Was it all just a big lie?

LYLE JEFFS (polygamist)

PARKER DOUGLAS

SEAN REYES (UTAH A.G.)

Rep. MIKE NOEL (Rules Chair)

Was it all just a big lie?

Lyle Jeffs, Warren’s brother and stand-in leader of the FLDS, just pleaded guilty to the crime of Food Stamp (SNAP) fraud, and will serve years of prison time.  Like his brother Warren Jeffs, Lyle is a notorious polygamist with some 60 children (children who could not have been born to just one woman).  Warren was never charged with polyga-bigamy.

Utah has a law in place (at least since 1976) making polygamous cohabitation (bigamy) a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.  Since 1976, two defendants, Thomas Green and Rodney Holm, have been convicted under the law and served time.  In 2003 (Lawrence v. Texas) the Supreme Court decriminalized all adult consensual (non-commercial) sexual cohabitation and intimacy.  

In 2013, Federal District Court Judge Clark Waddoups (in Brown v. Herbert) affirmed that polygamous cohabitation (in Utah) fell within the ambit of the Lawrence decision’s protections.  Despite the 10^th Circuit’s later overruling of Waddoups in 2016, Utah’s Attorney General, Sean Reyes, fought to protect the language of the now-reaffirmed bigamy statute by more tightly defining the elements of the crime of bigamy (falsely purporting to marry, and cohabitating).  He also convinced the Utah (2017) legislature to add an enhancement (second degree) to the crime, so that bad polygamous actors who ALSO commit abuse (upon wives or children) or tax- (or other types of financial) fraud can face up to 15 years in prison.

When asked by the Utah House Law Enforcement committee (on February 7, 2017) if, once the new statutory language were signed into law, the A.G. would proceed with immediate enforcement, the A.G.’s chief-of-staff, Parker Douglas, testified, “Yes”.  Douglas has since left his post at the Attorney General's office.

I have to wonder if during the years-long prosecution of the very-polygamous Lyle Jeffs, Utah's distinguished law enforcement community inadvertently forgot that Lyle practice(s)(d) polygamy (i.e. had/has multiple pretend wives) throughout the period of time when he appeared before Judge Ted Stewart and complied with Stewart’s order for him to be a Salt Lake County resident.

Did the A.G. overlook Jeffs’s continued bigamy, or did Reyes elect to break his promise to the Utah legislature because he is afraid of yet another polygamy law test case (see Green, Holm, Bronson,and Brown)?  

Did Representative Mike Noel and Parker Douglas argue so passionately for the preservation of the felony penalties for “good” AND “bad” polygamists out of a sincere commitment to begin prosecuting them, OR - was it because representatives of the LDS Church were breathing hotly down their necks to keep the felony penalty in place so that the Church can continue its frantic P.R. repudiation of “criminal” fundamentalist Mormon polygamists?

Hundreds of sincere plural families and their children held a protest rally in the rain at the Utah Capitol on February 10, 2017, pleading with their legislators to see through the disingenuousness of the Attorney General and his surrogates in the House.  On the last night of the session, A.G. Reyes held an urgent, dinner-time meeting with the State Senators to urge them to pass Mike Noel’s bigamy enhancement bill (HB-99).  He argued that he was pursuing a group of polygamous human traffickers, and that this amendment would give him the tools he needed to prosecute them.  At the midnight hour, the bill passed by one reluctant vote.  

Utah has tens of thousands of polygamists practicing their deeply-held religious beliefs and lifestyles in the open.  One has to wonder if A.G. Sean Reyes has simply forgotten all of his pre- and post-election promises to prosecute all (or even ONE) of them.

Was it all just a big lie?  If you are unsure, watch these brief clips from the last legislative session:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewuaMMTMg3Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLx5oE0e7Xg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMNNu5ag5gY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesOr5PO2vw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLu-5SLLFSw

Rep. Mike Noel campaigns to Sen. Kevin Van Tassell

Rep. Mike E. Noel

Sen. Kevin Van Tassell

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO UTAH STATE LEGISLATORS JUST LEAKED (out of my brain).
-----------------
HOW SAUSAGE IS MADE ................

