Siamese Polygamy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiSuyuOOBR8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_and_Brittany_Hensel


Okay, folks - I'm going to PROVE to you why cohabitational bigamy statutes (especially in Utah) are ABSURD! I won't go into the stupidity of prohibitions against granting marriage licenses to same-gender couples when one of them is a hermaphrodite (clerk has to examine the applicant's genitalia to determine eligibility).

A set of twins - Abigail and Brittany Hensel was born in Minnesota in 1990. The girls are 18 or 19 now, and are beginning to think about marriage and children. As you can see in the photo and videos, they are two people - joined/merged from the neck down. There are two brains (no duhh !!!) two hearts, two arms and two legs. Abby controls one half of the body, Brittany controls the other half. When they walk somewhere, each has to take a turn moving a leg. They learned at an early age that this would be their best shot at successful ambulation. I remember a reporter once asking their parents if the girls would marry one guy or two. This question caught the parents entirely off guard, so in the same moment, each parent gave a different answer.

Quiz question -

1. Is it -
a) One person with two heads, or
b) Two persons with one body?

(answer not given below)

When they drive they share the steering and pedal-pushing tasks. In school, they have different competencies and interests while they, of course, sit at the same desk. There is only one vagina. If they marry one guy will it be polygyny? If they marry two guys, I guess it would be polyandry, right??

I wish like crazy they would move to Utah so we could all see how they run afoul of Utah's ridiculous bigamy statute when they go to the County Clerk's office. Maybe they would not be prosecuted, simply because they do not have a heritage of Mormon beliefs. Maybe they would not be prosecuted because of the Lawrence v. Texas decision (June 26, 2003) which asserts that no State can enact or enforce any laws criminalizing the private, intimate, sexual conduct of consenting adults. Maybe they would not be prosecuted because, finally, the tide of public (and ecclesiastical) opinion has swung in the direction of compassion and sanity when dealing with a minority burdened by an involuntary disability.

Go figure.

Renn

Warren Jeffs - Innocent?

Okay - I know this post is going to be controversial. It's okay, I've been thinking about this issue for a while, and somebody has to say it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been said before and better, but I guess it's my turn.

Warren Jeffs currently sits in prison on a charge of "accomplice to rape". The jury was, I guess, unanimous in its vote to convict. Sometimes I wonder if it was the same set of BYU jurors who voted to convict Tom Green for bigamy even though he was single and not married to anybody. I know Tom Green pretty well, and I'd have to say that he is a fascinating character - eccentric perhaps - but then so am I. I don't know him well enough to know if he has committed any sins, but, like myself, I think he must have committed some in his long life. Perhaps his worst sin was to go on TV before the 2002 Winter Olympics and embarrass the State of Utah. David Leavitt made up his mind to "get" Tom Green and bolster his own political career. Tom did a few years in prison for religious cohabitational bigamy, and now he's home with his "wives", and everybody can feel cleansed again. I think that what bugs me the most about Utah's legal contortionism is that it is so hypocritical.

In Utah, if you are unpopular or challenge the establishment, you need to be silenced or "made an example of". The charges against Tom Green were all grossly manipulated. You may not like Tom Green. Maybe you think he has a preference for "underage" girls. Nevertheless, his bigamy charge was absurd because he was single; his "criminal non-support" charge was ludicrous because he was faithfully complying with his ORS repayment plan; and, lastly, the rape-of-a-child charge was disingenuous and mean-spirited, because the girl, Linda, had been happily mothering seven of his children for 17 years, and the statute of limitations had long since run.

I closely followed Tom's trial, and I know they had to concoct the most convoluted legal reasoning to assert his guilt. The outcome was already decided, like in a rigged basketball game where a player has agreed to manipulate the result for fraudulent reasons. It may make some people happy, but it isn't right, and it makes our legal system crooked (if it isn't already).

So let's look at the Warren Jeffs prosecution. Maybe you like Warren Jeffs as much as you like Tom Green. It's all about popularity. O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife, but millions wanted him acquitted. His evident guilt was not relevant. Perhaps we should abandon the jury system in favor of an American-Idol-style voting system. Warren Jeffs is vilified as if he were the reincarnated Adolf Hitler. Why? What do we know about him beyond rumors and leaked journal entries. I'm not saying he's good or bad. I don't know, and I've seen as many of the news reports as you have. Some people despise him, while thousands who know him personally view him as a true saint. What I'm saying is that, just because he may not seem to be a sympathetic person, or is perhaps not thought of as being as good-looking as O.J. Simpson, we cannot simply assume that he is a criminal and then try to charge him with any statute we can find or bend which distantly relates to his rumored misconduct.

In the case of Elissa Wall, she clearly did not really love her partner, Allen Steed. She has a litany of impassioned resentments over her stormy and failed relationship with him. She went to the clergyman of her congregation and complained about the problems in her marriage. He counseled her to stick with it and try harder to make the marriage work. Now, I don't know if that was great advice or terrible advice. All I know is that that does not satisfy the standard of an "accomplice to rape" charge. If clergymen can be incarcerated for rape for merely encouraging their parishioners to remain in their marriages, the Constitution is finished. Granted, Elissa was coaxed into the relationship at a rather young age. She appears to have lacked the maturity to cope with the day-to-day rigors of a marriage. Perhaps the union was not a good idea. However, you and I both know that an "accomplice to rape" has to be proximally involved in the rape act - either by physically holding the victim down, or by barring the door so as to prevent his or her escape. Warren Jeffs did neither of those things. The only reason the State elected to charge Allen Steed after the Jeffs verdict was that it appeared so blatantly biased to have charged Warren as an accomplice while not addressing the purported "rapist".

