Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy

A Question for Mr. Romney

2012-01-30T12:48:00.005-06:00

I think it is high time someone in the media asks Mitt Romney for his detailed response to the states of Utah and Arizona openly refusing to prosecute the federal crime of polygamy, in favor of seeking only prosecution for crimes against women and children.

Mr. Romney, what is your position on the decriminalization of polygamy in America, if individual states choose to do so?

Call me cynical, but nine years ago, when the US went into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power, the running of the country was immediately turned over to the fundamentalist Islamist, aka the Muslim Brotherhood. Polygamy, which had been penalized under the previous secular dictatorship, was again encouraged, and practiced.

The condition of women in the NEW Iraq we have left behind is now worse than when we arrived. Now, fully 20 percent of the homeless populations, wandering and begging in Iraq's larger cities, is comprised of the cast off first, or second or third or fourth "wives" of Iraqi men, who have decided they no longer wish to provide for their concubines and the children produced from these Imam approved "marriages."

Times are hard, you know.

Add to these, the same Imams allow what are called "temporary marriages," which in fact are nothing more than religious approved prostitution contracts. These marriages can last as little as an hour, to as much as a lifetime, and children as young as mere babies may be "married" in these situations as well.

Utah and Arizona can legalize the concubinage of women if they want to? Personally, I'd like to hear Mitt say he thinks that's okay "for them," kind of like he says government run health care is OK for Massachusetts, because the states do have a right to decide these things legislatively, right Mr. Romney?

Just some advice for Mr. Romney: he should take a good look at the flag of the Battle of San Jacinto at the top of this page. It was a gift from the women of Kentucky and Ohio, who sent their men to Texas to win it from the Mexicans.

Somebody's going to have to KILL a LOT of Texas women before such a thing is ever allowed down here.

Mayor Parker: Find Gelareh's Killer

2012-01-17T15:24:00.004-06:00

AMERICANS AGAINST ABUSES OF POLYGAMY, STOP POLYGAMY IN CANADA SOCIETY
&
CHILD PROTECTION PROJECT
Joint

*********PRESS RELEASE*********

Media Contact: For Immediate Release

K. Dee Ignatin January 17, 2012

Executive Director

512- 216-6184

Mediamanager1@gmail.com

w ww.PolygamyIsAbuse.com

AAAP, SPICS & CPP RESPOND TO DISCOVERY OF MURDERED IRANIAN WOMEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVIST IN HOUSTON MONDAY

Austin, Texas - Board members and the executive director at Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy, STOP Polygamy in Canada and the Child Protection Project have sent a letter to Houston Mayor Annise Parker expressing both shock and disappointment that Houston police have discovered the body of a slain civil rights activist in Houston.

30-year-old Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a medical student who was studying molecular genetic technology at a Texas medical center was found shot to death Monday, near the home she shared with her parents. Law enforcement officials say they do not believe she was “targeted,” however there have been no reports of anything taken from the car, and initial reports indicate an unknown gunman approached the car, a little after midnight, and killed Ms. Bagherzadeh with a gunshot through the passenger side window.

Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy, STOP Polygamy in Canada Society and the Child Protection Project have been made aware that Ms. Bagherzadeh was a vocal advocate for the rights of women in her native country of Iran, and was known for her open defiance against the current Iranian regime, which continues to violate the human rights of its own people, especially women, in the name of religion.

We beseech the leadership and law enforcement authorities in Houston to leave no stone unturned to find the person or persons responsible for the assassination of an international human rights advocate, ironically no less, on MLK Day.

News reports are now incorrectly stating this woman had “no known enemies.” On the contrary, those with the CPP, SPICS and the AAAP believe Ms. Bagherzadeh was a woman with many enemies, and we hope that the City of Houston and Mayor Annise D. Parker will provide law enforcement with all the resources necessary to successfully bring her killer[s] to justice.

Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy is a non-profit, conservative feminist, human rights organization, based in Texas. The AAAP is dedicated to educating the public on the human rights abuses inherent within the cultural practice of polygamy, worldwide and within the United States, and the potential dangers of decriminalization of the felony practice. www.PolygamyIsAbuse.com

Child Protection Project is dedicated to raising awareness about issues of child abuse within polygamy and other religious organizations. We are particularly interested in how institutions, especially churches, ignore child abuse reporting requirements; and thus cause unnecessary suffering and pain to children and families. Our religious institutions must be good corporate citizens because their mandate as tax-exempt beneficial, charitable organizations requires that children entrusted to their care be safe. http://www.childpro.org/

Stop Polygamy in Canada Society (SPCS) advocates for women, children and young boys caught in the clutches of polygamy. Polygamy is the practice of one man taking more than one wife. Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada bans the practice of polygamy. Sections 15 & 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms give equality rights to women.http://stoppolygamyincanada.wordpress.com/

STOP the NUFFER Nomination NOW!

2011-11-04T12:45:00.002-05:00

Can you squeeze a call into Senator Cornyn's office into your day, to say you oppose the Nuffer nomination?
Main: 202-224-2934
Fax: 202-228-2856

On Monday the US Senate is about to confirm an Obama nomination, based on Sen. Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) appointment...of a former FLDS attorney, to a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Judge David Nuffer was also responsible, when he was an attorney, for removing 6 children from their non-polygamist biological home, and allowing an FLDS Colorado City polygamist family, who was NO BLOOD KIN to the children to legally adopt them, partly on the claim they were being raised in a home "with Christian values."

One of those children's children is now one of the 12-year-old girls that Warren Jeffs ritually married in an illegal ceremony, and then raped and used in group sex sessions in the sect's temple on the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County, Texas.

We have to act right now....lifetime appointment to the federal bench? Really?
Main: 202-224-2934
Fax: 202-228-2856

Like Hell I Won't

2011-10-21T18:42:00.004-05:00

On Wednesday night I spent the evening at a security briefing by John Guandolo.

He covered a bunch of stuff I already knew.

During Q&A I asked him, in light of Daniel Pipes', with the Middle East Forum, assertion that polygamy is the most prevalent and dangerous aspect of Shariah law that the U.S. faces today, what did he think the federal government should do? I plainly identified myself as an anti-polygamy activist.

He shook his finger at me, strongly, and told me polygamy was not an issue and "You will not stop polygamy! You cannot stop polygamy!"

As you might imagine, I've been ruminating on that one for a while now. I walked out of that briefing, not upset, but resolute.

I'm certainly not surprised that this is the federal government's position on polygamy now. I'd just never heard one of them come right out and say it--out loud--for real.

The funny thing was as he was shaking that finger at me I wasn't thinking, "Oh no! What shall I do?" I was thinking, "Screw you, Bubba, screw you."

That's about what I left thinking of him, too.

I've tried telling people that the feds are already absolutely corrupt to the crime of polygamy, and people just look at me as though I have announced I was once abducted by an alien race... It's too much for them to process. The implications are too... well, nasty.

The subjugation of American women and children into a harmful form of slavery based on nothing but religious beliefs, called polygamy, is for some inexplicable reason considered not only harmless to women and children but something of "a right" for some men, as long as they continue to operate the whole slavery scam on a religious pretext... Good grief.

The only useful new information I learned at that "security briefing" Wednesday night, with Mr. Guandolo, is that the federal government has decided not to prosecute polygamy as a crime..and is now, obviously, with the nomination of Judge David Nuffer going to really rub it in all our faces.

I don't have anything else nice to say about Mr. Guandolo or the federal government, so I should probably just stop here but you know I won't.

I think I understand you, now: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/john_guandolo/

Like Hell we won't, Mr. Guandolo. Hide and watch.

AAAP Cause Bracelets Have Arrived!

2011-10-11T18:57:00.006-05:00

New! AAAP Cause Bracelets Are Here!

For every $5 donation made to support the efforts of the AAAP we will send you one of our new cause bracelets, so you can show your support for the victims and survivors of the human rights abuse of polygamy in America.

In bright RED, the bracelet discretely reads:
POLYGAMY IS ABUSE.COM-Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy

It is a wonderful way to support the AAAP and let the world know you stand against the human rights abuse of polygamy in America.

Donations can be made on the PayPal link on www.PolygamyIsAbuse.com. Please specify in the space for a note how many bracelets you would like. You may have one bracelet for every $5 donation increment.

A Review of Anderson Cooper's interview with the Brown family

2011-09-30T15:37:00.003-05:00

A Review of Anderson Cooper's Interview with the Brown Family of TLC's "Sister Wives" and the FLDS children who were disposed of, like trash by their parents, who follow convicted sex offender Warran Steed Jeffs.

By Chana Bogsted

Just finished watching Anderson Cooper: here's my take on the show as someone who didn't grow up in polygamy and wasn't exposed to it except by what I've learned from reading about it and talking to all of you.

Kody et al are pretty good at presenting themselves. I think most people who aren't familiar with polygamy are going to take them as they present themselves: nice people who just happened to choose 'this lifestyle.' People who get along and work out their differences and all love each other. They dress like "normal" people, talk like "normal" people, so that's what they must be.

The kids from FLDS, however, were able to see the hidden side because they lived it. From years of hearing to "stay sweet,' they understand the emphasis on deceit, on pretending that things aren't what they are, in order to survive. One of the boys, Holden, I think, talked about how his parents would pretend to get along and talk about how happy they were to have other wives to take care of the kids - until the door closed and reality emerged.

I think most Americans are going to take the Browns and maybe the Dargers at face value, because most Americans are pretty naive and trusting. The Browns were very careful to distance themselves from Jeffs and the FLDS so that the public can distinguish between "good" polygamists and "bad" polygamists. If they can get most Americans to identify with them, they may be able to persuade the country that polygamy shouldn't be punished, but child abuse should.

Unless we can get people who have grown up in polygamous families that are more like the Browns' than Jeffs', then I think they have a fighting chance of winning the war of public opinion. Even Cooper, who is very critical of the fundamentalists who don't look and dress like us, the "bad" polygamists, sounded fairly sympathetic.

Sorry I can't give a different review of the show, but this is how I saw it.

Polygamy is an adult choice?

2011-09-06T18:05:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Rebecca Kimble, who is a survivor and a supporter of the efforts of the AAAP

Rebuttal to Polygamist Propaganda by Rebecca Kimbel MscD DTM

Polygamy is an adult choice?

We polygamist born children were taught from birth we had to live polygamy or lose our salvation. Only polygamists were accepted in our family, our society and by our God. To not live polygamy was to be damned. Our choice in marriage was confined to polygamy. Some had a choice between one of two older married men to be “spiritually” married to, but choosing any man outside of the polygamist culture was not a choice.

If we chose not to live polygamy, the basic doctrine of our “religion” said we would be “destroyed”and blood atonement to save our souls was sanctioned by God, even if the leaders chose not to carry it out. Some of us, like myself, had friends and family murdered in the name of “blood atonement”, the same blood atonement all fundamentalists’ polygamists include as the word of their “prophets”. To choose to not be obedient can be a dangerous choice in fundamentalist Mormon and Islamic polygamy.

There is no adult choice. Children are indoctrinated with fear to force them into polygamy.

Polygamy is voluntarily maintained?

Women stayed in polygamy because we had children when we were children. We were never allowed to think for ourselves or to learn to provide for ourselves, yet we had a houseful of children to provide for. Many women stay in bad marriages because they can’t support their children. Polygamist women have a double problem; few of them know how to support themselves. They stay because they don’t know any other way to survive and keep their children. Most of them are threatened if they try to leave and take their children. Fundamentalist polygamists teach that the children belong to the men.

Single mothers are often attracted to polygamy, believing it will be easier to provide for their children with the help of a sister wife. What they fail to realize is that the number of children to provide and care for will increase, not diminish. The emotional, financial and educational rescores will diminish. This attributes to the fact that polygamist women by percentage do not live as long as other women. Is this “voluntarily” maintained life style what they want to decriminalize as an adult choice?

There is no adult choice. The glue that binds them together is poverty and fear. They don’t believe they have a choice. The pathetic reality finds that those enslaved by fear soon perpetuate the same lack of choice onto their own children. Those who don’t understand this have not experienced the devastation and the life style most polygamist women experience. Polygamy is not an adult choice. When CHILDREN are indoctrinated with fear from birth to accept polygamy and have CHILDREN, to perpetuate polygamy. The fact that it involves the lives of CHILDREN makes it NOT AN ADULT CHOICE. The non coerced adult choices in polygamy are the male converts who have not been indoctrinated, but see an opportunity to expand their narcissistic behavior. If they are married, their wife has one choice; accept polygamy or be abandoned. For the wife, it is not an adult choice. It is a coercive threat.

The statement that men can choose another sex partner if one wife is unwilling, is a side show to distract attention away from what is going on in the main tent of polygamy’s “circus”. In the main tent, he always has all the sex he wants. Women are the ones who are lonely and unfulfilled. He is not a lover, he’s a breeder. He cares only about his own satisfaction. In his mind he’s a “cowboy” who thinks an eight second ride makes him a champion. Women are capable and entitled to sexual fulfillment but that’s against his religion. Fundamentalists teach women that sex is for propagation only. We were taught that it must be accomplished without lust. ( We were too uneducated to know that was a physical impossibility). His needs are “God’s commandments”, her needs are “weaknesses to over come”.

All humans find it stressful and emotionally painful to share their mate. Narcissistic men force women to share their mate, but they would never tolerate it for themselves. Women are not sexually inferior. If men had the sexual capacity of women, polygamist men would be prostitutes instead of polygamists. Polygamists justify their breeding practices by blaming the nature of bulls in cattle breeding. If they want to blame nature they should check out the life of a male sea horse. He is the one who carries the baby sea horses. Check out the black widow and the praying mantis. Some species have a built in responsibilities that go with breeding. Blaming animal behavior for human behavior is greed justified through ignorance. The right to breed carries a responsibility. Polygamy produces lots of people, but comparatively few responsible adults.

Polygamy offers career and a sister wife to help with the children?

The odds of a career for a polygamist woman are rare indeed unless you consider working as a cashier, house maid, or any other low paying job a career. I’ve seen many polygamist women work out of the home for long hours and little money and return to a home bulging with children where they try to fill in the gaps of motherhood which couldn’t be filled by the exhausted sister wife who tried to manage on the domestic front.

The economy of everyone living in the same house is not an asset of polygamy. Go down to a day care center and spend the day. Imagine four or five times more children in the room than were actually there. If you can imagine this, you get some idea of the joys of polygamy. My mother moved into a chicken coop with no heat, in Utah, because she had to be alone (with her six children). Massive numbers of people in the same quarters is difficult at best.

Polygamy does NOT help financially; on the contrary, it creates poverty. It is a financial disaster for the family and the nation. Polygamy creates an unusually high percentage of demands for Government funds, bankruptcies, and other means of assistance. Polygamy produces more children than it supports. In all countries where polygamy flourishes, poverty isn’t far behind.

Most polygamist women are poor. The big houses you see on TV don’t compute with the income levels. Follow the money trail and prepare your self for a shock.

Polygamy is a “pyramid” scheme. The one at the top is wealthy and the wealth spreads out and dwindles down, diminishing as it goes, until it reaches the wide base at the bottom which consists primarily of women and children who live below the national poverty level. Yet they are the base, the foundation upon which the pyramid stands. They are the means of its expansion. Women constantly produce more workers, tithe payers and believers into the system.

The one at the top (the prophet) receives 10% tithing from the wages of each person below him, plus the dedicated free labor they donate to ( him) God. Followers are encouraged to build their homes on church land ( held in title by the prophet, not the parishioners) and many also create businesses on church land, which puts them in a position of great lose if they question authority. Many men have lost their wives, children, homes and land when the “prophet” finds them “unworthy”.

Polygamy is a system that “fleeces its own sheep”, becomes a parasite to government coffers and violates the human rights America stands for. Polygamy is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship. When you are told you have freedom of choice and blind obedience, you can be sure your choices will be limited to what they tell you to do.

Polygamy and freedom don’t exist together. One inhibits the other and that fact remains true in every culture, every nation and in any century.

The concept that “traditional norms” of historical and modern polygamy, should vary across continents or centuries, is incorrect.

Polygamy carries the same percentage of dysfunction regardless of its place in geography or history. One fact of cause and effect remains constant; the degree of abuse is always in direct proportion to the degree of distance between the powerful and the powerless. Polygamy ALWAYS has a higher percentage of abuse than monogamy because it is a system based on inequality. In all human relationships, those who have no equality receive more abuse. This fact alone creates more abuse in polygamy.

Polygamy is notorious for propaganda. Propaganda and truth are not the same. Knowing the difference can determine your freedom or the loss of it. Our nation would be wise to educate itself about polygamy.

You can read more about Rebecca Kimbel and her personal story here.

Changing the world in perspective

2011-09-05T17:21:00.002-05:00

Hope. That's what every activist lives on. Speaking to a friend the other day I had to remind her of something. I had to remind her that big changes in the world have rarely come easy or fast. A mere one hundred years before the year of my birth, the American Civil War was ending. It took another 100 years for the American Civil Rights Movement to come into its own.

To help encourage those in this fight, who so often understandably want to quit, I offer the following loose timeline, thanks to Wikipedia.

The first American movement to abolish slavery came in the spring of 1688 when German and Dutch Quakers of Mennonite descent in Germantown, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia) wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church, the Society of Friends.

The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society, formed 14 April 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers who had strong religious objections to slavery.

The first article published in what later became the United States advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery was allegedly written by Thomas Paine. Titled "African Slavery in America", it appeared on 8 March 1775.

The importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned on January 1, 1808.

Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. Postmaster General refused to allow the mails to carry abolition pamphlets to the South. Northern teachers suspected of abolitionism were expelled from the South, and abolitionist literature was banned. Southerners rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists.

In 1841 John Quincy Adams represented the Amistad African slaves in the Supreme Court of the United States and argued that they should be set free.

The well-established colleges, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, generally opposed abolition.

In the early 1850s, the American abolitionist movement split into two camps over the issue of the United States Constitution. This issue arose in the late 1840s after the publication of The Unconstitutionality of Slavery by Lysander Spooner. The Garrisonians, led by Garrison and Wendell Phillips, publicly burned copies of the Constitution, called it a pact with slavery, and demanded its abolition and replacement. Another camp, led by Lysander Spooner, Gerrit Smith, and eventually Douglass, considered the Constitution to be an antislavery document. Using an argument based upon Natural Law and a form of social contract theory, they said that slavery existed outside of the Constitution's scope of legitimate authority and therefore should be abolished.

The most influential abolitionist tract was Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), the best-selling novel and play by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Outraged by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (which made the escape narrative part of everyday news), Stowe emphasized the horrors that abolitionists had long claimed about slavery.

Historian Frederick Blue called John Brown "the most controversial of all nineteenth-century Americans."^[48] When Brown was hanged after his attempt to start a slave rebellion in 1859, church bells rang, minute guns were fired, large memorial meetings took place throughout the North, and famous writers such as Emerson and Henry David Thoreau joined many Northerners in praising Brown.

Union leaders identified slavery as the social and economic foundation of the Confederacy, and from 1862 were determined to end that support system. Meanwhile pro-Union forces gained control of the Border States and began the process of emancipation in Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, and in the next 24 months it effectively ended slavery throughout the Confederacy. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment (ratified in Dec. 1865) officially ended slavery in the United States, and freed the 50,000 or so remaining slaves in the border states.

The movement started in 1688 and was effectively victorious with the end of the American Civil War in 1865.

It took another 100 years, 1965, to bring a movement that finally brought equality and true civil rights to the former slaves.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks (the "mother of the Civil Rights Movement") refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger. She was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had recently returned from a meeting at the Highlander Center in Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience as a strategy had been discussed.

1965 Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal.

We live in the Internet age, where we expect such immediate results for anything we do. And sometimes, if we don't see it, we start to question whether we are even doing the right thing at all.

I don't know how often, on news story message boards, I have read, not without a shiver, some polygamy apologist saying that polygamy is a viable "form of marriage" as evidenced by history, and most specifically the bible. The same, the very same can be said of the practice of slavery. Its history, too, is one as old, and real, and viable as the history of the world, and even of the bible. Yet, here we are, today, in a world where very few of us will ever see the gross message on a news comment site, lauding or defending the institution of slavery. The world has changed. It never changed because of one single person's efforts, but was the culmination of centuries of sweat and toil and the blind love of the right thing, by many different individuals.

Let us not make the mistake of becoming faint of heart, just because the world does not fall at our feet and declare the gross error of its ways. Let us take cheer in the knowledge, that like others before us who faced the very same things, they pressed on. That is, after all, what faith is, isn't it, the ability to keep doing what you know is right, even when the circumstances around you offer little or no proof that is exactly what you are, right.

Sister Wives of TLC Affiliated with a criminal Polygamist Group.

2011-08-21T11:01:00.003-05:00

Reported by Rebecca Kimbel

Eureka Tribune Reporter

Kody Brown’s (star of Sister Wives TV reality Show,) Affiliated with a criminal Polygamist Group.

In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, Kody Brown said his family was part of the Apostolic United Brethern.

The current leader of the AUB is LaMoine Jenson. LaMoine and the late leader Owen Allred involved in a 1.5 million dollar theft, (Hill vs. Allred). The verdict was awarded in Hill’s favor. Owen Allred told his congregation Virginia Hill had given the money as “tithing. The congregation is currently paying the money back. In between the theft and the congregation being stuck with the bill, the court documents show that Owen recorded the meeting where he decided not to return the stolen money. Like Warren Jeff’s, Allred was found guilty from the recordings he had made. Despite these facts, Owen convinced his congregation that it was all because they are persecuted for polygamy. Jeff Norman went to prison, but Jeff Norman had no power of decision at any time. Owen Allred and LaMoine Jenson were in power. Owen died. LaMoine now leads. In between the theft and the congregation being stuck with the bill, money was laundered into directions the congregation has no legal claim to. This too is in the court documents.

Criminal behavior isn’t new to the AUB. Three of their priesthood members were accused of child molest: Joseph Thompson in 1994, George Maycock in 1998, and Shevroll Palacios in 2002. Palacios went to prison. The AUB distanced them selves from Shevroll Palacios only AFTER he was under investigation. Thompson remained affiliated in the AUB with so much authority their own members didn’t realize he had been “released from his position” (on the AUB records only) and Maycock’s behavior was likewise ignored.

Kody Brown admits affiliation with the AUB, but refuses to name his employer. According to the “reality” show Kody had money of his own. Sources tell us he drove a Lexus. Yet he admits his plural wives have to work to help support themselves. Public information show Kody and first wife, Meri filed for bankruptcy 6-6 2005, plural wife Christine Brown in 2010 and new plural wife Robyn, in Mexico 6-15-2011. That’s three bankruptcies in one family in six years. Why is Kody having more children when he can’t support the ones he’s got? Is using laws to protect you from the bills you have created, the life style we want to legalize in America? How many children can a man produce without financial obligations that stick? Who knows, he isn’t through yet. Is Kody’s “belief” system and the group he is affiliated the life style we really want to promote in America?

A Simple Sexist Test

2011-08-14T10:36:00.003-05:00

"If this were done to a man or would it ever be done to a man—has it ever been done to a man?"
~Gloria Steinem

Is the practice of polygamy inherently sexist or abusive? Take a long look at this photograph of Warren Jeffs' concubines and put it to the simple test one noted American feminist recently suggested.

With that simple test taken, now I invite you to review a piece I wrote in February of 2009. It angered some and offended others. I still stand by it, though.

An Open Letter to My "Sister" Feminists

Dear American Feminists,

Although I have contacted numerous national feminist organizations, which I will not attempt to embarrass by naming here- because I would still like to see you step up to the plate, about the gross abuses occurring to women and children living in polygamy, in the American west, none of you has responded, not one. You have ignored me.

To my "sisters" on the East and West Coasts, I have concluded you must not think I am a real woman or a real feminist. I suppose, I've failed to attend Vassar, Brown, Berkley, or NYU, and abort a baby or two along the way to protect my academic career and prove I'm worthy of being considered a real woman.

To my "sisters" in Atlanta, who are diligently working to ensure that road signs are not sexist, by spearheading a campaign to change them from "MEN AT WORK" to "WORKERS AHEAD", all I can say is, bless your hearts.

It is to the rest of America's women, who may not fall into one of those groups, I now appeal. We have a problem here in Texas, with a sex cult run by Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints leader, Warren Steed Jeffs.

We have hundreds of eyewitness testimonies from men, women, and children who have left, been abandoned, abused, or exiled from polygamy in the states of Utah and Arizona, where the FLDS residents of the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas came from. We now have evidence of sexual abuse perpetrated against young girls, Texas citizens, on Texas soil.

Our other "sisters" continued silence indicates they are indeed flirting with the trendy, liberal idea of allowing legalized polygamy in America, as another valid alternative lifestyle choice. In doing so, they are allowing their sophomoric, fantastical, and unrealistic ideals about political correctness and liberal tolerance to endanger every woman in America.

If they go along with legalizing polygamy as a valid alternative lifestyle choice, here, based on my four-year investigation of the FLDS in Mohave County, Arizona, is what you can look forward to as an American woman:

Your husband can come home one day and tell you that he has taken a new wife or three...
You will now have to compete for his time attention and affection, daily, or divorce him.
You will now share the financial resources of your family with the other woman or women, and any children who come along.
The more that come along, the less there is for your children, or their futures.
If you leave, you are no longer entitled to half of everything in your marriage. Now you get one third, or depending on the number of concubines in the marriage, one sixteenth, or one hundredth?
Muslim American men, now free to build American harems, pressure masses of Muslim American women to wear the burqa.
Other costumes, uniforms, or "coverings", such as long prairie dresses emerge from Middle America, as men claim "religious inspiration" to pressure their concubines to dress "appropriately".
These same masses of women will be secluded, and as they give birth to more children, their access to communication with the outside world and education cut off.
Emotional, mental, sexual, spiritual, and physical abuse will thrive in environments where one man is now the focus of the complete attention of multiple women.
When a polygamist man dies, and his multiple unions recognized as legitimate marriages, each wife is now entitled to receive a check from Social Security.
Each now legally legitimate child also gets Social Security benefits.
Thousands of women will find themselves thrust into abject poverty, because their husband is unable to support all of his concubines and children equally.
Thousands more will be forced to accept government assistance for food and medical care, for the same reason. Their family structure is legitimate in the eyes of the law, so they will qualify for multiple government assistance programs for the poor.
Birth rates among polygamist marriages will skyrocket, more children = more benefits.
Infant mortality and child death rates among polygamists families will soar – see the Colorado City, Arizona death rates.
Accidental child death rates among polygamist's families will increase – see the Colorado City, Arizona death rates..
The reporting of domestic violence shrinks to zero in entire communities, for decades at a time – see the Colorado City, Arizona history of zero prosecutions for domestic violence in over a decade.
Competition to the older, more powerful men, underage boys and young men driven from their communities, with no education or job skills, become a burden on law enforcement and social services in neighboring, non-polygamist communities where they are abandoned - see the Colorado City, Arizona history of driving 400 boys out of their town.
Trained from birth to expect assignment in marriage, complete submission to patriarchal religious authority, and acceptance of the "blessing" of an early marriage, millions of bright American girls, along with their potential talents and contributions to society, will be lost for generations.