Rep. Noel:-  Kevin, we have only four days left in the legislative session.  What are we going to do to get this anti-polygamy bill pushed through?
Sen. Van Tassell:-  Hey, Mike, I'm doing everything I can, but it's YOUR bill, and I'm getting a lot of blow-back.  Did you think this was gonna be easier than last year?
Rep. Noel:-  Look, I'm up here every day threatening the other Senators with every weapon I've got.  Don't you have some influence with leadership?
Sen. Van Tassell:- Yes, but they've got dozens of polygamists up here every day beating their doors down in opposition to this bill.  Haven't you seen the thousands of emails we're getting from polygamous families protesting the problems with HB-99?  Plus, I'm sure the Minority Caucus is voting as a bloc against it, so you're wasting your time with them.  This could come down to a very close vote.  Do you even want to risk losing on the floor?  It's out of Rules now, so do you seriously want me to run it if we don't have the votes?
Rep. Noel:-  I don't understand what your reluctance is.  Aren't you still angry about what that polygamist group did to your daughter?
Sen. Van Tassell:-  Yes, but I don't see what the connection is between her experience and what you've got in this bill.  How's this gonna help her?
Rep. Noel:-  What do you mean?
Sen. Van Tassell:-   I mean that this amendment focuses on all of the polygamists who cohabitate and say they are "married".  Doesn't that blanket all of the 30,000 or so polygamists in Utah?  How is that going to help my daughter?  Are you willing to build 30 new prisons to put them all in?  And what about all the kids left behind to burden the state with public assistance costs?  I don't think your buddy Parker has any intention of arresting even one of them.  What is Sean Reyes trying to achieve with this thing?  How come you are so driven by it?  You're like a man possessed!  Plus, you guys can't even get your story straight.  First you say it makes prosecution harder; now you say it makes prosecution easier.  Which is it?
Rep. Noel:-  Well, I've got the Church breathing down my neck.  This is my "swan song".  I'm not running again, so I feel obligated to the Church to do what it's asking me to do.  I almost got it done last year, so they are pushing hard.  They even told me to kill it if there is any hint of it being reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.
Sen. Van Tassell:-  So why are they so worked up about it?
Rep. Noel:-  They're having a public relations problem.  They're out there trying to convert people, and the first question people ask the missionaries is "how many wives do you have?".  People can't seem to draw a distinction between the damned polygamists and the TRUE church.  We need to be able to keep up the story that these polygamists are apostates and criminals, and we haven't been like them since my grandfather's time. He was a good polygamist.
Sen. Van Tassell:- Yeah, but do you think it's our role as a legislature to fix the Mormon Church's P.R. problems around the globe?  Polygamy is already a felony, isn't it?
Rep. Noel:-  Well, yeah, but Judge Waddoups struck it down because we can't go after simple cohabitation any more, so we have to change the "OR" to an "AND", and tighten up the definition so it won't be subject to a constitutional challenge.
Sen. Van Tassell:-  Mike, do you seriously think that singling out just the polygamists is going to shield this thing from a challenge?  I think Parker's game is to avoid a challenge simply by NEVER using it to go after anyone.  Look at Kody Brown!  They twisted themselves in knots trying to get out of prosecuting him.  If he had been arrested, the bigamy statute would have been overturned (along with Reynolds for that matter).  You guys are walking a very fine line here!
Rep. Noel:-  Look, the Church is very determined on this.  They told me that they didn't care how it was written, it just absolutely MUST stay a felony.  I'm just doing what I'm told, and I think the change we got from Snow gives this thing more teeth to get the real bad guys.
Sen. Van Tassell:- Yeah, but look - you've got articles now coming out in the paper pretty much saying the Church is the one pushing for the bill, and then you and Stratton get up there on the house floor with all your "apostates", and "hijack-my-religion" lingo.  How is anyone supposed to think that the Church isn't all over this and isn't trying to tell us what to do?  I don't like being bullied like this, Mike.
Rep. Noel:-  Can't you just be loyal to me and the Church?  Just having these people in Utah is offensive to you and me and our religion.  I did take a page from Diedre's book and I put safe harbor language in there, so at least now we can sell it as a gesture of compassion.
Sen. Van Tassell:- I think you're going one bridge too far.  My daughter had a really bad experience, but I don't think having a purely symbolic law in place that demonizes thousands of innocent families - but is completely unenforceable - is gonna do anything to make her life better.  In fact, it seems like it will just force the bad guys to go deeper into hiding.  Where's the compassion in that?  Who really benefits from this?
Rep. Noel:-  You're forgetting that we have a duty to uphold the constitution's Enabling Act and forbid these polygamist marriages.
Sen. Van Tassell:-  Oh, come on, Mike, you know better than that.  You heard Representative Nelson. These people don't get multiple marriages - that's precluded by 30-1-2. The constitution says nothing about plural "relationships".  Don't these people have civil rights or whatever?  You know - like freedom of association, freedom of speech, equal protection, et cetera?  Their relationships are a private lifestyle decision, and we can't go after that any more.  Wasn't Holm the last polygamy prosecution in 2001?
Rep. Noel:- Well, Parker told the Judiciary Committee that he's gonna start again once this passes.
Sen. Van Tassell:- Yeah, and you told the Judiciary Committee that there's a bunch of people sitting in prison for polygamy right now.  If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.  No, Mike, I think we should kill this bill, and if you won't kill it, then I think you should expect a bloodbath when it hits the Senate floor, AND you should think about the many unintended consequences if it does pass.  This thing is likely to turn into Utah's version of Prop 8, and you'll go down in history as the guy that got Reynolds overturned and ruined the Church's chances of escaping from past AND future polygamy.
Rep. Noel:-  Damn!  You're no help!
Sen. Van Tassell:-  Look, I've got a better idea.  Let's talk to these Church lobbyists of yours and arrange to have a round table meeting with this Joe Darger guy.  He seems to have contacts in all the fundamentalist communities.  If we get everyone to the table, we can maybe hammer out some sort of compromise.  If that can't work, then I think we see the writing on the wall.  If this is your last gasp, you may be wasting bullets. Remember Governor Pyle.
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What Are They Sniffing?