State officials believed that by elevating Warren to the "most-wanted" status and mercilessly vilifying him, they could effectively turn the tide of public opinion and taint any jury pool. Polygamists are already demonized like Nazi war criminals, so why not go out and get one of the noted leaders and teach him a lesson? Well, it worked. I don't know Warren enough to know whether he would be my friend. I know some people who wish they could destroy him. However, I do know that, as a patriotic American citizen, - had I been on that jury - I would have hung that jury so fast your head would spin - not out of any special affection for Warren, but because his actions did not satisfy the definition of the crime in the statute. What baffles me is that no other person on that jury reached the same conclusion as mine. What were they sniffing?

I believe that some people have pinned their career financial and/or political aspirations on annihilating the FLDS community and its leaders - not unlike the actions of many against the Mormons in the 1880's. This is consummate hypocrisy, when no community is without failings. Kidnapping was for many years a grave offense, so I know some would ask, "Why should the masterminds of the raid on the YFZ ranch who fought so bloodthirstily long and hard to take and keep those innocent children be spared a similarly grave punishment, simply because they committed their crimes under the color of executive power?"

The Constitution requires statutes to be narrowly-tailored and not over-broad. In Utah, that guideline is worthless because, despite the narrow language of a statute, the prosecutors and a poorly educated jury will gladly change the definition of the statutory language to convict an unpopular defendant whenever it is politically expedient.

I pray that an appellate court will recognize the mob mentality manifested in the Jeffs conviction and reverse it. If he has committed other crimes, they should be addressed on their own merits and not with bigotry and religious discrimination. I fear that the day is fast approaching where Americans will be imprisoned for thought crimes (just like the content of this post).

FOR MORE - go to this LINK
http://messengerandadvocate.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/warren-jeffs-an-deserves-acquittal/

Why Reynolds is NOT good law

Okay, folks, the time has come for me to write my perspective on the (1879) Reynolds decision, and let me say that I am not a legal scholar or anything. I am just the kid at the Emperor’s New Clothes parade who wonders why the crowds are praising the Emperor’s beautiful robes, when in fact he is naked.

The Reynolds decision rendered by Chief Justice Waite was lame at best, first because there was really no thorough jurisprudential reasoning provided by the Court in support of its conclusion, and secondly because the Court simply announced, summarily, that polygamy is bad, and may therefore be burdened by the State.

It is widely known that legal scholars far and wide look somewhat dimly on the Reynolds decision, especially because it deliberately targeted the religious practice of a specific religious society, the Mormons. My frustration stems from the fact that, despite its being looked upon with moderate disdain, the legal community complacently tolerates the decision as ongoing “good law”. We are supposed to be grateful at least that the Davis v. Beason (1890) decision (forbidding Mormons to vote) has been set aside.

The general, pat, shorthand, condensed, Cliff Notes definition of the Reynolds decision turns on “belief versus practice”. It says, “You are free (under the First Amendment) to BELIEVE anything you want, you just can’t necessarily PRACTICE each and every one of those beliefs if the State decides that one (or more) of those practices is repugnant to the right-thinking folks in our society.”

I have struggled with this for a long time, because the argument offered by the proponents of Reynolds is so bewitchingly clever-sounding. Listen to it:

Governments MUST have the prerogative of proscribing certain religiously-motivated acts, or else we will become a lawless society where all kinds of crimes might be excused away under the auspices of religious sanction.

Wow! I’m convinced, aren’t you? I mean, they mention the prospect of religious congregations performing female circumcisions under the guise of a religious ritual. Who could argue that the government should not step in and prevent such atrocities? Some barbaric believers would burn widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres, and that simply cannot be countenanced, can it?

Well, if you haven’t yet figured out where I am going with this, let me elucidate further. You see, with this model of testing religious conduct, each state must surely create a tolerable/intolerable behaviors list, right? Let’s assume that sacrificing virgins on the altar falls into the “intolerable” column. Infant baptism would fit into the tolerable category, I suppose. Ritual chicken slaughter is perfectly acceptable (U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lukumi [1993]). So go ahead, start making your own list. If you live in Utah, you might go along with the Utah legislature which has long held that it is UTTERLY acceptable for men to have numerous sex-partners (either consecutively or concurrently) so long as those men are not Fundamentalist Mormons.

Bottom line – Reynolds lets the State analyze each and every religious practice and choose to criminalize those for which it can assert merely a rational basis argument for proscribing. For example, a Native American church wants to drink hallucinogenic tea in its Sabbath ceremony. The State says that hallucinogenic substances are harmful to everyone and that it ought to be able to legislate against them, be they used in a recreational or ecclesiastical setting. Religious belief cannot exempt the actors from a generally applicable law against such crimes, right?

Okay, here’s what really gets to me. Throw religion completely out of the window for a minute. Forget religious beliefs! I don’t care whether you are killing that chicken to barbecue it or to atone for your sins – it is generally understood that killing chickens shouldn’t get you five years in prison. Now, Jesse Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Hugh Hefner, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Karl Malone, Wilt Chamberlain, King David, Madonna, Britney Spears, (I could go on forever) all had multiple bed-partners, and not a single one of them spent even five minutes in prison for bigamy/polygamy/unlawful cohabitation, and I bet anyone $100.00 that not a single Utah legislator would wish it otherwise.