We face that chilling future if polygamy remains either unchecked or legalized in America.

These sorts of things, however, are apparently unimportant to the average American Feminist.

Stay up there in your classrooms, drum circles and symposiums, where you can drone on forever about the suffering and ignorance of the typical American housewife, I mean homemaker. My grammar check doesn't seem to like the word housewife and has now twice suggested homemaker, as an appropriate gender-neutral job title.

You laugh when I support a Marriage Amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. I'm not an intellectual, I'm a Southern conservative, so how can I know anything about the world?

On Gays and lesbians: Come let us reason together. Like Sara Palin, I am not against civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, the key word being couples. They deserve, when they are in loving, committed, stable, and monogamous relationships to enjoy the tax, ownership, inheritance and medical power of attorney benefits, or the same property/custody/relationship termination headaches of heterosexuals. Kinky Friedman is right, "Homosexuals should be free to be as miserable as the rest of us".

Go play with your words. I've got dozens of unexplained dead children, sexually abused little girls, abandoned little boys and abused women to think about. You know, the same ones that child advocates and anti-polygamy activist in Utah and Arizona have been begging for your help with, for years now? I am a Texan and a Southerner. I am a woman who believes in living in a free country, where I have rights equal with men.

Nobody is going to come down here to Texas and take away my right to be my husband's only living equal. I know many other people, straight, and gay, across America that feel the same way about protecting women and children from the cultural disaster of polygamy.

If we have to fight this alone down here, we will. Y'all just hide and watch how real Southern sisters take care of each other.

Don't, however, expect to own the words feminist or feminism when we get done, especially if you threw all your party invitations away.

P.S. Confidential to Phylis Chesler and Noni Darwish:

Help!

Like Rats in the Walls

2011-08-06T09:05:00.003-05:00

"Like rats in the walls" was a phrase I read on a site dedicated to exposing the growing threat of Sharia law in the U.S. The writer posited that those concerned about the issue, rather than being out in the open with their campaigns, were often content to lurk inside social networking sites, like Facebook, where they chat among themselves, and in a way 'hide' from those who are opposed to their truth.

It stuck with me, because it reminded me of how I have felt personally since January of 2010, when an 18-wheeler came after me and chased me all over the road at speeds exceeding 90 mph. I spent that entire night sitting in a hot tub in the back yard, drinking vodka and shivering in the 20 degree temperatures. I tried several times to get out but every time I did, I was so overcome with shivering, even inside the heated house, that I found I could do nothing but return to the tub. I was in shock.

There have been less posts here in my blog since then. Some of it has to do with time constraints and some of it, no doubt, has to do with what happened that January day. The real action happens not here in the blog, but on Facebook. For anyone wondering about the long gaps between posts here, there are no such gaps on Facebook, and we do stay on top of it there. If you want to be kept abreast of the very latest developments in the situation regarding American Polygamy, that is the place to be. Friend me. At some point, I am sure I will have to make a Facebook page for Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy. In the mean time you can find me there on Facebook listed under k.Dee Ignatin. If you want to friend me drop me a note explaining your interest in staying abreast of the cases, otherwise I will have no clue who you are or what you may want.

I am getting ready to leave this phase of acting like a rat inside the walls, though. September should prove to be an interesting month.

Polygamy: A Matter of Consent

2011-07-30T21:07:00.002-05:00

By Marion Munn
April 2011. Written for an Analysis of Argumentation Class at the University of Utah

Polygamy: A Matter of Consent

Over the past few years the media has been filled with high profile debates about same- sex relationships, such as the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, and the possible legalization of gay marriage. At the same time, another relationship controversy, that of polygamy, has been brought to both national and international attention in news reports featuring Warren Jeffs and his followers in The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS (Appleyard 48). This group is only one of several referring to themselves as Mormon Fundamentalists - all polygamist offshoots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, or LDS) which abandoned the practice around the turn of the last century. Tenacious in its practice of polygamy, one of these groups has spilled over into Canada, precipitating a major debate there that will affect Moslem as well as Mormon Fundamentalist polygamists, as British Columbia’s Supreme Court decides on the constitutionality of its ban on polygamy (Wetzstein).

In the US, debates about polygamy take place in a society where grass-roots movements have promoted greater tolerance for alternative lifestyles, shifting away from biblical standards of morality towards a greater prominence for the bedrock American principle of individual freedom of choice. Because of this, some liberals who are pro same-sex marriage are now being drawn into support of polygamous unions. Society’s response to this issue is an important one, since its values are defined by what it condones, and some have identified problems inherent in polygamy, including “imbalances of power and psychological abuse” (Young 18). If this is so, responsible citizens would be well advised to withhold their support. As a 2006 Economist article states, “hardly anyone …is thinking about polygamy as social policy...” and that “for reasons that have nothing to do with gay marriage, polygamy is a profoundly hazardous policy” which includes implications of increased crime rates, male-female ratio imbalances affecting marriage prospects for men, and undemocratic processes (Rauch).

There are indeed multiple factors inherent in polygamy that should give cause for concern. One of these is the aspect of “consent.” Any factors limiting or compromising this vital facet of a relationship would certainly cast doubts upon its validity or desirability. Accordingly, this essay contends that polygamy, as typically lived in the United States, may violate accepted principles of informed consent. The term “consenting adults” has become familiar in the US, and implies freedom of choice, particularly in matters of sexual partners (Lawrence). To demonstrate the limitations of this term within polygamy, evidence will be presented including my personal insights as a past member of one polygamist community (the AUB or Apostolic United Brethren) for a period of approximately twenty years. It should be noted that the polygamy discussed here is more precisely termed “polygny,” i.e. one man with more than one wife, since this is the typical form (Valsiner 67-68). Additionally, the term “wife” or “husband” denotes a religious, not civil contract. Consent within these unions centers around two main factors: a woman’s agreement to becoming part of a polygamous union, and her consent for her husband to take more wives.

In considering a woman’s consent to entering polygamy, we will focus on adults, discounting the obvious abuses involving female children in sexual liaisons with adult males, which may not necessarily be typical. As Cassie Ambutter points out, “many of the women that opt for fundamentalism abandoned the mainstream LDS church in their later years, far beyond age of consent’s relevance” (14). This was true in my own case, and may appear to implicitly validate that choice in terms of free exercise of will, and to offer no grounds for challenge. However, there is an important qualifier to “consent” that has a bearing on decision making - even in the case of mature women not brought up or conditioned within societies where polygamy may be the norm, bringing into question even adult female compliance.

Definitions of informed consent include “Voluntary agreement by a competent person to another person's proposition” with ”competent” defined as “Able to act in the circumstances, including the ability to perform a job or occupation, or to reason or make decisions”(Nolo). In general it is conceded that an adult with no mental disabilities, not being physically coerced, usually has the potential of arriving at an informed decision. However a 2010 California Law Review article identifies another element relevant to this discussion, focusing on the word “imperfect.” It states that “imperfect consent… [is] where the ability of a person to consent to an act is questionable either because the act is arguably harmful to the person, or because social or cultural pressures compromise the person’s autonomy (Richards 200). Richards here identifies two important factors which he suggests may exist in polygamist culture– undue pressure, and compliance in spite of possible resultant harms to the individual - a view supported by others, writing on the subject of ethics (Arneson 42). It is important to identify these pressures and harms.

First, it should be recognized that within Mormon Fundamentalist culture polygamy is not optional. It is considered to be an essential commandment that must be followed to gain God’s approval and to enter the highest level of heaven (Walsh qtd. in Wetzstein par.6). Writings considered to be revelations directly from God to Joseph Smith (first leader of the LDS church) recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, clarify this. One passage states that “all those who have this law [polygamy] revealed unto them must obey the same" (132:3). Even more compelling is the penalty attached to its rejection, which is that if a woman is taught polygamy by her husband and refuses to live it “she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her....” (132:64). Early Mormon leaders hammered home these teachings to those who were unenthusiastic about polygamy, warning that such people would “go down to hell and be damned if they do not repent" (Pratt). Such threats may not carry much weight with today’s average member of the public, but Fundamentalists take a very literal reading of these passages; and emulate LDS leaders who, in the past, have defied the law and have been willing to risk imprisonment over the principle (Smith). In this context, however incredible it may seem, there are women who do agree to polygamy even though it may be repugnant to them and cause mental anguish (D’Onofrio 383). This was my own experience, and the experience of other women in my circle. For instance, a young woman whom I will call “Sarah “confided to me that she was angry with her parents for teaching her about “plural marriage” because that meant she “had to live it.” She also admitted that she was afraid of “being destroyed” if she “rejected the law [polygamy].” The result of this kind of experience is often emotional pain exacerbated by diminished time with the husband, and a reduction in resources that are spread increasingly thin (D’Onofrio 380). Some of the emotional effects have been noted by Dr. Lawrence Beall, Utah trauma psychologist, (Summary) and are also paralleled within Moslem communities, as will be shown later.

Not only do some women feel compelled to enter a polygamous relationship, once within such an arrangement their consent may be compromised in another important way. This is demonstrated in the ability of a man to take on new partners without the consent of existing wives. A man may solicit a woman’s agreement and sometimes obtain it under pressures already noted. However, if she does refuse, this may have no bearing on the outcome since the Doctrine and Covenants justifies her husband in taking new wives without her compliance (132:65). This renders a polygamist wife potentially powerless in this aspect of the relationship, once again with the potential for stress, unhappiness, and feelings of helplessness.

Some may argue that these pressures, limitations and harms are centered solely in Mormon Fundamentalist polygamy, and are atypical of other forms, but it should be noted that in Islam many women also view polygamy as a religious duty against which objections are “haram (not lawful)”(Polygamy). Alia Hogben, Executive Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women states that some women are sometimes fearful of repercussions, including “bodily harm” for shaming their husbands by non compliance (qtd. in Dhillon). They too are subject to radical changes within their marriages that do not require their consent. Dr. Susan Stickevers, expert witness in the Canadian polygamy hearings writes to me, “Too many Moslem women I have known had their husbands arrive home from trips to Pakistan, only to be informed that there was a new wife in the picture...” As a doctor in New York she was able to witness firsthand the negative mental and physical symptoms presenting in women subjected to such stresses, as was Professor Dena Hassouneh (736-737) a Moslem who studied the effects of polygamy on women.

It may be difficult to quantify the percentage of women who feel pressured into entering polygamy against their will, since repression of what is deemed to be negative emotion is expected (Beall par 9). Within the FLDS the dictum is to “keep sweet” (FLDS Beliefs) and for wives in the AUB, it is to be “in harmony.” Additionally, a woman’s “worthiness” is measured by her outward expressions of approval for the lifestyle, and women are “strongly dissuade[d} …from having or expressing alternative perspectives on plural marriage… creating the appearance of unanimous satisfaction with the polygamous lifestyle, regardless of any internal disagreements…” (D’Onofrio 391-392). Moslem women also face similar pressures not to shame their husbands by open dissent (Hogben qtd in Dhillon).

Although the pro polygamy lobby is attempting to appropriate the “consenting adults” argument in order to win support from liberal elements of society as a stepping stone to legalization, the consent problems discussed here are clearly not paralleled within gay relationships, where there are no external forces such as threats of “destruction” pressuring either party to be involved, no expectation of other individuals being introduced against the will of either partner, (with the accompanying potential for emotional distress, loss of time with a partner, or reduction of financial resources) and no pressure to give outward approval to an inwardly galling arrangement. A society that prides itself on the defense of the freedom of the individual to choose should also be intensely committed to ensuring that it does not condone practices and institutions that violate accepted norms of consent. Despite some outward protestations to the contrary, polygamy hurts many women, and for this reason liberals should not be seduced into confusing support for same sex marriage with support for a practice that embodies such inherent harms.

Works Cited

Ambutter, Cassie. "On Religious Subject Formation and the Limits of Liberalism: A Case Study of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints." All Academic Inc. (Abstract Management, Conference Management and Research Search Engine). Web. 07 Mar. 2011. <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p360251_index.html>.

Appleyard, Bryan. “Church of the Child Brides.” The Sunday Times Magazine. London. 22 Jun.2008. LexisNexis. 12 Apr. 2011

Arneson, Richard J. “Mill versus paternalism.” Ethics 90. Jul. 1980.

Beall, Larry. “The Impact of Modern-Day Polygamy on Women & Children. “ TATC: Trauma Awareness. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. <http://www.traumaawareness.org/id19.html>.

Dhillon, Sunny. “Polygamy Court Case will examine Muslims.” The Canadian Press, updated 5 Aug. 2010. Web 7 Apr. 2011. <http://news.ca.msn.com/canada/cp-article.aspx?cp- documentid=25346982>.

Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Web. 06 Mar. 2011. <http://lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc?lang=eng>.

D’Onofrio, Eve. "Child Brides, Inegalitarianism, and the Fundamentalist Polygamous Family in the United States." International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family. Oxford. Dec 2005. Vol. 19(3): 373- 394 doi:10.1093/lawfam/ebi028. Heinonline. Web. 06 Mar. 2011.

FLDS Beliefs 101. FLDS Beliefs 101 – “Keep Sweet.” Web 7 Apr. 2011. <http://flds101.blogspot.com/2008/05/flds-101-keep-sweet.html>.

Hassouneh-Phillips, Dena. "Polygamy and Wife Abuse: A Qualitative Study of Muslim Women in America." Health Care for Women International 22.8 (2001): 735- 748. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

Lawrence v Texas. 539 U.S., 123 S.Ct. 2472, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003).

Nolo. Dictionary. Web 7 Apr. 2011.

Pratt, Orson. Journal Discourses of the General Authorities of the LDS Church. Vol 17: 224- 225. Web. 4 Apr. 2011. <http://www.journalofdiscourses.org/>.

Richards, Jacob. "Autonomy, Imperfect Consent, and Polygamist Sex Rights Claims." California Law Review 98.1 (2010): 197-242. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 2 Mar. 2011."

Smith, Joseph F. Reed Smoot Hearings Volume 1 page 197. 56th Congress Hearings Document No. 486 . Proceedings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate, In the Matter of the Protests against the Rights of the Hon Reed Smoot, A senator from the Stat e of Utah, to hold his seat. Washington, Government Printing Office. 1906. Web 7 Apr 2011. <http://nboman.people.wm.edu/smoot.php>.

Stickevers, Susan. Email to the author. 18 Mar. 2010.

Valsiner, J. “Organization of children’s social development in polygamic families.” In J Valsiner (ed.), Child Development in cultural context. Toronto:Hogrefe and Huber. 1989. Print.

Wetzstein, Cheryl. “ Anti-polygamy law challenged in Canada court. “ The Washington Times 5 Jan. 2011:5. LexisNexis. Web 12 Apr 2011.

Young, Cathy. "Opening Marriage." Reason 35.10 (2004): 18-19. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 2 Mar. 2011.

Texas Heroes

2011-07-21T09:23:00.007-05:00

Howdy Warren,

And, "Wel-come-to-the- great- state- of -Tex-as! If you didn't grow up going to the State Fair of Texas at Fair Park in Dallas, to stand at the feet of Big Tex every year, to be fair, you may not get that one.

I had an interesting meeting with a writer from Austin yesterday, who has written a book on religious maltreatment. We do not agree on all of her hypothesis, which I found broad. What we have in common are some core understandings of what constitutes an abuse of religious authority in a child's life. Or even the abuse of adults, spiritually.

Texas, although many people will never even know it, is full of heroes. The local abuse hotline staff, Schleicher County Sheriff's Office, Texas Rangers, and Child Protective Services, right down to ordinary citizens, including churches, on the ground made heroic efforts to save 400 children from the abuse, which was occurring on the grounds of the YFZ Ranch, in Schleicher County, Texas, in April of 2008.

Although those of us in the media have come to call this 'a raid,' the truth is, it was a rescue mission. Right up until someone in Austin decided to throw their hands in the air and say 'We give up! Take them all back.'

Since the trial for Warren Jeffs begins on Monday, I thought we could perhaps review some of the heroes of this story that will probably never get the attention and admiration they really deserve.

The FLDS had been in these good Texas people's backyard in tiny Eldorado, Texas for around five years when the call came into the hotline. There had been plenty of time, and plenty of warning given to the citizens of the area regarding the ritual sex practices of the FLDS, which include incest, regular child marriage and regular child rape. Little girls are born only to become future concubines for powerful men.

These men have money and plenty of it. They own and operate businesses from Utah to Texas, and Mexico. They even have lucrative government contracts, at both the federal and local levels, as well as multiple businesses devoted to the construction industry. Within years of locating their giant houses designed for communal living, instituting massive infrastructure improvements including a sewage treatment plant, a cement plant, a brand new religious temple along with manned and armed guard towers overlooking Schleicher County, one of their concrete companies had the contract to lay the pad for every new wind turbine in West Texas.

This FLDS is the same one Flora Jessop remembers as a child in Colorado City, Arizona, when Senator Orin Hatch used to come and play the organ in the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints services. Senator Hatch, typical for a Utah politician, is for ignoring the felony crime of polygamy, and he personally knows "many fine polygamist people."

Needless to say, these are the kinds of forces our heroes knew nothing about. The heroes simply set out to do a job, and that was to be prepared. So they were very prepared for the abuse they saw. Nothing, however, could have ever prepared them to understand or account for the inexplicable actions of top ranking state employees, who shut them down after they had done nothing but their job, and document it.

Top ranking heads rolled in Austin for taking the position that someone like Warren Jeffs, and other parents on that ranch, had no business having any legal parental rights to any child in the state of Texas. The position from the top was clear, 'It doesn't matter how much abuse you have documented, we're giving them all back.'

The heroes of our story kept working. They did things like push children across the floor as they cried and begged not to be made to go back to their abusers. They handed over a toddler with bone scans showing multiple fractures through his tiny body. They gave girls back to mothers, who they knew had willingly turned their child over for sex, with a man on the YFZ Ranch. They handed a young girl back that spent 3 days in labor on the ranch, without any pain medication or a doctor.

They hugged them. They told them they could always call, no matter what.

But the real story of our unsung Texas heroes is even deeper. These social workers had something happen to them when they started working with the FLDS children. The children were racists. They were raised that way. In the early days of the rescue many of the children, who had most likely never even laid their eyes on anyone who was not also Caucasian, hurled racial insults at some of the social workers.

I think, because of that, I was unsure what the emotional reaction of the minority social workers might have been. That was all put to rest when me and Flora took to the road in the summer of 2009 and we met them, these heroes. They didn't just come to buy Flora's book, they needed to meet her, viscerally.

I could give multiple accounts of meeting social workers across the state who expressed the same feelings, but I never saw anything like I saw when we got to San Antonio. That was special. Flora's appearance, signing, speaking and question and answer periods were clear and concise. The event was at the San Antonio Public Library, where there was a crowd.

At some point, while answering a question about the abuses common in the group that Flora grew up in, a woman from the back of the room spoke out and challenged Flora, and told her she was exaggerating the abuse found on the YFZ Ranch. She then actually said there was no abuse found on the ranch, and that she was an attorney who represented one of the FLDS women in the case.

Incensed, I grabbed my satchel and whipped out the final CPS report. I shook it at her and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but I have the final report here and it identifies victims, lots of them. Don't you dare come in here to Texas and think you can sell anyone on the idea that it's okay to rape little Texas girls, just as long as you call it your religion."

It's one of those moments in life, where things could take any old turn, and for a moment you wait to see if a crowd turns on you or stands with you. Two women jumped up from the crowd, like lions and started blurting out that they were CPS caseworkers, and had worked with the FLDS children. Before we knew it, the room went rather wild with people turning on the woman identifying herself to be an FLDS woman's attorney in the case. It was a CPS room, and they had all worked with FLDS children taken in the 2008 Texas rescue mission at the YFZ.

They started shouting out about their cases, especially the idea that the FLDS women on the YFZ were in some significant part just as legally guilty as the men. The caseworkers understood the children's abuse, much of it ritual, racist and full of hate, had to have required the enthusiastic participation of the children's mothers as the girls were traded, inside the fences of the YFZ Ranch, across the country to Mohave County, Arizona, up to Bountiful B.C., and down to old Mexico. Nobody's little girl just leaves for Canada one day and never comes home again, right?

No one could possibly be a capable and responsible parent if when you wake up, and you're told by your husband or maybe even one of his other concubines, that your 13-year-old-daughter has gone to live in another country, you don't demand her return, and then immediately notify the law.

If you don't pick up the phone and call the police to report your 13-year-old is missing, aren't you a criminal participating in the disappearance and sex trafficking of your baby?

Imagine, if you will, you are the young idealistic graduate who decided to go into social work, because you deeply cared about people and truly wanted to help protect them. Imagine you carry within you, this noble desire to protect the innocent from harm and to provide hope to the hopeless, so with your life, you serve. It's not hard to imagine what must be in the hearts of lots of people who go into social work or law enforcement.

Now imagine having all of this in your heart and then being a minority faced with pure racism, up close and personal, so blatant that it takes your breath away?

What I discovered is that these ordinary Texas folks were so taken back with the evil of it, that the only weapon with any chance of working was love. So they did that.

They grabbed these kids by the scruff and loved on them. With a white-hot-fierce sort of love they overcame their own distaste and repulsion, and just loved them. They prayed for them. They rocked some of them. They hugged some of them. And when they had to give them back, to whatever force that had shoved so much hatred and evil at those little souls to begin with, they cried, like babies.

After the FLDS attorney had been put in her place, it was like Oprah entered the room. Suddenly, it was alive with people talking to each other, sharing their grief at what happened to the FLDS children, how they were terrified Texas was making a mistake in giving them back to an institutionalized abusive society, run by sex predators, and using fundamentalist Mormon religion to protect themselves from prosecution of their crimes.

The trouble is, our constitution does not allow religious individuals or organizations to commit crimes and then declare immunity from prosecution, just for being who they are, that is to say: religious.

"Before the Supreme Court, Reynolds argued that his conviction for bigamy should be overturned on four issues. These included that his grand jury had not been legal; that challenges of certain jurors were improperly overruled; that testimony by Amelia Jane Schofield was not permissible as it was under another indictment; and, most importantly, that it was his religious duty to marry multiple times."

Among other findings one from the court wrote, ""to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."

These Texas heroes loved the hate right out of those kids, and in return they got kicked in the teeth. My new friend, the writer from Austin, has a chance soon to speak to a lot of these heroes. I hope she tells them what I think of them, and that someone out there still knows.

In my mind's eye I see every one of these Texans wearing a white hat. In case, in this strange world we live in these days, you don't know what that means; in Texas it just means they are the 'good guys.'

The CPS workers who jumped out of those chairs, like lions, reminded me of the goddess of Liberty on the San Jacinto Battle Flag. These weren't women or government workers who didn't give a damn about what was happening, these were heroes. These people had been wounded in the heart by the hate and abuse they saw perpetrated against the FLDS children.

I hope someday, some of them will feel safe to come forward and share their stories. That is my brightest hope. I'd like all Texans to know about these real life Texas, good guy, heroes.

Have you ever held anger, racism and hate to your breast and rocked it to sleep with a sweet song, praying that while you did it the hate was being rubbed right off and away? That's a true Texas kind of love.

I know heroes who have.

I know lions of love.

I know the kind of people Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed about.

I have a good life.

G-d Bless Texas

How Many Children Did Polygamist Kody Brown Have in 2005

2011-06-12T12:05:00.004-05:00

2005 Bankruptcy filing for polygamists Kody and Meri Brown Here.

I suppose the rest of the kids are only "spiritual children," so they don't count?

Whoopsie!

Polygamy Works Great With OPM

2011-06-11T23:18:00.003-05:00

The Browns make polygamy work by using OPM. It can be the money of a creditor or the government's money, they don't much care. Everyone knows that the easiest way to support any venture, while cutting your own risk, is to use Other People's Money.

One of the very last questions asked by host Oprah Winfrey in an interview with the Browns was how they managed financially and Meri answered, "We just have to learn how to stretch our dollars just like any other American family." That is quite obviously a lie. I know very few American families who have filed 3 different bankruptcies in 13 years. I do know how nice it might have been for those families who were forced to file for it, if they had a third party they could have transferred any real property to, before they filed it. How convenient, for Kody Brown, who has just taken concubine [potential bankruptcy] #4.

These are the bankruptcy filings of two of Kody's concubines. Kody himself, along with his legal wife, Meri filed another bankruptcy in 2005. This was the perfect polygamist family, shoved out for all the world to see, hand picked by the Safety Net Committee? So Kody has three “wives” and they have all had to file bankruptcy.

We have said, over and over, that polygamy leads to poverty. Even if the Browns are all completely honest people, they have obviously been bankrupted by this "lifestyle choice," multiple times.

They say on their TV show that they are "married" to Kody and that he is their "husband." Really? On every one of these documents the women claim to be "single-unmarried" women. Where is your husband, Christine? Where is your husband, Janelle?

As you look at Christine's filing [in 2010] I'd like to point out a few things. There is space for the name of a spouse/joint debtor on the filing but it is blank. She does, however, list 5 children ranging in age from 8 through 11-years-old. Where was your "husband," Christine?

In the space for other monthly income Christine says, "Companion pays rent, utilities and auto insurance: $1,2000." Did you mean your "husband," Christine? Or, did one of your co-concubines pay that? Who is this mystery companion? In the filing, Christine says her assets total $1,550 and her liabilities at $25,712.14.

So after spending about $20,000 on credit cards, her lifetime assets total less than $2,000? Who got the goods, Christine? It looks like you are just a typical concubine who totes your meager belongings into whatever tent your master is providing for the harem right now.

con·cu·bine

1. Law A woman who cohabits with a man without being legally married to him.

In certain societies, such as imperial China, a woman contracted to a man as a secondary wife, often having few legal rights and low social status.

