Free Republic 1st Qtr 2024 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $74,693
92%  
Woo hoo!! And we're now over 92%!! Thank you everyone!! God bless.

Keyword: flds

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Defense: Polygamist leaders' religious rights were violated (Jeffs)

    07/26/2011 1:35:04 PM PDT · by wolfcreek · 12 replies
    AAS ^ | 7.26.2011 | Will Weissert
    The first hint of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs' defense strategy came Monday when his attorney said his right to freedom of religion was trampled by Texas prosecutors, who claim he sexually assaulted two underage girls after manipulating them into "spiritual marriages." Jury selection began Monday in the case of the 55-year-old ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The church's 10,000 members see Jeffs as a prophet.
  • Warren Jeffs' Sexual Assault Trial Set To Start Monday

    07/25/2011 9:22:55 AM PDT · by MizSterious · 24 replies
    Click on Detroit ^ | July 25, 2011 | CNN Wire Staff
    Warren Jeffs' Sexual Assault Trial Set To Start Monday By the CNN Wire Staff POSTED: Monday, July 25, 2011 UPDATED: 10:01 am EDT July 25, 2011 (CNN) -- Jury selection in the sexual assault trial of polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs will begin in Texas on Monday, nearly a week after his motion to remove a judge assigned to him was denied. Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child and one count of bigamy stemming from a 2008 raid on a ranch operated by his church. Authorities raided the Yearning For Zion ranch near Eldorado,...
  • Texas trial of alleged polygamist leader to start this week

    07/24/2011 4:39:55 PM PDT · by TheDingoAteMyBaby · 29 replies
    Sun-Sentinel ^ | July 24, 2011 | Jim Forsyth
    Flora Jessop never believed that Warren Steed Jeffs, the man she was taught to revere as son and heir of the "prophet, seer and revelator of God," would ever face justice -- let alone Texas justice. She didn't believe it when she was 13 and sexually assaulted beneath a smiling photograph of Jeffs inside the Hildale, Utah compound run by the breakaway Mormon sect where she was born to a polygamist family. And she didn't believe it three years later, when she was forced by leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) to marry...
  • Polygamist leader’s request to remove judge denied

    07/20/2011 8:22:35 AM PDT · by MizSterious · 32 replies
    News-Journal (Longview) ^ | July 20, 2011 | N/A
    Polygamist leader’s request to remove judge denied SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A visiting judge on Tuesday denied polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs’ second attempt to remove the West Texas judge overseeing his upcoming sexual assault trial, this time because of alleged bias after she made calls to inquire about progress in the case and accepted extra police protection because of threats associated with it. Judge John Hyde of Midland listened to more than five hours of testimony on Jeffs’ motion to recuse District Judge Barbara Walther during a hearing Monday but wrote a day later that much of it rested...
  • Canadian civil liberties group: Polygamy ban should be 'relegated to scrap heap of history'

    04/04/2011 12:11:03 PM PDT · by massmike · 48 replies
    http://nomblog.com ^ | 04/04/2011 | n/a
    The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is calling for Canada's polygamy law that bans multiple marriages to be found unconstitutional and "relegated to the scrap heap of history." In written submissions filed Thursday, the association urged B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman to find that the law offends fundamental freedoms.
  • Warren Jeffs to President Obama: Let my people go or else!

    03/02/2011 7:55:35 AM PST · by greyfoxx39 · 32 replies · 1+ views
    ABC4 ^ | March 2, 2011 | Brent Hunsaker
      COLORADO CITY, AZ (ABC 4 News) - Polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs of the FLDS Church is sending "A Warning to the Nation" that catastrophe awaits unless he is freed and the FLDS people get back control of the land in the United Effort Plan Trust. 600 Packets This warning reportedly targets members of Congress and the Obama Administration. Several sources in Colorado City, Arizona say Jeffs' followers mailed more than 600 packets to Washington D. C. The packets contained not only the Jeffs' warning, but also a 900 page petition signed by approximately 13,500 followers of Warren Jeffs. Of...
  • Word Of "Big Shakeup" In Polygamous Communties (Warren Jeffs at it again)

