Canadian Court Rules That Polygamy Ban Is Constitutional By Ian Austen
OTTAWA — British Columbia’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Canada’s 121-year-old criminal law banning polygamy is constitutional.
Sister Wives fight for Polygamy
The polygamous family featured on cable television's Sister Wives plans to challenge the bigamy law that makes their lifestyle illegal.
Lawyer Jonathan Turley is expected to file the lawsuit challenging the Utah law in Salt Lake City's US District Court on Wednesday.
Turley represents Kody Brown and his four wives - Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn. Kody Brown is only legally married to Meri Brown.
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The Browns belong to Mormon fundamentalist sect the Apostolic United Brethren church, which practices polygamy as part of its faith.
The Browns and their 16 kids moved to Nevada in January after Utah authorities launched a bigamy investigation. No charges were ever filed, but on Tuesday, Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman said the investigation is ongoing.
Bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah. Under the law, a person can be guilty of bigamy simply through cohabitation, not just by having multiple legal marriage licences.
Turley said the lawsuit doesn't aim to challenge Utah's right to refuse to recognise plural marriage.
"All we're saying is that the state cannot criminalise the private relations of consenting adults," Turley told The Associated Press. "This lawsuit is less of a polygamy challenge than it is a privacy challenge."
Turley said the Browns and other polygamous families in Utah and the US should be able to enjoy the same privacy rights as other families.
"In our view, Utah's law violates those rights, from due process to equal protection, from free exercise of religion and free speech," he said.
Utah Attorney General spokesman Paul Murphy on Tuesday said the state is prepared to defend its bigamy law.
Utah has not prosecuted a polygamist for bigamy since 2003, when former police officer Rodney Holm was convicted of entering a religious marriage with a teenager when he was already married to her sister.
Holm, a member of the southern-Utah based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, argued that a ban on polygamy violated his constitutional right to practice his religion.
The Utah Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2006, although in a dissenting opinion, the state's chief justice said the state unfairly applied the law to polygamists and "oversteps the lines protecting the free exercise of religion and the privacy of intimate, personal relationships between consenting adults".
The US Supreme Court also denied an appeal from Holm in 2007. The high court banned the practice of polygamy, even in the context of religion in 1879.
Polygamy in Utah and across the Intermountain West is a legacy of the early teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons abandoned the practice of plural marriage in the 1890s as a condition of Utah's statehood.
An estimated 38,000 self-described Mormon fundamentalists continue the practice, believing it brings exaltation in heaven. Most keep their way of life a secret out of fear of prosecution, although over the past 10 years an advocacy group made up mostly polygamous women has worked to educate the public and state agencies in Utah and Arizona about the culture.
"This is a good time for the lawsuit, we've tried to set that stage for this for 10 years," said Anne Wilde, co-founder of the polygamy advocacy group Principle Voices. "We've really tried to help people understand that this not a criminal lifestyle among consenting adults."
- SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - JULY 14 2011
Lawyer Jonathan Turley is expected to file the lawsuit challenging the Utah law in Salt Lake City's US District Court on Wednesday.
Turley represents Kody Brown and his four wives - Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn. Kody Brown is only legally married to Meri Brown.
Advertisement: Story continues below
The Browns belong to Mormon fundamentalist sect the Apostolic United Brethren church, which practices polygamy as part of its faith.
The Browns and their 16 kids moved to Nevada in January after Utah authorities launched a bigamy investigation. No charges were ever filed, but on Tuesday, Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman said the investigation is ongoing.
Bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah. Under the law, a person can be guilty of bigamy simply through cohabitation, not just by having multiple legal marriage licences.
Turley said the lawsuit doesn't aim to challenge Utah's right to refuse to recognise plural marriage.
"All we're saying is that the state cannot criminalise the private relations of consenting adults," Turley told The Associated Press. "This lawsuit is less of a polygamy challenge than it is a privacy challenge."
Turley said the Browns and other polygamous families in Utah and the US should be able to enjoy the same privacy rights as other families.
"In our view, Utah's law violates those rights, from due process to equal protection, from free exercise of religion and free speech," he said.