On page 23, Christine, it lists your main source of income in 2009 and 2010 as Food Stamps [pg. 23]! One the old standbys used by virtually every polygamist man is, 'I don't see how in a society where men dump women all the time you can look at this as bad when a man is actually caring for and taking responsibility for the women and children.'

I have a newsflash for you, Kody Brown, letting taxpayers feed the children you make is not exactly caring for them.

The Browns of TLC: Back to the Future of Polygamy

2011-06-11T10:44:00.011-05:00

In 2005 I arrived in Mohave County to find the largest decriminalized polygamy experiment in the United States well underway in Colorado City and Centennial Park, Arizona. This was the reality of how polygamy worked. Once I saw this spread sheet, provided to me by a Mohave County elected official, I no longer had to wonder how polygamy worked. It obviously works, because we pay them to keep working it.

The government's generous subsidies, provided to women who file as 'single unmarried mothers,' makes sure the children of polygamy, who are guaranteed to be thrown into a lifestyle of poverty, will never go hungry, and the men of polygamy will not have to invest too much of their earnings into the actual care and feeding of the hordes of children they create but rather can divert those funds back into their businesses and then their "church."

Is it any wonder that FLDS owned, Colorado City based, companies can secure multiple city, county and even federal contracts, when they are able to submit the lowest bid for those jobs, time after time? People have long scratched their heads, wondering how can they complete a job for less money than any other company, even when an honest contractor has repeatedly cut their profit margin to the bare bone on the bid for a job.

Ah, the poor suckers only think they have cut it to the bone. The poor suckers are not only losing business to the polygamists but are actually paying for the food and health care of their concubines and children, as well as actually paying the same for the workers who do the job! You can click here for more information. While the honest poor sucker is paying for his home, wife and children, feeding them, clothing them, caring for them by providing medical care, the polygamists have none of those silly expenses!

The polygamists do not have to bother themselves with such frivolous expenditures. The tax payers feed their children and cover the health care expenses of their extra concubines and children. Their labor costs on the job are much lower than the poor monogamous contractor's as well.

You see, since the FLDS is run on a communal system, every employee working on that job is indeed provided a 'pay check' but to stay in good standing in the "church" he then simply signs it right back over to the boss, who turns it all over to the prophet, who then decides what each worker 'really needs.' Of course, since you and I are paying to feed all the children and provide medical care for the concubines and children, obviously they need less to live on than those of us who have to pay for those things. Since they all live in a home owned by the church, well, that does also save them some money, now doesn't it? That, my friends, is how you consistently underbid all those poor monogamous suckers, who are obviously too dumb to let the system take care of their baby mamas [read: concubines] and children.

It's all based on fraud. Look at that chart up there. Now, because of privacy laws, none of us can be sure who was on that assistance, however, we know no one but polygamists live in that zip code. We also know there are less than 6,000 of them there! And we know from women who have left polygamy that many of them, who were the concubines of highly successful men, were indeed accepting government benefits for themselves and their children. Ask Carolyn Jessop!

This pattern is now repeating itself in Schleicher County, Texas, especially in San Angelo.

Perfectly decent human beings, who make their decisions about business based on costs, are now turning to FLDS owned businesses in Texas, to build their homes, build their roads, even lay the pads for almost every new wind turbine in West Texas. That's a big contract! It could have gone to a company owned by a decent, tax paying, family supporting Texan. Instead, those jobs have now been awarded to polygamists who laugh all the way to the baby mama welfare line. These FLDS polygamist owned and operated companies are now all over the Lone Star State; you can find them in places like Kerrville, Boerne and Amarillo. They use the system against all of us, and call it "bleeding the beast."

What does all of this have to do with the Browns of TLC's "Sister Wives"? Simple, it is called a pattern.

In my next post I'll publish some documents, so you can see exactly how the "Sister Wives," of TLC's smash reality show, are in fact no different from their counterparts in the FLDS.

Polygamy is abuse.

Utah, Corruption Elevated

2011-04-14T17:18:00.002-05:00

Federal Judge Dee Benson is threatening to have Federal Marshals sent to arrest Utah State Judge Denise Lindburg.

It seems Judge Benson, a former partner in the law firm of Show Christiansen and Martineau, which currently represents the FLDS doesn't feel he should recuse himself from the case. He actually thinks he can be their champion and no one will even notice. Funny that.

Appellate Case: 11-4066 Document: 01018622162 Date Filed: 04/14/2011 Page: 1

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH
OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY
SAINTS, an Association of Individuals

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

BRUCE R. WISAN, Special Fiduciary of
the United Effort Plan Trust; MARK
SHURTLEFF, Attorney General for the
State of Utah; TERRY GODDARD,
Attorney General for the State of Arizona;
and DENISE POSSE LINDBERG, Judge
of the Third Judicial District Court of Salt
Lake County, State of Utah

Defendants - Appellees.

No. 11-4066

NOTICE OF INFORMATION RELEVANT TO
EMERGENCY
MOTION TO STAY AND
REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE DECISION

Defendant Judge Denise Posse Lindberg, by and through counsel Brent M.

Johnson of the Utah State Administrative Office of the Courts, submits the following

notice in support of the Emergency Motion to Stay filed on April 13, 2011.

This notice is to advise the Court that the federal district court this morning

Appellate Case: 11-4066 Document: 01018622162 Date Filed: 04/14/2011 Page: 2

informed counsel that an Order to Show Cause has been scheduled for tomorrow, April

15, 2011, against Judge Lindberg concerning her Order dated April 11, 2011.

Judge Lindberg’s order was included as an attachment to her motion before this Court to stay the federal court’s preliminary injunction order. Judge Lindberg is leaving for Arizona this afternoon to attend a memorial service for her recently deceased uncle, scheduled for tomorrow, and counsel is in St. George, Utah, several hours from Salt Lake City. When the undersigned informed Judge Dee Benson of this information, he suggested that it may be necessary to have the federal marshals bring Judge Lindberg before his court this afternoon to answer as to her order. This has created a crisis necessitating an immediate decision from this Court.

Judge Lindberg will do as directed by this Court. Judge Lindberg’s concern

remains that if her fiduciary is required to cede control of the property before Judge Benson’s order can be reviewed, Trust assets will be irretrievably lost. Moreover, because there are competing claimants to the authority to act on behalf of the Corporation of the President of the FLDS Church (the entity to whom Judge Benson’s order directs Trust assets be turned over), it is not clear to whom the fiduciary should turn over Trust assets, if that should be this Court’s direction. As a result, Judge Lindberg renews her urgent request that this Court issue an immediate stay of the federal district court’s order pending review of the various appeals that have been filed. Should the 10th Circuit deny the motion for stay, Judge Lindberg will follow any directive the 10 th Circuit may issue. In that event, Judge Lindberg requests specific direction from this Court regarding how

Appellate Case: 11-4066 Document: 01018622162 Date Filed: 04/14/2011 Page: 3

Trust assets should be preserved in the interim.

Only through this Court’s immediate action can this extremely difficult and pressing situation between the courts of two sovereigns be de-escalated, and time given for appropriate review of the issues on appeal.

Dated this 14 th day of April, 2011.

s/ Brent M. Johnson

BRENT M. JOHNSON

Attorney for Judge Denise Posse Lindberg

Appellate Case: 11-4066 Document: 01018622162 Date Filed: 04/14/2011 Page: 4

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

This is to certify that a true and correct copy of the foregoing document was filed

electronically with the Court via the CM/ECF system on this 14th day of April, 2011 to:

Roger H. Hoole
Gregory N. Hoole
Hoole & King, L.C.
4276 South Highland Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah 84124

Joni J. Jones
David N. Wolf
Assistant Utah Attorney General
160 East 300 South, 6 th Floor
P.O. Box 140856
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-0856

Mark Philip Bookholder
Arizona Attorney General’s Office
1275 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007-2997

Jeffrey L. Shields
Zachary T. Shields
Michael D. Stanger
Callister Nebeker * McCullough
10 East South Temple
Gateway Tower East, Suite 900
Salt Lake City, Utah 84113

Andrew V. Collins
Mitchell & Barlow
6465 South 3000 E, Suite 203
Cottonwood Heights, UT 84121

Kenneth A. Okazaki
Stephen Clark
Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough
170 South Main Street, Suite 1500
Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

Randy S. Hunter
Assistant Utah Attorney General
160 East 300 South, 5 th Floor
P.O. Box 140857
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-0875

James C. Bradshaw
Brown, Bradshaw & M offat, L.L.P.
10 West Broadway, Suite 210
Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

Frederick Mark Gedicks
Richard A. Van Wagoner
Rodney R. Parker
Snow, Christensen & Martineau
10 Exchange Place, 11 th Floor
P.O. Box 45000
Salt Lake City, Utah 84145-5000

Michael H. Hinson
Office of the Attorney General
Liability Management Section
177 North Church Ave. Suite 1105
Tucson, Arizona 85701

Appellate Case: 11-4066 Document: 01018622162 Date Filed: 04/14/2011 Page: 5

Ryan M . Harris
Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough
170 South Main Street, Suite 1500
Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1644

/s/Jeni Wood
Jeni Wood
Legal Secretary to Brent M. Johnson

Shocking new details in polygamists child sex trafficking

2011-02-25T17:42:00.002-06:00

I truly wish I could say the title of this story fits but it doesn't. Flora Jessop and I have been exchanging text for the last two days making fun of the headlines. The FBI, RCMP, officials in Mohave County, Arizona and Hildale, Utah, U.S. Justice Department and elected officials from city levels all the way to the U.S. Congress and Senate have been repeatedly informed of these problems for more than a decade.

G-d bless Daphne Braham for keeping the faith. And G-d bless Canada for finally paying attention. But most of all G-d Bless Texas for it's courage and conviction. Thank you Governor Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, Representatives Hilderbran and Darby, and special prosecutors Eric Nichols and Angela Goodwin.

So even if Flora and I are not so shocked, maybe the rest of the world will finally be shocked at the truth of what Utah and Arizona have helped cover up for years.

Polygamy is abuse.

ALERT! Here they come!

2011-02-21T19:06:00.004-06:00

Immigrants involved in multiple marriage watching polygamy test case: imam

Marten Youssef, The Canadian Press

Read'em and weep.

Now might be a good time to remind everyone what Flora and I have been saying for the last 6 years. This is the essay we wrote that former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard backed out of challenging.

Polygamy: Gateway to American Sharia

Polygamy should be prosecuted because it is the largest gateway to the practice of Sharia law in our country today. Fundamentalist Mormons may say polygamy doesn't hurt anyone but that is not the reality reflected in dozens of studies by medical and mental health professionals, worldwide. Polygamy has been studied in multiple countries, with the same results. Polygamy leads to statistically higher negative outcomes for women and children everywhere it is practiced. These outcomes include higher incidences of poverty, molestation, child and spouse abandonment, incest, child marriage, depression and divorce.

We cannot as a free and democratic nation governed by laws allow small groups of people to form operational theocracies, where the rights of women and children are trampled in the name of the religious freedom to keep women in concubinage. How dare we tell the people of Afghanistan that we know more about freedom than they, and then encourage immigrant cultures coming to our country to hold onto, rather than let go of traditions which infringe on the human rights of women. 70% of Muslim women who are first wives say their spouse took the second wife without their knowledge or consent, even though that is never supposed to happen in Islam. How can we as Americans look at the women coming to our shores from countries where they never dreamed of the right even to uncover their faces and say, "Here too, when your husband wants to bring another woman home, there is nothing you can do but live with it, because we are such a tolerant people.” There are more Muslims practicing the felony crime of polygamy in America, using Mohammed as their excuse, than there are Fundamentalist Mormons using Joseph Smith. What do they all have in common? They show a flagrant disregard for U.S. law in favor of their own culture of abuse, justified by their religion.

American Muslim polygamy has only started to grow and yet it already exceeds the estimated 32,000 fundamentalist Mormons engaging in the practice today. It took the fundamentalist Mormons 100 years to get here, yet it has taken Muslims in America less than a single generation to overtake them in numbers.

Refusing to prosecute polygamy will open the flood gates for Sharia based Muslim polygamy to grow to European levels here in the United States, quickly.

Glorious and Free

2011-02-20T21:49:00.003-06:00

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

The Canadian reference case on whether the ban on polygamy violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is, in essence, over. Closing arguments are scheduled for March 28th and B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman has been asked to determine whether the polygamy law is constitutional.

Late last week, special prosecutor for the state of Texas, Eric Nichols sent information gleaned from the 2008 raid on the YFZ Ranch in Scleicher County to the prosecutors in B.C. This information included evidence that one 13-year-old girl child and two 12-year-old girl children had been trafficked from their homes in Bountiful B.C. to Mohave County, Arizona, and then on to Texas for the purpose of "marriage" to FLDS leader, Warren Steed Jeffs.

Activist have known for years that this trafficking of minor female children has taken place under the noses of both Mohave County and Canadian officials. But in the warped politically correct world of "can't touch that" religion, a blind eye was turned.

Now Texas has shown them all the truth, and like roaches I'm sure most Mohave County, Arizona officials are creeping into the dark corners of their filthy hives to do their best to ignore it. I'll give anyone a dollar who can show me a story run on this development in the Mohave Valley Daily "News" in the last week.

Moreover, I will also give anyone a dollar who can show me a link to a CNN story on the same development in the last week, and I will give you $2 if you can show me a link where they run this old interview of FLDS "mothers" from 2008, starting at about the 5 minute mark.

Pray for Canada. Get on your knees for her and pray like the future of your daughter, your grand daughter and her great grand daughter depend on it. For indeed, it does!

For if the court should decide to recommend the decriminalization of polygamy in Canada, then it will surely spread here. And that is when the future for all our children will change forever, and someday a girl child in the future will look back on the freedoms you have today and sigh, saying before she is led to the alter and then the bed of slavery, "What must it have been like in the golden age?"

Texas sends help

2011-02-18T17:53:00.003-06:00

Breaking News in Canada

Texas sends help to B.C. prosecutors

Elizabeth Smart & Brian David Mitchell and Elissa Wall & Allen Steed

2011-02-18T15:20:00.008-06:00

Brian David Mitchell, a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist, kidnapped Elizabeth Smart from her suburban Salt Lake City bedroom when she was 14-years-old. For weeks her family and law enforcement were stumped as to what might have happened to her but a relatively unknown anti-polygamy activist named Flora Jessop came forward not long after the kidnapping to warn law enforcement and the public that this had all the markings of the work of a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist.

She was ridiculed and laughed at, and as it turns out, she was right.

It took over 8 years but he was eventually convicted in a federal court for kidnapping Elizabeth and raping her every day, in order to fulfill his mission to his false Mormon god. You see, he needed her, because without participating in polygamy, according to his prophet, Joseph Smith, he could never reach the highest level of the afterlife, where he would become the god of his own planet and live out eternity having sex with all his spiritual wives in order to populate his planet.

A court rejected his argument that he was insane and a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to 15 years in a federal prison for what he had done to Elizabeth. He stole her innocence and her childhood.

Elissa Wall was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints in 1986. At the age of 14 she was informed by her family that she was to be given in marriage to her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed. She resisted. She cried. She begged her family not to make her marry him. She stood sobbing as her mother and other family members made her stand still for her wedding gown to be fitted.

She was then transported across state lines [violation of Mann Act? Human sex trafficking?] to a motel in Nevada, where the sect's leader, Warren Jeffs performed a marriage ceremony for the two. She told her new "husband" that she did not want to have sex. She begged him not to violate her innocence, and he did it anyway. Later she went to Jeffs to beg him to release her from the "marriage", but he advised her only to go home and submit herself to her rapist, "mind, body and soul."

There you have it, two 14-year-old girls, both raped by fundamentalist Mormons in order to become gods and get their own planet in the afterlife. You see, they needed these girls, had to have them or they wouldn't "get to Heaven."

The difference?

Today the state of Utah offered Allen Steed a plea deal for raping then 14-year-old Elissa. He will serve 30 days in jail for his crime.

Brian David Mitchell raped a 14-year-old and got 15 years in prison.

What is the difference, when neither child was willing to submit to their rapes?

Elissa had the bad luck to be born into fundamentalist Mormon polygamy, and that my friends is a very dangerous place for any girl with her own mind to be born.

Someone please try to imagine your 14-year-old little girl being pushed down and having a man repeatedly forcing himself into her, over and over...and then being sentenced to only 30 days in jail for it.

Shame on Utah, it doesn't deserve to be in our Union, not today. Today you are VILE!

And to any polygamists here it Texas? You take a good long hard look at that flag at the top of this page. You will not succeed in coming here to Texas to rape us or our children, or in making us VILE like YOU. Got it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Correction! Thank you, Texas-1 for pointing this out:

"Brian David Mitchell has been convicted, but has not yet been sentenced, his sentencing will be 25 May 2011 in SLC.

Mitchell's wife Wanda Barzee was sentenced to to 15 years, which she is serving at a prison located in Fort Worth."

The debate goes national

2011-02-14T08:03:00.004-06:00

The comments on this story, so far, are quite discouraging. The good news is that Mr. Heck, a Christian, is showing extraordinary courage in addressing this issue. I'd hope that anyone who follows this blog, or this issue, will visit the American Thinker over the next few days and help enlighten the public on the real issues surrounding the abuse of polygamy.

American Thinker
The Polygamists Make Their Move

By Peter Heck
The debate over whether or not those practicing homosexuality should be eligible to obtain the legal status of "married" for their same-sex relationships is persistently mischaracterized by activists on both sides as an attempt to redefine marriage. For those opposing such a move, this is most likely an error of ignorance, while for those favoring, it likely is an intentional tactic of misdirection. To be clear, in order to "redefine" anything, there must be an alternative definition being advocated. To this point, no such proposed substitute has emerged.... (Read Full Article)

Jeffs' "special needs" are fulfilled

2011-02-02T16:15:00.005-06:00

So this week we were treated to the news that Warren Jeffs has finally found an attorney to fulfill his "special needs".

Who is Jeff Kearney from Fort Worth? It seems he is an attorney who specializes in fighting for some of the lowest scum to crawl the earth. He successfully defended one of the Branch Davidians from charges he killed a federal agent. The Branch Davidians were another group practicing polygamy and raping children. And Kearney unsuccessfully defended a Muslim client from Richardson, Texas; Hazim Elashi, who was co-owner of the Richardson-based company, InfoCom Corp, and one of five brothers convicted of doing business with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas [See above for their philosophy of life and the value of children].

"Hazim and Ihsan were convicted in the first of two trials on charges outlined in an indictment that also charged the defendants sent money to defendant Mousa Abu Marzook, an investor in Infocom and a self-admitted leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, a/k/a Hamas." Read the DOJ press release here.

I've had so many survivors of polygamy tell me that they see the FLDS as "The American Taliban." It makes so much sense that Jeffs would look for representation from someone very highly experienced defending what is essentially the indefensible.

Canadian case update

2011-01-20T11:39:00.002-06:00

TODAY IN COURT

First witness: Dr. Steve Kent. Dr. Kent is a recognized expert in sociology of religion studies. He specializes in cult studies. He holds two M.A. degrees: one in History of Religions from American University, Washington, D.C. and one in Religion and Modern Western Society from McMaster University; and, his Ph.D. in Religion and Modern Western Society from McMaster, as well. He is the author of one book: From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era: Syracuse: Syracuse University Press (2001). He has authored several articles, peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. His first paper on Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy: “A Matter of Principle: Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy, Children, and Human Rights Debates,” was printed in Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 10 Issue 1 (2006): 7-29. (I was very pleased and honoured to have assisted Dr. Kent with research for this paper.

I studied under Dr. Kent in 1985 at the University of Alberta, course, New Religious Movements. Dr. Kent was the first person I phoned when I decided to start a campaign to stop the practice of polygamy in Canada. There was a pause on the phone and he said, “Wel-l-l, you can try.”

What a privilege to have Dr. Kent as one of our expert witnesses.

Dr. Brian Samuels led the interrogation of Dr. Kent. He reviewed his C.V. and then the body of his affidavit which is written in report format. Dr. Kent’s Research Methodology involved qualitative research meaning “researchers receive similar, mutually confirming information from multiple sources and different types of resources.”

Dr. Kent has come to the opinion “that polygamy has widespread negative effects upon the human rights of children, as well as on the health of [sic] welfare of many people who live in and around the communities that practice it.”

Brian Samuels went through the various topics of harm Dr. Kent has associated with polygamy in the analysis of his research:

· Incest and Inbreeding wherein he cited the work of Janet Bennion;

· Infant Deaths, Genetic Disorders, and Unmarked Children’s Graves;

· Arranged Marriages;

· Displaced Young Men—“The Lost Boys”—and Working Conditions for Youth;

· Welfare Fraud; Marriages, Sexuality, and the State;

· Polygamy as a Threat to the Democratic State;

· concluding with Polygamy and Coercion.

(Dr. Kent’s affidavit can be found at www.stoppolygamyincanada.wordpress.com , click on the stop polygamy in Canada expert witnesses button)

Robert Wickett, attorney for the FLDS, rose to cross-examine Dr. Kent. He picked away at Kent’s research methodology and the use of the word “polygamy” when it should be “polygyny.” He also picked away at Kent’s definitions of polygamous groups saying that Green and Kingston are one (meaning I think, one entity or one person) and Hildale, Ut/Colorado City, AZ is a community.

I don’t know where Mr. Wickett was coming from because Dr. Kent had already described the Kingston polygamy group as having several family groups around Utah and similar for Tom Green’s group of families. Then Robert Wickett attempted to discredit Kent’s research through newspaper articles as reliable sources. Dr. Kent came back with his usage of credible reporters in credible newspapers.

Mr. Wickett also referred to an article “Raising Lazarus” by Professor Lorne L. Dawson who criticized Kent’s research methodology. Dr. Kent replied that he has written a rejoinder to that critique.

Then Wickett attempted to trip Dr. Kent on his research re the amount of government money given to the Hildale/Colorado City complex through the late 90s. (p. 14 of Dr. Kent’s affidavit). Dr. Kent countered that the quote Wickett was using from the Salt Lake Tribune speaks of the community in 2009—a ten-year lapse from his research analysis re “bleeding the beast” accounts of fraud.

In my opinion, the most poignant quote from Dr. Steve Kent today was:

In a democracy you need educated people with life options that when something goes wrong they can trust someone to help them receive justice.”

Dr. Kent said this when he was summarizing his explanation of FLDS Officer Sam Roundy “who admitted not having forwarded up to two dozen child abuse reports to Child and Family Services.” (p. 22, Dr. Steve Kent’s affidavit)

Witness Alina Darger

Contrary to my previous reports that this previously anonymous witness is from Bountiful, Alina Darger grew up in an independent polygamy family in Salt Lake City with two mothers. There were 32 children. Her own mother had 15. She said her parents shared parenting. Her mother worked outside the home. They are not members of any church group, e.g. Apostolic United Brethren, FLDS or LDS. They had Sunday School in their own home reading from the Bible, Book of Mormon and other Mormon scriptures. They attended Sunday School at various churches and children’s programs at the LDS church.

At the beginning of Alina Darger’s testimony, Craig Cameron, attorney for the AG of Canada, rose to say he objected to her affidavit because it was not properly written. Chief Justice Bauman said the court must clarify the witness evidence.

When Robert Wickett, who led the examination of Alina Darger, asked if she believed in placement marriage, Craig Cameron rose to say that this subject is not in the witness’ affidavit. Chief Justice Bauman said the objection was well founded; but, Wickett said other witnesses have gone well beyond their affidavits to tell their stories. Chief Justice Bauman said he would accommodate the witness’ testimony.

Wickett asked Ms. Darger many questions about her lifestyle, etc.

Alina Darger went to public school and finished high school. Her family lived in a “regular” neighbourhood but had to keep their polygamy a secret; and, were afraid to report any abuses they suffered, e.g. one time someone spray painted “polygamous bitches” on their driveway—and act of vandalism—but her father simply paid to have it removed. Another time she was walking home with a friend who came from a monogamous family and a man in a car called them over, he had his pants down and he was masturbating. Her friend’s parents called the police, but her parents didn’t for fear of an investigation into their lifestyle.

Alina decided at a young age, 17 or 18, that she wanted a plural family. She is the first, legal wife of her husband. Her two sister wives are themselves sisters. In answering questions about how they selected the sister wives, Alina said they went through a process, e.g. will everyone have the same values; and, will this union be good for the family, etc. Alina has seven children, the oldest is 20. There are 24 children in the whole group. She said there are a lot of sacrifices to be made and much commitment to make polygamy work.

Alina runs a residential and industrial cleaning business with one of her sister wives. She has done work with Mary Bachelor and Anne Wilde. She does public speaking.

Alina says that her husband interacts with the children. On each one’s birthday, he takes that child out for a special day. In decision making for the children, the final decision is made between her husband and the biological mother of that child.

Alina supports decriminalization by saying it would help people come forward and get help if they need it. She said she has a son who is a football player but he is afraid to go further with a football career because of his family’s polygamy.

Leah Greathead, attorney for the AGBC, rose to cross-examine Ms. Darger. The first thing she pointed out is that there is a professional basketball star with the last name of Darger who comes from a polygamous family. Darger had to concede that is true.

Greathead also was not happy with the way Darger’s affidavit was written. She wanted to know which part was specifically written by Darger and who the other authors were. Darger said she wrote paragraph 25 and the other paragraphs were authored by her sister wives and her husband.

Greathead wanted to know about Darger’s public speaking. Darger said she speaks to university groups, police officers, and service groups to bridge the gap between the two cultures.

Darger does not believe in placement marriage and has encouraged her own children to make their own decisions about life and religion. She would not disown a child who decided to live monogamy. She has a daughter who is interested in different religions and who has studied the Qur’an.

If a sister wife decided to leave, Darger would want her and her children to be treated fairly and taken care of.

Craig Cameron on his cross-examination asked the best question of all: “Would you be allowed to take another husband, and stay in your present relationship?” Darger’s reply, “No. That would not be possible.”

So much for the hunky, dory, every-thing-is-rosy depiction of polygamy. It makes my skin crawl.

And, tomorrow we get Mary Bachelor, the co-founder of Principle Voices, proponent of polygamy, who has lived MONOGAMY for two decades!

Until Thursday,

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Forced marriage would be an abuse of power

2011-01-17T15:48:00.004-06:00

Mormons denounce forced polygamous unions, expert says
By Keith Fraser, The Province

A Mormon scholar told the polygamy trial Wednesday that it would be an "abuse of power" if a woman was forced into a plural marriage.

