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Proposed legislation would increase statute of limitations for bigamy, change rules for child abuse investigations. A year after a massive child welfare raid at a West Texas ranch run by a polygamist sect, some legislators want to rewrite the laws that guided the state's actions during an investigation into whether young girls there were being forced to marry older men.

At the Yearning For Zion Ranch, life has regained a familiar rhythm. Families awake at 5 a.m., gather for prayers, breakfast and chores before the children head to the sect's private school. Days end much the same way: chores, a meal, prayer. There is just one sign of the disruption that unfolded here last April: The gleaming limestone temple, once illuminated and visible for miles against the night sky, is shuttered and dark. A year ago today, a local women's shelter received calls for help - now believed a hoax - that drew law enforcement to the polygamous sect's ranch...

Quest to legalise polygamy in Utah Kody Brown introduces his three wives and 12 children Some 40,000 people in the US state of Utah live in illegal polygamous families in which a man takes more than one wife. These fundamentalist Mormons have now begun a campaign for a change in the law they regard as discriminatory and unfair. Humphrey Hawksley met some of the families involved. "All right everyone, listen up," shouted Kody Brown, brushing his shoulder-length hair clear of his face. He put both hands out in front of him, pointing towards 12 children aged between four and 14...

Some 40,000 people in the US state of Utah live in illegal polygamous families in which a man takes more than one wife. These fundamentalist Mormons have now begun a campaign for a change in the law they regard as discriminatory and unfair... Under US law it is a felony, and technically the adults could be jailed and the children taken into care. But there are simply too many... Kody and Christine Brown live in a polygamous relationship...I had met the Browns a few hours earlier at the Utah State Legislature where they had joined a campaign to legalise polygamy....

Polygamy came to Parliament Hill on Wednesday, as opponents of decriminalization opened a political front in their campaign to ensure that marriage remains a union limited to two people. Immediately apparent at the news conference on Wednesday were the strange alliances that form around this issue. Charles McVety of the Institute for Family Values is an outspoken evangelical leader from the Christian right, who was vocal in his oppositon to same-sex marriage. Farzana Hassan, president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, an organization that represents secular and progressive Muslims, supported gay marriage but opposes polygamy. Dr. McVety believes the two are...

College enrollment in a northern Arizona polygamous community has dropped more than 50 percent in the past five years -- a decrease a school official says is tied to a government center that shares the property. "We've had many, many people tell us they will not come to the college because of that," Chancellor Michael J. Kearns said. Mohave Community College in Colorado City, Ariz., is now asking the county officials to stop use of the multi-use facility that is home to police and social service agencies.

-SNIP- On Thursday, more than 130 men, women and children from various polygamous groups were on Utah's Capitol Hill, learning first hand how to lobby state lawmakers and help shape the legislation that could either destroy or preserve their way of life. -SNIP- Today, polygamous groups enjoy an unprecedented dialogue with state government, from the Utah attorney general's office to state services agencies. Attorney General Mark Shurtleff encouraged Thursday's group to continue to engage with state officials. "The result of isolation, separating oneself out, is that it breeds mistrust, it leads to ignorance and I'm talking about on both sides,"...

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 11, 2009 at 4:18 AM EST VANCOUVER — The B.C. government has relied on selective use of flawed legislation to persecute a religious minority led by polygamists Winston Blackmore and James Oler, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association says. In a public appeal to have criminal charges dropped before they are heard in court, the association says in a prepared statement on its website that Canada's anti-polygamy law is archaic, overly vague and unconstitutional. Using the law to address concerns about child abuse and sexual interference "is extremely ill-advised," the association also said. Mr. Blackmore,...

CRESTON, British Columbia — After years of deliberation, the British Columbia attorney general has charged two members of a fundamentalist Mormon sect with polygamy.Attorney General Wally Oppal announced charges Jan. 7 against the leader of the Bountiful community, Winston Blackmore, and James Oler, who is something of a rival claimant to Bountiful’s leadership. Oppal charged Blackmore with having 20 wives and Oler with having two.But Blackmore’s lawyer, Blair Suffredine, believes that the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to legalize same-sex “marriage” makes it impossible for it to uphold the...

Yearning For Zion Ranch, Texas » Betty Jane Jessop's favorite phrase: "Good grief!" That's what Betty utters as she reads the new epilogue in her mother's best-selling book, Escape . In those pages, Carolyn Jessop describes her daughter's return to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, calling her brainwashed. "It just makes me want to laugh," said Betty, 19, shaking her head. Besides Carolyn herself, the character in Escape that most intrigues readers is Betty -- the second of Carolyn's eight children with FLDS bishop Merril Jessop. Why, they ask, did Betty return to the sect...