Today is January 6, 2016.  In two weeks (January 21), the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver will hear arguments in the Kody Brown polygamy case appeal.  Utah Attorney General, Sean Reyes, is following through on his promise to try to preserve Utah's ridiculous anti-bigamy statute.

Watch or read this:

http://fox13now.com/2016/01/06/utah-says-it-wouldnt-prosecute-sister-wives-for-polygamy/

I'm confused again.  Clearly one of the three-member panel of justices questioned Utah's attorneys to ask if it would be (or would have been their intention) to prosecute the Browns for their conspicuous violation of the bigamy statute.  Utah's attorneys said "No."

They coughed up the old excuse that they would not charge people for their mere practice of plural cohabitation, unless it was coupled with some other crime (ostensibly those crimes attributed to polygamist clans).  That sounds awfully selective, because I don't think they would add a bigamy charge to a drug dealer's prosecution if he had two concurrent girl friends.  I have to think that the justices are confused, too.

I can hear it now ------- ........

".......  Mr. Douglas, am I understanding correctly that the state of Utah has NO INTENTION of prosecuting polygamists like the Browns?"

"Yes, your honor."

"........  and you are asking this Court to uphold a law that Judge Waddoups overturned - a law that you virtually never intend to enforce?"

"Yes, your honor."
------------------------------------------
The other excuse the state is straining at is the "lack of standing" excuse.  It is arguing that the Browns have no business coming before the courts because they were not hurt by the bigamy statute (since they were never prosecuted).  I get it now - make a law that menaces 30,000 citizens with the threat of prosecution for their religion, then never enforce it - so that none of them can ever claim harm or standing before the courts to challenge the legitimacy of the law.

I have news for Utah.  Tom Green got five years for his polygamy, and he still lives with several wives.  Why in the Dickens did you let him out?  He is re-offending (as are the ladies).  You CAN'T let polygamists out of prison.  You have to keep them in until they die - LIFE SENTENCES !!!!

Maybe that's the TRUE reason Utah wants to refrain from prosecuting polygamists - there simply aren't enough prison cells.  Maybe there are powerful people in the Church who need polygamy to remain a crime so they can call me a sinner for emulating the Church's founders.

Here's the thing - homosexuals get to marry in all 50 states.  Back in the dark ages between 1986 and 2003 when it was a crime to be homosexual, states had a similar dilemma - how do you put 10 million gays in prison?  Silly, right?  If a pedophile molested a young boy, nobody thought of adding the charge of HOMOSEXUALITY to the pedophilia prosecution as an enhancement.

We poor polygs have inherited the curse.  We are not allowed to be.  We are not allowed to breathe, speak or think. If you are a polyg in Utah, you are a de facto felon, your thoughts are forbidden, your religion is criminal, and you have to live in the shadows and shame.

What is Utah sniffing?  What lawyer in his right mind would stand before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and beseech the justices to restore a statute that criminalizes people for their thoughts, religion, and sexual orientation/lifestyle, when the state government has repeatedly proclaimed its commitment to never enforce the law against them (except selectively)? 

Seriously folks, these public officials are in FRICKING LA-LA LAND !!!  They remind me of the goons who marched into the AUB's church meeting in 1944 and arrested two of Rulon Allred's wives for playing the piano and teaching Sunday School.  Rosa Parks highlighted the lunacy of such bigoted statutes by insisting on sitting in the forbidden part of the bus.  Is it finally our time to prove the absurdity of the persecution of our culture?

Go Jonathan !!!  Show the Court what losers, liars and fools these officials are.

It's All Silliness

Today, (once again on June 26th) the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision.  I'll ignore yesterday's ignominious decision upholding Obominacare.  Today's decision commands all fifty states to permit and acknowledge same sex marriages.

I have been enthusiastically awaiting this outcome - not only for legal and social reasons, but also from the simple standpoint of logic.

In Saudi Arabia recently, two women were jailed for violating the kingdom's ban on women driving.  Their case has now been referred to the Terrorism Court (a court that has sentenced dissenters to death).  Now, I may be wrong, but I think automobiles are a relatively modern innovation. I would imagine that before engines came along, Arabia didn't ban women from driving/riding camels.  When the government gets involved sometimes it screws things up and makes a controversy where there needn't have been one - especially when it imposes an arbitrary discrimination.

Today, as the news media recite the arguments surrounding both sides of today's 5-4 ruling permitting gay marriage licenses nationwide, I hear remarks like - "It's been that way since the founding of our nation", "Marriage has ALWAYS been between a man and a woman", "Why does the Court think it can dictate the will of the respective states?".

Virgil Cooper wrote:

The marriage license as we know it didn't come into existence until after the Civil War and didn't become standard practice in all the states until after 1900, becoming firmly established by 1920. In effect, the states or governments appropriated or usurped control of marriages in secular form and in the process declared Common Law applicable to marriages "abrogated." 

