VOLUME 2 |NUMBER 1 |2011 15 14 ICSA TODAY
Special Report: Polygamy News
Keith Dutson, Jr., 25, a member of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), was found
guilty in early November of sexual
assault associated with his marriage in
a church ceremony to a 15-year-old
FLDS girl in 2005. Prosecution evi-
dence included DNA reports, church
documents, and personal letters. The
defense argued: “This is about his
belief that [the alleged victim] is his
wife.”During the trial, ex-FLDS mem-
ber Rebecca Musser, testifying as to
the authenticity of written evidence
from FLDS files, stressed the impor-
tance of record keeping among
church members. “If it wasn’t recorded,
it didn’t happen. If it didn’t happen,
you couldn’t gain your salvation.”(San
Angelo Standard-Times, 11/1 &2/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The Chief Justice of the British Colum-
bia Supreme Court has begun to hear
the case involving members of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) that will
determine the constitutionality of
Canada’s anti-polygamy law. It is the
first time in Canada that such a case
will be heard in the form of a trial
with witnesses. The attorney general
will not take on the civil liberties
implications of the law, but argue,
rather, that the statute is necessary
because polygamy harms not only
the people who practice it, but socie-
ty as a whole. The AG says that while
the B.C. Civil Liberties Union will pres-
ent an amicus brief presenting the
civil liberties position, its argument is
“unsustainable” in light of the evi-
dence that polygamy’s harms go
beyond the sexualization of children
and estrangement of boys and men
from polygamous communities. He
maintains that polygamy is also an
affront to equity and women’s equali-
ty, and even antithetical to democra-
cy itself. If the government cannot
prove that there is a reasonable
apprehension of harm in polygamy,
then the chief justice must rule that
the law is an unjustifiable breach of
constitutionally guaranteed religious
freedom, as well as of freedom of
expression and association.”
(Vancouver Sun, 11/23/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Testifying via affidavit in the case, a
wife from the polygamous communi-
ty of Bountiful praised the controver-
sial institution, saying: “I believe my
marriage was a match made in heav-
en,” and that she is “privileged to have
four sweet and loving sister wives to
live with. Getting along with them
and learning to love them is a chal-
lenge I enjoy. By saying a challenge, I
mean it is a challenge for me to see if
I can, no matter what others do
around me, maintain a kind and
peaceful nature all the time.” Having
attended a campus of the College of
the Rockies, near her home, she
believes that it’s “a wild and unstable
world. Out there, people were behav-
ing in ways that are not in accord with
my beliefs fighting, impatient, yelling,
dating and breaking up, drinking,
using foul language, making rude
comments. ..Oh, I would sing and
dance with rejoicing if celestial mar-
riage was no longer considered crimi-
nal.” By contrast, former FLDS follower
Suzie Barlow, who at 16 became the
second wife of a 51-year-old to whom
she was assigned—he already had 11
children, four of them older than
she—tells how her father was
removed from their home when she
was nine, apparently at the whim of
FLDS leaders, leaving behind two
wives who had borne him 22 children.
(Three years later, her mother was
devastated to learn that she was, in
turn, to become the twelfth “spiritual
wife” to an “Uncle Fred.”) Suzie says
she refused to have sex with her new
husband, but submitted after two
years, following FLDS leader Warren
Jeffs’“command.” She tells how she
was raped four times by one of her
father’s sons while on a camping trip
and that the police were not notified.
“I was told by my brothers that I don’t
deserve to see a doctor.” Due to the
workload of a young wife, she was
not able to complete ninth grade, and
eventually was moved to a “guest
house”—in another town—to be “cor-
rected.” Instead, she began to smoke
and drink. At a second guest house,
she made a friend who helped her
escape the FLDS. Four years ago, she
gained her high school general equiv-
alency degree. But, she reports, the
FLDS does not permit her to contact
her mother and siblings.
(National Post, 11/27/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Lorna Blackmore and Truman Oler,
who grew up in the Bountiful, British
Columbia, FLDS settlement, assert in
recently filed court documents that
the organization sanctions a harmful
lifestyle that gives men control over
women and forces teenagers into mar-
riage. Blackmore, now 67, and living
outside the community since 1980,
says that at age 18 she was forced to
marry a man twice her age, and Oler
reports that he was taught, when he
was a boy, that girls were like “poison
snakes,”unfit to play with or even talk
to. Oler, now 28, says he went through
a party phase after he left Bountiful,
partly because he believed his decision
to leave meant he’d go to hell anyway.