Forget about religion for another minute! I mean, why does the state even have to keep bringing religion into it at all? Sure, Utah’s Fundamentalist Mormons take extra “wives” primarily because, for them, it is a tenet of their religion, but you don’t hear them saying, “You can’t arrest me because I am protected by my religious beliefs.” Instead, they would say, “Why do you arrest me for bigamy when I only have one marriage license?” [see Mark Easterday, Thomas Green and Rodney Holm]. It is almost as if the State is saying, "Look, we don't care what you do in your bedroom. We'll look the other way. Sleep with two girls, sleep with your dog, for that matter! WE DON"T CARE !!!! Just don't go believing in that D&C 132 Mormon marriage stuff, or we're just gonna have to come and get you with our precious Reynolds weapon!"

Everybody knows that the Reynolds decision targeted Mormon religious polygamy and that Utah’s bigamy statute never targets anybody with only one marriage license except for Fundamentalist Mormons. The reason the Reynolds decision is stupid is that it grants the State specific license to assess the rightness of certain religious practices, in contradiction of the intent of the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”).

When Reynolds is overturned, religion can no longer be used to evaluate the merits of prosecuting someone, any more than in a post-Lawrence era can morals be used to prohibit private, intimate adult conduct. Look at the act objectively, neutrally and secularly. Did he burn his sister-in-law to death? – Yes or No? Did he cut off her genitals? – Yes or No? Did he take two women to bed? – Yes or No? Did he dust off his feet in New York? – Yes or No? Did he baptize his son? - Yes or No? Did he arrange his daughter’s marriage? - Yes or No? Did he cut off his newborn son’s foreskin? – Yes or No?

I know that the Supreme Court has gone to extra lengths in recent years to make sure that States do not impermissibly impede the sincere expression of religious beliefs (even in practice), and I contend that soon, when Texas’s recent, idiotic bigamy prosecutions result in the overturning of Reynolds, America, though bankrupt, will be a better place.

Christine Durham for President

America has gone stark raving mad! The People were asked to lend $750 billion to the banks who stole our money, so they can lend it back to us and charge us interest! This is almost as absurd as claiming that Ruth Stubbs' informal wedding was criminal because, by wearing a "white dress" for the ceremony, she was mimicking legal marriages and harming the sanctity of the holy government institution of licensed legal marriage. Perhaps we should vote Christine Durham for President, since, as evidenced by her statements below, she may be one of the few remaining sane American public servants.

Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham’s Remarks.
(from her dissent in the State v. Holm appeal decision [May 16th, 2006])

‘As interpreted by the majority, Utah Code section 76-7-101 defines “marriage” as acts undertaken for religious purposes that do not meet any other legal standard for marriage- -acts that are unlicensed, unsolemnized by any civil authority, acts that are indeed entirely outside the civil law, and unrecognized as marriage for any other purposes by the state- -and criminalizes those acts as “bigamy”. I believe that in doing so the statute oversteps lines protecting the free exercise of religion and the privacy of intimate, personal relationships between consenting adults.’ (p.48-49)

‘Because I do not agree that the state can constitutionally criminalize private, religiously-motivated consensual relationships between adults, I believe Holm’s conviction under section 76-7-101- -which does not rely on the fact that Holm’s partner in his alleged bigamy was a minor- -must be overturned, and I therefore respectfully dissent from Part I of the majority’s opinion.’ (p 49, paragraph 134)

‘I understand the declaration in section 30-1-2, that certain “marriages” are prohibited and void, to mean that any attempt by those described to enter into a legal union in fact results only in a purported marriage. The contrary reading suggested [by the majority] simply leads to the perplexing question - in what sense can the state legislature prohibit and declare void a relationship that does not claim any legal status?’ (p.53)

‘The majority’s interpretation will subject religious leaders to criminal sanction for performing religious ceremonies that are not intended by anyone involved to have significance beyond the community in which they occur. …. For example, a minister officiating in a commitment ceremony involving a same-sex couple may now be held in violation of section 30-1-15(2) (though perhaps only if at least one partner is wearing a white dress[ !!!! ]).’ (p.57)

‘It is apparent that the majority wishes to emphasize the importance of the private commitment between two partners [more so than the state marriage license] who pledge to each other lifelong love, companionship and support. The majority also alludes to the sanctification such a commitment receives when the partners participate in a religious ceremony in accord with their faith. Undoubtedly, a couple may feel it is their commitment before God that gives their relationship its legitimacy or permanence. However, it is beyond dispute that such private commitments alone, even when made before God, DO NOT CONSTITUTE ‘MARRIAGE” IN OUR STATE OR IN OUR LEGAL SYSTEM.’ [emphasis added] (p.57)

‘In my view, those who choose, for religious or other personal reasons, to refer to themselves as “married,” even though they know the law does not so regard them, are free to do so within their private sphere and cannot by that act alone fall subject to criminal penalties. Imposing criminal penalties on such a basis is equivalent to disciplining an individual who goes by the name of “Doctor W,” but who is not, in fact, a licensed physician, for violation of state licensing requirements, even though he has never professed to be a legally licensed doctor or to have the medical expertise which that status is designed to ensure.’ (p.58)

‘It is not inconceivable that the drafters [of Utah’s constitution], while conceding that polygamous unions could never receive legal recognition, believed that private polygamous practice, including cohabitation with former “wives” and their children, might continue.’ (p. 63, paragraph 153)

