine?
All so that their father, or their father’s friend can “marry” the same aged gal who SHOULD have been that boy’s junior prom date.
It makes me want to throw up, honestly.
What part of the First Amendment do you not understand?
If everyone is over the age of 18 and is a willing participant, how many people choose to call themselves “ married” is none of anyones business, especially not the States.
Period.
L
You’re wrong, and I’ll deal with you tomorrow, my FRiend.
Except one... Mammalian evolution is only possible with heterosexual relationships...
The religious faggots in the courts will never admit it...
Evolution, whether or not anyone thinks it is a viable theory, is only possible with heterosexual relationships.
And since we are supposedly a secular society, the religious faggots who think a baby can be born out of a man’s anus by magic are truly insane.
Reynolds v. United States is the Supreme Court Case people should be talking about...
No, I’m not. You are. Consenting adults should be free to order their living arrangements any way they please without interference from the State.
Period.
This issue may lead to the unraveling of the homosexual monogamy absurdity.
Christ chose twelve men as his Apostles, although he had many devout and dedicated female disciples. The Apostles replenished their college with men and named seven men as deacons.
The Apostle Paul underlined this quite emphatically when he asserted that women should not even teach the faithful (1Timothy 2:12).
The Bible provides little comfort for the adherents of the religion of Oprah.
What does evolution have to do with the subject at hand?
I don’t give a rip how consenting adults chose to order their lives. As long as they arent picking my pocket or breaking my leg it’s none of my business. Its none of yours, either.
Te State has no business being in the business of sanctioning marriage.
Period.
L
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