    02/23/2011 4:25:29 AM PST · by Daisyjane69 · 50 replies
    KUTV ^ | 2/22/11 | Brian Mullahy
    A purge may be underway in the polygamous communities of Hildale-Colorado City on the Utah-Arizona border. 2News has been told even men who were in FLDS leadership positions have been ousted from the sect. "There's a big shake up," said Isaac Wyler, long-time resident of Colorado City. "There are a lot of people who are shaken by what's happened with their families." Wyler was one of three people, close to the communities, who spoke to 2News Tuesday night. Perhaps as many as three dozen men have been told to leave over the past two months, and the orders to get...
  • B.C. probing child-trafficking charges in cross-border polygamous marriages

    02/19/2011 10:35:00 AM PST · by Colofornian · 7 replies
    Canadian National Post ^ | Feb. 18, 2011 | Daphne Bramham
    VANCOUVER — In 2005, two fathers from the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful, B.C., drove their 12-year-old daughters across the U.S. border. They went separately and, in one case, the girl’s mother went along. The purpose of the trips? Marriage, according to documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court Friday. The girls were “sealed for time and eternity” in religious ceremonies to Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints... The ceremonies took place in the FLDS-controlled twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. In one case, both the girl’s mother and...
  • FLDS man pleads guilty to sex charges in marriage of cousin

    02/18/2011 6:40:13 PM PST · by Colofornian · 15 replies
    KSL.com ^ | Feb. 18,. 2011 | Emiley Morgan
    ST. GEORGE — A man charged with rape following his "spiritual marriage" to a 14-year-old cousin pleaded guilty to reduced charges... Allen Glade Steed, 29...originally facing a single charge of rape, a first-degree felony, pleaded guilty to solemnization of a prohibited marriage, a third-degree felony, and entered a plea in abeyance to a second charge of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, also a third-degree felony... "Allen will truly never understand the magnitude of the scars that I will carry for the rest of my life. And Warren Jeffs will never understand the scars and the ways that he has...
  • DiManno: Bountiful woman describes life in her ‘Eden’ (Traditional Mormonism)

    02/14/2011 4:22:22 PM PST · by Gamecock · 29 replies
    The Star ^ | Jan 27 2011 | Rosie DiManno
    She met her husband for the first time half-an-hour before they married. By that evening, they were driving the 18-hour trip up to the Canadian border where she entered as a visitor, claiming to be staying with friends. No, no, not a lie. “My husband was my friend.’’ She had just turned 17 and was wife No. 3 to a man “in his late 30s or early 40s,” a fellow of high standing in Bountiful, the secretive hamlet populated almost exclusively by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway polygamous Mormon sect in...
  • Church put fear in babies with torture: witness [fLDS - Open]

    01/19/2011 5:37:42 AM PST · by Colofornian · 172 replies
    National Post ^ | Jan. 13, 2011 | Daphne Bramham
    Water torture of babies is one way some members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day instil fear of authority, a former member testified Wednesday. "It's quite common," Carolyn Blackmore Jessop told the constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada's polygamy law is valid. "They spank the baby and when it cries, they hold the baby face up under the tap with running water. When they stop crying, they spank it again and the cycle is repeated until they are exhausted." It's typically done by fathers and it's called "breaking in," she said. Ms. Jessop, who is...
  • 'Sister Wives' family moves from Utah to Nevada

    01/18/2011 6:29:06 PM PST · by markomalley · 15 replies
    AP/WaPo ^ | 1/18/11 | Jennifer Dobner
    A Utah polygamous family whose reality TV show launched a criminal bigamy investigation has moved out of state. In an e-mail to The Associated Press, the Washington-based attorney who represents the family, Jonathan Turley, said Kody Brown has moved his family of four wives and 16 kids to Nevada to pursue new opportunities. The family is featured on the TLC reality show "Sister Wives." The show first aired in the fall and triggered an investigation by Lehi police into allegations of bigamy. "There were no pending charges against them in Utah," Turley wrote. "I see no legal reason why their...
  • The True Cost of Polygamy

    01/16/2011 5:41:20 AM PST · by Daisyjane69 · 95 replies
    Hot Air ^ | 1/14/11 | Angela Lash
    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...
  • Mormons split over polygamy practice, expert says at trial

    01/06/2011 10:02:12 AM PST · by Alex Murphy · 87 replies · 2+ views
    The Vancouver Sun ^ | 5 Jan 2011 | Daphne Bramham
    Even though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially renounced polygamy in 1890, a religious studies expert says that mainstream Mormons are nearly evenly split over whether it should continue to be practised. W. John Walsh said Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court that the LDS church's official position remains that polygamy is banned, but that it's possible that somewhere between 50 and 60 per cent of the church's members "would like a return of polygamy, which they see as a holy practice." The other half would not like to see a return of polygamy and deem it to...
  • Warren Jeffs returned to Texas to face bigamy case