‘I conclude that imposing criminal penalties on Holm’s religiously motivated entry into a religious union with Ruth Stubbs is an unconstitutional burden under our constitution’s religious freedom protections.’ (p.69, paragraph 166)

‘While some in society may feel that the institution of marriage is diminished when individuals consciously choose to avoid it, it is generally understood that the state is not entitled to criminally punish its citizens for making such a choice, even if they do so with multiple partners or with partners of the same sex.” (p.75 paragraph 172)

‘I similarly conclude here that an individual is free to appropriate the terminology of marriage, a revered social and legal institution, for his own religious purposes if he does not thereby purport to have actually acquired the legal status of marriage.’ (p.75 paragraph 173)

‘The State has provided no evidence of a causal relationship or even a strong correlation between the practice of polygamy, whether religiously motivated or not, and the offenses of “incest, sexual assault, statutory rape, and failure to pay child support.”’(p.77 paragraph 175)

‘…one scholar has concluded that “criminalization of polygamy is largely a symbolic tool that seems unlikely to either provide substantial protection to victimized adult and teenage women or to enhance state oversight and regulation of fundamentalist communities.”’ (Footnote #28, p.77)

‘The State of Utah has criminal laws punishing incest, rape, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and domestic and child abuse. Any restrictions these laws place on the practice of religious polygamy are almost certainly justified. However, the broad criminalization of the religious practice itself as a means of attacking other criminal behavior is not.’ (p.79 paragraph 176)

‘…I could not uphold Holm’s bigamy conviction on the basis that the religiously motivated conduct at issue is inherently harmful to children who grow up in polygamous homes, and are thereby exposed to the “culture” of polygamy. Our previous rulings and legislative policy support this conclusion. For example, this court has previously held that those engaged in the practice of polygamy are not automatically disqualified from petitioning for adoption of a child.’ (p.80 paragraph 177)

‘…The majority concludes that the private consensual behavior of two individuals who did not claim legal recognition of their relationship somehow constitutes an abuse of the institution of marriage, thus rendering Lawrence inapplicable.’ (p.81 paragraph 180) ‘…I do not believe that the conduct at issue threatens the institution of marriage, and I therefore cannot agree that it constitutes an “abuse” of that institution. The majority fails to offer a persuasive justification for its view to the contrary.’ (p.81 paragraph 181)

‘I agree with the majority that marriage, when understood as a legal union, qualifies as “an institution the law protects.” … However, the Court’s statement in Lawrence that a state may interfere when such an institution is “abuse[d],” … together with its holding that the sodomy statute was unconstitutional, leads me to infer that, in the Court’s view, sexual acts between consenting adults and the private personal relationships within which these acts occur, do not “abuse” the institution of marriage simply because they take place outside its confines.”’ (p.82 paragraph 183)

‘In my opinion, these holdings correctly recognize that individuals in today’s society may make varied choices regarding the organization of their family and personal relationships without fearing criminal punishment.” (p.82 paragraph 183)

‘The majority does not adequately explain how the institution of marriage is abused or state support for monogamy threatened simply by an individual’s choice to participate in a religious ritual with more than one person outside the confines of legal marriage. Rather than offering such an explanation, the majority merely proclaims that “the public nature of polygamists’ attempts to extralegally redefine the acceptable parameters of a fundamental social institution like marriage is plain.” … It is far from plain to me.’ (p.83 paragraph 184)

‘I am concerned that the majority’s reasoning may give the impression that the state is free to criminalize any and all forms of personal relationships that occur outside the legal union of marriage. While under Lawrence laws criminalizing isolated acts of sodomy are void, the majority seems to suggest that the relationships within which these acts occur may still receive criminal sanction. Following such logic, nonmarital cohabitation might also be considered to fall outside the scope of federal constitutional protection. Indeed, the act of living alone and unmarried could as easily be viewed as threatening social norms.’ (p.83 paragraph 185)

‘…this individual liberty guarantee essentially draws a line around an individual’s home and family and prevents governmental interference with what happens inside, as long as it does not involve injury or coercion or some other form of harm to individuals or to society.’ (p.83 paragraph 186)

‘The Court determined [in Lawrence] that when “adults…with full and mutual consent from each other” enter into particular personal relationships with no threat of injury or coercion, a state may not criminalize the relationships themselves or the consensual intimate conduct that occurs within them.’ (p.84 paragraph 186)

‘In my view, Holm was not properly subject to prosecution under the “purports to marry” prong of section 76-7-101 because he never claimed to have entered a legally valid marriage. Moreover, I would hold Holm’s conviction under the “cohabits” prong of section 76-7-101 invalid under the religious freedom provisions of the Utah Constitution. In addition, I believe the majority has erred in suggesting that the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas … does not recognize private relationships between consenting adults as entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.’ (p.85 paragraph 188)


www.utcourts.gov/opinions/supopin/Holm051606.pdf

FAMILIES OR FELONS?

IS POLYGAMY A CRIME IN UTAH?

Do you believe that Utah’s polygamists are criminals? Let us hear from Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. In May of 2006, he said, "Polygamy is against the law. It's that simple." In an interview on the “Larry King Live” show, LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley said of polygamy, “I think I leave that entirely in the hands of the civil officers. It's a civil offense. It's in violation of the law . . . . . . . I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal.