“The party phase seems pretty com-
mon for kids coming out ...because
of their new-found freedom,”he
added, but “sometimes it doesn’t work
out.” His mother, still resident in Boun-
tiful, rarely gets in touch with him, and
he’s not allowed inside her home
when he visits the community. Oler’s
and Blackmore’s statements are con-
tained in affidavits submitted to the
British Columbia Supreme Court,
which is to decide whether Canada’s
polygamy laws violate religious protec-
tions guaranteed by the nation’s Char-
ter of Rights and Freedoms. The court
has also received affidavits that sup-
port polygamy. One says: “We wish to
testify that multiple conjugal relation-
ships are a viable option in a free soci-
ety, specifically when the power of
decision-making and freedom of sexu-
al expression are evenly distributed
among the individuals involved.”
(Winnipeg Free Press, n.d.)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Frederick Jessop, bishop of the Fun-
damentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints’Yearning for Zion
Ranch, in Texas, has agreed to pay
child support of $148,000, dating to
2003, when his then wife left the sect
with their eight children. He’ll pay
$2,000 for six months and then $100
monthly thereafter to cover the delin-
quent amount, and subsequently
$2,400 per month to stay current.
(Dallas Morning News, 8/6/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In deciding that a lower court judge’s
charges to the jury were erroneous,
the Utah Supreme Court has effec-
tively ruled that the theory behind
the state’s “accessory to rape” charge
against jailed FLDS leader Warren Jeffs
is not valid. Jeffs drew the charge for
presiding over the marriage of a fol-
lower to an underage young woman
in the FLDS community. Jeff’s lawyer
had argued that “The state can say
Warren Steed Jeffs is on trial, but it’s
his ...church, his religious beliefs that
is [sic] on trial here, dressed up as a
crime called rape.” Attorney General
Shurtleff remarked: “I do recognize
and respect our judicial process and
the Supreme Court’s responsibility
not only for the victims of crimes but
for people accused of crimes. But I am
left scratching my head as to how we
can, in the executive branch of law
enforcement, go about protecting
children from the actions of religious
leaders like Warren Jeffs.” (kcsg.com,
8/25/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Former FLDS members still living in
the polygamous communities of Hill-
dale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona,
say that local police are assisting in
the FLDS campaign to “purify” the
towns by forcing out people who
have quit the church. For example,
town marshals arrested Matt and
Genevieve Hailine for trying to clean
out a shed in their backyard. The
authorities cited a restraining order
from a local justice of the peace pro-
hibiting them from an address that
does not exist—an address that
would be the back yard of their cor-
ner plot if it did exist. In another inci-
dent, authorities threw the Stubbs
family’s harvest out of a collective
granary, even though Shane Stubbs
had received permission from the
court-appointed administrator of the
lands in Hilldale and Colorado City to
store his wheat there. Stubbs also
reported that FLDS members, sup-
ported by local marshals, have torn
down fences on his land and run off
his livestock. (abc4, 7/22/10)
Polygamy advocate Anne Wilde told a
British Columbia Court, via videotape,
that residents of the polygamous
Bountiful community of the Funda-
mentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints believe they are
adhering to the word of the Mormon
prophet Joseph Smith. Mrs. Wilde,
who sketched her previous happy
polygamous life, said polygamy
should be decriminalized and that
allegations of abuse, in forced mar-
riages, for example, should be investi-
gated and prosecuted. “And certainly,”
she added, “with all the alternative
lifestyles that are out there today, this
is one that ought to be considered as
legitimate.”(Globe and Mail, 1/13/11)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Water torture is among the ways
members of the Fundamentalist
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints instill fear of authority among
babies, according to former follower
Carolyn Blackmore Jessop, testifying
in the British Columbia case being
heard by the High Courtto determine
the validity of Canada’s polygamy
law. “They spank the baby, and when
it cries,” she said, “they hold the baby
face up under the tap with running
water. When they stop crying, they
spank it again and the cycle is repeat-
ed until they are exhausted.” Jessup
said that water torture was one of the
reasons she gained sole custody of
her children when she left her hus-
band she reported that he practiced
the water training on many of his 54
children, including her own. Jessup
favors decriminalization of polygamy
if it means that abuses will be investi-
gated and prosecuted.
