BLOOD ON THE SCREEN

I am so mad about this, I think my head is going to explode, and there will be blood and cerebral matter all over my 19 inch monitor.

Judge Denise Lindberg is holding a hearing this Wednesday to address the negotiations affecting the FLDS United Effort Plan trust. The trust was hijacked by the state of Utah, and this Mormon stake president guy, Bruce Wisan, has been acting as the trust's fiduciary for a couple of years.

Wisan is complaining that his (very lavish) fees have not been paid (waahh!!!), so, every now and then, he furtively sells off assets of the trust in order to pay himself. Last month, he sold off a herd of valuable heifers from the Harker farm (an FLDS asset). This dirty, reprehensible stunt has not yet been corrected.

This idiot judge, Denise Lindberg, is now saying that she is loath to give the trust back to the FLDS community (which had owned it for decades) because the FLDS church would use the trust in the "furtherance" of polygamy (which she says is a crime). Maybe I'm stupid, but, to the best of my knowledge, none of the states of America has a single statute criminalizing polygamy or plural marriages. If you try to write an anti-polygamy statute, you have to draw the distinction between those religiously-motivated individuals who have extra bed-partners for theological reasons and those who do it for recreation. No legislator can write such a statute without falling afoul of the Lukumi decision. Maybe Judge Lintbag is attempting to legislate from her bench. She should read Musser v. Utah, 333 U.S. 95, 1948, where she will learn that teaching or advocating polygamy is NOT a crime.

She says that the trust was created to "promulgate" polygamy. Does that mean that Chicago was settled in order to "promulgate" monogamy, and San Francisco was colonized to promulgate homogamy? Just because a fraction of the FLDS people may engage in the Principle of plural marriage, or because it is a deeply held belief, should they be deprived of the right to own things or establish charitable or religious trusts.

If I were a member of the FLDS Church, I would be on the steps of the Matheson Courthouse this Wednesday, and I would encourage everyone I know to be there with me too. I would wave signs that remind passersby that the "thread" by which our Constitution hangs has been snipped; that Lawrence overrules Reynolds; that people who believe in or practice plural marriage have as much right to own things as do other American citizens; and that targeting religious polygamists is a violation of the recent innovation we call "civil rights".

The core problem here is that, if one rogue, bigoted judge in Salt Lake City can dispossess an entire town of its hard-earned property, it won't be long before the rest of us will find ourselves starving and being herded into FEMA camps for re-education or disposal.

Be there or be square . . . .