Do you know where to find the text of a Utah statute prohibiting polygamy? – Probably not. The truth is – There is no law against polygamy in Utah. Now, it is true that there are statutes prohibiting sodomy, adultery, fornication and bigamy, but the word “polygamy” is found nowhere in Utah’s criminal codes. Polygamy is not defined as a crime in Utah’s laws, and it has been many years since any Utahn has been prosecuted for polygamy. Why, then, is there such a pervasive belief that Utah’s polygamists are criminals?

Everybody knows that it was the Mormons who brought polygamy to the Rocky Mountains. It was a fundamental tenet of Latter-day Saint theology. When the federal government decided to crack down on Mormon polygamy in the 1800’s, it was a direct attack on a purely religious practice. Little attention was directed at adulterers and fornicators. Polygamy was dubbed one of the “twin relics of barbarism”. The government confiscated Mormon Church property in order to persuade it to renounce this controversial practice.

When the Church put forth George Reynolds as a polygamy test case in the 1870’s, the argument was that polygamy was protected under the First Amendment’s “establishment” clause. The Reynolds court summarily scoffed at George Reynolds’ claims, insisting that, “Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.” This decision was an example of reprehensible bigotry, and it gave the federal and state governments unfettered power to attack almost any religious practice, even if it could not be shown to cause harm.

The reason why Utah has no law directly prohibiting plural marriages or polygamy is because there is no way to write such a statute without blatantly violating the facial neutrality guidelines invoked by the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Lukumi. It would be as flagrant as writing a law that forbids Mexicans to dance on Sundays. The sneaky way to get around this is to simply write a law that forbids all dancing on Sundays and then prosecute nobody but Mexicans for violating it. That is exactly what happens here in Utah, and it is a clear violation of operational or as-applied neutrality.

The way the legal establishment craftily targets Utah’s polygamists is by way of the bigamy statute. Nationally, bigamy statutes are designed to catch the con-man who legally marries one woman, then secretly and fraudulently obtains one or more additional marriage licenses in an effort to bilk the women out of their money and property. Polygamists do not commit such bigamy because there is no secrecy, and only the first wife has a legal marriage.

A hundred years ago, federal marshals employed numerous tactics to ensnare persistent polygamists. Laws were enacted which made it a crime to solemnize a plural marriage ceremony; to impregnate a plural wife; to spend the night in different homes on different nights of the week; to eat dinner with more than one woman, to say that you had more than one wife; and even to teach the doctrine of plural marriage. No effort was spared to twist the law to cast so broad a net that one could be imprisoned almost for believing in polygamy. In 1942, one of Rulon C. Allred’s wives was jailed for playing the piano for a Mormon fundamentalist church Sunday School class. Such violations of simple due process might cause even Stalin to shudder.

Today, the trickery continues. Utah’s bigamy statute is cleverly crafted. It says essentially two things:

You are guilty of bigamy (a felony) if you are married to one spouse and then you purport (claim) that you have a second or third.
You are guilty of bigamy if you are married to one spouse and then you “cohabit” with another person to whom you are not really “married”.

On the surface these statutes may seem innocuous and rational, but I will prove to you that they are not. First, it is absurd to prosecute someone in every case for purporting something inaccurate. Every Sunday, Latter-day Saints attend church meetings and address each other as “brother” or “sister”. More often than not, these churchgoers are not true siblings, so the claim of being brothers and sisters is inaccurate, yet I can remember no instance of a Mormon being arrested for such assertions. Now if I am married and I begin a relationship with another woman, and I decide to call her my “plural wife” (and not my “mistress”), the State of Utah will of course categorically refuse to acknowledge her as a real wife. Second marriages are automatically void and have no legal value. Nevertheless, I have now committed a felony for “purporting” that I have a second wife. This would be somewhat like my falsely claiming to have robbed a bank when, in fact, no bank was robbed, and then having the police demand that I return the money!

The second “prong” of the bigamy statute is equally absurd. First, the term “cohabit” has not been defined in Utah Code, so we are left to guess what it might mean. However, let us not split hairs. Cohabit can only mean one of two likely things. It either means “sharing the same dwelling with”, or “having sexual intercourse with”. Let us look at the first meaning. This meaning is overbroad, in that most Utah families have a married man who resides with other people to whom he is not married, namely his CHILDREN. This construction would put half of Utah in prison for bigamy. The second meaning – the sexual one – is the more likely application, would you not agree? The problem with this is plainly obvious. Mormon fundamentalist polygamists get a legal marriage license with the first “wife”. The subsequent (or “plural”) wives are only girl-friends in a strict legal sense. There may be sex acts, and children may be born, but that still does not afford the women any kind of legal spousal status. In strict legal parlance, the man’s actions constitute adultery or fornication – both misdemeanors which are NEVER prosecuted in Utah. Sadly, every year, thousands of ordinary Utah citizens commit adultery, and, in some cases, a pregnancy results. These crimes are never prosecuted because the perpetrators are not fundamentalist Mormons.

In recent years, the bigamy statute has been used to prosecute four men, all of whom were either single or were married to only one legal wife. Those men are Mark Easterday of Monroe, Steve Bronson of Hinckley, Thomas Green of Partoun, and Rodney Holm of Hildale. In some cases, girls of minor age were involved but, since at that time Utah had no “child bigamy” statute, all four men were prosecuted for “adult” bigamy. The only other bigamy case in recent history is the case of State v. Geer”. Geer was a true bigamist because he had two concurrent state marriage licenses. Without exception, Utah has only used the bigamy statute on men with one wife or no wife when those men were FUNDAMENTALIST MORMONS who believed in the Mormon doctrine of polygamy. There crime was their doctrinal beliefs.