(Times Colonist, 1/13/11)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Centuries-old laws banning
polygamy, aimed to protect people
from the ills of multiple marriage,
aren’t Christian in origin, according to
John Witte, a professor of law at
Emory University. Testifying on behalf
of the government before the British
Columbia High Court in the case
involving members of the Fundamen-
talist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints, Witte said that “the prohi-
bitions against polygamy are both
pre-Christian and post-Christian in
their formulation. Pre-Christian, in
that we have these formulations in
Greek texts and pre-Christian Roman
law, and post-Christian, in that the
architects of modern liberalism are
making clear that if you want to
respect rights, if you want to respect
dignity, it is crucial to maintain the
institution of monogamy and prohibit
and criminalize the institution of
polygamy.”The court is also consider-
ing the argument not only that anti-
polygamy laws violate religious free-
doms, but that the law amounts to an
attempt to impose Christian practices
on the public. (Canadian Press,
1/10/11)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
A year after the breakup of Goel Rat-
zon’s polygamous cult, in Jerusalem,
the Welfare and Social Services Min-
istry is still dealing with the situation,
which involved 20 women and 40
children who continue to receive a
wide range of social services, includ-
ing constant psychological monitor-
ing, help in finding public housing
and employment, and access to legal
aid. Former members have also
received money to pay for the
removal of the cult’s signature tat-
too—a depiction of Razon himself—
inked in visible places on the bodies
of most of the women. ..Most of the
women have left the battered
women’s shelters and are in various
stages of integration into the commu-
nity, and any who need psychological
treatment continue to receive it. “The .
..affair is a clear sign that we have a
policy of zero tolerance to cults and
other groups that prey on vulnerable
women and children,” said Welfare
and Social Services Minister Isaac Her-
zog. “It also raises awareness to the
dangers of belonging to such cults.”
He said that a committee will be look-
ing into cults and their long-term
effects on members. (Jerusalem Post,
1/12/10). ■
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
ICSA_volume3_proof6 5/10/11 12:14 PM Page 16
Special Report: Polygamy News
Keith Dutson, Jr., 25, a member of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), was found
guilty in early November of sexual
assault associated with his marriage in
a church ceremony to a 15-year-old
FLDS girl in 2005. Prosecution evi-
dence included DNA reports, church
documents, and personal letters. The
defense argued: “This is about his
belief that [the alleged victim] is his
wife.”During the trial, ex-FLDS mem-
ber Rebecca Musser, testifying as to
the authenticity of written evidence
from FLDS files, stressed the impor-
tance of record keeping among
church members. “If it wasn’t recorded,
it didn’t happen. If it didn’t happen,
you couldn’t gain your salvation.”(San
Angelo Standard-Times, 11/1 &2/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The Chief Justice of the British Colum-
bia Supreme Court has begun to hear
the case involving members of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) that will
determine the constitutionality of
Canada’s anti-polygamy law. It is the
first time in Canada that such a case
will be heard in the form of a trial
with witnesses. The attorney general
will not take on the civil liberties
implications of the law, but argue,
rather, that the statute is necessary
because polygamy harms not only
the people who practice it, but socie-
ty as a whole. The AG says that while
the B.C. Civil Liberties Union will pres-
ent an amicus brief presenting the
civil liberties position, its argument is
“unsustainable” in light of the evi-
dence that polygamy’s harms go
beyond the sexualization of children
and estrangement of boys and men
from polygamous communities. He
maintains that polygamy is also an
affront to equity and women’s equali-
ty, and even antithetical to democra-
cy itself. If the government cannot
prove that there is a reasonable
apprehension of harm in polygamy,
then the chief justice must rule that
the law is an unjustifiable breach of
constitutionally guaranteed religious
freedom, as well as of freedom of
expression and association.”
