M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
Participating in the
Public Forum: Why Today's Polygamists Must Be Prosecuted
by Camille
S. Williams
Tom Green's polygamy trial was front-page news, with national and international media picking up the story, but his trial for child rape garnered relatively little coverage, even from the local media. On August 27 Green was sentenced to five years to life in prison and may undergo psychological treatment to address his pattern of sexual relationships with girls between the ages of 13 and 15. Green's sentence disappointed prosecutors, who asserted that while most in Utah will protect their own young daughters from sexual predators like Green, there is little political will to protect girls trapped into polygamous, and too frequently incestuous, marriages.
Tom Green and polygamy are embarrassments to Utahns and a far cry from the practice of plural marriage in the nineteenth century.
The system of plural marriage in the Utah Territory gave every woman who wanted to marry the opportunity to do so; it fostered a more equal distribution of wealth; it provided financial aid to poor women who married wealthier men, and made divorce accessible, particularly to women in unhappy plural marriages.(1) One demographic study may indicate that unlike the increased fertility of polygamous wives today, nineteenth century plural wives had fewer children than their monogamous sisters,(2) thus reducing their lifetime risk of death in childbirth.(3) In the subsistence agrarian economy of early Utah, with immigrants flooding in, polygamy was one way of absorbing and supporting significant numbers of women who had no extended family to help them through very lean times.
But whatever the virtues of the now-defunct plural marriage system, patterns of exploitive or even criminal acts distinguish polygamy today from the plural marriage of the nineteenth century. Today's polygamists who abuse children, who limit children and women's access to education and employment, and who defraud individuals or the welfare system should be tried for their crimes.(4)
Plural marriage was between consenting, unrelated adults; today's polygamy includes patterns of incest and child sexual abuse, along with physical and emotional abuse. Clearly, charges and convictions against independent polygamist Tom Green, and the rash of charges and convictions against leaders of the Kingston group suggest that some polygamists establish incestuous relationships,(5) and are sexually involved with girls as young as 12 or 13 years of age, and with their own nieces or step-daughters.(6) In some instances, boys and young men are molested by their mothers.
Several teenage girls, and at least one teenage boy have run away from the current polygamous practice in which young girls are married to older uncles or half-brothers, and in which young men claim they are required to provide unpaid labor for family businesses which are estimated to bring in millions of dollars a year.(7) Recalcitrant adolescent males may be isolated to induce their "repentance" and their cooperation in the family business. In some contemporary polygamous groups, male leaders may "adopt" adult males, giving the "adoptive father" sexual access to the wife or wives of the man he "adopts."(8)
Plural marriage was an economic boon; but today's polygamy is an economic bust for women and children. In earlier times, with men, women, and children contributed labor to the farm and household economy, so polygamy provided additional helping hands. Today, supporting several wives and numerous children to the age of majority is a financial handicap, if not an impossibility. Women involved in contemporary polygamy disagree about whether polygamy helps or hurts families. Some, such as attorney Elizabeth Joseph, claim that consensual polygamy among adults benefits women who want both a career and children, since sister wives can handle home and children while wives who want to work outside the home.
The women who fled polygamous marriages to form Tapestry against Polygamy, however, view the current practice as breeding domestic violence, incest, ignorance, and poverty for women.(9) One reason may be that the checks and balances on individuals present in the plural marriage system are absent in polygamy today. A century ago, one of the results of plural marriage was economic support for women, since back then, polygamists had to have the economic resources to support another wife, and some requests(10) for another marriage were denied on the basis that the man needed to take better care of the one wife he had. Both men and women could freely refuse marriage, or could divorce without fear of physical violence or loss of their children or their property. Dissenters from today's polygamous enclaves tell stories to the contrary.(11) Some fear for their lives even after leaving a polygamous cult.
Certainly what we know of secretive polygamous groups is worrisome: in contrast to a territorial culture which acknowledged and supported polygamy, today's polygamists keep their wives and children apart from the larger society. Girls lose the opportunity for education, and may be beaten for refusing marriage. Polygamy formerly allowed women to participate socially as wives and mothers, but now those wives and mothers remain part of an underground subculture which appears to run in part at least on coercion and violence.
Plural marriage redistributed property from richer men to poorer women; many of today's polygamists rely on the welfare system and on the property of converts entering their organization. Today men such as Green are relatively unrestrained in contracting new sexual relationships or "marriages," and are supported by their wives, their children, and by welfare. Entire cities, such as Colorado/Hildale have disproportionately drawn on welfare dollars to support their lifestyle. Tom Green's family received welfare benefits because Green wasn't supporting his children. An additional irksome note for Utahns: the State of Utah may pay for the attorneys appointed to represent teens who have tried to run away from polygamy, because their mothers are impoverished, and their polygamist fathers are sometimes not legally acknowledged.