This approach unquestionably violates the operational neutrality requirement of the Lukumi decision, and I believe it violates the First Amendment’s free speech clause. If I have a wife and I take an additional bed-partner, my guilt or innocence and the length of my prison sentence hinge on the language I use to describe the second woman. If I say, “mistress” or “girl-friend”, I am home free. If I say “plural-wife”, I will end up in prison. If it is discovered that I am a Mormon fundamentalist, then my goose is cooked. Mormon fundamentalists are about as popular as Nazi war criminals.

Even more ironic is the fact that in June of 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Lawrence v. Texas which forever changed the landscape of morality legislation. In overturning the (1986) Bowers v. Hardwick decision, the Court held that it could now no longer be said that homosexual sex was not a fundamental Constitutional liberty. Scratch your head for a minute and think back to the last case you remember where a gay person was incarcerated for homosexuality. In fact, today, Utah representative Jackie Biskupski is an openly homosexual state legislator. Now no state can enact or enforce any law prohibiting any homosexual sex act. The Lawrence Court insisted that states cannot create laws directed at specific lifestyles which are not then applied generally to all parties. It said that states must not pass morality laws designed to attack private adult conduct just because the majority finds that conduct repugnant or distasteful. All private, non-commercial, consensual adult sex acts are Constitutionally protected. This is why Bill Clinton and Hugh Hefner are not in prison. Singling out Utah’s polygamists for disfavorable treatment is inexcusable.

You may remember that Utah was refused admission to the Union until it agreed to include in its state constitution an irrevocable clause which would forever prohibit “polygamous or plural marriages”. A clause was then also inserted which forbade Utah to remove this prohibition without first getting permission from the federal government. This “irrevocable” clause is unconstitutional because it brought Utah into the Union on a lower (“unequal”) “footing” than the other states whose constitutions contained no such heavy-handed federal interference. In 1910, a Supreme Court decision, Coyle v. Smith, found such irrevocable clauses to be impermissible. Sadly, however, as long as the good people of the pretty, great State of Utah are content to leave this unconstitutional clause in their constitution, it remains in place to menace some 30,000 law-abiding fundamentalist Mormons with the stigma of criminality and the specter of prosecution.

One puzzling aspect of this situation is that the Attorney General has said that he will not prosecute consenting adult polygamists for the following three reasons:

No one will come forward to provide evidence;
Utah lacks sufficient law enforcement resources to catch all the polygamists; and
There are not enough prison spaces or foster homes for the polygamists and their children after they have been caught. (Could you ever let a polygamist out of prison?)

I think the true reason no prosecutor dares to exercise Utah’s bizarre bigamy statute against a consenting adult family is that the Attorney General knows that such a prosecution would provide the perfect test case to compel the Supreme Court to overturn the statute and the Reynolds decision. It appears that certain parties in power are anxious to maintain the status quo.

I will finish by including a statement made by the State of Utah in its Amici Curiae brief in the Lawrence v. Texas case. Joining other states’ efforts to keep already unconstitutional laws on the books, the Attorney General argued,

Even legislation that is largely symbolic and infrequently enforced (due to other salutary checks on government power like the Fourth Amendment) has significant pedagogical value. Laws teach people what they should and should not do, based on the experiences of their elders.

Might I venture to suggest that Utah’s elders include Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Heber C. Kimball, Daniel Wells and John Taylor (all of whom were revered polygamists and statesmen)?

Free Merrianne!

Okay, I’ve had just about all I can take of this stupidity from Texas CPS. Face it, folks, the YFZ raid was a horribly botched invasion almost unprecedented in U.S. history (let’s not forget the 1953 Church/State cabal-raid of Short Creek). It wasted tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and is swiftly becoming a monumental humiliation for Texas government officials at every level. If law-enforcement and lawmakers wanted to make this unusual, FLDS religious community look bad, they have virtually achieved the opposite. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed the wrongfulness of the removal of over 400 children, and made Judge Barbara Walther look foolish and out-of-control.

As of this writing, now only three of the YFZ ranch’s children remain to be non-suited. Despite the frantic gyrations of Natalie Malonis in her efforts to keep control of Teresa Jeffs, CPS has accepted the obvious truth that Teresa is as “safe” as her siblings and needs no more government supervision than any other Texas citizen. It remains to be seen which attorney took the extraordinary license of leaking details of Teresa Jeffs’ case and the associated depositions. While CPS is abandoning the vast majority of the cases, some factions are clinging desperately to the thin remnants of a bad case.

Now all eyes are turned towards Merrianne Jessop, the girl from the Warren Jeffs wedding-kiss photo. The photo may well be disallowed as evidence improperly seized, perhaps eventually making Merrianne’s case moot. Yet, while that argument drags on, Merrianne sits glumly in forced foster care awaiting a distant September trial to learn her fate. I do not pretend to understand FLDS marriage traditions. I think people should marry as adults, NOT as children. The vast majority of Americans recoiled at the sight of a 50-year-old kissing a twelve-year-old. We do not understand this culture. A Utah jury felt sufficient contempt for Warren Jeffs that it convicted him for rape as an accomplice for condoning a young monogamous teenage marriage. Jeffs is likely to spend many more years in prison.