(Vancouver Sun, 11/23/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Testifying via affidavit in the case, a
wife from the polygamous communi-
ty of Bountiful praised the controver-
sial institution, saying: “I believe my
marriage was a match made in heav-
en,” and that she is “privileged to have
four sweet and loving sister wives to
live with. Getting along with them
and learning to love them is a chal-
lenge I enjoy. By saying a challenge, I
mean it is a challenge for me to see if
I can, no matter what others do
around me, maintain a kind and
peaceful nature all the time.” Having
attended a campus of the College of
the Rockies, near her home, she
believes that it’s “a wild and unstable
world. Out there, people were behav-
ing in ways that are not in accord with
my beliefs fighting, impatient, yelling,
dating and breaking up, drinking,
using foul language, making rude
comments. ..Oh, I would sing and
dance with rejoicing if celestial mar-
riage was no longer considered crimi-
nal.” By contrast, former FLDS follower
Suzie Barlow, who at 16 became the
second wife of a 51-year-old to whom
she was assigned—he already had 11
children, four of them older than
she—tells how her father was
removed from their home when she
was nine, apparently at the whim of
FLDS leaders, leaving behind two
wives who had borne him 22 children.
(Three years later, her mother was
devastated to learn that she was, in
turn, to become the twelfth “spiritual
wife” to an “Uncle Fred.”) Suzie says
she refused to have sex with her new
husband, but submitted after two
years, following FLDS leader Warren
Jeffs’“command.” She tells how she
was raped four times by one of her
father’s sons while on a camping trip
and that the police were not notified.
“I was told by my brothers that I don’t
deserve to see a doctor.” Due to the
workload of a young wife, she was
not able to complete ninth grade, and
eventually was moved to a “guest
house”—in another town—to be “cor-
rected.” Instead, she began to smoke
and drink. At a second guest house,
she made a friend who helped her
escape the FLDS. Four years ago, she
gained her high school general equiv-
alency degree. But, she reports, the
FLDS does not permit her to contact
her mother and siblings.
(National Post, 11/27/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Lorna Blackmore and Truman Oler,
who grew up in the Bountiful, British
Columbia, FLDS settlement, assert in
recently filed court documents that
the organization sanctions a harmful
lifestyle that gives men control over
women and forces teenagers into mar-
riage. Blackmore, now 67, and living
outside the community since 1980,
says that at age 18 she was forced to
marry a man twice her age, and Oler
reports that he was taught, when he
was a boy, that girls were like “poison
snakes,”unfit to play with or even talk
to. Oler, now 28, says he went through
a party phase after he left Bountiful,
partly because he believed his decision
to leave meant he’d go to hell anyway.
“The party phase seems pretty com-
mon for kids coming out ...because
of their new-found freedom,”he
added, but “sometimes it doesn’t work
out.” His mother, still resident in Boun-
tiful, rarely gets in touch with him, and
he’s not allowed inside her home
when he visits the community. Oler’s
and Blackmore’s statements are con-
tained in affidavits submitted to the
British Columbia Supreme Court,
which is to decide whether Canada’s
polygamy laws violate religious protec-
tions guaranteed by the nation’s Char-
ter of Rights and Freedoms. The court
has also received affidavits that sup-
port polygamy. One says: “We wish to
testify that multiple conjugal relation-
ships are a viable option in a free soci-
ety, specifically when the power of
decision-making and freedom of sexu-
al expression are evenly distributed
among the individuals involved.”
(Winnipeg Free Press, n.d.)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Frederick Jessop, bishop of the Fun-
damentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints’Yearning for Zion
Ranch, in Texas, has agreed to pay
child support of $148,000, dating to
2003, when his then wife left the sect
with their eight children. He’ll pay
$2,000 for six months and then $100
monthly thereafter to cover the delin-
quent amount, and subsequently
$2,400 per month to stay current.