Disaffected converts have sued polygamist leaders in both Hildale and Manti, alleging that their property was taken through false promises, deceit, or wrongful eviction. In some cases, it is unclear whether the property is recoverable if the polygamists used it for their own purposes.(12)
Contrasting social and legal climates. Editorial pages carry letters about leaving the polygamists alone because they harm no one. Unlike the last century, where the social and legal climate punished adults for flouting Victorian mores, today most people are uninterested in punishing consenting adults, but want intervention to protect children.(13) But the state, after the difficulties of the Short Creek(14) raids, and the Singer(15) stand-off, wants to be sure that children are truly being harmed before removing them from the care of their parents. And it appears that genuine harm to children exists today. It is difficult to investigate and prosecute crimes committed in secret societies where even children are afraid to cooperate, and where children and wives may be moved from one state to another to evade investigators.(16)
Douglas F. White, attorney for Tapestry against Polygamy, calls today's polygamous child "marriages" akin to human sacrifice,
". . . when a 40-year-old polygamist pretends to marry a 13-year-old virgin in a religious ceremony with the intent [of] having sex with her and producing 7 to 10 children by her by the time she is 30 years old[.] This same girl will be involuntarily taken out of public school in the eighth grade, if she has been allowed to attend school at all, never to return. This child's children will be born without medical care. This child at age 30 will have no birth certificate, no education, no job except what the polygamist's business gives her, no money, no retirement, no social security, no medical coverage for her or her children, no community involvement, no respect, no self-esteem . . . no real life. Dead at age 13. A human sacrifice in every sense of the word."(17)
Plural marriage was for a time a way to improve the lot of women and children. Certainly it was not an easy task for our forebears, but they weathered it successfully for the sake of the kingdom and their own testimonies.(18) For many advocates today, the focus seems to be on adult freedom of association and sexual union. In addition to fundamentalist polygamists, today an array of "Biblical" or "Christian" polygamists, and gay activists all seek to change the scope of marriage to accommodate their specific practices. Some legal analysts suggest that the ACLU has been involved in defending polygamy as a step toward legalizing same-sex marriage. David O. Leavitt, Juab County attorney, and the man who prosecuted the case against Green, notes with irony that the Reynolds case may have brought plural marriage to an end in the last century, but it may end up preventing same-sex marriage in this century.
Whether today's polygamists are deceived or deceiving, or both, it appears that their practices don't protect women in the ways plural marriage did, and that their women and children are suffering. Utah prosecutors want to go after those who are exploiting young girls, and if the Green case is an example, there seems to be a genuine concern for the women and children involved. Leavitt has assisted the Green wives and their children find the social agencies who could help them move from the west desert to the Wasatch Front, where their opportunities for education and work are better. One wife has moved away from her sister wives and is supporting herself and her children.(19)
Jacob, a Book of Mormon prophet, observed that those who seek to justify their sexual sins by pointing to David and Solomon are disobedient to God. Some contend that because the Lord hasn't commanded the practice of polygamy in our day, the wives and children of these men will experience only sorrow and mourning from their husbands' wickedness and abominations.(20) Certainly that will remain their lot if people in the mainstream ignore the plight of polygamous wives and their children. Today's polygamists should be prosecuted when engaging in welfare fraud, child rape, incest, and bigamy.
No, indeed, this is not your great-grandfather's polygamy.
1. Kathryn M. Daynes' More Wives than One: The Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press (2001), p. 14. Daynes' study is of marriage in Manti, Utah, but she reviews and incorporates or refutes prior scholarly works on Mormon polygamy.
2. That is my interpretation of some of the demographic data in Phillip R. Kunz, "One Wife, or Several? A Comparative Study of Late Nineteenth-Century Marriage in Utah." In The Mormon People: Their Character and Traditions, edited by Thomas G. Alexander, 53-73. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1980.
3. The risk of dying in childbirth was about 1 in 3 until the advent of antibiotics and sterile obstetric practice.
4. See the commentary of Edwin B. Firmage, "Attempts to Use Law to Eradicate Polygamy are Brutal, Ineffective," The Salt Lake Tribune, August 27, 2000. Firmage, a University of Utah law professor, argues that the use of the criminal law should be to stop spouse abuse, child abuse, and incest, just a s we should prosecute the unmarried or monogamous who commit those crimes, but that prosecution of polygamy itself will simply drive those crimes further underground.
5. In the nineteenth century marriage between uncle and niece was legal, though apparently rare among LDS plural marriages; only a handful of states consider the practice legal today. Marriage of half siblings was and is typically prohibited.
6. Tom Green is charged with sexual intercourse with a child under the age of consent, which was 14 years at the time the crime took place. The victim in the rape case is Linda Green, his current first wife. LeeAnn, who is wife number 3 currently, as a young girl ran away from home to avoid marriage to Tom (her mother, June Johnson, was married to Tom for a time). The crimes against her were never brought against Tom for some reason and the statute of limitations prevents prosecution now.
A year long investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune found numerous incestuous relationships in the Kingston group:
-- John Daniel Kingston and his wife, Susan Nelson -- the parents of the
girl who testified against David Kingston (charged with incest and sexual abuse of a minor) -- are half-brother and sister and the parents of 10 children.
-- David Kingston is married to at least two other of his nieces.