See also UCC - Uniform Commercial Code - 1950 - Approval of the Uniform Marriage License Application Act. (http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html)

Prior to the states' intervention into the civil marriage business, it was the province of the various churches to decide whom they would marry.  The fact that the states stuck to the man/woman marriage model was perhaps arbitrary, and only reinforced by a prevailing culture which until 2003 saw gays as felons.

Today's ruling gave gays nationwide something that 100 years ago they wouldn't really have needed. What makes the difference now is that since the good religious folks of our country deputized the government to guard and maintain the sanctity of the Judeo-Christian sacrament of traditional holy matrimony, the glorious prize at stake is the LICENSE - a relatively new innovation (like the automobile).

I have said it before, but the equal protection doctrine of the (fraudulent) Fourteenth Amendment makes it silly for the new, Corporate United States government to discriminate on the basis of gender when issuing a license - especially one that is essentially a BUSINESS LICENSE.  Virgil Cooper continues:

In the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a for-profit venture or profit-making venture (even though it may never actually produce a profit in operation) and as the wife goes out to the local market to purchase food stuffs and other supplies for the marriage household, she is replenishing the stocks of the business. To restate: In the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a business venture, that is, a for-profit business venture. Moreover, as children come into the marriage household, the business venture is considered to have "borne fruit."  (citing William Defuniak)

I am happy for my gay friends who can now feel like fully-fledged corporate subjects with equal privileges and immunities granted as titles of nobility in an admiralty jurisdiction.  One news anchor mused about whether we polygs will now step up and insist on equal treatment in the form of licenses for a plural family.  I don't know, I'm thinking about it.

I do think that Utah's recent appeal (to the 10th Circuit) of Judge Waddoups' decriminalization of plural cohabitation is not only littered with typos, but also now is doomed to fail.  While gays have won the right to marry, we polygs are still not permitted to exist.  How silly is that?

The Final Showdown

In one of my recent posts I erred.  I wrote that I did not think it was likely that a Circuit Court would uphold state same-sex marriage bans.  Surprise, surprise - in a two-to-one split decision, the Sixth Circuit overturned lower-court rulings (granting gay marriage) in cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.  Read this article.  This is delicious.  Now, with contrasting rulings from different Circuits, the matter must inevitably escalate to the Supreme Court.

Despite the laments of those who insist that the decision whether to allow same-sex marriages must remain with the People of the respective states, it is clear that there is a powerful Popular trend in the U.S. to let gay people marry, and the courts are rapidly getting in step behind it.

I am reminded of the bizarre Reynolds decision.  In 1879, most Americans were enthusiastic over having a federal court barge in and dictate to the little ol' territory of Utah regarding its marriage practices.  We have short memories.

Let us not forget the breathtaking ambiguity in Canada, where gay marriages have been legally solemnized since 2005, and it is a crime to be a polygamist - even an informal one.

I express my thanks again to Judge Clark Waddoups (and Justice Christine Durham) who saw through the exquisite hypocrisies of Utah's anti-bigamy statute and obliterated it even before the Supreme Court has a chance to bless universal gay marriage.

GO TED AND DAVID !!!

Can't Have It Both Ways

I was saddened by the recent attacks by Islamic extremists on innocent victims in Paris.  The immense groundswell of public indignation has been impressive.  The reaction from most who are shocked by the terrorists' brutality has been an adamant defense of free speech and the right of those satirical journalists to publish cartoons and articles, even those which could be deemed insulting to religious figures such as the prophet Mohammed.

I went to London once, and, not far from the Houses of Parliament in the island in the middle of a noisy roundabout, there were several protesters waving banners.  I learned that this was England's free speech zone - a place where people can declaim on any subject without fear of prosecution.  I found it a little odd. It made me wonder if there are certain things that you aren't allowed to say if you are in England.

Then I remembered a video I watched in 1986.  It was one of the most shocking things I had ever seen.  A middle-aged German man, a Canadian citizen, was being attacked by thugs with baseball bats as he entered a Toronto courthouse.  This situation was repeated time after time as the man went through a trial because of some pamphlets he had published.  He had challenged conventional history regarding some of the events of World War II.  Canada doesn't have free speech like we do in the U.S.  The man, Ernst Zundel, was questioning whether the "official" tally of Jewish people murdered by the Nazis - six million - was an accurate figure.  Clearly, Zundel repudiated some statistics associated with the Holocaust - an infraction that will get you prison time not only in Canada, but also in Germany and Austria.  If you are in one of those countries, don't attempt such a thing!  Keep your mouth shut.

Now, if you are in France, and you want to write or draw insulting things about Mohammed, you may risk terrorist reprisals, but you will have the endorsement of millions and the praise of dozens of world leaders.

Since the horrific events of last week, a few Islamic sympathizers have expressed support for the two gunmen who killed the journalists at Charlie Hebdo.  Those sympathizers have been charged and now face years in prison.

Here is my conclusion from all of this:-  In France, there is freedom of speech, and that freedom is carefully controlled and restricted.  If you say what the prevailing political sentiment agrees with, you are a hero, and if you say something contrasting, you will go to prison. 