    12/02/2010 5:09:54 AM PST · by humblegunner · 7 replies
    Houston Chronicle ^ | Dec. 1, 2010 | TERRI LANGFORD
    Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs faced a Texas judge Wednesday more than two years after authorities discovered his followers married underage girls at an Eldorado ranch, prompting the removal of 438 children, the largest child custody case in U.S. history. A wan Jeffs, 54, appeared before state District Judge Barbara Walther in San Angelo where he was arraigned on three charges involving two underage brides, unidentified girls who were 12 and 14 at the time of the alleged crimes. He's accused of sexually assaulting one girl in 2005 and committing bigamy and aggravated sexual assault with the other girl in...
  • (BC) Prohibition, not polygamy itself, is oppressing the women of Bountiful: prof

    12/02/2010 5:27:43 AM PST · by markomalley · 17 replies · 1+ views
    CJBK News Radio ^ | 12/1/2010
    VANCOUVER - A legal expert who interviewed women living in a polygamous community in British Columbia says the law against multiple marriages keeps them isolated and unable to seek outside help if they need it. Law professor Angela Campbell of McGill University is in a B.C. court testifying at a constitutional reference case on polygamy, a day after the federal and provincial governments attempted to block her controversial opinions. Campbell visited Bountiful in 2008 and 2009 and spoke with a number of women, including wives living in plural marriages. She says the women were aware that polygamy is illegal, but...
  • Warren Jeffs extradited to Texas to stand trial

    12/01/2010 8:34:41 AM PST · by markomalley · 17 replies · 1+ views
    CNN ^ | 12/1/2010 | Ashley Hayes
    After a legal battle that wound up before the Utah Supreme Court, polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was extradited from Utah to Texas to stand trial on sexual assault and bigamy charges, according to authorities in both states. Jeffs left the custody of the Utah Department of Corrections before 4 p.m. Tuesday, department spokesman Stephen Gehrke said Wednesday. The Texas attorney general's office issued a statement saying that Jeffs arrived in San Angelo, Texas, at about 9 p.m. Tuesday. "Law enforcement officers with the Texas Rangers and the Texas attorney general's office escorted Jeffs to the state after taking custody...
  • Canada would become magnet for polygamy if law struck down, court told

    11/23/2010 4:15:04 AM PST · by Loyalist · 15 replies
    Globe and Mail ^ | November 23, 2010 | Wendy Stueck
    Striking down Canada’s polygamy law would make the country a magnet for polygamous immigrant families and open the door to societal harms resulting from the practice, a lawyer for the B.C. government said in opening remarks for a landmark case. “The challengers [to the law] all urge the court to make Canada the sole Western nation to decriminalize polygamy,” Crown lawyer Craig Jones told a packed Vancouver courtroom Monday. “The reasonably apprehended result would be an influx of polygamous families who are presently barred from the country in addition to the practice’s domestic growth.” Evidence to be heard in the...
  • Mitchell played role of Satan, former co-worker testifies

    11/16/2010 12:42:49 PM PST · by T Minus Four · 10 replies
    KSL.com ^ | November 16th, 2010 @ 11:47am | By Pat Reavy
    Home SALT LAKE CITY — A former co-worker testified Tuesday that Brian David Mitchell could convincingly play the role of Satan. Doug Larsen said he worked with the man accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart in the late 1980s at O.C. Tanner and got to know him well because of their many common interests, particularly religion. He referred in his testimony Tuesday to the story of the creation that is depicted in temple ceremonies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and said Mitchell once worked as an actor playing the role of Satan. Larsen said fellow temple workers...
  • Legalized polygamy opens the door to theocracy

    10/22/2010 5:53:55 AM PDT · by Colofornian · 51 replies
    Montreal Gazette/Vancouver Sun ^ | Oct. 21, 2010 | Daphne Branham
    It's not surprising that breakaway Mormons say they love their polygamous lives in the affidavits they've sworn to support their position that practising it is their constitutional right. What is surprising is that the affidavits are steeped in the myth of persecution. Filed in advance of the constitutional reference case, which is scheduled to be heard starting Nov. 22 in B.C. Supreme Court, they reveal that almost all of the breakaway Mormons say they live in fear of being jailed or having their children taken away from them. Yet, the first time such men were charged in Canada with polygamy...