Despite CPS’s distaste for this misunderstood culture, it has acknowledged that the YFZ families are cooperative and capable of caring for their children. After all, Texas likely has infinitely more families with greater challenges and who are more worthy of government intervention and its precious resources. So why the dogged insistence on keeping Merrianne? Merrianne’s younger siblings have been non-suited. That means that CPS has concluded that Merrianne’s parent(s) is/are cooperative and have demonstrated the ability and propensity to keep their children physically and emotionally safe. Those siblings are not married yet, but apparently CPS is confident that they are not at risk of an “early” marriage or underage sex. So, what are we to believe about Merrianne? Her alleged abuser will be safely incarcerated until she is in her twenties. If, in FLDS religious terms, Merrianne is still betrothed (or “married”), then no other honorable FLDS male will venture near her in this lifetime. If the spirit of the legal moves has been to punish her parents, then why is the punishment being inflicted upon her? Why is she in forced detention with a second Texas foster family?

In a recent DCFS custody case, a Utah woman’s ten children were forcibly removed and placed in foster care (ostensibly because their father disapproved of earrings on teen girls). The oldest son, Kevin (15), was deemed too old for a foster-care family, so Judge Andrew Valdez ordered him into a juvenile detention facility (ARTEC) where he was emotionally, physically and sexually assaulted. After several months of torment, Kevin succeeded in escaping from detention, and he vanished for several days. After his escape, Kevin wrote lengthy letters to the press and to Judge Valdez, chronicling the abuses he had suffered in government custody. Evidently acknowledging the horror of the experience, the Judge agreed to allow Kevin to return home to his family, where he was undoubtedly safer than in any other place. Later, all but two of his siblings were also returned home, and the case was closed. I mention this simply because I see parallels.

CPS/DCFS has well-worn techniques it likes to use when it becomes an adversary of your family. It makes allegations based on rumors. It elevates those rumors to the status of “evidence” (through a practice known as “courtroom demonstration”). It demands that you admit to abuse before it will agree to consider capitulating. Then, if you admit to abuse or neglect, you may not get your children back. You MUST cooperate with the “service-plan”, or you will lose your children. Not cooperating with CPS means you are a “bad” parent. That would be akin to being found guilty simply for invoking the Fifth Amendment. That whole “best-interests-of-the-child” mumbo-jumbo is just a supercilious way of saying that CPS knows better than you do what is best for your child.

So now Barbara Jessop is in the spotlight again, this time for providing her daughter Merrianne with a cell phone and encouraging her to do everything possible to convince her “captors” that she needs to go home (no duhh !!). Merrianne has experienced deep depression while in foster care. The first foster family was ashamed to go out in public with Merrianne because of her unconventional clothing.

CPS will say that Merrianne should be permanently removed, because her mother is uncooperative and disobedient. Obey CPS or you are a bad parent! Perhaps we should all turn our children over to CPS as soon as they are born, because, after all, CPS is a far wiser parent than we can ever be. What percentage of American parents would not try to get a cell-phone in the hands of their daughters after they were kidnapped (regardless of whether or not their removal was at the hands of the State)? I know I would. I know that Utah mother was overjoyed when her 15-year-old found the courage and initiative to flee his confinement – obedience to DCFS be damned! DCFS rarely even obeyed the judge’s orders.

Why can Texas not see the writing on the wall? Barbara Walther and Natalie Malonis are both risking disgrace for their hubris and abuse of power, and several shamed agency heads have already slunk off into early “retirement” following this mushrooming P.R. nightmare. Let the poor girl go home! Look at her elder sister, Betty Jessop! She is yet another young teen girl who was removed against her will from her father. She loves her family. She loves her life at the ranch. She loves her community and her religion. She loves her relatives and her ecclesiastical leaders. Upon turning 18, in the face of intense opposition, Betty moved heaven and earth to rejoin her community. Does CPS truly think it can re-program her sister, Merrianne, and forcibly separate her from her lifelong culture? What type of culture is Texas CPS offering her as an alternative, when Texas’s private foster care system has been shown to be the worst in the nation, and where a child is four times more likely to die?

Admit it Texas! You blew it! You lost! Walk away! Drop these last three cases. Leave these people alone. Stop all the hypocritical sanctimoniousness. Send Merrianne home to her loving family, and quit quibbling over a mother texting her daughter when you can’t even get your own attorneys to stop leaking confidential legal pleadings.

California Polygamist Accused of Neglecting His Young Plural Wives, Kendra and Holly

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Wives Holly and Kendra recently fled their California compound, complaining bitterly that their longtime husband, Hugh, who is grotesquely and repugnantly older than they are, refused to pay sufficient attention to them or give them offspring.

Escaping Wife - Kendra

Wife Holly (before her escape)

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This photo shows Hugh with his legal wife whom he has permitted to return to the compound, much to the chagrin of the other plural wives. Note the bizarre, almost creepy, fashion-style of the women in these photos, clearly victims of an oppressive, reclusive, patriarchal, cult lifestyle designed to reduce women to the status of sex slaves for the twisted whims of the male leader of the compound and his associates. Most of the women in the compound have been compelled to agree to having unusual hairstyles requiring harsh chemicals and large amounts of bleach. Some complain that they are denied clothing for much of the day and are only allowed to remain until their 27th birthday.
Escaping wife, Kendra, who married Hugh in an informal ceremony when she was just a young teenager, complains that Hugh forced her to perform bizarre acts with him, but then focused most of his attentions on her sister-wives, thus compelling her to seek satisfaction in the arms of other men and women. Kendra was eventually forced to escape in an old Cadillac and was rescued by relatives on the outskirts of town in the middle of the night. Kendra was unsuccessful in removing any children from the compound. It is understood that, if there were any young men in the compound, they have all been expelled. Young men are viewed as genuine competition for the domineering octogenarian who wields absolute power in the compound.