The comment was made during the cross-examination of Dr. John Walsh, a witness called by a lawyer representing fundamentalist Mormons.

During direct examination by lawyer Robert Wickett, Walsh told B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman that Mormon theology decrees that people not be forced into polygamy.

Under questioning by Eva Ross, a lawyer for the B.C. attorney-general's ministry, Walsh told the judge that "God would not recognize" the marriage if a woman was forced into polygamy.

Read full story here.

I think the most fascinating thing about this is that the "expert" on the stand here, obviously admits that the structure of polygamy means male members have "power" over the female supply of concubines. His only problem with the set up is whether the power they hold is abused?

Mainstream LDS split 50/50 on polygamy

2011-01-17T15:12:00.003-06:00

According to an expert witness at the Canadian reference case to determine whether Canada's anti-polygamy laws are in line with the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, mainstream Mormons are split almost evenly on whether polygamy should be practiced today.

Mormons split over polygamy practice, expert says at trial
By 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." Read full story here.

If this estimate is even close to true the trolls who regularly show up to post on polygamy stories, claiming to be mainstream LDS who have absolutely nothing to do with polygamy today, may have some splainin' to do...

Constitutional Reference Hearings to Resume

2011-01-04T18:31:00.003-06:00

From the Vancouver Sun
By Daphne Braham

Things are about to get very interesting at the constitutional reference hearings to determine whether Canada's polygamy law is legal.

When the hearing resumes Wednesday, the first witness for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will testify before Chief Justice Robert Bauman in B.C. Supreme Court.

The FLDS is the largest religious group to practise polygamy in North America.

Read it all here.

Update on Stop Polygamy in Canada Campaign

2011-01-04T12:04:00.003-06:00

Please take the time to read this important message from our sister in Canada, Nancy Mereska. I have known Nancy for several years now, and watched as her organization has served the women of Canada, and the cause of freedom there.

Anyone who can possibly send even a little support her way is not only showing kindness, but honestly making a dent in the work to ensure women and children in North America will not have to suffer the indignities of a life born into gross physical servitude and spiritual bondage.

Dear Campaign members and friends of Stop Polygamy in Canada,

Financial Update:

Bank balance at October 31, 2010: $1005

Withdrawal in early November: $950

Hotel, Nov. 20-Dec. 11 $822

Airport fees/charges Nov. 20 $148.31

Donation December 7, 2010 $100

Current balance: $155

There may have been more donations in the last two weeks. I have not been to the bank to check the balance. If I find that more has been donated, I will inform you as soon as possible.

All grocery, part of the airport fees and city transportation fees were taken from my household budget. I had a suite with a small kitchenette consisting of a small refrigerator, sink and a two-burner stove. I was treated to lunch two times during my three-week stay which was much appreciated.

The only real inconvenience was the mice. I discovered one mouse scampering across the floor from under the fridge late one night! I asked for a mouse trap but when I returned that day from court, none had been provided. That night there were two mice and I phoned the desk and was a little more aggressive in asking for a mouse trap. I am not afraid of mice but a bite from one can cause serious health risks! The hotel is undergoing renovations this winter—one of the reasons they are providing a room at such a low rate. I hope when I return later this month the problem will have been rectified! (I did not keep any open containers or food on my little counter top so there were no tracks around my food area. And, I never leave dirty dishes!)

The presentation I was supposed to give to the Vegreville Knights of Columbus on November 8, 2010, was postponed due to the death of one of the members. I was in Vancouver for the December meeting. The January meeting is too close to Ukrainian Christmas so I will not be giving my presentation until February 7, 2011.

I am very grateful to those who have donated air miles for my many trips to Vancouver. Two more campaign members have offered to donate air miles. I will be contacting one of these members for my January 18-21 trip. With our very low bank balance, it looks like the airport fees, city transportation fees, hotel and food will once again come out of my household budget. (This is causing a great strain in my personal life! We are seniors who live below the poverty line.)

There are many people on the Stop Polygamy in Canada campaign list. Some of you have emailed me for instructions on how to donate to the Stop Polygamy in Canada campaign. I’ve given you instructions but the bank balance shows no donations have been made. Donations as small as $5 are welcome! Click on the “to donate” button at www.stoppolygamyincanada.wordpress.com for instructions on how to donate. If you live out of Canada, you can wire your donation to the Bank of Montreal at the address and account # given in the instructions. The privacy acts of Canada prevent me from knowing who is donating, so if you want a personal thank you card, please email me with your mailing address and let me know how much you have donated and I will send you a personal thank you.

Re: tax credit—I spoke with my accountant on our problem of not being able to give out tax credit receipts. She told me there are ways companies can get around giving to a humanitarian cause such as Stop Polygamy in Canada. The donation can be a tax write-off.

Sincerely,

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Other People's Business

2010-12-24T00:01:00.005-06:00

I understand there is some debate on Creeping Sharia as to whether Dr. Jasser should be trusted. And Dr. Jasser has himself recently criticized Mr. Shoebat but I'm trying not to get in the middle of their tiff.

I think Dr. Jasser deserves our ear until we have reason to believe he or his organization don't deserve it. His main complaint with Mr. Shoebat is that he left Islam. I can understand that, because people are sensitive to other people who have rejected the faith that they follow. Catholics are uncomfortable with former Catholics and Jews are uncomfortable with Jews who have become Christians, and Christians are uncomfortable with Christians who have become New Agers or atheists.

That is a normal human responsive reflex.

The real question is will Dr. Jasser support democracy and freedom above Sharia or its implementation, which is incompatible with our Constitution? He says he will, and he did serve our nation.

I'm just extending the benefit of the doubt as a fellow human being...just as I am to Mr.Shoebat and anyone else who says they cherish their freedom.

The folks over at Creeping can get pretty hateful sometimes and I just don't participate in it at all. But they are brilliant for reliable source information, and do have some insightful commentary.

As for Dr. Jasser and Mr. Shoebat, I am impressed. They are committed to both their faith and to the US Constitution. That works for me. I don't have a problem with any neighbor of any religion or background who share those same values with me.

My problems with folks really only come when they show a nasty tendency to rely on and devote their allegiance to some other corrupt system of "law", other than the one the rest of us are expected to live according to as citizens of America.

I think I'll continue to direct my energy in the direction of loving good and hating evil. The rest of it usually comes out in the wash.

See that woman's face up there? It is beautiful, and it is good. If you love the kind of freedom that says, "In my culture I can see you and you can see me, because we are both valuable and important human beings" you might want to support all people who say they agree.

Day 11 of the Canadian Case

2010-12-12T21:50:00.001-06:00

Dear Network:

Yesterday, December 9th, was Day 11 of the Reference. The lead expert witness for the AGBC (“our” side), Dr. Joseph Henrich testified. He is a brilliant man and gave a slide show presentation—that moved along very fast. I decided it was impossible for me to keep up with notes and see all that was being presented at the same time, so I put my pen down and enjoyed the presentation.

I have posted two articles about Dr. Henrich’s presentation: Vancouver Sun, Daphne Bramham; and, Globe and Mail, James Keller, on the blog. I have also posted Dr. Henrich’s affidavits in the court documents side bar section.

Those who cross-examined Dr. Henrich couldn’t put much of a dent in his research.

This has been a very exciting three weeks for “our” side. Sisters Kathleen and Rena Mackert were featured on the front page of Vancouver’s The Province on December 9, yesterday, after their video testimony was presented in court December 8th. Both were ecstatic that finally they were able to have their voices heard in a courtroom, but what a tragedy they had to come to Canada to do it. They are ex-FLDS women from the United States.

Also, I know that the Vancouver Sun has remodelled its polygamy blog for general reference: www.vancouversun.com/polygamy

Bye, from Vancouver,

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Day 10 of the Canadian Case

2010-12-09T08:18:00.001-06:00

DAY 10, Reference, December 8, 2010

Dear Network,

Get a cup of coffee, tea or even a stiff drink, because this is long and heart-wrenching. Four videos were shown today: Rena Mackert, Teressa Wall, Sara Hammon, and Kathleen Mackert. Kathleen and Rena Mackert are full-blood sisters, members of the Steering Committee for Stop Polygamy in Canada, and were with me today in court.

RENA MACKERT is the thirteenth child in birth order of her father and mother, Clyde & Myra Mackert—Myra was Clyde’s third wife. In the 1953 Raid on Short Creek (now Hildale, Ut/Colorado City, AZ) Rena’s father was arrested and charged with unlawful co-habitation. The FLDS were then referred to as “The Group” or “The Saints” All her father had to do to get out of jail was to sign a paper saying he would no longer cohabitate with more than one woman. He signed having no intention of following the order.

Rena had severe ear infections when she was three as she came down with measles, mumps and chickenpox all at the same time. She was not given medical attention and lost her hearing in her right ear because her mother did not have enough faith that she would be healed when she was given a priesthood blessing.

Rena’s father had converted to the “faith.” He was a school teacher. He had four wives who were all educated—four generations of school teachers. There were 31 children altogether in the family. When the children attended school, they had to be quiet about their family. If they said anything and their father ended up arrested, it would be their fault. Rena said she was an adult before she realized that it was his responsibility if he got in trouble with the law, not the children’s.

Rena was rebellious from a very early age. We were God’s chosen but we couldn’t tell anyone. We grew up with so many disparities. They raise liars. It takes a long, long time to reprogram yourself.

Rena’s relationship with her father was very, very challenging. She was three years old the first time she was molested by him. They were on a camping trip and he forced her to perform oral sex on him. When she cried and threw up, he spanked her and told her she was a bad girl and if she didn’t stop crying, he would spank her again. So, she believed she was a bad, evil girl who was going to go to hell from a very early age. The molestation lasted until she was 17, just before she got married.

She was forced to marry her step-brother who was her dad’s fourth wife’s son by a previous marriage. The prophet LeRoy Johnson (sp?) said she was to marry him. She hated him and he hated her. He did let her finish high school. She was the only one of her father’s daughters to finish high school.

When Rena was a teen, she had acted up and got negative attention from her father by being either back-handed or he took a belt to her.

She was married for five years. She had three children in those five years. Her husband wanted out of the marriage. They were divorced. Her husband left the faith. She was moved into a tiny, cinder-block house near her father so they could keep an eye on her. Rena was told by LeRoy Johnson that she had to marry his brother Orville who was in his late fifties and Rena was 22.

Rena told Johnson about the sexual abuse she had suffered by her father. Johnson called her a liar and told her she had the spirit of apostasy. Rena told him to go to hell and to fuck off. She had a job cocktailing. Her husband had started taking her to bars when she was nineteen. She went to her father’s to pick up her children after a night of cocktailing and was told by her father that she didn’t have any children because she had apostatized. She was told by her mother that she should have never been born, she was such a disgrace to the family.

It was eleven months and after an attorney who she met in one of the clubs she sang in told her that she had a legal right to custody of her children before she went back in the middle of the night with a sheaf of legal papers to claim her children. They had been told that their mother didn’t want them anymore.

Her children had also been chided by other children in the FLDS that they were going to go to hell because their mother had apostatized.

All seven of her mother’s children have left the FLDS.

When asked what it was like for the women, Rena said that there was always a lot of tension between the wives. Myra and Donna were sisters married to the same man. When sisters marry the same man, their relationship as sisters is murdered. The life of a woman was to pop our as many babies as you can, working very hard so you’ll be called a good woman. Sister wives used severe punishment on children of other wives. So the children had to become creatures who could morph to the different personalities and moods of the other mothers.

When I got out, I had no clue how to function in the real world.

Rena started drinking when she was 17. She developed a drug addition in 1996. She has overcome both. It was a way for her to numb out. She is still fighting negatives.

The FLDS preach from the pulpit that you can beat a child nigh unto death for simple disobedience.

What the YFZ mothers don’t understand is that when you force your daughter to marry so young, you are throwing them away to be raped. The throw 12 & 13 year-old boys out and never look back. The media circus around the YFZ raid was very orchestrated.

In 1953, my father became the Poster Man for the FLDS. He was a pedophile with four educated wives. The picture on the front of “Life” magazine is of him and his big family. Myra was pregnant with Rena in the picture. There had been a raid in 1944 did not get the media attention that the 1953 raid did.

TERESSA WALL

Teressa Wall was born August 23, 1980 in Hildale, Utah. She was the second child of the second wife of her father. The first wife had eight children, her mother had 14. The first wife was very abusive to Teressa’s mother.

We worked the hardest and had to live in the basement of the house.

Teressa cannot remember much of her childhood. The oldest boy took a lot of abuse. He was kicked out of the house when he was 17 or 18. The last Teressa saw of him, he was hitchhiking. He had been the one to work and bring in the food for their family. He bought shoes and fabric for sewing. The next oldest boy took on this role once his brother was gone.

Teressa was deemed “rebellious” and sent to Canada when she was twelve. She lived in Canada in her uncle’s house. She did not get along with her father and stuck up for her younger siblings. When she was 13, she was forced into a meeting with Rulon Jeffs who was then the prophet. Two of her sisters were already married to Rulon. She swore she would not speak in the meeting. She was on meds for pain. In the meeting she was pressured to marry Rulon Jeffs. She said she would rather die than marry him. He was over 80 years old.

She was banned from the property and sent to Sundre, Alberta to work in a Blackmore owned logging company. She worked in sub-zero temperatures putting logs into a fence poster. She was not given proper clothing to wear—no coat, no gloves. John Blackmore was one of the crew bosses.

She said she looked forward to the year 2000 because that would be the end of the world and she was so bad she was going to hell anyway. She believed she was nowhere near righteous enough to be saved.

She was not in Canada legally. Each week when she was working in the pulp mill, Winston Blackmore would tell her she could end all this by getting married. Finally, at 17, she was trapped into a corner to get married to Roy Blackmore who was only a few months older than her. She had children before she wanted to.

For education, she only completed grade 8 at the Alta Academy in Salt Lake City. She had so many aspirations but never achieved them. At Alta Academy the girls took a child development class. They were told that it was their only mission in life to have as many children as they could. They had no choice in the matter. They must obey the priesthood. They only reason for not having children was if there was something wrong with them and they couldn’t. Girls were married at 15-16, some younger.

Winston wanted to marry them off young before they could develop a mind of their own. She explained the weekly Barbeque parties at Winston’s where each week a boy/man would walk over and take the hand of the girl he was to marry. She was terrified that someone was going to walk over to her.

They were taught that boys were like snakes and to stay away from them, but then when they were married they had to surrender everything to them.

Jane Blackmore saw all these young, terrified girls having babies but she was afraid to let anyone older know.

When Teressa was 17, Winston told her to get married or get out. She had no family in the States to take her in because they had given up on her. She was terrified of the outside world. She was trapped into marrying Roy.

Everything seemed like a blur to her. She got up, got dressed, was crying, walked with Roy to Winston’s where Warren Jeffs performed the marriage. Then she went with Roy back to Sundre to be a crew cook. Roy was still working at the logging operation. Before getting married, they got $80 every two weeks. After they got married, they got $1,000 a month.

Winston was the one who lined couples up. Winston was the one who kept drilling her on getting married. He is a very vain, self-centered person, so it didn’t help his ego when I kept saying no.

I was such an embarrassment because I always asked questions. I wasn’t a bad kid. I didn’t drink, do drugs, but I also didn’t bow to the priesthood pressure.

It was a feather in Winston’s hat to have me married off. It made him look good to Warren.

I was given choices on who I would marry and that just doesn’t happen! I would have been given great prestige if I had married Winston because I would have been the bishop’s wife. But I didn’t want prestige.

Now Winston’s wives live in poverty. Two of them have been married in a lesbian marriage so they can claim child tax credits.

In answer to the question about how men get other wives, Teressa said it was different in every instance. Her father had converted into FLDS. He abused her mother miserably. Her mother went to church to complain about the abuse and was told that they needed her father’s money. He was very educated and had a lot of money. He even did contracts for NASA.

Her mother had been born into the FLDS. Her father gave everything he had to the church and his family struggled to eat. When her father was no longer an asset to the church, they took her mother away and sent her to her father’s ranch with the children. They were loaded up in the middle of the night and taken away. Teressa still does not know where the ranch is for sure.

Teressa was in Canada when her mother was taken away to Fred Jessop to be married to him. She went with five of her children. Twin boys were left behind in Salt Lake City. They ran away. Her younger sister, Elissa, was treated pretty badly as were all of the children. Elissa was supposed to be married when she was 13. Teressa phoned her and told her not to do it. Elissa was finally forced to marry her double first cousin, Allan Steed.

Elissa phoned Teressa crying that her husband was forcing himself on her. Teressa arranged for Elissa to come to Canada for a visit. While here she had a terrible, painful miscarriage. She was in Canada without her husband and was forced to return to him. Allen was physically, sexually and mentally abusive to Elissa. So much so that her mother intervened and went to Warren to complain. Warren ordered her mother to keep away from Elissa and not interfere in her marriage.

Truman Barlow was typically the next in line to be prophet but Warren took over in 2002. Warren soon broadcast that Winston was no longer a bishop. Winston couldn’t handle being defrocked and split from the group with his followers. Richard Blackmore was asked to be bishop, but said he didn’t want it and followed Winston. Then Jimmie Oler was appointed.

Teressa’s husband, Roy Blackmore stayed on Warren’s side. One day she let some of Winston’s children into her home. Roy was furious and told her that her children could be taken away for doing that. Everyone on Warren’s side had to have a picture of him hanging in their home. They had to get up at 5 in the morning for classes that were taped by Warren and again the classes had to be held in the evening. The dress code changed for women, sleeves to wrist not mid-arm like before, thick, hot polyester up to neck and down to ankles. Their hair had to be done a certain way.

I never put the front of my hair in a wave like I was supposed to. I just wouldn’t do it!

There is a lot of movement between the FLDS groups in Salt Lake City, Colorado City and Bountiful. Canada was “reform school” for the kids. Winston’s father Ray was bishop of Bountiful at one time. No bishop in Salt Lake City—Rulon Jeffs was the prophet there until Warren took over.

Growing up, we were terrified of our neighbours. We had nothing to do with them. We were terrified that our father would get arrested.

I had no life skills on how to deal with the real world. Teressa did not tell her children to fear others but they were told by others in the community.

Teressa Wall continued after the lunch break.

She completed only 8th grade in Alta Academy. When she was sent to Bountiful, she was not allowed to enrol in school there. She was not even allowed to take the home schooling offered in Creston.

After they married, Roy was afraid of anything she did that could be deemed questionable. She enrolled in some classes in town but it caused too much fighting and turmoil. She thinks Roy had wanted to graduate, too, but Winston said the boys would get more education working.

Everyone worked for a company that was owned by the FLDS—J.R. Blackmore & Sons, and Oler Bros. Logging that was run by Ken Oler. They were told that apostates were worse than gentiles (a gentile is anyone who is not FLDS). Once a person apostatized, they could no longer have any contact with anyone in the group.

Roy came home one day to say that they were no longer married and the children were not theirs and Roy believed it. Roy thought they could read his mind and know what he was doing even when they were not there. He wanted Teressa to write letters of repentance. Teressa played the game for about a year but each letter had to be followed by another letter.

Teressa had had enough. She packed up her kids in the KIA and left. She went down to Payette. She had planned from the year 2000 to leave. She was helped by her brother who wanted her to influence as many people as she could.

In answer to what were her fears now about the FLDS. The first fear she listed was that girls in FLDS are being married off too young, some getting married as young as 11 or twelve. One of her own fears had been for her own daughter(s). Teressa had questioned what the children were taught and she had been called a virus that was spreading. She said she and Roy had lived in desperate, wretched places with no heat. In one trailer, she and the children slept by the open oven door in the dead of winter in Alberta.

There had been plenty of discussion about Roy taking another wife; and, Teressa had turned the tables and asked him how he would feel if she took another husband. Roy would get all frustrated and remind her of the "Law of Sarah.”

Teressa had lost contact with her mother a year before she left because she helped Elissa put the prophet in jail. Her mother told her that she was dead to her. She received a note from her mother saying she was praying for her death.

Of the fourteen children in her immediate family, only five are still in the FLDS. The first year after she left was very hard. She got a job as a waitress and had to learn to talk to people.

SARA HAMMON

Her father was Jonathan Marion Hammon. She has 74 bros and sis. Her oldest sister is old enough to be her grandmother. She had no relationship with her father. They lived on a ten-acre property with other older siblings in separate homes with their families on the property. Her father didn’t know her name or that she was his child.

The children always ran away when they saw their father coming. One of the mothers noticed this and told them to line up to give him a hug when they saw him and tell him their name. Her father came home and they lined up to give him a hug, but some of them were his grandchildren and he told them to all go home. Sara was toward the end of the line and went up to give him a hug. He told her he had said for her to go home. He didn’t know she was his daughter and she was standing about twenty feet away from their front door.

Sara talked a little about the history of the FLDS, that it was a term that had come along later. They believed that the mainstream Mormons were the ones who went astray and that they lived the real teachings of Mormonism.

She talked about all the chores they had to do. It took hours to do the dishes. One would wash, one would rinse, one would dry and one would put away. They had dishwashers but they couldn’t keep up to over 30 people eating at every meal.

Turning yourself over applied to girls who were marriageable age. They had to turn themselves over to the priesthood to be married.

There used to be a priesthood council until the 1986 split. That’s when Centennial Park was created by the people who left the FLDS—an argument over how the council should be run and who would be the next prophet, Johnson or Jeffs. Sara’s family stayed with the Jeffs people.

When asked if she knew the term “one mighty and strong”, Sara said she thought it referred to God or something scary.

After the split, all the children still went to the same school until Centennial Park built its own school.

Sara said that the men would compare one wife with another and the children would compare moms. Her mother had a number of nervous breakdowns. Moms treated their own birth children differently and took out their frustrations on other wives’ children.

At school, a picture of LeRoy the prophet was hung on the wall. School books were edited. Sara went to eighth grade. They were not allowed to date. Boys were to be kept at arm’s length. It was her father who started the more rigid dress codes. When it came to marriage, placement was expected. There was no choice at all.

Sara wanted to get away from the abuse—physical, sexual, emotional, mental—saw her mother suffer many nervous breakdowns due to her lifestyle. Sara didn’t want to be married to some creepy old man. At fourteen, she wanted to get out.

Sara wanted more control over her life: she had so few choices, had to decide if she was going to stay in and be miserable like her mother or get out. But she was terrified of going out into the world, but she saw so many women with 8, 10, or so children who were so broken down. She said she heard someone say that sexual abuse is necessary to break women down, to break their soul. Women had to be obedient to the men and to the prophet.

Sara left when she was 16. It was really scary. She didn’t belong here and she didn’t belong there. Just because she made the choice to leave, her relationship with her family was severed.

Sara talked about child brides and lost boys. Girls cannot be friends with boys because some old man might want them, boys can’t be friends with girls because they may not end up with a wife. There are victims everywhere. Some boys are damned just because of bad math.

In FLDS there is more of a tendency for incest. Step-siblings abusing siblings. Step-brothers are more abusive than full brothers. Every woman out there knows another woman who has been sexually abused. Many, many women have nervous breakdowns.

Sara had 11 mothers! She has trouble developing close relationships with people. In FLDS you feel like a number instead of a person.

When she was growing up, the boys had full range of the yard, the girls had half. There was a post that marked the line the girls could not cross. Sara and her sister crossed over into one of the granaries. Her brother sexually assaulted her sister. He locked them in the granary. It was meal time before anyone noticed they were missing.

KATHLEEN MACKERT

Kathleen is Rena’s younger sister. Their family had been in polygamy since it first began under Joseph Smith. Each generation has become more abusive than the last. There was a continuous environment of abuse, either by back hand or the belt.

I can’t put a timeline on the first time I was abused “that way”. Kathleen remembers being sexually abused by her father when she was five years old—he made her perform oral sex on him. When she was six, she tried to kill herself by taking a bottle of aspirins because she was willing to go to hell for killing herself to get away from the hurt and the pain. Her mother found her and the empty aspirin bottle and put her finger down her throat to make her throw up. When her mother asked her why she ate the aspirins she lied and said she liked the taste of them.

She decided to grow up and not try to kill herself anymore. When she was 17 she warned her father not to touch her again.

Kathleen observed her older sisters in their marriages and how miserable they were. She knew there was no plan for her but to be a mother. At 14 girls started their hope chests. If a woman couldn’t have children, that meant she was cursed. You grow up with the concept that even if you are a first wife eventually you are going to have to accept another. You are valued only for one thing, not as a person. Her oldest sisters—twins—were married at 16 to an old man and couldn’t have any children.

I had no control over my destiny.

The priesthood had ranks of righteousness and you had value if you married a man of considerable righteousness. Men often marry a mother and her daughter.

My sister Rena married someone she hated and he hated her. It broke her and it terrified me.

The concept of heaven is that you will be eternally pregnant with no love, that you’ll pop out spirit babies one after another to go into the mortal bodies of the people who will populate the world that your husband will be god of.

I used to have a nightmare of being strapped into a breeding stall and always pregnant with no love.

I couldn’t talk to my mother because she would reinstate the religious teachings. I didn’t feel close to my mother at all.

When I was a toddler, my mother went back to work. Mother Donna babysat me. I never saw my mother at all. Mother told me the story of how one evening she came home from work and I heard her and climbed out of my crib to go to her. She was rocking me when my father came in and told my mother to spank me and put me back to bed to teach me obedience. She had to spank me thirteen times before I would stay in my crib.

Kathleen wanted to erase herself. She would hide under the table and watch the others. She grew up feeling illegitimate because they had to use her father’s middle name as their last name—Chapman. She grew up with the fear of the great destruction. It was terrible growing up with the fear of being destroyed by God, being destroyed by what her father was doing to her.

There were no Christmases, no birthdays. Someone brought them a Christmas tree when Kathleen was a small child. Her father let it stay outside and die. Kathleen watched it die and felt like she was dying as well.

Kathleen was very frightened when it came time to think about marriage. Rena had been beautiful but was labelled rebellious because she didn’t want to marry an old man. Girls were awakened at 2-3 in the morning to be told who they would marry. It was a control tactic to bring them out of a deep sleep and tell them. A week past her 18th birthday (she was considered an old maid) she was awakened at about 2:30 in the morning and taken to a room where her four mothers were sitting and there was a chair in the middle of the room for her. She was told she was going to marry her step-brother, Daniel Swaney, older brother of Rena’s husband.

It was very hard to psychologically go from thinking of him as your older brother one day and your husband the next. Kathleen said she went through a check list and compared herself to her sisters. She felt lucky because she knew he was kind of worldly. But their wedding picture shows two people who are terrified. The damage of being forced to marry one another came out later in their marriage.