You just can't have it both ways, France.  Likewise, until recently in America, if you said you had two wives, you had to go to prison.  I despise brutality and terrorism from any source.  I also despise the ideological terrorism that limits and muzzles freedom of expression anywhere in the world.

This Is It

This is it.  This is the moment (one of them, anyway) that I have been waiting for.  Today the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal from Utah (and several other states) asking it to restore bans on same sex marriage.  Read this article.  Though it came as a surprise to some, the gesture upholds the earlier decisions from several Circuit Courts, and tells the appealing states that the argument is dead.  Technically, if a different Circuit Court later rules in favor of a gay marriage ban, then the matter may have to be adjudicated by the Supremes, but that is not a likely event.

You see - Sean Reyes, Utah's Attorney General, is stuck now.  He can do nothing.  His hands (and the Church's hands) are completely tied. Those gays who have already married can move on with their lives, and, presumably, those gays who now want to marry can move ahead with their legal nuptials.

Just last week, Sean Reyes notified the 10th Circuit Court of his intention to appeal the Brown decision (of 12/13/2013) which decriminalized Utah's polygamists. Reyes wants the Court to preserve a law that makes it a crime for polygamists to exist.  In light of today's Supreme Court action, I think he is wasting his time.

I mean, since Lawrence v. Texas (June 26, 2003), gay people have been permitted to exist and breathe air outside of prisons.  They eat, sleep, drink, walk, work, drive, gather, and share intimacy all without being incarcerated.  Now, not only are they permitted to exist, but they can get married like heterosexuals have done for decades.  If gay people, (whom many Mormons despise) can now marry, why cannot polygamists now exist without the threat of being sent to prison for their criminal religious thoughts?

I have said this before, but I always salivate at the prospect of reading the pleadings conjured up by those who want to imprison polygamists while absolving adulterers and fornicators.  I say that because the arguments they contrive are so laughable and stupid:

1. Polygamists threaten the sanctity of holy matrimony in Utah.
2. Polygamists hijack the official legal marriage system.
3. Polygamists are adulterous and sinful.
4. Polygamists burden the welfare system.
5. Polygamists have retarded and substandard children.
6. Polygamists monopolize the pool of available single women.

Seriously, though, there is not one single argument in favor of criminalizing plural relationships that makes any sense when a state is not willing to incarcerate all of its fornicators. You can't not eat your cake and not eat it too. 

I can't close this post without also commenting on Canada.  British Columbia has decided now to move ahead with the prosecutions of Winston Blackmore and Jimmy Oler for polygamy.  Justice Bauman's decision to uphold Canada's anti-polygamy law seems equally laughable in a country that legalized gay marriages in 2005 and recently permitted prostitution nationwide.  Blackmore and Oler should assert that they pay their women, and that the wives are serving as prostitutes.  I only wish Lewis Carroll had been able to include this stuff in his Alice In Wonderland story - it would have made a lot of sense.

The Stuff of Movies

This is the stuff of a good John Grisham novel.  A few months ago, Sim Gill, the Salt Lake County district attorney decided to file formal charges against former Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, and disgraced (former) Attorney General, John Swallow.  The charges, both felony and misdemeanor, were for various crimes:- accepting bribes, interfering with criminal investigations, and various other acts of corruption.  For a list of the charges go to this article.

I met Bishop Swallow once.  He seemed like a nice guy.  He said he came from polygamous stock and would never intentionally harm polygamists.  I guess it doesn't matter any more.  He's likely to go to prison.

Shurtleff is another proposition.  He has always seemed to me to be a bit imperious and self-serving.  You always want to assume the best of your political representatives (unless they are Harry Reid [a relative of mine] or Nancy Pelosi).  I guess when you are an ambitious Mormon attorney and politician, it is easy to get tempted into corruption.  Shurtleff has had his share of adversity - months in an Ilizarov frame, colon cancer, heart attacks, a troubled daughter, and more.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I am wondering what the mystical meaning is in this grand story.

Shurtleff was the one who, in 2005, executed the takeover of the (FLDS's) UEP trust, handing over day-to-day control of the trust to his corrupt crony, Bruce Wisan.  Wisan has recently quit his law firm job and his role as UEP Trust fiduciary in the wake of his public shaming for getting caught with a prostitute and lying about it. 

This is the stuff of movies.  I would cast Russell Crowe and Alec Baldwin.

I think the irony of it is the hypocrisy - the fact that Shurtleff championed his holy war on the Fundamentalist Mormons (for their alleged criminality), shopping Utah's stupid anti-bigamy statute to Texas, feigning good will towards us, all the while thinking only of his own personal advancement and political career.  Now, as I predicted, Shurtleff's is the fate of Governor Pyle, only worse.  He is likely to go to prison, hopefully among the felons he put away.

One of Shurtleff's errands for the blue suits at 50 E. North Temple was to keep the polygamists under control.  Thankfully the Church has no use for him any more.

Shurtleff's and Swallow's successor, AG Sean Reyes, has a few more days left to announce whether he intends to appeal Judge Waddoups' recent final ruling in favor of the Kody Brown family and the voiding of Utah's bigamy statute's unenforceable anti-cohabitation clause.  Let's hope that Reyes has some political corruption skeletons in his closet so that he too can be shamed for making war on the saints.