Utah Attorney General spokesman Paul Murphy on Tuesday said the state is prepared to defend its bigamy law.
Utah has not prosecuted a polygamist for bigamy since 2003, when former police officer Rodney Holm was convicted of entering a religious marriage with a teenager when he was already married to her sister.
Holm, a member of the southern-Utah based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, argued that a ban on polygamy violated his constitutional right to practice his religion.
The Utah Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2006, although in a dissenting opinion, the state's chief justice said the state unfairly applied the law to polygamists and "oversteps the lines protecting the free exercise of religion and the privacy of intimate, personal relationships between consenting adults".
The US Supreme Court also denied an appeal from Holm in 2007. The high court banned the practice of polygamy, even in the context of religion in 1879.
Polygamy in Utah and across the Intermountain West is a legacy of the early teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons abandoned the practice of plural marriage in the 1890s as a condition of Utah's statehood.
An estimated 38,000 self-described Mormon fundamentalists continue the practice, believing it brings exaltation in heaven. Most keep their way of life a secret out of fear of prosecution, although over the past 10 years an advocacy group made up mostly polygamous women has worked to educate the public and state agencies in Utah and Arizona about the culture.
"This is a good time for the lawsuit, we've tried to set that stage for this for 10 years," said Anne Wilde, co-founder of the polygamy advocacy group Principle Voices. "We've really tried to help people understand that this not a criminal lifestyle among consenting adults."
- SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - JULY 14 2011
Cult Insanity
Some people like to read book series' in order. Some people, however make choices in life that goes against the grain.
I read this book recently.
I found it unsettling.
Safe do I feel, in the pages of a story where I see what they mean, where i can discern at least one method in thier madness.
it took me so long to find it in these words. In her stories.
So now I must follow this thickened plot, and read the first book in the series, pictured below.
Heart warming titles ...... watch this space.
Children of ............
David Brandt Berg (February 18, 1919 – October 1994) was the founder and leader of the Children of God, now called The Family International. The group believes he continues to lead them today from beyond the grave (see: prophecy). Pseudonyms Berg is commonly known by (in or outside the group) include Moses David, Mo, King David, Father David, Chairman Mo, David Fontaine, Dad, and Grandpa.
At least seven women, including both his daughters, his daughter-in-law and two of his granddaughters, have publicly alleged that Berg sexually abused them when they were children.
Berg died of undisclosed causes in 1994 and was buried in Costa de Caparica, Portugal (his remains have since been cremated). His organization is currently led by Karen Zerby (known in the group as Mama Maria or Queen Maria) and Steven Douglas Kelly (an American commonly known as Peter Amsterdam or King Peter).
At least seven women, including both his daughters, his daughter-in-law and two of his granddaughters, have publicly alleged that Berg sexually abused them when they were children.
Berg died of undisclosed causes in 1994 and was buried in Costa de Caparica, Portugal (his remains have since been cremated). His organization is currently led by Karen Zerby (known in the group as Mama Maria or Queen Maria) and Steven Douglas Kelly (an American commonly known as Peter Amsterdam or King Peter).
Our hands and feet
The Family International, formerly known as the Children of God, is an international Christian community committed to sharing the message of God’s love with people around the globe. Founded in California during the late 1960s, the Family International has expanded into a worldwide organization with members in over 90 countries.
The Family International has undergone much change and progress throughout its 42-year history, in the process of establishing a global missionary work. Although our methods and our membership structure have evolved with the times, our core message remains unchanged: "God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16); "God is love ... [and] since God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:8,11 NIV).
The Family International has undergone much change and progress throughout its 42-year history, in the process of establishing a global missionary work. Although our methods and our membership structure have evolved with the times, our core message remains unchanged: "God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16); "God is love ... [and] since God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:8,11 NIV).
Eternitity was in our lips and eyes
I wonder why they do it, I ponder their motivations and their tenacity.
Is it the sex that drives the leaders to stand strong in this peculiar insistence?
Or is it God.
Is it the sex that drives the leaders to stand strong in this peculiar insistence?