Kathleen had four miscarriages in a row and felt like she was being punished for what her father did to her. She went into a deep depression and gained a lot of weight. She found out she had a thyroid problem and when it was stabilized she got pregnant. She wanted her children to feel valued and read about child development. She had four children.

Her husband, Daniel, wanted only two children. He would come back from priesthood meetings very upset and said he couldn’t accept what was being taught. They left the FLDS together and joined the mainstream Mormons. At the time they left the FLDS, Kathleen’s daughter was nine and she was becoming very frightened for her.

Kathleen grew up feeling and believing she didn’t have possession of her own children. Her concept of God was pretty corrupted. When she went into mainstream Mormonism, she felt like she belonged. She could have no contact with the family she left behind.

Kathleen watched Rena go from one abusive marriage into another one.

Kathleen has trouble with intimate relationships. She started therapy against her husband’s wishes when she was still having her babies. She would develop overwhelming feelings of suicide. The only thing that stopped her from committing suicide was the thought of what would happen to her children. She would hide behind being heavy, then she would lose weight but if men started whistling at her she would eat again.

She studied what reactive-detachment disorder is from the Mayo clinic. She said that you build yourself up to a certain level and then discover something else you have to work on. She got her children out. They didn’t grow up the way she did. She rejoices in their choices. And, she is at the stage now where she enjoys having choice.

Kathleen and Rena have founded the Valerie Jeffs Mackert (VJM) Gateway to Freedom Foundation. Valerie Jeffs was married to one of their brothers. She left the FLDS but was lost between the real world and the FLDS world. She turned to drugs. She had always suffered from seizures and died of a grand mal seizure where her heart stopped because of the drugs she was taking. She was 40 when she died. Her life was lost on polygamy. She was a very loving, beautiful person.

Kathleen and Rena lobby to get laws changed. All their brothers and sisters are out of the FLDS.

Kathleen said, “I can be fulfilled on so many levels as a woman—but not as a polygamy woman.”

Kathleen and Rena keep striving to reconnect with those “we walked away from when we walked into freedom.”

Until Thursday,

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Day 9 of the Canadian Case

2010-12-09T08:06:00.004-06:00

Thanks again, Nancy Mereska from Stop Polygamy in Canada for these very informative and detailed reports on the Canadian Supreme Court proceedings.

DAY 9—Reference s. 293—December 7, 2010
Dear Network:
It’s raining in Vancouver today—nothing unusual for winter I’m told. The forecast is for rain for the next four days. The only reason I’m sharing the weather report with you is that the cloudy skies seemed to set the mood for court today. There were very few attorneys present today and even fewer in the gallery. Two weeks ago when I first arrived, I had a cold but as I did my best to cough quietly into my sleeve, so did other people in the gallery. Last week, a few attorneys were stifling coughs and sneezes. Today, the cold seems to have risen in ranks as his Lordship Chief Justice Bauman had a box of tissues in plain sight and occasionally reached for their assistance as he apparently, too, has caught the Courtroom 55 cold.

Chief Justice Bauman’s first matter of business was to rule that the Vancouver Sun and other media did not err in publishing the excerpts from the videos. And, he is still reserving his ruling on the matter of whether or not he’ll allow reporters to interview people involved in the reference in the causeway outside the courtroom on the last days of the hearing.

Too many attorneys were absent today for there to be any mention of when those last two weeks will be.

Mr. Gerald D. Chipeur Q.C. from the Christian Legal Fellowship introduced their special witness, Dr. Shoshana Amyra Grossbard, Professor of Economics, Editor, “Review of Economics of the Household” after she had taken the witness oath. Dr. Grossbard is employed by San Diego State University and has been a professor of economics for 29 years.

Dr. Grossbard has specialized in the economics of marriage including polygamy in Nigeria. She admitted she had a neutral opinion on polygamy until she became acquainted with FLDS polygamy. Polygamy is a widespread phenomenon. She mentioned African, Asian, American and Jewish polygamy. When asked where one would find Jewish polygamy, she answered “Kurdistan.”

Dr. Grossbard said that Christian polygamy is found in the FLDS in Canada and the U.S.; and, she only found out about those when she studied Bountiful. She explained that polygamy is mainly a cultural event sometimes happening with religion. She explained what she considered central themes of polygamy, themes that make polygamy harmful to women:

· In cultural polygamy (African, Asian) the bride price becomes very “big” but the money is exchanged between the husband and the father of the bride—no money goes to the woman.

· In all polygamy men find ways to limit the freedom of women.

· Female circumcision makes it impossible for the women to experience any sexual pleasure.

· Easy divorce—In Islam, a man only has to repeat “I divorce you” three times and the woman is left alone because her children belong to the husband

· Women cannot choose husbands.

· Early marriage increases the supply of women to polygamous men.

· Purdah—or the isolation of women making it impossible for them to get out of their compounds.

· Ideology of romantic love is not present in these cultures

· FLDS discourage romantic love.

· Polygamous societies limit opportunities for women to be in the labour force.

Dr. Grossbard said she has had no first-hand experience with Jewish polygamy. Traditional Jews de-emphasize romantic love.

Dr. Grossbard talked about France. How in 1980 France allowed African immigration of polygamy but in 1993 stopped allowing it. There are approx. 200,000 polygamous households. France recognized the great harm this was doing to society at large. Services are needed for these people. Social workers are not adequately prepared to deal with polygamy.

Some reports were brought up that I’m totally unfamiliar with so I did not follow very well the thread of the conversation but Dr. Grossbard did say that there is plenty of hard core evidence regarding how the mental health of women in polygamy is affected.

Mr. Tim Dickenson, attorney for the Amicus cross examined Dr. Grossbard. TD & DG for my notes:

TD: Did you conduct field research on FLDS? Did you conduct field research in Canada?

DG: Said she doesn’t do field research. Her research is from secondary data, i.e. data collected by others.

TD: When polygamy is permitted, there will be a greater demand for wives?

DG: Yes. There will be more demand in the marriage market.

TD: What creates greater demand for women is men wanting more than one wife?

DG: Yes.

TD: You have not set out any research that shows there would be more polygamy if it were permitted.

DG: No.

TD: The more commercial a society is, there is less polygamy?

DG: More agrarian societies demand more wives and children. I would not agree with you if you say polygamy would not spread if you were to legalize polygamy.

TD: Referred to a paper titled “The Mystery of Monogamy”—where it is concluded that in poor countries where wealth is based on sections of land not capital, then men seek out wives (polygamy) to produce more children.

DG: That is a purely theoretical paper.

More reference to a report I have not read so was not able to keep up with the questioning. But, Dr. Grossbard concluded that “Men in polygamous societies will manipulate the environment so as to control the women.”

For some reason Mr. Dickenson brought up Valentine’s Day as a celebration of recommitment to monogamy. Dr. Grossbard agreed with him, but there were smiles and muffled chuckles through the courtroom.

The second expert witness for the day was Dr. Zheng Wu of the University of Victoria. He is a demographer who also uses secondary statistics for his research analysis. He was called as a witness for the Amicus side. Oh, dear, YAWN! I was warned by one reporter that if I planned to stay the whole time for the hearing (which I now know is totally impossible) there would be some pretty boring days in court. Well, I felt sorry for Dr. Wu. He obviously is very remarkable in his field of research on marriage patterns, but had nothing on polygamy, used the term common-law marriage and common-law relationship interchangeably not knowing that in B.C. there is a difference—a legal difference. Dr. Wu explained that because his reports are widely distributed, he does not have a legal definition in mind when he talks about conjugal unions in his reports.

SCHEDULING: The expert witness who was supposed to appear tomorrow cannot so the court hopes to get through four of the video testimonies. So the videos will start in the morning; instead of the afternoon. Bring lots of tissue because I’m sure any sniffling I hear in the courtroom will not be just from anyone’s cold.

Until Wednesday, then,

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

What is your freedom worth?

2010-12-05T08:55:00.006-06:00

By SETAREH SABETY in Nice, France | 14 July 2009 No Revolution

This is just an amazing piece to read. If you have a well developed conscience I'd recommend preparing yourself.

Mind you, I don't agree with all her conclusions, especially that freedom is not worth a single drop of human blood. Our soldiers are walking, talking, living proof that freedom is not free, to any of us here in America, Ms. Sabety. It costs us, and many of our families a great deal;sometimes the ultimate price.

If I could say anything to her at all, I would explain to her that I have stood on the side of the road here in the Texas Hill Country, more than once, with my hand over my heart and my lips quivering as the body of one of our boys comes home to rest.

If you cannot recommend that your own people do what is necessary for their freedom, how can you expect us to believe you really care about democracy? The most cursory and basic review of any successful democracy will show you that Jefferson plainly said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

I would suggest Ms. Sabety that unless you find something that is worth dying for, you cannot ever hope to have the freedoms that are worth living for.

Day 8 of the Canadian Case

2010-12-03T09:03:00.003-06:00

So while the pro-polygamy side presents a witness that is obviously not an expert, the anti-polygamy side presents an experienced psychologist who testifies that he has treated multiple victims of polygamy for post traumatic stress disorder and dissociative disorders.

Day 8

The court day started with Ms. Ruth Lane on the telephone speaking to the court from Hurricane, Utah, where she resides. Ms. Lane is the woman who objected to excerpts of her video evidence being put out on the internet. She was the tenth wife of Winston Blackmore, and has seven children by him. Although Ms. Lane admits to being on television in the past with her story (she appeared on Dr. Phil), she said, “I don’t share my story with just anybody. I chose to tell my story that it would be open to the public in the court. . .I have no problem with the media are reporting on my story as seen in court. . .”

Mr. Burnett, lawyer for the media, asked Ms. Lane is she had been asked all questions regarding public knowledge of her testimony.

Ms. Lane said, “I am objecting to being posted online. I would not have shared my story if I had known the media would be editing it to their liking.”

His Lordship Justice Bauman reserved his decision on the matter.

Dr. Larry Beall, a clinical psychologist in Salt Lake City who also has a Masters Degree in Education and who is an expert witness for the AGBC appeared in court because his affidavit was challenged by Dr. Matt Davies who is a witness for the FLDS. He was asked by AGBC Attorney Karen Horsman to outline his experience briefly for the court and to explain how he became involved with helping women and children from the FLDS.

Dr. Beall explained to the court that he specializes in the diagnosis of mental problems. He opened the The Trauma Awareness and Treatment Centre in Salt Lake City in 1994. His referrals are mostly from the State and Federal Government and Medicaid. He does interface work within the community, e.g. seminars on trauma in society. Over the years he has worked with approx. 5600 patients with at least 400 of those children.

The State has requirements for treatment of domestic violence. Dr. Beall found that domestic violence victims did not have sufficient life skills to survive. He wrote a guideline manual for helping train those victims for the Division of Workforce Services.

Dr. Beall first became involved with ex-FLDS women and their children by doing some pro bono work for Tapestry Against Polygamy (TAP)—an advocacy group that helps women who are escaping from the FLDS cult. He also receives patients through Diversity—an advocacy group for FLDS lost boys. Before any patient is referred to him, they are assessed by a State-run triage system.

There are a team of workers in his treatment centre that meet for weekly staff meetings, discuss challenges and problems, and make decisions on treatment modes. Dr. Beall has treated eight women of the many who were referred to the centre, all from Mormon-based polygamy groups, some FLDS, some Kingston, some Harmston. He has helped with over 100 assessments. All had core problems showing that the doctrinal teaching of being saved within the confines of their respective cults was there, they had little education, and they had lived under a tight focus of control. Eleven males from Hildale, Utah/Colorado City, AZ were referred to the clinic. Dr. Beall worked directly with six of the young men. The women were treated through 12-16 sessions; the young men, 6-10 sessions.

Dr. Beall was an expert witness in the YFZ Ranch trials in Texas. He had no prior exposure to the FLDS until his first pro bono work with TAP.

(Note: For those of you who have been following this campaign from its start in 2003, you will remember that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff set up a Safety Net Committee in 2004. He invited all who were involved with Mormon polygamy in any capacity to come to the first meeting. Representatives from TAP went to the meeting hopeful that at last Utah was going to take responsibility for the polygamy issue. Direct sources revealed to me that TAP was not allowed to have a voice at the meeting because they were against the practice of polygamy. Proponents of polygamy, e.g. Anne Wilde and Mary Bachelor were given a place at the table, TAP was not! When the raid in Texas happened, Utah spent thousands sending these women and others to Texas to teach social workers there about polygamy.—Enough, I can feel the bile boiling in the pit of my stomach.)

Dr. Beall was queried about various treatment models in psychology and main diagnostic tool manuals. He answered affirmative to all. Dr. Beall explained the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) thread that is common to all he treated. He said the women usually left because they could no longer tolerate the harm being done to them and/or their children; and, the boys/young men left because they didn’t want to be assigned to another “father” or were kicked out because they were deemed rebellious.

All suffered from Adjustment Disorder which includes many symptoms found in PTSD. In PTSD, Dr. Beall explained, memories disrupt daily experience. Many suffer cognitive dissonance which is not a diagnosis but is one level of their trauma. What Dr. Beall states he has witnessed far exceeds the symptoms for cognitive dissonance. The females internalized symptoms such as anxiety, depression, guilt, shame. They exhibited a robotic type presentation where they shut down their feelings. They exhibited no anger. The males exhibited externalized symptoms, angry that they had no survival skills to deal with a world they had been taught to mistrust; angry because they could not compete with the males in the cult; angry because they were taught that mental health problems were a weakness.

To answer Ms. Horsman’s question about Adolescent Development, Dr. Beall explained that adolescence is a time of identity formation. The adolescent must be able to exercise choice. Instead, adolescents in the FLDS and similar cults are taught that if they “feel that something happening by a priesthood leader is wrong, they are told that they are wrong to think that way—so natural feelings of what is wrong are not developed.” Sexual Grooming is the gradual relational conditioning that leads to sexual contact—the illusion is created that the sexual contact is consensual and the teen girl has responsibility in it.

Dr. Beall, “Since the priesthood perpetrator is a representative of God, if the teen girls does not comply, then she is displeasing God.”. . . “It is apparent that the FLDS has a structured sexual grooming pattern.”

Of the treatment models used, many overlap, Dr. Beall explained. The first issue is always safety. They must be taught life skills. A sense of connectivity to their new life must be established; and, most difficult is the cognitive restructuring—helping them think in positives, not negatives.

Dr. Beall is aware of and uses APA guidelines at the National Level.

Dr. Davies claimed in his opposition affidavit that Dr. Beall exhibited “bias” when he referred to FLDS polygamy survivors. Dr. Beall said the victims have been given thinking patterns instilled in them since birth. These people are taught complete compliance, that it is contingent on their very salvation.

Robert Wickett, attorney for the FLDS and James Oler, rose to cross-examine Dr. Beall. He asked Dr. Beall to define polygamy which Dr. Beall defined as one man with more than one wife. RW & DB for notes:

RW wanted to know if DB had retained permission to talk to the court about his cases.

DB said he did not and would not talk about individual cases because he had promised his clients that he would never divulge their personal experiences, but there are major themes that emerged through his observations.

RW wanted to know if DB could produce clinical notes.

DB said he could not and would not under HIPA (privacy law in US—I believe). And, his clients would feel very threatened—life or death situation!

RW brought up the possibility of DB malingering—that is fabricating or exaggerating the symptoms of mental or physical disorders. . .

DB The problem with the FLDS is not one particular trauma, but there is a climate, a climate where the victim does not feel safe; e.g. witnessing violence against another can cause as much trauma to the witness as it does to the victim. Each woman suffered physical and sexual abuse. They felt unwanted sex was abuse, but that is not recognized by the courts.

RW brought up DB using hypnosis on patients to recover memories. He read a passage from Brent Jeffs’ book Lost Boy where it is said DB used hypnosis on him in treatment.

DB said that he does not use hypnosis because he believes it is unethical. He said that the passage in the book is wrong. That did not happen. DB did not treat Brent Jeffs. (I have not read Brent’s book so I do not know who the co-author is.)

RW wanted to know if DB thinks adults can consent to marriage.

DB once again explained that the critical thinking of teen FLDS members is denied. There is conditioning and indoctrination that shapes the way they think. Factors have to be weighed depending on their vulnerabilities.

RW wanted to know what DB’s ideas on the criminal prohibition bein lifted are.

DB said that is out of the scope of his expertise.

RW would not let the question rest.

DB said that there cannot be over of the conditioning of these people and the limits on their being able to make choices.

The attorney for the BCCLA rose to cross-examine.

BCCLA grilled DB on the DSM-4 guidelines and asked if PTSD is the principle diagnosis.

DB explained that PTSD is the principle condition caused by the principle diagnosis of anxiety.

BCCLA wanted to know if PTSD is the central theme in your case references.

DB agreed but said that the guidelines under DSM-4 reference the main identifiers as trauma.

BCCLA wanted to know if the women he had treated expressed fear for their lives and the lives of their children.

DB said they had. “We have treated at our clinic a number of adults who as children were abused.”

The attorney for the BC Teachers Federation rose to question Dr. Beall.

BCTF wanted to know if DB had worked with children from the FLDS.

DB said he had worked with children from the ALTA Academy—Warren Jeffs’ school.

BCTF wanted to know if DB saw any sign that they were taught critical thinking patterns.

DB said they had no training in critical thinking patterns.

Chief Justice Bauman thanked Dr. Beall and excused him from the witness stand.

THEN SCHEDULING MATTERS WERE BROUGHT UP! Court will not sit again until Tuesday, December Dec. 7. Then a Mr./Ms. Grossbard will be cross-examined. I do not have this affidavit. And, Dr. Zheng Wu, a witness for the FLDS will be cross-examined. Dr. Wu is Chair, Sociology Dep’t. University of Victoria. The rest of the week is scheduled for Dr. Joseph Henrich.

December 10 is my last day to be at this part of the reference.

My plans were to return the last two weeks of January for the final statements and summation. BUT it was decided in court today that it will take until the end of January for the evidentiary phase! There was some jostling of dates for the summation phase but some key attorneys were not present to confirm so this will be decided next week. One key attorney rose to say, “Your Lordship, I still want to be married at the end of this process.” This in response to the fact that he will not be available during spring break. There was a chorus of laughter throughout the courtroom. Obviously, there are stressors on everyone involved in this process.

Until Tuesday, then,

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Day 7 of the Canadian Case

2010-12-02T10:26:00.004-06:00

On a personal note, I cannot understand at all how the court allowed this woman to be certified as an expert. I have now seen several articles by journalists who are quoting her conclusions, assertions and opinions, without mentioning at all how the crown is shredding her credibility every time she opens her mouth on the stand.

You don't know where Colorado City is, Ms. Campbell? Really? So you don't know about the more than 400 signed and sworn affidavits signed by boys who say they were driven out of that polygamist controlled city and dumped like dogs on the side of the roads? Do you know that community has run over the same number of children "accidentally" in the past 20 years as the entire state of Connecticut, with a population of over 350,000 people, or that there are mounds of untended often unmarked infant graves in front of the town junk yard? Really Ms. Campbell? Really?

I, like Nancy, am genuinely looking forward to the upcoming testimony of an authentic expert in psychology and research, Dr. Larry Bealle.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Day 7 Reference s. 293

A message from Nancy Mereska of Stop Polygamy in Canada and her latest notes on the Canadian Supreme Court case.

It turns out I erred on the timing of the presentation to the court via telephone by the video-recorded witness who is objecting to her video being published by mainstream media. We will hear from her tomorrow morning, not today as I had reported yesterday.

Today, Professor Angela Campbell was still on the witness stand. The Canadian Council for the Rights of the Child and David Asper Centre attorney, Cheryl Milne cross examined Professor Campbell. CM and Prof C, respectively for my notes:

CM: Wanted to know if Prof C had lived in the community of Bountiful during her research.

Prof C: No.

CM: Wanted to know if Prof C has any particular expertise in child development or in child education or any expertise to be able to detect child abuse.

Prof C: No.

CM: Wanted to know if Prof C was in Bountiful to present a voice for the children.

Prof C: No. Prof C said that she saw well over 200 children but did not do a head count.

CM: Took issue with paragraph 50 of Prof C’s affidavit were she said, “Children within a family born to different sister wives also often have rich relationships” and she gave for an example the fact that they call each other brothers and sisters, whereas in mainstream society, they would be half-sisters or half-brothers. CM said to Prof C and to the court that that constituted a very general statement.

CM: Also, pointed out paragraph 53 where Prof C said that she “spoke to few men.” This paragraph contradicts her statement on the stand yesterday where she said she spoke to no men.

Prof C: Clarified that she interviewed only women, not any men.

Craig Jones, Lead Attorney for the AGBC rose to cross-examine Prof C:

Craig: Wanted to know if Prof C knew where Hildale was, where Colorado City was, and when the YFZ Ranch in Texas was established.

Prof C: Said she thought Hildale is in Utah, said she did not know where Colorado City was nor did she know when the YFZ Ranch was established.

Craig: Wanted to know if Prof C knew what caused the split in Bountiful.

Prof C: Said she did not know.

Craig: Wanted to know what Prof C knew about the convictions of the men that came out of the raid on the YFZ Ranch.

Prof C: Said she did not know that any charges came out of the raid.

Craig: Wanted to know if Prof C knew about child brides, lost boys, the status of women, and the negative impacts the FLDS has on children and women.

Prof C: Yes.

Craig: Wanted to know if Prof C had become concerned about literature being too negative on the issue of criminalization of polygamy.

Prof C: Yes.

Craig: When did you conclude that decriminalization should happen?

Prof C: Said that she decided in late 2008 that the prohibition around polygamy has not been thoroughly investigated. But she cannot say that she concluded that polygamy should be decriminalized.

Craig: Wanted to know what other research she had investigated from Canada.

Prof C: Said she was not aware of any.

Craig: Did you ask any of the 22 women you interviewed at what age they were married.

Prof C: No.

Craig went through four major harms identified with FLDS polygamy: child brides, lost boys, impact on status of women, and education.

Craig established with Prof C that in Bountiful a child born out of wedlock is non-existent. So, if we have the record of the age of the mother and the age of the father, wouldn’t that be a fair quantitative analysis of whether or not there were child brides?

Prof C: I don’t know.

Craig: If the records show that the place of birth of the mother is in the U.S. and she ended up married in Canada, wouldn’t that be indicative of child trafficking if the woman was a teenager when she married?

Prof C: Yes.

Craig: How many polygamous marriages are you aware of since 2002?

Prof C: Said she was not aware of any.

Craig: Craig went through the issue of lost boys and asked Prof C if she asked about lost boys.

Prof C: No.

Craig pointed out that Prof C had said on the stand that she had attended a community event and the proportion of males to females looked about even. He wanted to know if she was observing polygamous families.

Prof C: I don’t know. I didn’t do a head count.

Craig went into the harm of the impact on the status of women. He asked Prof C if she wouldn’t agree that the higher the reproductive economy (fertility rate) means the lower their (the women’s) equality. Meaning the more women married to the same man producing children, etc.

Prof C: Agreed.

Craig: Said that Prof C was aware that often birth control was not a decision of the husband, that women hid it from their husbands. Asked Prof C is she agreed that women should have absolute control over their reproductive rights?

Prof C: Yes.

Craig went into the harm of the lack of education in the community. It would be useful to know the dropout rate. He asked Prof C if she knew how many received their Dogwood Certificate (high school diploma in BC).

Prof C: No.

Craig: Would it be useful to His Lordship to know in assessing harm, how many Bountiful students received their Dogwood Certificate?

Prof C: Yes.

Craig developed a more accurate picture of the actual time Prof C spent in Bountiful interviewing women. The time, it turns out, is substantially less than what was established in testimony yesterday. (I took a rest from writing and did not calculate the time)

The same line of questioning was followed by the attorney for the AG of Canada. Then an attorney for West Coast LEAF cross examined. She cited a passage in an exhibit not open to the public due to confidentiality and wanted to know is Prof C had interviewed any young women aged 15-17. Prof C said she had not. Prof C said that the women in the group she interviewed have more choices than they did before the split. Prof C said that she interviewed one girl from the Jeffs side twice but would not give her age or any details about her.

Finally, the gruelling fact-finding mission of finding out there were, indeed, no facts was over and Prof C was excused from the witness stand. I do not know how Prof C held her demeanour so professionally during the examination by so many attorneys. Although she looked drawn at times, she answered the many questions as best she could and with honesty. That’s all any court can ask of any witness.

Tomorrow Dr. Larry Beall, expert witness for the AGBC, who is a clinical psychologist in Salt Lake City and who has provided clinical treatment to over 30 former residents of polygamous communities, will be on the witness stand. One of the great pleasures I have had in running the Stop Polygamy in Canada campaign is becoming aware of great people like Dr. Beall. I have been honoured with articles, essays, and research papers over the years that, at times, have left me in tears of joy that there are professional people out there who know and understand the workings of the polygamy cults; and, who have had experience in helping people who have made their way out.

I would like to share with you some points I see as specific highlights from the research paper, “Polygamy: The Impact of Modern-Day Polygamy on Women & Children,” by Larry Beall, Ph.D. (Quotes in point form)

· “. . .it takes an unusually strong and resourceful woman to successfully leave a polygamist group.”

· she “. . .reached the limits of her capacity to continue enduring intolerable conditions for her and her children.”

· “. . .the basic structure of polygamy is authoritarian and secretive.”

· “When the author uses the word ‘cult’. . .there are certain elements of cults he has observed through the lives of its survivors with whom he has worked. . .Three of those elements are (1) doctrinal teachings and practices, which because of their emotionally, physically or sexually abusive nature, would be judged by society outside the cult, as destructive, harmful, and /or criminal; (2) coercion or force by its leaders to insure compliance in the cult’s members, and (3) secrecy to prevent influence from the outside society to maintain isolation of its members.”

· Dr. Beall lists the “(p)rominent characteristics of polygamous cults”

1. “All control belongs to a central figure.”

2. “Revelation from God dictates the words and acts of the central figure.”

3. “Independent thinking and outside information are shunned.”

4. “Relationships with others outside the cult are prohibited.”

5. “Non-constructive attitudes toward education.” Note: Dr. Beall’s explanation of this trait is one-half page long!

6. “Adaptation to mainstream society is punishing.”

7. “Gestapo Mentality.”

8. “Violence is a necessary strength.”