The drama continues.

Hypocrite

BRUCE WISAN

So, last year Brute Wisass got caught by Taylorsville police in a motel with a prostitute.  He at first said they did not have sex.  She said they did.  He said he was just giving her financial help until she "got on her feet" - (read: "till she got up from the bed"). He admitted that he had been showering with her.

This is a former Mormon Stake President - a paragon of religious virtue and integrity.  The one hand-picked by Shurtleff to bring salvation to the FLDS.

VOMIT !!!       Here is a chunk of the police report:
 

See also this article from the Salt Lake Tribune:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home3/58242242-200/wisan-woman-officer-court.html.csp

Railway to Heaven

I have struggled for some time now over the LDS Church.  Since it is/was the primary church of the Restoration, I have some bittersweet feelings about it.  I had more of an association with it during my childhood, and it was quite different then.  I often wonder what all of its members will do when the tribulations commence, and they discover that their leaders have been quite fallible.

You often meet people who have given up on organized religion.  Often it is because the parish priest was a jerk or he molested the little girl down the street.  Sometimes it is because the church solicits money, and doesn't necessarily give much in return.  One problem with organized religion is that the organizers thereof are men, and men are often greedy, lecherous and vicious.  I met a guy once whose landlady was asked to evict him and his family by a bishop who had discovered that the guy was a polygamist.  Big corporate religions often have fangs and will brutalize anyone who stands in their way or who voices dissent.

What makes me the most nervous about the Mormon Church now is the self-preservation-at-all-costs approach.  In the early days, the Church bore revolutionary doctrines to the world.  Joseph Smith seemed to many to be a lunatic.  His polygamy must have contributed to his assassination.  He preached utopia, blood atonement, sanctification and a pre-existence.  He produced an ancient book of scripture.  He changed the world.

Nowadays the Church teaches people to build families, to be good, honest and chaste, and not to drink coffee.  It teaches people to embrace all races and creeds (except Fundamentalist Mormons).  It sends 80,000 missionaries into the world to spread the same message - a message that THIS is the church of the restoration, and that 75% of the original doctrines of that restoration were a mistake on the part of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.  Don't let that worry you - those old, obscure, mysterious doctrines were a fleeting aberration, a product of colonial times when men were barbaric.  It teaches the Taiwanese, the Argentines and the Finns to build Zion in their own homelands - to board a train that is going straight to the Celestial Kingdom.

Yes, get baptized, pay your tithing, answer the temple recommend interview questions the right way, get a mortgage and a three-bedroom, two-bath house, send your kids on missions and train them to marry only in the temple, and follow "the Prophet" at all costs and you will go directly to the Celestial Kingdom.

I read an article once that imagined the words of a Soviet-era Russian official.  He insisted that the Soviet Union erred in banishing all religions.  The Soviet Union should have welcomed the Mormon Church - after all, it taught its members to be unquestioningly obedient; to trust in the organization and not so much in God; to turn over their goods to the collective without question; to shun and tattle on defectors in their midst; to scramble for position and favor among the leading elite.  Yes, the Mormon Church fits well in a totalitarian environment.

The Church wants you to think that membership in it is a virtual guarantee of divine glory.  Jump aboard this train and you are on your way.  Stay on this railway to heaven at any cost and you will become a god, despite whatever may happen to others on the outside.  You will be given seven hot wives in the hereafter, so keep your mouth shut, pay your tithing, and comply with everything you are instructed, and all will be well in Zion.

Look out!

Slippery Slope

Sexiest Girl Alive

Who started it ???  Was it Antonin Scalia or Sick Rantorum?  Somebody started it.  Scalia told us (in Romer v. Evans) that we should harbor spiteful feelings against polygamists because they are comparable to murderers or animal abusers.  Rick Scrotorum (then Pennsylvania senator) carried on the slippery slope lament perpetuated by James Dobson in 2004 (read here).

Dobson premonished the day when, as a result of Lawrence v. Texas, "daddies" would freely molest their little girls, and men will copulate with their donkeys.  One thing would lead to another. 

This argument is at best confused.  Lawrence simply made it no longer criminal for gays to breathe and walk free.  Remember that some states (post-Bowers) required people who discovered themselves to be gay to go the police station and register themselves as sex offenders.

Remember that, until last week, Utah's polygamists were de facto felons, criminal for their mere existence.  So, if you follow the Santorum slope, we will devolve irreversibly into bEstiality (NOT BEASTiality !!) as soon as gays can wed, and polygs can avoid prison. 

What these slippery slope exponents forget is that if there truly are people out there who ardently crave sex with their donkey or pet goat, they have probably been steaming up the barn for years already, irrespective of obscure SCOTUS decisions (e.g. DOMA, Prop' 8).  Understanding this, Santorum had better join the farm vice squad and focus on rigorous enforcement of man/beast chastity.

The "slippery slope" argument appeals to the low IQ voter - the person who thinks that if a gay person gets a marriage license, his neighbors will conduct orgies in their basements, and naive Christians will start dating ewes.

