While sickening to read, the diaries of Warren Jeffs are essential to an understanding of the workings of the Prophet and celestial marriage in the "Church" of Fundamentalist Latter Days Saints. Jeffs's diaries, introduced before Judge Bauman as evidence in the Polygamy Reference, detail the seamy side of under-age children being taken from Canada to the United States for sexual purposes, i.e. to be sealed in time and all eternity as wives to Warren Jeffs.
Lawyers for the Attorney-General of B.C. hope soon to have leave to use all the new evidence, discovered only recently, as part of their closing arguments before Chief Justice Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court. (That is, provided that no other lawyer raises objections during the 7-day grace period afforded by the judge.)
And so the lid on the sleazy practices of polygamy is slowly, inexorably being raised.
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In Saturday's Vancouver Sun, Daphne Bramham expounds on the diaries and depravity of the polygamouspractices taking place at Bountiful. She writes:
The ugly, depraved face of polygamy that some academics and civil libertarians refuse to acknowledge is laid bare in the detailed diaries of North America's most notorious polygamist.
The dictated ramblings of Warren Jeffs, prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, coldly describe how he demanded Canadian fathers and brothers bring him their daughters and sisters as young as 12 to be married, and how they conspired to get the girls to him undetected by law enforcement officers.
It's proof that B.C. government lawyers are anxious to get into evidence as part of the constitutional reference case to determine the validity of Canada's polygamy law.
In March 2004, Jeffs described how Brandon James Blackmore brought his 13-year-old daughter from Bountiful to marry him in Arizona. Twenty minutes after he married the Blackmore girl, Jeffs -49 at the time -married a 14-year-old American girl.
Earlier that same day, Bountiful's bishop James Oler had delivered his two 17-year-old sisters to be married to two other FLDS men. Oler had also witnessed the marriage of a 16-year-old American to Brandon Seth Blackmore. While she was still a teen, the American girl gave birth to a child in Canada.
This information comes from Jeffs' dictations, which came to the attention of B.C. government lawyers only a few weeks ago when Texas authorities asked for the birth dates of the two 12-year-old daughters of MacRae Blackmore and Spencer Blackmore, who were Jeffs' brides in 2005.
B.C. lawyers have combed the diaries and found details of eight Canadian child brides and one American one. It's evidence they wanted considered in the constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada's polygamy law is valid.
Aside from the ages of the girls and the parents' complicity in their exploitation, what's startling about Jeffs' dictations is the banality with which he talks about these girls and young women.
Mixed amid his recollection of marrying the 13-and 14-yearolds, Jeffs recounts a conversation he had with Oler where they talked about log and metal lathes and whether they could be sent across the border without taxes or duty on them.
He then muses, "These young girls have been given to me to be taught and trained how to come into the presence of God and help redeem Zion from their youngest years before they go through teenage doubting and fears and boy troubles. I will just be their boy trouble ..."
Now, I have a quorum of seven young girls."
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