9. “Emotional expressions are undesirable.” (I have to make a personal experience note here from my early days of my marriage in mainstream Mormonism. My little 2-year-old niece was killed by a car on the streets of Provo, Utah. We had to bring her little body to Canada for burial. At the funeral, someone was kind enough to bring me a chair as I stood with my husband in the family receiving line that led to her open coffin. I was the only one crying. I was beside myself with grief. I had baby twin boys. My husband chided me that if I had enough faith that she had gone directly to the celestial kingdom because she died before the age of 8—the age of accountability in the Mormon religion—I would not be crying. Good God!)

10. “Personal desires are unwanted.”

11. “Polygamous cults are a caste system.”

12. “Attitudes toward women as property/possessions.”

The only reason an expert witness is called to the stand in a hearing such as this is because his/her affidavit has been challenged by the “opposing” side. Dr. Beall is appearing because his affidavit has been challenged. He issued his responding affidavit to the challenge today. Tomorrow promises to be a nail-biter.

Thank you, all, for your kind attendance to my amateur court notes; and, your comments—good or critical—they are welcome, because it means I have struck a chord for good or ill and you are thinking—thinking about polygamy and its impact on not only its victims, but on society. Remember that laws in a free and democratic society are legislated for the common good. I’m confident that we will see s. 293 upheld.

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Welcome to Texas, Warren

2010-12-01T12:13:00.004-06:00

To read the press release from the Office of the Attorney General click
Here

G-D BLESS TINY ELDORADO
and
G-D BLESS TEXAS!

Day 6 of the Canadian Case

2010-11-30T22:49:00.004-06:00

Thanks again to Nancy Mereska of Stop Polygamy in Canada for being there in person and keeping us up to date on the latest. Great job, Nancy!

November 30, 2010—Day 6, Challenging the validity of Professor Angela Campbell’s research

First things first—Chief Justice Robert Bauman still reserved making any ruling on the publication of the witness videos because the person who brought the complaint wants to address the court re her concerns about privacy and how she didn’t know the videos would be published by the media. She will be doing this via telephone in the morning, Wednesday, Dec. 1, which will be Day 7 of the hearing.

The issue today was the validity of Professor Angela Campbell’s research on the community of Bountiful, B.C. The lawyers for the AGBC, CAG, and Stop Polygamy in Canada brought to bear questions addressed to Professor Campbell on her qualifications to do the study on Bountiful; and, her generalizations.

In short, because I have nine pages of notes. Brian Samuels led the questioning of Prof. Angela Campbell (Brian & Prof. C, respectively in this report)

Brian: Wanted to know if Prof. C’s study had a social research aspect; and, if it did was Prof. C schooled in sociology, anthropology, ethnology or psychology.

Prof. C: Cited articles she had published but had to admit that she had no schooling in the disciplines Brian posed.

Brian: Wanted to know how Prof. C had decided to undertake the study on Bountiful.

Prof. C: Told how she was contacted by three or four women in Bountiful after they read an article she wrote—“Wives’ tales. . .” that reflected on research in Bountiful, then she applied to the SSHRC for funding to do the study.

Brian: Wanted to know if she used any methodology in deciding on the number of people male or female she would interview.

Prof. C: Admitted that she had no particular method, that she was not familiar with research methodology and she hired a sociology graduate student to assist her.

Brian: Wanted to know the nature of the questions she used and how did she arrange contacts with the women she interviewed in Bountiful?

Prof. C: Admitted there was no specific structure for the questions she used; and, said her contacts came via word-of-mouth through the original women who contacted her to do a study.

Brian: Did an overview of Prof. C’s qualifications to undertake such a study—Prof. C has no academic knowledge of anthropology, sociology, psychology or ethology; never taken any courses in qualitative methodology. He showed Prof. C some textbooks that to me, represented sociology research methodology 101. I studied one of the books years ago in my sociology studies.

Prof. C: Admitted she was interested in a “case study.”

Brian: More questions about structured and unstructured questions. Asked Prof. C if she believed that qualitative research produces better data.

Prof. C: Yes.

Brian: What is the sociological definition of a cult?

Prof. C: I don’t know. She gave her own opinion of what a cult is and said she did not believe Bountiful is a cult.

Brian: Do you know the sociological research methods for doing a study on a cult?

Prof. C: No.

Brian: Are you familiar with the software used for qualitative research?

Prof. C: No.

Brian: Can you deduct a broad conclusion based on your research?

Prof. C: No. I can’t.

Brian: Showed her a copy of the “International Journal of Qualitative Research” and asked her if she was familiar with or had ever read it.

Prof. C: No.

Brian: Referred to paragraphs in her affidavit where she had made generalizations.

Also, during Brian’s interrogation, he wanted to know if Prof. C believed that everything the women told her was the truth; and, if she ever spoke to any male leaders in Bountiful.

Prof. C said that “yes” she believed what the women told her was true; and, “no” she did not ever talk to any male leaders in Bountiful. Also, the women she spoke to were from the Winston Blackmore group. She did not know if the women she spoke to were all the wives of the same man or not.

Leah Greathead from the AGBC’s office really grilled Prof. C on her generalizations throughout her affidavit. In a couple of places Prof. C said that what was written was not what she meant and reworded the paragraphs on the stand!

L.G. The reason for your interviews was to give voice to the women you interviewed?

Prof. C: Yes.

L.G. You wanted to avoid putting words in their mouths?

Prof. C: Yes.

Then Leah Greathead went through the redacted transcripts of the interviews citing time after time where Prof. C provided leading questions to the women she interviewed. (Redacted transcripts are transcripts where the identity of the interviewee or anything that might identify them is blacked out!)

L.G.: Wanted clarification on the place where Prof. C asked the women of Bountiful if they were not able to contact resources outside the community because of fear of being stigmatized.

The answer in the transcripts was that the women said they were not afraid to go to outside resources—concluding that services are accessible to the residents of Bountiful.

Prof. C: Yes.

L.G.: Wanted to know if Prof. C conducted all of the interviews.

Prof. C: Yes.

L.G.: Read on in the transcripts—Bountiful woman, “. . .And people have always been so good to us.”

L.G.: Another page: “All of the residents can access general services without fear of doing so. . .”

At one point Prof. C had to admit that “services” meant grocery shopping, etc., not mental health, reproductive health, psychological or general family services.

L.G.: Concluded that Prof. C’s submissions should be dismissed in their entirety.

Lawyer for the Canadian AG: (did not get his name, but his grandmother was sitting behind me and pointed out to me that “he is my grandson!”—now that is a special fan club!)—LCAG

LCAG: That there is an admissibility issue. Prof. C’s evidence is not admissible because she was given a theme outside her frame of expertise. She makes sweeping conclusions that could be reversed on appeal. We must be cautious re expert witnesses in that they submit evidence within the framework of their area of expertise. The court must distinguish between the true knowledge of an expert as opposed to a “generalist” who lacks the credentials. The expert must be involved in the studies surrounding the field in which they give evidence. E.g. the scientific community. He cited passages in Prof. C’s affidavit where Prof. C does not even know if the individuals she interviewed even spoke the truth to her about their life in Bountiful; where Prof. C engages in speculation; where Prof. C’s conclusions cannot be a true representative of the women living in Bountiful; that Prof. C went into conversation with her interviewees re the criminalization/decriminalization of polygamy.

Karen Horsman, lawyer for the BCAG:

K.H. reviewed the number of tours Prof. C conducted in Bountiful--two—one in 2008 and one in 2009 of six and seven days, respectively with one-half day at each end was for travel so actually, five and six days for research work.

K.H.: Told the court that Prof. C’s submission does not carry any weight because of her lack of expertise. What in Prof. C’s affidavit gives her any elevated status that she can submit an expert report? That she is not qualified to make the generalizations she did. Prof. C reworded her own affidavit in her testimony. Also, contradicted her own transcripts.

Tim Dickenson, lawyer for the Amicus, rose to say that excerpts are taken from documents that are cloaked in confidentiality.

K.H. said that paragraphs would have to be completely reworded to mean women in Bountiful have difficulty accessing mental health services, etc. because Prof. C had said in her testimony that services meant grocery shopping, etc.

Robert Deane gave the summation for Stop Polygamy in Canada:

R.D.: Stop Polygamy in Canada objects to Prof. C as a qualitative researcher. That her generalized opinion expressed as a result of her interviews is inadequate. Cited an Ontario Court of Appeal case where there was a test to assess the reliability of expert witnesses:

1) What extent has the witness honoured their area of expertise within the evidence they took to “study”/submit to the court.

2) Is there an investigative discourse analysis—importance of peer review throughout the process. Prof C did not have a step by step peer review process.

3) Prof. C is not a sociologist, anthropologist, ethnologist, or psychologist. She didn’t spend an extended length of time in Bountiful in order to carry out an qualitative study.

4) Prof. C admitted that her interviews cannot be generalized at all—other than related to the 22 women she interviewed.

T.D. rose to say that Prof C provided the “only empirical data on the FLDS”.

Craig Jones rose to say that Prof. Joseph Henrich provides data in his second affidavit. (I was thinking and wondering why no one mentioned Dr. Larry Beall—a star in studying polygamy groups!)

T.D. rose to point out that both Prof. Rebecca Cook and Prof. Nicholas Bala who are expert witnesses for the BCAG and Stop Polygamy in Canada cited Prof. C’s work in their research papers.

His Lordship Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled that Professor Angela Campbell’s affidavits and evidence are being admitted.

Note: the question will be—How much weight will Chief Justice Bauman give to this research with anonymous participants in the final analysis?

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

Day 5 of the Canadian Case

2010-11-30T00:20:00.003-06:00

Thank you, Nancy Mereska with Stop Polygamy in Canada for these terrific updates!

Day 5

Background: It appears that one of the witnesses whose video (excerpt) interview was appended to the Vancouver Sun article last week has lodged a complaint saying they did not know the video interviews were going to be broadcast publicly. The videos have been distributed to several media and the Regina Leader-Post has posted some on their website.

Craig Jones argued that these witnesses have volunteered. There are 14 affidavits with attached videos. The Court considered the videos to be personal information. There was no permission obtained to broadcast the videos. Copies have been distributed to several other media. No advance notice was given to the participants that the material would be broadcast. Mr. Burnett (lawyer for the Vancouver Sun) takes the position that access equals publication rights. The property of the exhibit remains with the owner of the exhibit. There has to be a distinction between access and publication.

Chief Justice Robert Bauman interjected and said “. . .when they are filed in the Court, they are the property of the Court.”

Mr. Craig Jones disagreed and cited the Dagenais/Mentuk ruling in which it was said that there should be generous access to evidence; the court should be fully open to the public; the media should be able to describe what happened in the video. Craig made reference to the CBC ruling of earlier in the week. He said that the video supporting evidence is coming before the court as an exhibit. Should the content be downloaded to the internet with unregulated and unlimited use?

Chief Justice Bauman said he made ruling on CBC application to video the proceedings relating to the press broadcasting evidence before it is processed in court. He is not ruling on any suggestion that the press misrepresented itself.

Mr. Craig Jones argued that we are on the cusp of an age where we may have attempts by parties to put in competing video evidence and have it published. . .There has to be a distinction between a person’s videoing their evidence and it being broadcast to the world. No permission was given for this.

Chief Justice Bauman reiterated that evidence is property of the court.

Mr. Jones said that the court is the custodian of ecidence. There is an accountability question. What is the extent of public access? Is there re-victimization of those who are volunteering their evidence?

Chief Justice Bauman asked if not the onus is on the person supplying the information to apply for a publication ban? Where does the law say that the media have to ask permission to publish evidence they have in hand?

Mr. Jones brought up “privacy.”

Chief Justice Bauman said that the Vancouver Sun has lawfully obtained copies of the evidence. That no conditions were inposed on the Vancouver Sun and use of the videos. Here we are doing the expo facto—after the fact—argument.

Craig Jones said that there was no notice given to the witness. Where is the fairness in that? The witness must be able to consent to being broadcast. The media have access but not publication rights to videos. Any authorized recording may be used for another purpose but the applicant must obtain permission of those being videoed. The affidavit of Karen Horsman speaks to the difficulty of getting permission.

Chief Justice Bauman wanted to know the distinction between video and actual appearance. Is that the question.

Craig Jones said that the privacy issue is the issue. These witnesses should not be penalized because they willingly assisted the court.

There was discussion of other types of “media” evidence appended to affidavits such as books, research papers and copyright issues. I lost track because, of course, I am not familiar with the court decisions involved, etc.

Mr. Burnett argued before the court on behalf of the Vancover Sun. He argued that the person who brought the complaint has been very open about their involvement with the FLDS culture in the past even appearing the the Dr. Phil show and being quoted in various media. This person has talked openly on other media about under-aged girls being married, even revealing the number of wives an FLDS leader had.

Mr. Burnett went on to say that if a publication ban is put in place on the videos, certain factors have to be weighed such as if there is some rist to a fair trial with open publication of evidence; what is the reality of how publication will affect the witness; the privacy argument must be addressed; and, that openness and transparency in the court is important especially in a case of national significance such as this.

Mr. Jones rebutted with the fact that no one can underestimate the value of seeing and hearing a witness. All discretionary orders denying freedom of the press must meet a two-part test: absence of harm and consent rules. He emphasized that the witnesses were not informed that excerpts of their video testimonies were being broadcast.

Chief Justice Bauman said he would reserve his judgment until Monday.

Mr. Jones asked if he could make an interim injunction on any further publishing of the videos.

His Lordship Chief Justice Robert Bauman said he was not going to make any interim orders.

So, given that court does not resume until Tuesday, at 10:00, in room 55 of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, we will have to wait and see what the ruling will be.

Toronto Star exposes worldwide abuse of polygamy

2010-11-27T21:27:00.002-06:00

Relativism needs a shakedown

2010-11-25T22:22:00.004-06:00

Polyamorists decry anti-polygamy law
WENDY STUECK

Canada’s law against polygamy contravenes the religious rights of a polygamous group and was originally enacted to criminalize a religious practice, says a lawyer for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Read full story Here.

The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association defines polyamory as the practice of having emotionally intimate, sexual relationships within groups of three or more people. Conjugal polyamory refers to polyamourous relationships in which three or more of the parties live in the same household.

Random thoughts...

Relativism needs a shakedown. Just because you want to be all flowery and non judgmental doesn't give you the moral right to condemn children to a "lifestyle", which will undoubtedly expose them to higher rates of abuse, neglect, poverty and especially molestation.

Every civilized society has a right to decide how they want children protected. It's not hateful or judgmental to say to someone, "No, you can't do that because we know it harms children; and if we find you doing it, we will put you into a jail."

That's why it's called civilization, because the law holds people to a standard of behavior towards it's weakest members, namely children, the elderly and the infirm.

If Canada throws it's children to the sexual predator wolves here, then G-d help their civilization, for eventually they will have none.

No Justification or Explanation

2010-11-25T17:29:00.004-06:00

Criminal sanction against polygamy offends guaranteed rights, FLDS tells Vancouver hearing

By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun

"As for former members who will testify to abuses and bad experiences, the opening statement makes clear that the church will not "seek to justify or explain their mistreatment."

Read more Here.

Muslim or Mormon Just SAY NO!

2010-11-24T11:12:00.005-06:00

Homa Arjomand
homawpi@nosharia.com
www.nosharia.com
416-737-9500

This Conference will emphasize on the effects of globalization of political Islam on Women’s Rights, the question with polygamy, the Niqab and Honour Killing. As well as the problems of legal pluralism and cultural relativism with respect to women’s rights and discussion on separation of religion from the State.

In order to cover all these issues, I will start my speech with a case of a victim of polygamy, child trafficking as well as forced and arranged marriages in Canada; the obstacles and challenges they face with no hope to overcome them unless we progress our laws and regulations to one secular law for all and alter the legal pluralism and cultural relativism for integration.

In the following case, some changes are made to protect the client’s identity:

Farideh, at the age of 14, was sent to Pakistan with her mother and uncle in the summer of 2001. She understood that she was going for a vacation but soon after their arrival, she found out that she was to become the second wife of a clerk. She said from the time her uncle’s wife told her about the marriage to the night of her wedding, she cried and tried to burn herself. But she was left with no choice and it took 9 years before she was able to return to Canada at the age of 23. By this time, she had two sons 6 and 3 years.

Now her father is pushing her to sponsor her husband. Farideh indicated she would rather die than sponsor her abuser. In a Risk Assessment Check List, she specified the following abuse: pushed, pulled, grabbed, slapped, punched and kicked, objects were thrown at her. And in the section OTHER she described in one full page how she was chained to the ground with her baby in her arms to care for, without food and water for hours. All this was while she was breast feeding her baby. She also described how her husband knocked out two of her front teeth and broke her nose.

In the part of the Sexual Abuse portion, Farideh indicated there was persistent pressure to consent to rape, and she described how she was beaten while her husband performed sex and then he would throw a glass of holy water over her to purify her. All this abuse was to make her more submissive.

Farideh returned to Canada because her mother was dying.

At the hospital, she met a nurse in which she claims changed her life. She was told by her family members that she cannot go against Allah’s wish because Allah was testing her, and her husband is her destiny.

History of Farideh’s background:

Farideh was born in Ontario and had never been outside of her community. Farideh never had any friends outside of her culture even when she was attending public school. After school, she attended a Madreseh school which is an Islamic School. She never participated in any of the school’s activities, never attended any field trip; never went to a movie theatre, never wore pink, red or purple coloured clothes even though those were her favourite colours. Her biggest dream was to attend her graduation when she finished grade eight. And that never happened.

The obstacle Farideh faces:

Farideh will not be able to pay market rate for rent and she will not be qualified for subsidized housing as her children are not Canadian. She will not be qualified for subsidized day care for the same reasons. She is supported financially by Ontario Work which is social welfare but her financial support will be discontinued if she does not resolve the child custody matter soon. She will not be eligible for legal aid certificate in order to hire a lawyer as the abuser is living outside of Canada. And soon if she does not find a way out of this international legal system she will be prosecuted for abducting her own children.

Social obstacles:

Farideh will be forced to distance herself from all members of her community, relatives and her family for the safety of her children and herself which means she will have to leave behind all she had known in her childhood and early youth. She will be disowned by her family members as her action to seek help for separation will not be taken lightly by the members of her community. There are other hidden burdens that she needs to overcome, because of her action: no-one in the community would be willing to arrange any marriage with her siblings. Her brothers might be able to marry a girl from the community but there is no chance for her sisters.

Among members of the community, Farideh is considered a rebellious, a very bad example for all the other girls. However despite, all these obstacles, Farideh has made up her mind to go for separation and save the future of her children, with no money and community support.

Regarding the legal barrier:

If Farideh is forced by the legal system to send the children back to Pakistan, then she needs to make a huge decision. If she returns back with the children, she will face a harsh punishment, not only from her husband but also from the legal system in Pakistan. She knows there are women in Pakistan whose noses were cut off by their husbands or their father, or have no ears because they were not obedient or did not
honour the family wishes. She knows in Pakistan murderers can get out of prison with a small amount of money.

Farideh will be facing a long painful legal battle. Her situation is not as simple as child custody, child support and divorce. In her case the husband is living in Pakistan, he is not Canadian and Canadian law does not apply to him at all. The children were born in Pakistan. Her marriage was performed in Pakistan. Therefore nothing much can be done at the Ontario Family Court system.

Farideh is not the only Canadian child of misfortune. There are countless other Canadian children whose civil rights are violated and no-one has ever been put in the spot light for this violation of children’s rights.

In Farideh’s case, no one has been charged for what they have done to this child: that she was taken to Pakistan at very young age and forced to marry and live in a polygamist relationship: that she was left there with a man more than three times her age to be sexually rapped, physically injured and go under tremendous torture.

Our expectation in Canada should be for the Canadian government to arrest and jail Farideh’s father and all the ones involved in crimes committed against Farideh, at least under Child Trafficking Act as shamefully there is no criminal act for forced and arranged marriages or early child bride or even polygamy in Canada.

But even with the Child Protection Act in place, the system has failed Farideh for not protecting her rights, for not questioning her parents upon their return to Canada about their missing child; after all they went out of the country with the child and returned without her.

The system managed to fail her without questions asked by any of its concerned citizens. No-one from Children Aid Society ever knocked at her parents’ house and asked about the missing Farideh, no school teacher ever questioned the authorities about all those missing children, among them Farideh.

The question is how the government of Canada could neglect Farideh and all the other children like her while there is the Child Protection Act in place? How could the Child’s Civil Rights be totally violated in the presence of all involved members of society and involved authorities but no-one speaks out against it?

It is certainly not an error in the legal documents.

The violations of children’s civil rights was done simply by implementing a legal policy in such a way that a horrendous crime would be considered an affront to humanity, and the responsibility of the State to enforce this policy. Canada has put in place legal pluralism and cultural relativism which is totally in contradiction
with the Universal Rights of the Child and Freedom of Individuals. Under this policy minority rights and religious rights over take the individual rights.

So crimes against Farideh became invisible and not a crime at all. It is consider part of Farideh’s culture and religion to be taken out of school forcefully, cross the boarders, pass five oceans to her parents’ country and forced to marry so young, in a polygamist relationship. It has been said to the members of the greater society that under no circumstances, under Child Protection Act, this harsh and inhuman life
journey of Farideh could have been prevented. And we are supposed to believe what we have been told by the legal system.

This unbearable cruelty to children and women should not be tolerated and must be condemned strongly. Zero tolerance is needed to put in place for all repressive laws and regulations. We need to come forward in full force against any policies that pursues cultural and social segregation, and against any practice that undermines the right and well-being of the child.

No doubt when people hear about the case of Farideh, humanity will rise up and help will come from every avenue. I am convinced that Farideh’s legal problem will be resolved if not by “lawyers without boarders” then by other kind and caring individuals who have heart and compassion for humanity. But this is not the
main aim of this conference.

The aim is to help all the vulnerable children and women living in these isolated communities, these communities that are surrounded by thick invisible walls. These walls were built there from the moment the legal pluralism and cultural relativism were implemented in Canada. The federal government adopted multiculturalism as its official policy in 1971, to the disadvantage of women and children, and patronized
more the religious and ethnic groups. The Multiculturalism Act was passed by Parliament and proclaimed in 1988. This broad, unclear act needs to be amended immediately before the life and safety of more women and children are put in jeopardy.

The reality is that these invisible walls needs to be demolished and replaced by one secular progressive law for all. Only then can the act of Child Protection be effective and no child will be mistreated.

Right now under the legal pluralism and cultural relativism and under the name of freedom of religion, the Mormon sect can openly engage in polygamy where children as young as 14 can become the wives of one man (as many as 180 wives, I was told or even more in order to become part of the God) and political Islam can find enough legal ground to establish Sharia law in Canada. It was not too long ago that we challenged Sharia Court in Ontario and managed to overcome faith based arbitration for family disputes. That means we closed one gate only but there are many other gates open allowing 7th century traditions to hunt and hurt women and children. And it is not practical to fight these violations one at the time.

Under this policy, women and children are left at the mercy of the sheik, imams, priests, rabbi, old traditions, 7th century customs and religious institutions. As a result there are two or more sets of values and rights in Canada, one being Canadian law and the other being the law of the sect or cult of a community. The only way it can be described is “ a state within state”. Women and girls are forced to comply with those laws and regulations and the ones who resist as Farideh did, will face harsh punishment. If they are lucky, they might be flogged, raped, pulled out of school, separated from all their siblings, disowned by community and family members or forced to marry, but the misfortunate ones will face death by honour killing, if not by stoning. All these are happening in our back yard.

One must not fail to remember, the reasons why these young brave girls were slaughtered in the name of honor killing is because they all refused the interference of religion and the backward culture in their private
lives. They were at the forefront of the battle for individual rights verses collective /(minority rights) or lets say religious rights.

Aqsa Parvez 16 in Mississauga, Khatera Haidery 20 in Calgary, Aminat Magomadova, 14 in Calgary, Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu 25 known as Jassi, in British Columbia, Rona Amir Mohammad and her three stepdaughters, Zainab Shafia (19), Sahari Shafia, (17) and Geeti Shafia (13) from Kingstown Ontario. All these victims have been tried and sentenced to death according to family beliefs and culture, and murdered by members of their own family, for not honouring the rules of inhuman traditions and culture. These killings are shamefully honoured, respected and guarded legally, and financially supported by the Canadian government under the policy of multiculturalism and cultural relativism.

These brave girls wished to control their own way of life and lost their lives for what members of the greater society have been benefiting for the past centuries. The most basic rights, the right to individual independence, the right to the necessities of a normal life, the right to have protection of body and mind
against any violation, the right to education, the right to socialize and have a social life. Their thirst for these basic rights put them in a death role by the culture and religion of their parents. And we as members of the greater society kept our distance and did nothing to protect their civil rights.

The reality is that honour killing, polygamy, child bride, forced marriage and arranged marriage and stoning have great ties with the growth of the anti-women culture and religious movement, in particular Islamic movements in the West. As soon as the advocators of this movement find the tiniest room to penetrate into legal system, more women will be subjected to violence and brutally slaughtered for refusing to follow the traditions of their families’ culture. It is hurtful to say that Canada under the policy of multiculturalism and cultural relativism has legally provided political Islam and all other organized religious sects, lots of ground
to grow.

It is time to stand up firm and build a political campaign that promotes a political solution. The banner of this campaign must be integration and the concept of the equal and universal rights for all citizens, irrespective of their country of origin, race, gender or religion; verses legal pluralism and cultural relativism.
Only then we can end all these horrendous crimes against women and children living in these communities.

In response to question of the Niqab and Burqa one needs to tie these two types of veils to rise of political Islam. These types of veils are used for advertising and promoting the agenda of political Islam movement, in the West and so far have served its political desire and political needs.

In fact these types of veils have become the banner of Islamists movement.

It should not come to anyone’s surprise to witness not only niqab and burqa but also the hijab being burnt by women at the forefront of every demonstration in countries where political Islam gained power. Women have every right to see this piece of cloth as a tool of oppression as they have witnessed it, lived with its degrading laws and suffered a great deal.

They know the only way out is to make religion stay a private matter for individuals, separate from the State. Not water it down.

The Niqab existed in only marginalized the Arabian Gulf region and came to light after Islamic movement organized itself as state in Iran. The only difference is, back then it was enforced upon women only in a small uneducated isolated rural area, but now these types of veils are willingly adopted by advocators of the Islamic movement, the ones who enjoyed sitting on benches of universities and successfully achieved a degree that could not have been possible if there was not an on going struggle for social progress, freedom, equality between men and women and justice for all, at that time of their study, they were not wearing niqab or any other hijab as political Islam was not yet in power, therefore no recognition of this flag
was needed then.