The LDS Church spent millions (of its members' contributions) on preventing gay marriage licenses in Hawaii and California - - petrified of the slippery slope.  Its ensuing, ill-fated victories are now coming back to haunt the Mormons.  The Church's PR machine has the foresight of a small goldfish or Chicken Little.

Rest assured, at least 76 countries criminalize homosexuality.  In Iran, it will cost you your life.  If that feels better for you, go live there!  In Iran, prostitution is a crime, so johns "marry" the hookers for the duration of the trick, and then get a "divorce" on the way out of the brothel. Legislating morality is at best a waste of energy and at worst a political deception.

For more on the slippery mind of Santorum, read this.

Newsflashes: - the New Mexico supreme court just ruled in favor of gay marriage, and Canada just legalized prostitution nationwide.  If you want to fix a country's problems, focus on outlawing usury banking.  That way, people will be free and rich and mind their own business.

It's an IQ thing

Today, a federal district court judge struck down Utah's Amendment 3 (the one that declared nothing but a marriage between a man and a woman to be legally admissible).  Christmas came early this year for both the gays and the polygs.

This is big news.  The judge (Robert Shelby) effectively legalized gay marriages in Utah.  By now, (late evening 12/20/2013) already hundreds of gay Utahns have tied the knot (legally).  Read this Salt Lake Tribune article.

Already opponents of gay marriage have cried out in protest - many of them LDS or Christian believers who see this ruling as the virtual end of the world as we know it.  How could an activist judge trample on the state's rights like this?  Don't these judges understand that marriage has always been between "a man and a woman" and that the Bible condemns homosexuality?  Surely the courts should agree that children are best raised in a home with a mommy and a daddy?

These questions expose a deep IQ deficiency.  These people seem to have damaged brains - perhaps from sniffing too much glue or paint brush solvent.  Why are people so stupid?

Legal marriages are a modern innovation.  Religious nuptials go back as far as Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve didn't go and apply for a marriage license.  When state governments started issuing licenses to prospective spouses, they created a secular scheme of taxation and control, independent of churches.  A government marriage is no more religious than a hunting license.  You wouldn't dare deny a hunting license to a gay guy, so why would you deny him a government marriage license?  Churches can marry whom they want.  They cannot issue work visas to immigrants.  People seem utterly incapable of distinguishing between a religious rite and a government license.

I have listened to the opponents of gay marriage.  They worry that America's children won't grow up in a two-gender-parent home, and that this will ruin them.  Of all the anti-gay-marriage arguments, this one is the most compelling.  However, it is a worthless argument.  If a lesbian couple has an eight-year-old child (from one of the two women), what will be the harm to that child if the women are granted a state marriage license? NONE !!!

The trend is inexorable. The courts are acknowledging over and over that the 14th Amendment demands "equal protection" (or application) of laws for EVERYONE.  Whether or not you like what the 14th Amendment did to this country (turned it into a corporation), we are stuck with it. Gay marriage is soon to be legal nationwide.   Utah is the last place one might expect to embrace gay marriages, but that ship has now sailed.  The state's chief legal officials are appealing frantically.  The Mormon Church is apoplectic.  The sky has fallen. 

They are wasting their time.  Resisting the inevitable is stupid.  It's an IQ thing.  Some people just have really low IQs, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Perhaps if they wait a couple of months, they might just realize that nothing bad will happen.

Quitcherbitchin !!!

Wait, You Forgot Something !!

I don't know how we missed this. I mean - there's no mention of it in the Brown decision.  Everybody seems to have forgotten about it. 

A few years back, in his relentless campaign against our culture, Snortleff cooked up this cunning idea to target us further.  His battle cry was always about "the children" and the abuse he believed was rampant in our communities.  Well, he wasn't wrong about Warren Jeffs.  Warren Jeffs was having group sex with young tweens and teens. He should be killed.

Convictions of Tom Green and Rodney Holm demonstrated the State's ability to target adult polygamists, but their partners were (in some cases) minors. The "adult" bigamy statute (merely a third-degree felony) didn't give Sharkleff all the teeth he wanted.  He hit upon the idea of a "Child Bigamy" statute.  He convinced the Utah state legislature to go along with the plan.  With little resistance the bill passed, and it is now law.  Here is the language of the statute:


76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or she has a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, the actor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. 

I always had problems with this move.  The "adult" bigamy statute was broad and vague enough to ensnare any polygamist, but Sharkleff had to have more. 

The first problem is that the statute singles out a religious minority for disfavorable treatment.  Why? - because if a 20-year-old guy with a wife takes a 17-year-old as a second "wife", he will serve 15 years in prison, whereas if it's just a "girl-friend"(/adultery) situation, the law must look the other way.  What determines whether the guy walks free or does 15 years is his religion.  If he is a Fundamentalist Mormon, he's done for!

The second problem is that paragraph (b) would make me a second-degree felon if my family lived in Utah.  I "cohabit" with my kids who are minors. They live in my houses.  "Cohabit" is too vague and ill-defined.  You'd have to put half the state in prison.