If you’d asked me last week, I’d have said that a polygamy prosecution against the leaders of the fundamentalist Mormon community in Bountiful, B.C., had two chances: slim and none. On Wednesday night, the B.C. government — or, rather, an independent special prosecutor — finally took the step that has been dithered over for years and charged Winston Blackmore and James Oler under section 293 of the Criminal Code. After giving myself a quick refresher on the legal arguments, I’m no longer so sure about “slim.” One might wonder why B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal refused to refer section 293 to...

VANCOUVER-- Winston Blackmore can seem the epitome of grace, even when facing criminal prosecution and a prison sentence of up to five years. He demonstrated this again this week, after his arrest on charges of polygamy. He was firm but pleasant with assembled reporters. He was eager to share the truth about Bountiful, at least as he sees it. He has become expert at public relations. Mr. Blackmore handled himself adroitly in recent interviews with CNN talk-show host Larry King. He has extended to media invitations to visit his polygamous community near Creston, B.C., deep in the province's interior.

L-R: Winston Blackmore, leader of the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., with Edith Barlow, Marsha Chatwin and Zelpha Chatwin. CRESTON, B.C. -- Winston Blackmore, one of two men from a B.C. Mormon colony charged with polygamy, shot back Thursday that the charges against them are an attack on religious freedoms and accused the B.C. government of grandstanding as a provincial election looms later in the year. "I am what I am, we are what we are. We are descended from a long line of Mormon-believing people," Mr. Blackmore, 52, said in a statement to reporters at the Mormon Hills...

The charges brought yesterday against two leaders in the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., are likely the first steps in a process that could see Canada's anti-polygamy law struck down as unconstitutional. Over the past two decades, four attorneys-general in British Columbia have been reluctant to lay a charge because of a fear that their cases would have no chance of surviving a religious freedom defence under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Last April, Wally Oppal, the current Attorney-General of the province, said the criminal justice branch believed any prosecution would fail because of a possible violation of the...

On Wednesday around 7:45 a.m., eight plainclothes RCMP officers in unmarked cars drove up to the homes of polygamous leaders Winston Blackmore and James Oler in southeastern British Columbia. They arrested Blackmore, 52, and Oler, 44, and charged them with the criminal offence of practising polygamy. It may not be the first time that anyone in Canada has been charged with polygamy. But it is definitely the first time anyone has been charged since the 1800s.

Allegations that members of a southern Utah polygamous sect are guilty of widespread welfare fraud were raised repeatedly this summer during a U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing. They surfaced frequently, too, in messages sent to Texas Gov. Rick Perry after an April raid on the Eldorado ranch occupied by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "Please pull the plug on the freebies for the cult. Why are the taxpayers of your state paying for this illegal group?" wrote a Michigan couple on April 17. But welfare data from Utah, Arizona and Texas do not support the...

SAN ANTONIO - Nearly two-thirds of the families living at a polygamist group's ranch - targeted in a high-profile raid last spring - had children who were abused or neglected, Texas child welfare officials said in a report released Tuesday.

The 72-year-old presiding elder of a breakaway polygamist Mormon sect and two other church members surrendered to Schleicher County authorities on Monday to face felony charges relating to the underage marriage of girls to older men. Fredrick Merril Jessop, a leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, faces one count of conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony involving a minor, a felony. According to authorities, one of his daughters was married to jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs at age 12 and is now the only child from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in foster care after...

That is probably the best news from an otherwise difficult election for conservatives and Republicans. In very large part, we Evangelicals must thank our Mormon cousins for that fact. They, along with our Catholic brethren, were better organized than us and that provided a base from which we could ALL work together to get this job done. What more, as we have chronicled here, Mormons took the brunt of the abuse, derision, and even threats of physical harm that came with this effort. And like us, they have given thanks to the Almighty that is ultimately in control, even if...

A grand jury in West Texas handed down eight more indictments Wednesday in the criminal investigation into abuse allegations involving members of a polygamist sect. Jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs and three other members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were charged with eight different felonies, including aggravated sexual assault, bigamy and tampering with physical evidence, according to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. FLDS members have been under investigation since April, when Texas Child Protective Services removed more than 400 children from the group's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, south of San Angelo. The...