Wearing Niqab or Burqa has nothing to do with their Islamic faith. Niqab or Burqa is a flag of Islamists on rise for the expansion of Political Islam on the international arena, socially, culturally, and religiously on a macro level. And for it, they need to stay in the spot lights of the media every day if not for every hour of the day, the Islamist’s existence needs to be acknowledged, in every household either by act of terrorism globally or by the outcry over the caricatures of Mohammad or over the halah meat at elementary schools cafeteria, or upholding Islamic fashion under the Eiffel tower, or over space to pray during lunch hours at
schools, universities and work places or else the followers of this movement will stop the traffic in the heart of France and England and line up to pray. Of course in all these mocking shows, the niqabist will be seen in first rows. And when they realize there is no more audience, then it is time to show up at public places
such as schools, courts or even at election polls in various countries dressed in full niqab and if they are confronted then the niqabists file a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal. We need to ban Niqab totally from our society, the same way we banned the fascist flag.

As for other forms of the veil (hijab), women should have rights to wear them or not. However when it comes to public sectors such as schools, courts, hospitals, libraries, police stations, the veil should be prohibited totally.

The Islamic veil in any shapes and forms must be banned for children under the age of 18 and prohibition of veiling children must become part of child protection act.

Banning the niqab will certainly push back political Islam and that will help the women’s movement to promote their progressive agenda which is advancing total equality in every avenue possible.

*Thank you Dr. Susan Stickevers for forwarding this amazing speech. GO CANADA!

Day 2 in Canada

2010-11-23T23:27:00.004-06:00

I've just received this fabulous bulletin from Nancy Mereska with Stop Polygamy in Canada!
Please take the time to read the great notes on the case she is taking, and the great case Canadian Prosecutors are making in educating their court and the public on the other relic of barbarism, polygamy.

For a look at the Republican Party's stance go Here

Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the Territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism — Polygamy, and Slavery.

From Nancy,
Dear Network:

Re: Day 2, Reference Trial of s. 293 to test its constitutionality (s. 293 being the law that bans the practice of polygamy in Canada

Today AGBC’s attorney Mr. Craig Jones finished his opening statement. Some highlights:

· Polygamy can be compared to Slavery of the United States

· The purpose of the polygamy law has always been to address the harms associated with polygamy.

· Original incest legislation was enacted perhaps millennia before we understood the genetic implications of incest.

· Most challengers of s. 293 propose the broadest possible definition; grey areas include same sex multiple partners, polyandry (rare), and polyamory claiming that they practice “good” polygamy.

· Polygamy must be restricted to polygyny and not polyandry, polyamory, etc.

· Almost all of the harms that we are going to demonstrate are the harms of polygyny.

· Legislators often use a general term to mean a specific term; e.g. polygamy = polygyny; laws about animal abuse—animal does not mean human.

· Inherently harmful conduct does not justify claiming justification through s. 2(a) of the Charter (Canada’s Freedom of Religion Law)

· The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association (CPAA) says s. 293 contravenes their right to group marriage. In fact, s. 293 focuses on marriage and consanguinity. S. 293 defines the crime of polygamy in terms of a relationship.

· Note: I’ve covered only two of five pages of notes thus far. I’m going to attempt to bring the Statement of the AGBC up to the blog!

Ms. Deborah Strachan, Attorney for the AG of Canada

· Parliament has a general interest to uphold the sanctions against polygamy: civil rights and liberties, it’s effect on society, its effect on individual women and children

· Polygamy presents physical, emotional and reproductive harm

· Polygamy leaves some young men with no opportunity to form a family

· Polygamy presents systemic problems on society

· If the court finds the reasonable apprehension of harm, then it must uphold the law.

· If Canada were to allow polygamy, it would be taking a very backward step. Countries around the world are generally against the practice of polygamy.

· The analysis relating to international views and norms will show a general regard for prohibiting the practice.

· Prof. Rose McDermot data from 172 countries will be presented.

· Definition of “conjugal union” in s. 293 is interpreted as a form of marriage not civilly recognized by law. “Conjugal union” incorporates an element of formality; a marriage-like ceremony.

· Canada’s law is in harmony with international law with respect to polygamy.

· The phenomenon of lost boys who are ejected one way or another and left on their own is a crime.

REAL Women

· REAL Women is a proponent of monogamy, 65,000 members strong.

· In the U.S. there is an absolute prohibition against addressing church doctrine. Courts will sometimes take it upon themselves to investigate particular practices.

· Will bring forth reports/studies from experts: Mohammed Fidel (Muslim) and Dr. Walter Scheidel

· FLDS presents a different story regarding freedom of religion.

· Are sexual predators actually “God’s chosen people”? (laughter in the courtroom)

· A finding that s. 203 is unconstitutional will be an insult to our democratic principles—“anti-democratic abomination.”

West Coast LEAF (LEAF=Legal Action Fund for Women)

· Submits that s. 293 is consistent with the Charter insofar as it is read down to apply to exploitation of relationships only.

· Reading down signifies maximizing the impact of the law.

Note: Although West Coast LEAF is funded in part by the Federal Government, it is not taking the position that s. 293 is constitutional. It wants the present law struck down and a new law written that will address only exploitation in polygamy. Stop Polygamy in Canada asserts that polygamy itself is exploitive. When a second “wife” (concubine, religious prostitute) comes into the picture, the rights of these women are denigrated and equality is thrown out the window. Their argument is moot. They are a body made up mostly of female attorneys. If they had wanted s. 293 “read down” they should have challenged the law a long time ago. Their argument has no place in the Reference.

Nancy Mereska, President

Stop Polygamy in Canada

The First Day in Canada

2010-11-22T21:23:00.004-06:00

Here are links to two very good articles on the Canadian Supreme Court reference case that began today.

Comments welcome, of course!

One: The town polygamy built: B.C. says Bountiful shows need to ban multiple wives Here

Two: Canada's anti-polygamy laws go on trial
Here

Canadian Supreme Court Case Begins Monday

2010-11-21T03:41:00.004-06:00

And here would be the "temple bed", complete with pop up crib railings, found outside tiny Eldorado, in Schleicher County. Doncha gotta wonder if Texas shared that tape of a twelve year old little girl being raped on that uh, alter, with the help of two of Warren's concubines?

Does society have to tolerate all the rituals of any religion to be practiced? Did Warren Jeffs have an inherent or intrinsic right to rape a little girl in the name of Joseph Smith or of his god?

I know the Office of the Attorney General here in Texas contributed over 50 lbs of written and electronic media evidence, in aid of Canada on this case, to show what was happening in the purest form of fundamentalist Mormon polygamy in North America.

Ron Skolrood, a constitutional lawyer in Vancouver, said
"Does the law address real social evils today? Or is it, as the challengers would say, an antiquated law that really has no relevance today?"

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/life/Polygamy+trial+starts+tomorrow/3862116/story.html#ixzz15uNwIaEs

G-d Bless Canada!

I sure hope everyone is praying for their women.

Sharia is a killer. Choose Life for Asia!

2010-11-17T11:44:00.004-06:00

Mr. Asif Ali Zardari,
President of Pakistan
President House, Islamabad, PAKISTAN.

Spare the life of Asia Bibi

Dear Mr. President Zardari,

Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy joins local human rights organizations, international women’s groups and religious minorities in calling for Pakistan to urgently repeal its Blasphemy Laws. We also appeal to the authorities to guarantee the safety of Asia Bibi and her family from the rage of local extremists, as well as investigate the violent persecution of the Christian community in the Punjab.

Allowing Ms. Bibi to be killed for the crime of believing in a different G-d than Allah is completely barbaric and will do nothing to show Americans that Pakistan should share a place of honor within the civilized world. On the contrary, it will simply contribute to the growing awareness in America, and other freedom loving countries, that Islam itself is a danger and a threat to us all.

If you want us to believe that Islam is truly "a religion of peace", I would very respectfully suggest that your country take immediate measures to protect the life and property of religious minorities dwelling among you, starting with Ms. Bibi and her family.

We will be watching to see how serious your government is about stopping the spread of "radical Islam", or whether officials in your country are simply lying about their real intentions, while spreading this disease of barbaric hate and intolerance for minorities even more.

Sincerely,

--
K. Dee Ignatin
Executive Director
Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy
TripleAP@gmail.com
www.PolygamyIsAbuse.com
www.tripleap.blogspot.com
Abuse is not a religion: http://tripleap.tumblr.com

Pakistan: Ensure safety of Asia Bibi and her family and repeal Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws

The International Solidarity Network, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) is deeply shocked that a court in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, has sentenced a 45-year-old Christian woman, Asia Bibi, to death on the charge of having committed “blasphemy”. Although illiterate, she has been accused of denying the institution of prophet-hood by citing copious examples from the key texts of Islam.

We join local human rights organizations, international women’s groups and religious minorities in calling for Pakistan to urgently repeal its Blasphemy Laws. We also appeal to the authorities to guarantee the safety of Asia Bibi and her family from the rage of local extremists, as well as investigate the violent persecution of the Christian community in the Punjab.

Asia Bibi is a farm worker in a village of Ittanwali in Nankana, about 75 kilometres west of Lahore. By Asia Bibi’s own account, her women co-workers tried to force her to embrace Islam on 8 June, 2009. This led to a discussion on the religious beliefs of the two communities and following a heated exchange between her and three Muslim women, the complainant Qari Muhammad Sallam, with the testimonies of these women, lodged a First Information Report (FIR) on June 19, 2009, under sections 295-B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code. Both sections state punishment by life imprisonment or capital punishment. Following the judicial process, Asia Bibi was sentenced to death by an additional sessions court in Nankana district. Mrs Bibi was also ordered to pay a fine of 300,000 Pakistani rupees (£2,180). Now the family is appealing against the judgment in the Lahore High Court. SK Shahid, Asia Bibi's counsel, said that he has filed an appeal with the Lahore High Court against the lower court's judgment. "How can we expect from a non-Muslim to follow beliefs of the Muslims?" he asked. Various human rights groups are also likely to become party to the appeal, calling for the repeal of the judgment.

Mrs Bibi said that during the investigation held by Special Prosecutor Muhammad Amin Bokhari, she begged for pardon as she had never heard of the crime of blasphemy before. Mrs Bibi explained that she has not had access to a lawyer in jail and even on the day of her final verdict she was not accompanied by a lawyer. In court she was made to put a thumb print on the papers she was unable to read.

The Blasphemy laws have not only curtailed citizens’ freedom of expression, but have also been misused by violent religious extremists to commit grave acts of violence against others and to spread religious intolerance. In several cases the law has been used to settle personal scores and rivalries. Incidents of mob violence against non-Muslims, especially Christians, have also increased in this part of Punjab over the last few years, engineered by local extremists groups to give impetus to their religious and political base.

Blasphemy Laws in their present form were promulgated arbitrarily by the military dictator, Zia al-Huq, more than twenty years ago. Those who have worked to overturn false charges of blasphemy have themselves become the target of violence. A former Lahore High Court judge, Justice Arif Hussain Bhatti, was murdered by a religious extremist in 1996, reportedly because he acquitted a blasphemy case. A number of lawyers and journalists have also been harassed for defending people accused of blasphemy and campaigning against the Blasphemy Laws.

17 November 2010
Submitted on 11/17/2010
in

* South Asia
* Pakistan
* Fundamentalisms
* Blasphemy Laws
* Religious minorities
* WLUML/allies

We are asking you to take 5 minutes out of your day to write to the president of Pakistan and ask that the life of this woman be spared.

What you can do
Action needed:
Please send letters to:

Addresses:
Mr. Asif Ali Zardari,
President of Pakistan
President House, Islamabad, PAKISTAN.
Fax: +92-51-9207458 Email address:ppp@comsats.net.pk or publicmail@president.gov.pk

Mr. Yousaf Raza Gillani,
Prime Minister of Pakistan,
Prime Minister Secretariat, Islamabad, PAKISTAN.
Fax: + 92-51-9204632, 9221596 or Fax: +92-51-9206907

Mr. Shehbaz Sharif,
Chief Minister of Punjab,
Chief Minister Secretariat,
90 – Shahrah-e- Quaid-e-Azam,Lahore, PAKISTAN.

Mr. Syed Masood Kausar,
Federal Minister for Law and Justice,
Pak – Secretariat, Islamabad, PAKISTAN.

So she called her imam...

2010-11-10T03:13:00.004-06:00

This is an excellent essay written by Dr. Susan Stickevers, M.D. about one of her personal experiences with Muslim American polygamy, and reprinted here with her very kind permission.

35 year old Fatima thought she had it all.

As a proud naturalized American citizen who immigrated to the US at age 7, Fatima realized that she had accomplished more in the United States than she could ever could have as a woman in her native Pakistan.

As a physical therapist with a masters degree, she commanded a high salary - higher than her husband's. Her seven year old son excelled in school, she lived in a comfortable home in a suburb of NYC, and she considered herself to be happily married to a wonderful Moslem man named Muhammad whom she had met through a matchmaker 9 years ago.

Fatima felt secure about her career, her future, and her marriage - until Muhammad returned home from a visit to his family in Pakistan and announced that he had married his 17 yr old cousin. He announced to a stunned Fatima that he intended to send money from their joint bank account to Pakistan on a regular basis to provide for his new wife's financial support. Muhammad told Fatima that he eventually planned to bring his young bride to the US so that she could live with them.

Fatima was familiar with Sharia law regarding polygamous marriages. Muhammad was supposed to have asked her permission before he took a second wife.

He had not consulted her about his intention to marry a second time, so she called her imam. Her imam wearily informed her that she was one of many American Moslem women who had been duped by their husbands, and now there was nothing that could be done from a standpoint of Islamic law. Her imam informed her that she should simply learn to cope with Muhammad's decision to take another wife. Fatima found the prospect of sharing her husband, her home, and her finances with another woman to be intolerable.

Fortunately polygamy is illegal in NY State, and Fatima's attorney successfully used the threat of invoking NY anti - bigamy statutes to assist Fatima in gaining sole custody of her son, sole ownership of her home, and generous child support in her uncontested divorce settlement. Despite the fact that she has a substantial income which exceeds her husband's, Fatima is not required to make a monetary payment to Muhammad.

Susan M. Stickevers, MD

A Rebuke

2010-11-06T17:44:00.003-05:00

I am reprinting this excellent article with the kind permission of the author, John. R. Llewellyn, who is a former AUB member and practicing polygamist.

SISTER WIVES, A REBUKE
By John R. Llewellyn

“Sister Wives” is a TLC cable television series, purporting to be a
“reality show” starring the flamboyant Kody Brown and his four plural
wives. The Browns live in a large house divided by three apartments
in the city of Lehi, 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. The forth wife
has a residence of her own a few blocks away.

THE HISTORY BEHIND SISTER WIVES

The polygamous Brown family is what is known as Mormon
fundamentalists, a subculture of divisive Mormons who believe the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was out of order when it
discontinued the “sacred” practice of polygamy in 1890. According to
Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s successor, plural marriage was the most
sacred principle of Jesus Christ’s “gospel” and the Mormons were
commanded to live it and “raise up a righteous seed.” Joseph Smith is
the martyred prophet who founded Mormonism by authoring and publishing
the Book of Mormon which he claimed to have translated from gold
plates. The Church, founded in 1830, grew rapidly in a climate of
religious agitation, but was unpopular with mainstream, Protestant
Christianity. As a result the Mormons, as they were called, were
driven from Ohio, Missouri and Nauvoo, Illinois (but not without
cause). Joseph was assassinated in 1844. Brigham Young assumed
control of the Church and herded the (Latter-day) Saints to the Great
Basin (Utah Territory) arriving in 1847.

Joseph and his inner circle of acolytes, while denying that polygamy
was a Church doctrine, were secretly seducing the young attractive
women, including married women, with the notion that polygamy was
Jesus Christ’s preferred form of marriage. This breach of Christian
custom was justified by an alleged revelation Joseph Smith received
from Jesus Christ which is currently Section 132 of the LDS law book,
Doctrine & Covenants. The revelation is inherently coercive for it
threatens to damn all who reject plural marriage, and destroy
monogamous wives if they interfere with their husband’s quest for
plural wives. (See verses 6, 54, 64 and 65) In 1854, Brigham Young,
thinking he was safe from persecution shocked the world by revealing
that plural marriage was indeed Mormon dogma – and until 1890 all of
Mormonism revolved around plural marriage.

In the 1920s a fella name Lorin Woolley who is in essence the Father
of Mormon Fundamentalism, spun a story about John Taylor, the third
president and prophet of the LDS Church, alleging Taylor was visited
in 1886 by Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith. The two supernaturals
predicted the 1890 Manifesto, and commanded Taylor to keep plural
marriage alive until the Second Coming of Jesus. Taylor subsequently
held an eight hour meeting in which he set apart a group of Mormons
commanding them not to let a year go by without a child being born in
the New and Everlasting Covenant – i.e. Mormon polygamy. Strangely
enough, by 1920 which was the first time the 1886 yarn was heard,
Lorin Woolley was the only surviving member of the eight hour meeting.

In other words, all we have is Lorin Woolley’s word – but that was
good enough for a handful of frustrated, pious Mormons with vibrant
Y-chromosomes.

This first Mormon fundamentalist group concocted another incredible
tall-tale giving them priesthood authority so they could organize.
But as groups often do, as they grew they split over the question of
authority, and these splits eventually split – and the splits split
and more tall-tales were told until there are dozens of groups all
claiming to be the one and only group having authority and living all
of God’s laws. Kody Brown and company belong to the second largest of
these groups, Apostolic United Brethren, with alcoves in Old Mexico,
Utah, Arizona, Wyoming and Montana.
REALITY OR ILLUSION

Sister Wives is supposed to be a reality show, but as is often the
case in Mormon fundamentalism what is purported to be reality is only
an illusion. The reality is that the run-of-the-mill polygamists are
not peacockish – they try to be as inconspicuous as possible, not
wanting to draw attention to themselves. Mormon plural marriage is a
sacred tenet, a principle you don’t flaunt. To do so is tantamount to
“casting pearls before swine.”

When Kody first announced that he and his wives were going to star in
a national televised realty show, we have it from reliable sources
that the leader of the group advised against it – which makes more
sense than the late claim they wanted to test the bigamy statute. The
history of Apostolic United Brethren, affectingly known as AUB, is
fraught with a history of key priesthood icons allegedly molesting
their children and key priesthood moguls involved in the theft of 1.5
million dollars. (See Hill vs Allred, Apostolic United Brethren, et.
al. AUB is currently paying off a 6 million dollar civil judgment)
Why take a chance of reopening that Pandora’s Box?

Mormon fundamentalists are stereotypical. Men with long hair are
frowned upon. Long hair generally symbolizes rebelliousness. If that
is the case with Kody, what is he rebelling against? Monogamy, the
law of the land, or the austerity of Mormon fundamentalism?

There have been other long-haired polygamists, Alex Joseph and Tom
Green for example, enticed by the intoxication of cameras, bright
lights and feigned loftiness, where narcissism shined through loud and
clear. Tom for example compared himself with some of Hollywood’s
notorious lovers. He was emboldened by the thought that he was
envied. Because media throughout the US, Europe and Japan sought him
out he thought he was a celebrity which gave him power. I am not
saying that Kody fits into this category, you decide. But Kody, his
wives and children obviously enjoy their singular, reality stardom.

Kody’s act is cleaner and more upbeat than Tom’s. Five of Tom’s
wives were adolescent girls when he took them as wives. Consequently
he was convicted not only of bigamy, but criminal non support and
child rape. What Kody and Tom have in common is long hair, a belief
in Mormon polygamy, and an apparent love of the lime light. I just
about forgot, when Tom was charged with bigamy he cut his hair so he
would look like just an ordinary nice guy.
WHAT MESSAGES DOES SITERWIVES SEND?

The Lehi Police built a bigamy case against Kody and have submitted
it to the Utah County Prosecutor. Kody has retained a lawyer who
according to newspaper accounts thinks it is unwise and unjust to
prosecute Kody for it would be singling him out among thousands of
Mormon polygamists. So far the prosecutor’s office hasn’t made a
decision. I suspect it’s going to be hard for the Utah County
Attorney to decline prosecution for lack of evidence. But then, he
may do what the Utah Attorney General has done, ignore the Utah
Constitution and bigamy statute.

The media is not going to let this issue slide between the cracks.
The Utah Constitution specifically forbids polygamy. The bigamy
statute has been upheld twice by the Utah Supreme Court in Utah vs.
Tom Green and Utah vs. Rodney Holmes. A couple of years ago a man
and two women attempted to get a Utah marriage license. It was a
backdoor attempt to overturn the bigamy statute but it too failed.
Some pundits fear that if one of these bigamy cases makes it to the
United States Supreme Court it will be overturned. Is that a valid
reason for not prosecuting?

Sister Wives did not address the abuse of women and children, or
neglect, welfare fraud, sense of entitlement, incest and dishonesty in
general that seems to be endemic to Mormon fundamentalism. It appears
TLC was only interested in sensationalism. The Brown family was
fodder used for ratings, nevertheless, willing and flamboyant fodder.
If the Utah County Attorney declines to prosecute what messages will
that send to the world?

The Utah County Attorney has vast discretionary powers. The
assumption is his decision will be based on legal polemics. But I can
just about guarantee that if he declines to prosecute there will be
moral interpretations. The Utah Attorney General has already
established that Utah is soft on polygamy. Polygamy is still a valid
LDS Church tenet, they just don’t think they should practice it now.
Utah County is bedrock Mormonism – the home of steadfast true
believers. It therefore stands to reason that Utah County Mormons
believe that Jesus Christ actually talked to Joseph Smith and Jesus
commanded all Mormon women to become plural wives. It is therefore a
safe prediction that if Kody is not prosecuted the world is apt to
deduce that it was due to religious influences.

The LDS Church is the most powerful and influential institution in
the State of Utah. The official position of the Church is to stay out
of politics and governmental matters except where morality such as
abortion and homosexuality is concerned, which brings to mind, is
polygamy a moral, religious or cultural issue?

The Church’s position concerning Mormon fundamentalist polygamy is
perplexing. All the leaders are willing to say is that the
polygamists do not belong to the Church. The Brethren are
conspicuously silent when it comes to the constitutional and moral
issues surrounding polygamy. I suspect that the Utah County Attorney
would appreciate a sign from South Temple Street, the location of
Church headquarters, a simple thumb up or thumb down would do.

Gone in 60 Seconds

2010-11-04T10:24:00.004-05:00

All the empirical medical research done on polygamy, worldwide, shows that the practice shows elevated levels of molestation and incest, especially in female children.

Are people psychologically different because they live in a different section of the world? Hardly.

How long does it take, when you are associating with people who commit the felony crime of polygamy to locate an example of child abuse, molestation, poverty or neglect? I'd suggest you can't throw a rock in the local vicinity without hitting one.

In the full KSL interview with the Brown's from TLC's new show, Sister Wives, it seems to prove it takes less than 60 seconds anyway.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=12603468&nid=148

At the 55 second mark, a woman is seen walking in the background. Her name is Heidi Mattingly Foster, and obviously she is an acquaintance of the Browns, there to assist with the taping.

Perhaps someone should ask the Browns how exactly they know Ms. Foster, whose children have been removed from her on more than one occasion by the state of Utah.

http://www.tribblogs.com/polygamyfile/2008/04/identity-theft/

Foster parents of her children say that the female children in their care ended every night by climbing into their beds, lying on their backs, clasping their hands in prayer and spreading their legs wide apart. When asked what they were doing the foster parents were informed that the girls were "waiting for the hand of G-d to come bless them between their legs."

So how long does it take to locate other crimes when the crime of polygamy is highlighted?

I'd like to thank the Browns for clearing this up for us.

The Eyes of Texas

2010-11-02T19:48:00.003-05:00

There's an issue among those of us who oppose polygamy that needs to be addressed. Since the airing of the TLC show "Sister Wives", I have heard from more than one quarter that "I simply refuse to watch the garbage".

I understand. It was hard for me to tune in as well. I had to DVR it, so I could step away and have my fits of indignation. I understand those, and the need for them.

I have watched all 7 episodes of the show, exactly once, and I already have a list of issues, either lies the Browns have told, or obvious problems with their assertions that none of this polygamous behavior is coercive.

If any of you think that the opposition, the Plural Voices group, or the Safety Net Committee, or the governments of Utah and Arizona are skipping the show, or skipping looking at us, their opposition, you are wrong.

The AAAP has an online discussion group where we post empirical medical research done on the affects of polygamy on women and children. And guess who came to the party this week wanting to take a gander at our research? The email address ends in utah.gov.

I know it is hard to look at this stuff, whether because of basic human principle or because all our sensibilities are so offended when we look at it, but that's what we're here for, isn't it?

Believe me, more than once when someone has expressed interest in "what I do", they have told me, "Wow, this stuff is really a bummer, isn't it?"

Yes, it's a bummer. That's why everyone isn't an anti-polygamy activist. It takes someone strong to continue looking right back at evil behavior and to stand your ground and say, "I'm watching YOU!"

I have yet to go back and re-watch the 7 "Sister Wives" episodes. Maybe I'll need a stiff drink or something to get through it. But my point is that in just one viewing I spotted many lies and inconsistencies. I need more eyes willing to watch and ask questions.

Utah is obviously gearing up for a full court press to decriminalize this human blight. They aren't asking for access to the research we've compiled because they don't think it is a threat. They are there to find holes.

Don't you think, as activists, we should be looking back?

Well? Don't you?

Is Mohave County Corrupt?

2010-10-18T17:57:00.005-05:00

And now ladies and gentlemen, I ask a simple question. Is Mohave County, Arizona corrupt? You can decide the answer.

According to an article in the Kingman Daily Miner, officials raided the headquarters of the Colorado City/Hildale Fire Departments on April 6th of this year.

According to facts made public in the case, investigators were acting on a tip from a caller about fire department personnel using the department's credit card, allegedly for personal expenses.

The laundry list of items investigators found charged to the department included some of the following provided by the Kingman Daily Miner:

List of items purchased using fire district funds

• Multiple dinner purchases in St. George, Utah, at restaurants such as Ruby River and Steak and Seafood. One purchase on Oct. 17, 2007, was for $288.54.

• Twenty $15 gift certificates from Dezereta - a local gas station.

• Fifteen $15 gift certificates from Garden Gate, Inc. - a business owned by Colorado City Manager David Darger.