The fourth problem is that, despite having opportunities to use the statute on some of Utah's truly bad polygamists, law enforcement never used it.

The fourth and BIGGEST problem is that Waddoups just struck down the "cohabits" language from Utah's (dumb) adult bigamy statute, so this one is therefore equally doomed.

Maybe it won't matter.  Maybe the voiding of one statute will result in the voiding of the other one(s) spawned by it.  We'll see.

76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or shehas a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, theactor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. - See more at: http://statutes.laws.com/utah/title-76/chapter-07/76-7-101-5#sthash.KkpWJRxE.dpuf

76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or shehas a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, theactor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. - See more at: http://statutes.laws.com/utah/title-76/chapter-07/76-7-101-5#sthash.KkpWJRxE.dpuf

76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or shehas a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, theactor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. - See more at: http://statutes.laws.com/utah/title-76/chapter-07/76-7-101-5#sthash.KkpWJRxE.dpuf

To Appeal Or Not To Appeal

Utah Governor Gary Herbert

I'm not a lawyer, though I play one in my dreams.  I'm also not a politician, so I won't be going to hell.  Nevertheless, I want to look more closely at the question of whether the future Attorney General of the pretty, great state of Utah should or will appeal the decision in Brown v. Buhman which decriminalizes my polygamous brethren in Utah.

First, an appeal would require a good attorney.  When Laura DuPaix defended the state in the Holm case, she blubberingly argued with Chief Justice Christine Durham that Rodney Holm was in fact married to Ruth Stubbs, even though there was no legal marriage in place between them.  If the state cannot find anyone smarter than her or Jerrold Jensen to plead before the 10th Circuit, it should quit while it is behind.

Secondly, an appeal would, in this case, be a bizarre legal anomaly, because the gist of it would be as follows:

 "Dear 10th Circuit justices, Judge Clark Waddoups recently decriminalized polygamy in Utah.  Utah vehemently disagrees with the ruling and wants the polyga-bigamy statute reaffirmed.  These evil, criminal polygamist outlaws must not be permitted in our State.  We have said before that we have ABSOLUTELY no intention of EVER prosecuting any of them, we just desperately want you to restore the law so that we can go back to calling them criminals and so that we can feel better." 

Thirdly, Waddoups spent many pages of his published Brown ruling demonstrating how racist and reprehensible the Reynolds decision was.  For the 10th Circuit to reverse him in Brown, it will have to come out in full support of Reynolds, an opinion which should have died 100 years ago along with Davis v. Beason (1890) ( - denied Mormons' voting rights) and Late Corp. (also 1890) - in which the court said: 

"The organization of a community for the spread and practice of polygamy is, in a measure, a return to barbarism. It is contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the western world."  [to hell with Church/State separation! {R.O.}]

Those two odious rulings faded into ignominy without ever needing to be overturned.

Fourthly, the new AG may perhaps not win on appeal.  Yesterday's evisceration of Utah's bigamy/polgamy ban, applies ONLY to Utah.  If a 10th Circuit appeal were to fail, then the decision would reach at least many of the other western states that have also somewhat half-heartedly prohibited polygamy. A subsequent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court could result in the voiding of Reynolds nationwide and the end of all anti-polygamy laws.  I wonder if the LDS Church(/Gary Herbert) really wants to take such a risk.

Fifthly, if a 10th Circuit appeal resulted in the reversal of Waddoups, Utah would find itself in the same asinine situation in which the province of British Columbia, Canada, now finds itself.  Chief Justice Robert Bauman issued hundreds of pages of contortions in his ruling that polygamy must continue to be criminalized in Canada - the main argument of which was that polygamy is "inherently" harmful - - it hurts Canadians - just like knives and automobiles do.  I semi-sincerely expected the RCMP to raid Winston Blackmore's and Jimmy Oler's homes the next day and incarcerate them.  On the contrary, the reaffirmation of the law (SB-293) has not resulted in any indictments - so the the whole thing was a joke.  I'm sure that B.C. realizes that if it goes after a polygamist, the whole appeal process will likely start all over again.  

If Utah won a reversal of Brown on appeal, it would face the same absurd dilemma.  If it were to flex the claws of the reaffirmed statute (and its anti-cohabitation prong), it would be obligated to go straightway over to Joe Darger's house in Herriman and arrest Joe, Alina, Vicki and Valerie Darger (not to mention the Brown tribe in Las Vegas).  After all, Joe has confessed numerous times to felony bigamy on television and in his book, Love Times Three.

There is the $39,000 question - would Utah still doggedly refrain from prosecuting polygamists, or would it start a new round of convictions, imprisoning ten thousand religious cohabiters?  How would that go over with the liberal public?  Is there enough prison space?  Are there enough foster families?  Or would Javert lose his bloodlust and jump off a bridge into the Seine?

If I were Jonathan Turley, I would be champing at the bit to go to Denver and take a second whack at Utah's corrupt Attorneys General before the 10th Circuit.

Again, this is an exquisite dilemma for the governor, the Church, and the next A.G.  I trust they will approach it with a minimum of wisdom, compassion and inspiration.