(Dallas Morning News, 8/6/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In deciding that a lower court judge’s
charges to the jury were erroneous,
the Utah Supreme Court has effec-
tively ruled that the theory behind
the state’s “accessory to rape” charge
against jailed FLDS leader Warren Jeffs
is not valid. Jeffs drew the charge for
presiding over the marriage of a fol-
lower to an underage young woman
in the FLDS community. Jeff’s lawyer
had argued that “The state can say
Warren Steed Jeffs is on trial, but it’s
his ...church, his religious beliefs that
is [sic] on trial here, dressed up as a
crime called rape.” Attorney General
Shurtleff remarked: “I do recognize
and respect our judicial process and
the Supreme Court’s responsibility
not only for the victims of crimes but
for people accused of crimes. But I am
left scratching my head as to how we
can, in the executive branch of law
enforcement, go about protecting
children from the actions of religious
leaders like Warren Jeffs.” (kcsg.com,
8/25/10)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Former FLDS members still living in
the polygamous communities of Hill-
dale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona,
say that local police are assisting in
the FLDS campaign to “purify” the
towns by forcing out people who
have quit the church. For example,
town marshals arrested Matt and
Genevieve Hailine for trying to clean
out a shed in their backyard. The
authorities cited a restraining order
from a local justice of the peace pro-
hibiting them from an address that
does not exist—an address that
would be the back yard of their cor-
ner plot if it did exist. In another inci-
dent, authorities threw the Stubbs
family’s harvest out of a collective
granary, even though Shane Stubbs
had received permission from the
court-appointed administrator of the
lands in Hilldale and Colorado City to
store his wheat there. Stubbs also
reported that FLDS members, sup-
ported by local marshals, have torn
down fences on his land and run off
his livestock. (abc4, 7/22/10)
Polygamy advocate Anne Wilde told a
British Columbia Court, via videotape,
that residents of the polygamous
Bountiful community of the Funda-
mentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints believe they are
adhering to the word of the Mormon
prophet Joseph Smith. Mrs. Wilde,
who sketched her previous happy
polygamous life, said polygamy
should be decriminalized and that
allegations of abuse, in forced mar-
riages, for example, should be investi-
gated and prosecuted. “And certainly,”
she added, “with all the alternative
lifestyles that are out there today, this
is one that ought to be considered as
legitimate.”(Globe and Mail, 1/13/11)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Water torture is among the ways
members of the Fundamentalist
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints instill fear of authority among
babies, according to former follower
Carolyn Blackmore Jessop, testifying
in the British Columbia case being
heard by the High Courtto determine
the validity of Canada’s polygamy
law. “They spank the baby, and when
it cries,” she said, “they hold the baby
face up under the tap with running
water. When they stop crying, they
spank it again and the cycle is repeat-
ed until they are exhausted.” Jessup
said that water torture was one of the
reasons she gained sole custody of
her children when she left her hus-
band she reported that he practiced
the water training on many of his 54
children, including her own. Jessup
favors decriminalization of polygamy
if it means that abuses will be investi-
gated and prosecuted.
(Times Colonist, 1/13/11)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Centuries-old laws banning
polygamy, aimed to protect people
from the ills of multiple marriage,
aren’t Christian in origin, according to
John Witte, a professor of law at
Emory University. Testifying on behalf
of the government before the British
Columbia High Court in the case
involving members of the Fundamen-
talist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints, Witte said that “the prohi-
bitions against polygamy are both
pre-Christian and post-Christian in
their formulation. Pre-Christian, in
that we have these formulations in
Greek texts and pre-Christian Roman
law, and post-Christian, in that the
architects of modern liberalism are
making clear that if you want to
respect rights, if you want to respect
dignity, it is crucial to maintain the
institution of monogamy and prohibit
and criminalize the institution of
polygamy.”The court is also consider-
ing the argument not only that anti-
polygamy laws violate religious free-
doms, but that the law amounts to an
attempt to impose Christian practices
on the public. (Canadian Press,
1/10/11)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
A year after the breakup of Goel Rat-
zon’s polygamous cult, in Jerusalem,
the Welfare and Social Services Min-
istry is still dealing with the situation,
which involved 20 women and 40
children who continue to receive a
wide range of social services, includ-
ing constant psychological monitor-
ing, help in finding public housing
and employment, and access to legal
aid. Former members have also
received money to pay for the
removal of the cult’s signature tat-
too—a depiction of Razon himself—
inked in visible places on the bodies
of most of the women. ..Most of the
women have left the battered
women’s shelters and are in various
stages of integration into the commu-
nity, and any who need psychological
treatment continue to receive it. “The .
..affair is a clear sign that we have a
policy of zero tolerance to cults and
other groups that prey on vulnerable
women and children,” said Welfare
and Social Services Minister Isaac Her-
zog. “It also raises awareness to the
dangers of belonging to such cults.”
He said that a committee will be look-
ing into cults and their long-term
effects on members. (Jerusalem Post,
1/12/10). ■
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
ICSA_volume3_proof6 5/10/11 12:14 PM Page 16