-- Clan lawyer, Carl Kingston, supposedly performed a ceremony marrying his minor daughter to David Kingston as his third wife; Kingston Church president Paul Kingston is married to his half-sister as well as several other women. Both are attorneys who have sworn to uphold the Utah Constitution, which prohibits polygamy.
-- Former auditor for the Utah State Auditor, Jason Kingston, and his niece Rosalind are married, according to their marriage certificate.
-- Jesse and Janice Vesta Johnson also are half-sister and brother, according to their marriage certificate and court documents. From "Polygamy May Bring New Prosecutions," Stephen Hunt, The Salt Lake Tribune, reproduced at http://www.polygamyinfo.com/plymedia%2099%20103%20trib.htm.
7. See Tim Gurrister, "Boy May Eventually be Returned to His Family If Certain Conditions Met," Ogden Standard Examiner, November 27, 2001, at http://polygamyinfo.com/plymedia%2001%20167stanx.htm., and Tim Gurrister, "Kingston Custody Battle Paid for by Taxpayers," http://www.polygamyinfo.com/plyinfo.com/plymedia%2001%20166stanx.htm; Brooke Adams, "Kingston Inc.: Polygamy's Entrepreneurial Empire, A Company, a Clan, a Corp. with a Plan," Salt Lake Observer, Smart Local News ©) 1998 Silver King News Corp., August 14-27, 1998.
8. Conversation with Juab County Attorney David Leavitt, March 25, 2002, in Provo, Utah.
9. See Tapestry Against Polygamy's website statement to the media: Dear Media Friends:
Welcome to Utah: Home to the Polygamists
More than 100,000 people practice polygamy in the United States but it is particularly concentrated in the western states, especially Utah, where this illegal practice is increasing each day.
In the Spring of 1998 TAP brought worldwide attention to the horrific abuses that occur within these secret polygamous societies such as incest, statutory rape, underage marriage, welfare fraud, tax evasion, lack of education, trafficking of minors across boarders for the purpose of sex, medical neglect, and extreme forms of domestic abuse & mental torture.
The Mormon fundamentalist tradition has been interwoven into Utah's culture for so long that today it is being protected by the ACLU, local NOW, and much of the state of Utah as a religious freedom without any regard for the polygamous women and children whose human rights are being violated. Today Utah's state government still refuses to take any preventative or pro-active measures to rid Utah of polygamy.
As a State and as a Nation, we must not forget the tens of thousands of polygamous children and adults who are being coerced into this Taliban
way of life. At http://www.polygamy.org/media.shtml.
See also the contentions of polygamy critics such as Vicky Prunty, "Anti-Polygamy Group angry about Abuse Bill's Failure, Deseret News, January 29, 2000, after the failure of "HB62, Tapestry leaders are now getting behind SB8, sponsored by [Sen. Ron] Allen, which would allocate $500,000 to be used in prosecuting crimes within polygamist communities, including welfare
fraud, tax fraud, forced marriages and child abuse. The bill also seeks to establish a telephone hot line to help members of the mostly isolated communities."Also, see the observations of a state domestic violence investigator, Greg Burton, "Society's Lures: Is Polygamous Sect Circling The Wagons?" The Salt Lake Tribune, August 3, 2000; Peggy Fletcher Stack, "Coalition to Battle Polygamy: Human rights group targets abuse against women and children, The Salt Lake Tribune, Thursday, February 14, 2002.
10. LDS plural marriage of the nineteenth century required the consent not only of the first wife, but also the man's bishop, stake president, and the President of the Church. Daynes, at 194.
11. Not to be ignored is the violence among rival polygamists groups today, some of which follow the notion of "blood atonement," their style. See the contentions in http://www.exmormon.org/violence.htm.
12. See, for example, Associated Press, "Jury awards $290,000 in Religious Fraud Case," January 30, 2002, at www.childpro.org/news/juryawards.htm; Hilary Groutage Smith, "Couple Fight Eviction by Religious Group,"The Salt Lake Tribune, Aug. 23, 2000
13. The age of consent was lower, 12 for girls and 14 for boys, but it appears that most brides were 16 years old or older. See Daynes' discussion at pp. 68ff.
14. See Martha Sonntag Bradley, Kidnapped from that Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993 (paperback, 1996).
15. For information about John Singer, see Allen Kent Powell's entry for Singer in the Utah History Encyclopedia, originally published by the University of Utah, at http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/s/SINGER%2CJOHN.html.
16. See Greg Burton, "Polygamists Claim Partial Victory: Panel softens bill aimed at protecting girls from abuse and coercion into early Marriages,"The Salt Lake Tribune, February 17, 2001;
Greg Burton, "Polygamists Pull Kids From School," The Salt Lake Tribune, August 2, 2000.
17. Douglas F. White, The Salt Lake Tribune, May 7, 2000.
18. For a discussion of the relative success of polygamous families, see Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987, esp. pp. 187ff.
19. LeeAnn Beagley, now an adult, may have achieved the separation from Green that she could not manage as a young girl.
20. Jacob 2:23-31.
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