Local Hollywood law-enforcement officials have apparently turned a deaf ear to complaints from nearby local residents that loud, bizarre, drunken sex-parties and rituals often persist till late at night on the palatial compound (where new construction continues uninterrupted, as a stream of Hugh's close associates regularly descend on the compound). It has been rumored by some ex-members that there is even an underground pool/grotto, where residents are forced to engage in naked video shoots. When questioned by this reporter, the compound's leader insisted that he pays his property taxes, and he should be allowed to live his religion unmolested by monogamist busy-bodies.

One local neighbor (who insisted on anonymity) lamented, "We just don't need these kind of strange, religious filanderist [sic] cult practices in these here parts. People should be chaste, virtuous and faithful, and the Sheriff should enforce that so our town can be clean and righteous again." When questioned about the violations of the State's (ostensibly toothless) fornication, adultery, sodomy, bigamy, polygamy, homosexuality and other moral decency laws, local Sheriff, David Duran-Duran said that he has been in close contact with the Attorneys General of several western states, who have advised him to contact Texas State Representative Harvey Hilderbran who has recent experience in crafting unconstitutional, overbroad, gerrymandering legislation specifically designed to target and single out an unpopular religious minority for disfavorable treatment. Duran-Duran has also interviewed other compound escapees and exotic dancers who have now become fervent crusaders against the promiscuous lifestyle, and who will apparently stop at nothing to destroy its practitioners, including making false accusations and concocting wild fantasies to win national tabloid media attention and sell fictional books for money. Colorado resident, Rosisha Swinetown (a famous impersonator), recently made attempts to enter the compound for the purpose of making a hoax phone call to Family Intervention Police, but she was stopped at the gate and turned away since she failed to meet the strict cosmetic and racial profile exacted of all girls seeking admittance.

Federal authorities are seeking to interview Utah farmer, Wally (the thug) Jesster, who, though he has never been to (or even heard of) the compound, is assumed to be complicit and undoubtedly guilty of something in some way. Discussions with local law-enforcement representatives indicate that there is a strong willingness on the part of officials at all levels to gain entry to the compound (with or without a search warrant) and to closely examine all of the women and their effects, then remove them to a safer place where they can be re-programmed. Plans are underway to use F-16 fighter jets and attack helicopters if common sense and reasonable negotiations fail to satisfy the immense financial appetite of the Family Intervention Police, who purportedly garner $82,000 in federal funds for every blonde floozy they can rescue. Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have emphasized that they have no members who have ever engaged in these kinds of activities, and that they plan to rally all of their California and Utah members to support a Proposition to outlaw such cult compounds in California and the rest of the western world.
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FOXNews.com
Wife Kimberly Conrad Returns to Hef's Mansion


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481853,00.html

Friday , January 23, 2009
By Hollie McKay



LOS ANGELES —
Wife Kimberly Conrad Returns to Hef’s Mansion, New Girlfriend Moves Into Master Bedroom

It has been many years since Hugh Hefner’s estranged wife and 1989’s "Playmate of the Year" Kimberly Conrad stepped foot in her old stomping grounds for a party with other girlfriends around, but it seems the blonde beauty is bringing a little of her bunny-life back.

"I don't care about them (Hef’s other companions). They actually try to avoid me," she once said, adding that she only visits the Mansion for Tuesday’s "Family Night," when no other hotties are hopping around.

So, Conrad reportedly caused quite a stir of surprise when she recently showed up to one of Hef’s female-frenzied movie nights, spending the evening hanging out with a bevy of beauties and the men’s magazine mogul.

"They still have a very special connection, you can see that when Hef looks at her," a mansion insider told Tarts.

Conrad and Hefner married in 1989 and have two teenage sons together, and while they separated ten years later, the pair have never divorced, and according to our inside source, it isn’t likely that they will.

"This upset Holly (Madison) a lot, as she really did want to marry Hef and have a family with him, but she realized it was never going to happen and that’s when she left," said our source.

On that note, Holly, Bridget and Kendra have officially left the Holmby Hills residence and Hef’s new squeeze Crystal Harris has bumped the troublesome twins to take Madison’s spot as the number one girlfriend and has subsequently moved into the master bedroom.

"Everyone was quite surprised when she moved in. She’d just started coming to the Mansion for movie nights and BBQs but nothing romantic was going on then suddenly she was in," said the insider, adding that she is genuinely a very friendly and polite young lady who is very popular with all the staff and other girls.

"So far there is no jealousy between the twins and Crystal, but we’ll see how long that lasts," added the insider.
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See also this blogpost from "CRUSTY LOGIC"
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Whatever You Do, Just Don’t Get Married.
I was really struck by this article on Fox News. Before Continuing, read the article.

Now, think for a bit about Hugh Hefner’s numerous relationships, often multiple at a time. Think about the environment his children are growing up in. Of course he’s only legally married to one of these woman, Kimberly Conrad.

Now, think about FLDS families for a minute. They’re certainly far from perfect.

Which environment do you believe is healthier? For the women? The children? Society?

It’s rather fascinating to me how differently our government, society, and the news media treat these two. Sometime, compare how Fox News treats Hugh Hefner and Playboy versus the FLDS. What do you think?
Posted by Crusty at 22:27
Labels: FLDS, gay marriage, Hugh Hefner, Playboy, Polygamy, Polygyny