Or is it God.
oops.. I finished it
I couldn't help it - this book was the most engrossing of the many that I have read on the subject. Elissa tells a fascinating, confronting and at times bewildering account of her life in the FLDS and her escape from the clutches of Warrren Jeffs.
I highly recommend this book. I am astounded how close she was and in many ways still is to the core of it all.
Check out her website below to see the wonderful projects she is working on now that she is...free.
http://themjfund.org/
The first few chapters...
"The FLDS believes that women cannot gain entrance to the highest of the three levels of heaven on their own; they must be married to a man who holds the priesthood and has at least three wives, or they will go to a lower level of heaven or hell.
From birth, girls are prepared for this role. Their way of life is chosen for them by the preisthood. They are told who to marry, what to believe and how to live their lives."
Stolen Innocence
I have happily discovered the book Stolen Innocence has magicially fallen into my hands in some sweet and fateful twist - as such I think I might try a little running commentary as I devour it. Feel free to read along with me. It was written by Elissa Wall with Lisa Pulitzer.
Await my update as I eagerly await my first few chapters.
Location, location location
The FLDS Church is estimated to have 10,000 members residing in the sister cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona; Eldorado, Texas; Westcliffe, Colorado; Mancos, Colorado; Creston and Bountiful, British Columbia; and Pringle, South Dakota... and so I wonder, are these communities of people reaching beyond the stretches of the United States in any significant numbers?
So many questions have I, with very few answers.
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism refers to a belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles (often religious in nature), sometimes as a reaction to perceived doctrinal compromises with modern social and political life.The term has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations.
One woman is simply not enough
What is it that many single Christian men fear so greatly?
* They fear falling into temptation because they do not have a mate who can fulfill their desires.
* They fear being alone in the world because there is none who shares all the things that they hold most dear.
What is it some married Christian men fear so greatly?
* They fear falling into temptation because they do not have a mate who can fulfill their desires.
* They fear being alone in the world because there is none who shares all the things that they hold most dear.
What do they have in common?
* Both these men fear the same thing.
- Loneliness and unsatisfied desires.
* Both these men have the same lacking.
- A woman who can satisfy their desires and need for companionship.
* Both these men are at risk of falling into temptation.
- The temptation of extramarital relations.
What is the solution? For both men the solution is to take sufficient wives to prevent loneliness and unsatisfied desires from leading them into temptation. Paul stated, "It is better to marry than to burn." Paul did not qualify this statement by saying that it applied only to single men. The fact that this wise saying, "It is better to marry than to burn" occurred in a paragraph written to the unmarried and widows does not change the truthfulness of the saying nor does it limit to whom it can be applied. Paul was a Jew and well aware of the teachings of the Bible (which at that time included only the Old Testament - Torah.) The Torah did not forbid a married man from marrying an available woman. Paul did not say, "It is better for a single person to marry than to burn." Moreover, Paul did not say "it is better to commit adultery than to burn" which is what would occur if a woman were to be taken by more than her one and only living husband according to the laws of the Torah which he knew so well. He wrote the letter in which this was found to the all the Christians at Corinth which included all of the men in Corinth, not just the single men. In most cases, there is nothing lacking in the first wives of men that have a need for additional wives. They have all the wondrous attributes that God has bestowed on them. It is simply that God did not create a super race of women and there are some men for whom one woman simply is not enough.
Ann Eliza Young
Ann Eliza Young, known popularly as the 19th wife of Brigham Young, not only divorced the Mormon prophet but stumped the country campaigning against polygamy. In her acidic memoir and critique of plural marriage, "Wife No. 19, or the Story of a Life in Bondage" (1876), she wrote scathingly of Mormon founder Joseph Smith's "famous Revelation" endorsing the practice as the will of God, for "giving the most unbridled license to all the worst passions" of men's natures:
"Its existence was denied loudly, if in any way a whisper of it reached the outside world, and the missionaries were cautioned to keep utter silence upon the subject. Among the Saints it was received most reluctantly. The women, especially, felt that a cross was being laid upon them greater than they could bear, and many openly rebelled."
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