• $575 for 100 candy gift boxes to Jill Johnson Special Manufacturing.

• Several receipts for food from Big Dan's Drive Thru and Vermilion Candy Shoppe/Fine Restaurant. Both are located in Colorado City.

• 30 purchases at the Cooperative Mercantile during February 2008, with five purchases made on Feb. 4, 2008, and seven made on Feb. 19, 2008. The Mercantile is the only general store in Colorado City.

• Eight purchases at Dezereta gas station on Christmas Day 2007.

• Two meal purchases on July 2, 2008, for $102.46 at Steak and Seafood and $156.68 at the Claim Jumper in St. George.

• $328.61 in purchases made with Turbo Tax between February 2004 and January 2009. According to the affidavit, fire districts do not need to use tax software.

• Credit card charges for gas, food and lodging (three rooms for two nights for six people) for a trip to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. This was on top of $270 given to district personnel to cover all trip expenses. According to the affidavit, local fire departments weren't holding training events during that time.

• 15 purchases from March 2004 to January 2009 to NewEgg.com, a Web-based computer parts and electronics store. The purchases were delivered to a personal address in Colorado City.

• Another 120 purchases made by Fire Chief Jake Barlow worth $25,000 made to NewEgg.com between June 2004 to August 2008 and delivered to a property owned by the fire district.

• $22,907.50 worth of merchandise purchased at Costco between September 2004 and August 2008, including:

• A leather sofa for $889.99

• A desk for $749.99

• A lateral file for $259.99

• A two-door bookcase for $274.99

• A computer workstation and armoire for $1,151.02.

• Six spiral hams for $20.48, $20.41, $25.76, $24.98, 19.30 and $20.52.

• Two Turbo Tax Premier plus State editions for $59.99 each

• Two iPod like music devices for $129.99 and $109.99

• Two leather sofas for $789.99 each

• A 250 GB port for the iPod devices for $139.99

• More than $100 in candy

• Seven 24 ounce Wild Alaskan King Salmon items for $121.73

• A one terabit external hard drive for $279.99

• 17 units of Dove assorted mini chocolates for $169.83

• 19 units of Chocolate Delicate Squares for $187.72

• 18 units of Chocolates of the World for $206.82

• Three digital picture frames for $419.97 (less $120 in coupons)

• Four fresh hen turkeys for $11.70, $11.47, $11.49 and $11.28

• Four units of shrimp at $79.96 each

From June 2007 to September 2008, the district purchased $13,865.96 at Sam's Club including:

• 40 Danish hams for $286.80

• Two chocolate gift towers for $19.87 each

• Two oversized throws for $14.47 each

• Fresh salmon filets for $21.70

• A queen mattress pad for $24.84

• Diapers for $26.88

• A six-pack of briefs for $8.88

• Four pairs of men's socks for $9.47

• A baby jumpsuit for $6.88

• A fleece-lined hoodie for $24.23

• An iPod dock alarm clock for $79.47

• Orange Roughy fillets for $13.46

• Two eight-packs of bath towels for $19.88 each

• A 12-pack of hand towels for $13.87

• A 24-pack of washcloths for $10.83.

• A king-sized set of sheets at $49.84

• Line bath towel for $11.76

• In December 2007, Jake Barlow purchased $1,500 in food from Sam's Club and Costco while an additional $837 was spent at local eateries.

• Records from January 2008 show Barlow spent $537 at Costco for food and $1,460 at local eateries in Colorado City.

According to a volunteer firefighter, the district's fire stations are not equipped with sleeping quarters or kitchens.

Now, let's fast forward six months, since none of us has heard a single word about the investigation or any possible charges...

After contacting a reliable source in Mohave County, they made inquiry with the Mohave County Attorney's Office to see what has been done, and the answer my friends, six months later?

According to an article in today's Mohave Valley Daily News:

"Deputy Mohave County Attorney James Schoppman said, the case is still being reviewed by his office for criminal charges against Barlow or Darger. The computers are being examined by experts from the state’s Attorney General’s Office and the Arizona Department of Public Safety in Phoenix.

6 months. Move along folks, nothin' to see here...

Muslim Polygamy in America

2010-10-16T11:12:00.004-05:00

Watching this, or interviews with the Browns of TLC's Sister Wives, one comes away with the same explanation from the ladies of the doctrine of submission. 'It is my god's will so I will live in submission to it, even though I admit it hurts me and creates pain in my life that even I can't explain or understand.'

And both seem to have the same answer, too. "My suffering will be rewarded by my god, and it is not for me to question my god's prophet for making me suffer, so I must submit and learn to keep sweet, it is making me a better person."

So I guess life will be better when they're dead?

That's some high goals, girls.

And while they fit very nicely into Sharia law, they have no place in a free country for women. You do not have the right to raise little American girls to submit to the felony crime of polygamy, in exchange for their spiritual salvation.

Those aren't constitutional goals, so good luck with that at the SCOTUS.

Abuse isn't a recognized religion.

Freedom or Submission

2010-10-10T14:05:00.005-05:00

The two are an interesting contrast. I read an article written by an atheist this morning, and was interested to see his concern that America would turn into a theocracy. When asked how he pictured a theocracy, he then named Saudi Arabia as an example of his fear.

I worry for intellectuals like this one.

I worry because the ignorance of history is so complete it's, frankly, embarrassing as a fellow American.

In order to have a theocracy everyone in the group must submit to a religious leader and one common religious law. That's how theocracies work.

America, founded by Christian thinkers, based government on the people, and directly declared that this was a just legal model, based on the self evident truth that all men [mankind] were endowed certain inalienable rights, specifically by their Creator.

By naming names, a Creator, they said all mankind is born free. Mankind is meant to be free. It is the natural order of things for every human being to belong only to himself and to G-d. No other human being, institution or government has any natural or contrived right to own another human being. To believe that the founding fathers of our nation didn't consciously know they had created a system of government that would doom slavery among any of mankind following its principles is a stretch beyond my imagination.

LIBERTY cannot ever be taken away from man without due process of the civil law, because liberty is a natural right. No one on earth gave it to you, so no one on earth is supposed to take it from you, unless you have committed crimes that justify the removal of your liberty in order to both punish you, and to protect other citizens from your lawlessness.

The founders of our country believed that only a good people could ever make this system of government work. That's why they believed it would work here, because most people in our country were good.

Their common faith was a bedrock of making the system work. I listened in utter astonishment when President Obama claimed that the history of America was also a Muslim history. Then I cried when I saw an American president bow before a foreign king for the first time in our entire history as a nation.

He bowed before a Saudi King.

He bowed to the monarch of a country that follows Muslim Sharia law and has a history of sentencing women to lashes for the crime of being raped without four male witnesses to the actual rape. That is the law there, you know. Sharia law requires a woman to have four male witnesses to prove she was raped. Otherwise she is just a whore who got what she deserved.

Why would anyone deserve this? According to Sharia law she deserves it, because she failed to submit to the law that says she must always be covered and never alone with any man who is not related to her directly.

So the president of a nation, founded by thinkers who followed a faith that bestowed the most individual and high level of liberty in human history drags us down to the level of a system defined by submission?

The words Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, and Islam are grammatical derivatives of the Arabic verb meaning "surrender, submit". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam

All of mankind must submit to Sharia law for the aims of their god to be fulfilled, and that is how world peace will finally be achieved, when we have all submitted. That is how every Muslim can tell you with a straight face that Islam is the religion of peace. They genuinely believe it.

Submission does not create freedom, although in the world of Muslim apologists, who argue that Sharia law is the perfect law for all mankind, submission IS freedom.

This same belief is held by Mormon fundamentalists in the American west, although their allegiance is to a different god; one who requires the submission to polygamy for ultimate eternal salvation.

The women of the FLDS, AUB, Biblical Families, House of Yahwh and assorted independents have all been brought up to believe in the same sort of submission.

When their hearts break and their relationships are over they cannot go to the LDS Church, because they have already been excommunicated from it for having their polygamy exposed.

So there is no food, no shelter, no sustenance available in the greater community. They can file for public benefits. If they are lucky they can find a job and if they are really lucky, with the help of the Safety Net Committee they can find you another polygamous husband.

The Safety Net did everything but help a woman leave. They paid for counseling to help "keep families together". They paid for conferences, where they could discuss how to get their membership signed up for food stamps without fear of prosecution, and discussion panels on how to get polygamy organized, and trips to Texas to educate our attorneys and child protection staffs on how to be culturally sensitive to the felony crime of polygamy.

The state funded Safety Net Committee has never helped a single woman or child get out of polygamy. Instead, they have used their funds to locate, assess and coordinate with the Brown Family to launch a national PR campaign via the TLC cable channel, designed to achieve the decriminalization of polygamy as their end.

The state funded program? Um, gee, actually I think federal dollars were appropriated for the Safety Net Committee to address the needs of women seeking to leave the polygamous lifestyle, weren't they?

So let me get this straight. The Attorney general of Utah took federal dollars and gave them to the Safety Net Committee, then he personally met with all those who conspired with the Browns to create an acceptable and well publicized test case, to purposefully break the federal laws against polygamy...

Yep, I'd say that's a federal case.

Will the FBI and the Department of Justice ignore this?

Anyone? Anyone?

Liberty or Death

2010-10-03T11:51:00.004-05:00

There she is, the symbol carried into the battle of San Jacinto, sent to us with courage, love and prayers, many prayers, from the women of Kentucky and Ohio.

Look at what the mothers of Texas freedom sent to us. They called her the goddess of liberty. This was period high art, rich with symbolism, crafted to hold meaning for us all, as free Texas women.

Is she sitting down, or is she standing up? One can see her as preparing to do either, really. She could be in the process of sitting down to peacefully enjoy her victory or she could be in the process of standing up, to defend her liberty.

And as Judge Andrew Napolitano was recently quoted as saying, "It's liberty or death! It is not liberty or safety!" If the government gives you safety but not liberty it is a tyrant.

Interesting that the Safety Net Committee, which is funded with Utah resident's tax dollars has never assisted one single woman or child to leave polygamy.

Their funds, resources, assets and energy all seem to have gone into a concerted effort to find a family and contribute to its commission and advertising of a felony.

All this, while I have met and seen women who have fled exactly this group of polygamists.

Congratulations, now you are all out with your intentions. Now let me explain ours.

Texas will remain a free state for women, where anyone who carries the designation of "wife" is equal to her male husband in the eyes of the LAW.

Equal. Not 1/3 or 1/5 or 1/19th of an invested party in the legal union, but 1/2.

If I am a married woman, in the state of Texas, I am an equal.

Don't tell us that there aren't women who are desperate to get out of the AUB, of which the Brown family are members. Don't try to tell me that your "Safety Net" is there to help THEM. We know better.

So here is my intention for the state of Texas.

Texas is a free state for women, not a concubine state.

We have a legal system and a non corrupt law enforcement team, which has proven it will use the law to PROTECT women and children.

So to any woman in the American west, or in any American city hiding under a hijab too, if you can read these words, and you want out, contact us. We will help you escape polygamy and get you to the only place you seem to have a prayer, Texas.

We will get you and your children here to Texas and we will arrange hiding for you for at least six months, until you and your children are qualified for Texas citizenship. We will get you protected.

Yes, take a good look at her, she is no concubine.

She has never traded her liberty for her safety.

The Browns

2010-10-02T23:00:00.004-05:00

At this link you can find a very long interview with the Brown family.

They mentioned a "Risk Assessment" study, performed by activists associated with Utah's state funded program called the Safety Net Committee. This was in preparation for a SCOUTUS challenge to the federal polygamy laws. The Utah Attorney General was a participant in helping to prepare this family for a public challenge to the law.

This assessment was performed, to vet the most "normal" family possible for this television program.

You will notice that they described the TLC camera's presence in their lives as scheduled and arranged. You will also notice that if the children in the family seem disturbed, depressed, emotional or withdrawn, footage of such an episode in a child's life is deliberately excluded.

So, in REALITY, the viewer is never going to see the truth of the results and effects of POLYGAMY.

What exactly is reality about that?

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=12603468&nid=148

And it also seems that the leading law enforcement official in the state of Utah has conspired to assist this group to commit the crime of Bigamy.

Gee, again I smell a RICCO that the feds will just ignore....I can hear the snoring sounds from their direction right now.

"This is the only law we break."

Oh boy! Can I pick one, just one felony I can do, too?

Liars! Who Knew?

2010-10-02T09:08:00.002-05:00

For anyone who thinks that the Brown "family" was shocked by the launch of a bigamy investigation, as you can see here, they have yanked your chain. One year ago, Christine Brown revealed her political agenda and it did indeed include putting her "family" at risk for prosecution.

Way to go main stream media. Let's not even bother with some simple due diligence. I notice that even Ben Winslow failed to point this out, and it was his story.

9/28/2010 8:52 AM PDT by TMZ Staff

http://www.tmz.com/2010/09/28/sister-wives-polygamous-reality-show-lehi-tlc-utah-statement-mormon-kody-brown-family/
...
"TMZ just received a statement from the Brown family -- saying, "We are disappointed in the announcement of an investigation, but when we decided to do this show, we knew there would be risks."

ONE YEAR AGO:

Ben Winslow FOX 13 News Reporter 9:39 PM MDT, September 27, 2009
http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-polygamists-seek-decriminalization,0,919279.story

"Because of that, we're stuck," said Brown.

"So you want to be charged, in a way?" she was asked by Fox 13's Ben Winslow.

"Bring it on," Brown replied. "Kind of. We need a test case. We need it decriminalized. People need to see that there are families out there that would be a good representation of the plural communities and we just live our lives like everybody else and that's the only law we break."

The 19th Wife

2010-09-05T12:25:00.003-05:00

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/the-19th-wife

Here is a link to a made for TV movie, which will premier on the Lifetime Network on September 13th.

I am pasting in an interesting review of the book, on which the movie is based below. The author of the short review wishes to remain anonymous, so the only edits to the comments were those designed to maintain anonymity as requested.

"It was decent, but patchy, and I thought at the time it would make a better movie than book. But it got me to read the biography of the book Ebershoff used as a motif, which was the real autobiography of Ann Eliza Young. This was a famous book in the 19th century; she lectured all over the country on the ills of polygamy, was instrumental in the Federal ban with her testimony to Congress, and then faded into obscurity. Some say she's buried in Rochester, which would be fitting since those other fighters for liberty--Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass--are resting there as well.

You can read Ann Eliza Young's book online, here: http://www.facebook.com/l/3f4ce;www.archive.org/details/wifenoorstoryofl00youniala

Anyone who is openminded about polygamy after finishing her book is insane.

If it's true to the book it will be highly critical of fundy polygamy. I heard Ebershoff speak and he said he'd interviewed a lot of refugees from the FLDS, including (I think) Flora Jessop.

Ebershoff is one of those rare New York liberals who get it right--he doesn't fall for the idea that the FLDS' problems are "freedom of religion" questions.

Also, it was all a little too symmetrical for my taste--no loose ends.

But the way he ended the novel was very good, and he really captures the terror felt by those women and their children."

Many Griefs Observed

2010-08-30T01:21:00.007-05:00

Almost fourteen years ago I stood beside a big black hole in the ground and watched them put the only son I will ever have into it. In a moment like that, what happens when you look up to Heaven? C.S. Lewis said it best, " There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero."

To effectively describe the hole of grief that the mother of a suddenly and senselessly dead child falls into is not impossible. I could describe it for you but it would break your heart. I called it my own personal Holocaust.

The day after I came back home from Texas, and left my son in that hole, when I woke up and went into the bathroom I was confronted with someone I did not know. My hair had turned snow white, overnight. I was 32. That was the last day anyone ever saw my hair again. I sat on the floor of my bathroom in Charleston, Tennessee and proceeded to tear, rip, pull, shave and cut my head until it was gone for good. Gone. When the frenzy, the self attack was over I simply sat there for hours on the floor, keening. And then I spent countless days on the floor of that bathroom after that doing the same. I'm glad I didn't count them.

There is no bottom. People think there is a bottom but there is no such thing. Some people kill themselves rather than continuing to fall deeper in to the indescribable blackness. I understand why.

There is a pain scale doctors use and a pain scale mental health professionals use. The research indicates that the deepest mental suffering caused by grief is withstood, or not depending on their choice, by the mothers of dead children.

I have heard that the worst physical pain is bone pain. The kind of pain that would be described as "excruciating", the kind of pain that will cause a person to lose consciousness.

For a mother to lose a child, especially suddenly, unexpectedly, violently or senselessly is the mental equivalent of someone taking a chainsaw to one of your limbs. But I thought of it as "the great fire".

It took me two years before the free-fall into the blackness finally stopped. And by that time my husband had other interests and my marriage was over, too.

There is no bottom.

"There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero."

Survival meant becoming something new. I never went back to normal again. I found a new normal but I was never able to go back to being who or what I was before that day in May of 1997 when my son died.

So on November 22 2006, when I stepped into the Baby Land Cemetery in Hildale, Utah, on the same day that Warren Jeffs was having his preliminary hearing in St. George, I wasn't looking at all those dead childrens graves with any measure of lack of understanding for what each of those mothers who left her child in a hole in that junk yard cemetery might have felt.

People have asked me repeatedly why I have dug in like a tick on this whole polygamy issue. It's because I know the lie. It's because when I heard FLDS mothers were generally given 3 days to grieve a dead child, that Warren Jeffs had decreed stillborn children were not to be buried in the cemetery, because they were born without souls and did not need consecrated ground so they were disposed of like dead animals, and I saw for myself a community where 50% of the graves were those of children....well, I didn't need anyone to tell me that there was abuse in Colorado City. The graves spoke for themselves. Each and every one of them was attached, somewhere, to a mother, G-d help her.

I stood in that cemetery surrounded by blood red canyon walls with my friend, Flora, and I looked up, and around, beyond the field of holes full of children and she was right. There was no way out, nowhere to hide. There was nowhere to run.

I didn't need a PhD in psychology to know exactly what kind of carnage the polygamy in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah has produced.

I've got credentials. I am a human being. One who has walked through that fire.

Move along folks, they'll tell you there is nothing to see here, nothing wrong.

Do you really believe that?

It's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky
The universe exploded 'cause of one man's lie
Look, I gotta go, yeah I'm running outta change
There's a lot of things if I could I'd rearrange

AAAP PSA

2010-08-21T17:13:00.007-05:00

This is a new thirty second AAAP public service announcement available to radio stations anywhere in the country. You can access the audio by clicking on the following link:

Get this widget

Track details

eSnips Social DNA

Those of us concerned that there are an estimated *50,000 practicing Muslim polygamists in America, must call on "moderate American Muslims" to actively work to reform Islam in America and insist it conform with the civil protections provided to citizens by the Constitution of the United States, since that is where every American citizen is supposed to invest their fealty.

Muslim Sharia law is inconsistent with the Constitution and must not be tolerated in any form within cloistered Muslim American communities.

Holding women in concubinage is against U.S. law and may also involve human trafficking, especially from Pakistan and some African nations.

*Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90857818

Answering Muslims: Muslim Response to "Burn a Qur'an Day"

2010-08-15T21:48:00.000-05:00

Answering Muslims: Muslim Response to "Burn a Qur'an Day"

Researcher looking for interview subjects

2010-08-10T09:32:00.002-05:00

FYI for any females here who have left a polygamous relationship. I have been assured that anonymity is not only necessary for this study but guaranteed.

Transition and Identity In
Women’s Experience of Leaving
a Polygamous Relationship

Wishing to speak to women over the age of 18 who were members
of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days and
have exited a polygamous relationship two or more years ago.

I am a woman focusing graduate research on women’s experience
of leaving a polygamous relationship and the impact that this
transition and experience has had on redefining oneself.

If you are willing to share your experience and reflections in
an interview which will advance research on this topic, please
contact me at tdscovil@telusplanet.net for further information.

Terri D. Scoville PhD. Candidate
Division of Applied Psychology
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive, N.W.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
tdscovil@telusplanet.net

Like veal in pens

2010-08-01T13:04:00.009-05:00

I have nothing against veal personally. I don't care for it, so I don't eat it, however the veal calves I've met have all been happy as larks; since their entire life consisted of being constantly fed any young cow's dream diet. Miserable veal wouldn't be any good for market, so producers have motivation to take proper care of the animals.

I'm not a member or supporter of PETA, because I happen to think human life has more meaning than an animal's, which they clearly do not, "A pig is a boy is a pig" etc.

No, my mission in life is to concentrate on serving the purpose of improving human life. There are plenty of others, who also don't buy PETA's message, who do care enough about animal life to make it a mission to help protect and improve it.

I am most moved to action when I see the abuse of human beings, especially on such a large scale, like we see in the practice of polygamy.

Keeping human beings like veal in pens is wrong. That is how the women of polygamy are born and raised. When you see the Care Bear colored mothers on TV, nodding their heads and saying, "It's a wonderful life. This is our choice. Oh yes, we are very happy. It is a very pure life".

Is it now? And could we possibly have different definitions of the word "pure"?

Every woman on the YFZ Ranch knew about the child rape of a 12 year old little girl. If they didn't know when she was "married" to Warren Jeffs, all those concubines knew it afterward, when she most likely gave birth to a child, which no doubt was either taken from her at birth or at the time of the 2008 raid.

This child is now one of those "women" on the YFZ who don't believe they are abused.

This little girl thinks it is a wonderful life, her choice, she is happy...and she is pure.

You see, having a man [one you have been raised to believe is a god] in his 50's rape you on a special alter bed in your religion's temple, with the assistance of two more of his older concubines, while they tape recorded the whole episode, and later had every perverted command, and prayer and grunt transcribed on to paper as well...

This, in her world, the world of an FLDS girl child, is a pure life. Being sexually used to breed children for your religion is the epitome of purity.

Raising animals in pens for slaughter is one thing. Raising human beings in them, for the same purpose?

Nobody in Utah or Arizona seems to see any real problem with this.

I consider that a human rights problem and a feminist problem.

For if the government will continue to turn a blind eye to the illegal spread of male patriarchy, which abuses women, what world do you expect to leave for your great grand daughters?

If raising human veal is ignored....

It was tape recorded

2010-07-29T19:26:00.004-05:00

For anyone who has wondered what is going on, either with me, or with the AAAP, I thought I'd give you an update.

Last January, as I was returning from a lunch in Austin with one of my board members, I encountered a little problem. You can listen to a portion of my little problem Here.

For the blogger RIH, who only a day or so before had accused me of "always seeing the boogie man", bite me.

For anyone who doesn't already know, I've been tailed by these jerks plenty but this was the first time anyone tried to terrorize me.

Shortly after that incident I relocated to a "safe house" here in the Texas Hill Country. For any polygamous wacko reading this, if you want to come onto my property to deposit any more dead kittens or other symbols of your feelings for me, please expect to leave like hamburger in a body bag.

I've always considered it my job to help people understand the human toll the practice of polygamy takes. I'm not a lawyer, so I have no brilliant legal analysis to share with anyone. I'm not a journalist, so I don't concentrate on telling my story in objective AP format.

I am a human rights activist. It is my job to help people understand the human experience of the victims.

Right now, what I can tell you is that it has been 7 very long months of soul searching. Four or five years ago I could never understand why Flora would disappear off the radar for months at a time, never returning calls or emails. Then suddenly I would hear from her and she would say, "I had to take a break, or I would have quit completely".

I understand that better now. Much better.

Once I'd gotten over the initial shock of the event in the recording, which took several days, I became angry.

I was angry because it worked. I was very scared. I spent the entire first night outside in 20 degree weather all night in a hot tub at my friends house, because it was the only place I could be and not shake like a leaf. The first thing I said when I walked in her door was, "Please G-d, tell me there is vodka in this house."

Like I said, once the shock and fear wore off, I was mad. I was mad that these nuts were successful in scaring me. I was mad because I felt VICTIMIZED. And I really hate that. That is a terrible feeling.

Now, today, after hearing Jon Krakauer utter a stunning allegation on Anderson Cooper the other night, I'm ready to kick butt and take names again.

From the CNN transcript:

COOPER: And there's more serious charges, Jon, for Jeffs in Texas: sexual
> assault of a minor, right?
>
> KRAKAUER: Right. The one -- the one silver lining in this is if Texas -- if
> Utah decides not to retry Warren, he will be more quickly extradited to
> Texas, where he faces very serious charges, much more serious, not as an
> accomplice to rape but an actual rapist.
>
> And the evidence, in the raid of 2008, they uncovered a treasure trove of
> evidence, including a tape recording and a transcript of Warren raping a
> 12-year-old girl. Actually, she had been 11 until 24 days earlier.
>
> She had been forced to marry Jeffs. She was raped in the temple on a special
> bed. Two of Jeffs's older wives participated in the rape. It was tape
> recorded. Every grunt and perverted prayer and command to this girl.
>
> And that, and a lot of other evidence is likely to convict Warren, put him
> behind bars for life -- for four life terms, I think, to face the charges.

For all of you who think polygamy is harmless when it is practiced by consenting adults, here you go. Two adult women ASSISTED in the RAPE of a 12 year old little girl.

If I have said it once, I know I've said it a hundred times... Polygamy needs women to manipulate and control children for it to work. Without the assistance of older concubines they wouldn't be able to keep raping the children.

I'll be writing a letter to the Texas Attorney General's Office to ask, if this is true, and they do have this recording, when these two Care Bear Colored mommies will be turning prison orange, as they should.

Jeffs Begins His Fight

2010-06-24T19:57:00.002-05:00

POINT OF THE MOUNTAIN STATE PRISON, Utah (ABC 4 News) - Warren Jeffs won't be going to Texas without a fight.

In prison on Thursday, he was given a "waiver of extradition" which he refused to sign. That means he will have a hearing on extradition before a Utah judge in the next 30 days.
For the rest of the story click here: http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc/story/Polygamist-leader-Warren-Jeffs-fighting/9Lnu_v2gjE6uA6A8kuthXw.cspx

I just don't see "Mistaken identity" as a defense that will hold up for Warren to avoid being brought back to Texas in shackles.

Where are the Feds?

2010-06-24T18:22:00.001-05:00

Colorado City couple allege power company practices reglious discrimination

by Jennifer Thomas

azfamily.com

Posted on June 24, 2010 at 1:51 PM

Updated today at 1:56 PM

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. -- 3TV's Mike Watkiss has learned that a federal civil rights lawsuit is about to be filed alleging housing discrimination against the twin communities of Hilldale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and the area's water and power company.

The rest of the story here: http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/Colorado-City-couple-allege-power-company-practices-reglious-discrimination-97101689.html