New Tale of Woe Caused by Polygamous Marriage

More and more FLDS members are "coming out" and telling the world of the pain they endured under the leadership of Warren Jeffs.  

Kerry Mcqueeney of the U.K.'s Daily Mail wrote on 22nd September about Elissa Wall:

A woman who was forced into marriage at the age of 14 while under the control of paedophile Mormon polygamist Warren Jeffs's cult has recounted her harrowing ordeal.

The woman, Elissa Wall, revealed how her own mother resorted to holding her daughter's hand at the altar in a bid to calm her down as she was forced to marry her 19-year-old cousin, whom she despised.

In a CNN interview, which is to be aired tonight, Elissa describes how she cried so much during the ceremony that her wedding dress was soaked with her own tears.

She told broadcaster Anderson Cooper: 'It was so devastating that even in the ceremony itself I'm crying to such a level that my wedding dress is soaked.

'They had my mother stand next to me and hold my hand just to get me to take my vows.'

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Taking Credit ..............

The CBC today reported that the Barry Penner, Attorney General of B.C., is crediting his ministry with providing evidence to the Texas authorities which aided the prosecution of Warren Jeffs.

This morning the CBC website contained the following piece:

B.C. has been unable to win polygamy convictions connected to the religious commune of Bountiful, but the province's attorney general is taking credit for helping to prosecute American polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

Attorney General Barry Penner said his ministry shared information with prosecutors leading up to the life sentence imposed by a Texas court after Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, was convicted of sexually assaulting two teen girls.

"We shared [information] with authorities in Texas and I am told that it proved to be useful in the recent prosecution and conviction of Mr. Jeffs," Penner said.

Penner didn't say exactly what details were offered to U.S. prosecutors, but hinted that the information came to light fairly recently.

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RCMP Preparing to leave for Texas

A day after the sentencing of Warren Jeffs, RCMP members from B.C. are preparing to journey to Texas, in a search for evidence concerning the trafficking of young girls between Bountiful and the Yearning of Zion Ranch.

Will there be gnashing of teeth and quaking of knees at Bountiful, as the Canadian authorities make their first move since the beginning, last November, of the reference case in B.C.'s Supreme Court?

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British Reaction to the Jeffs Sentencing

The Warren Jeffs saga is the talk of Europe, and after his sentencing, today's Daily Mail featured a photo of his fifty wives.

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A Contrast in Attitudes - Texas and B.C.

On August 5th, the Vancouver Sun's Daphne Bramham wrote a forceful article on the difference in attitude between Canada's concern about polygamy as freedom of religion, and Texas's proactive approach to accusing, arresting and convicting male polygamists for rape and pedophilia.

With the conviction of Warren Jeffs, and the revelation that he also sodomized his 5-year-old nephew, the Texas cases now reach their conclusion, with eight out of eight polygamists either in, or going to, prison.

Bramham wrote:

Laid bare in a Texas courtroom this week was the ugly, disturbing truth about the institutionalized pedophilia practised by polygamous leader Warren Jeffs and supported, tacitly if not overtly, by his 10,000 followers in the United States and Bountiful, B.C.

Unlike British Columbia, which has long failed to protect children as it dithered over whether religious freedom justifies polygamy, Texas aggressively pursued complaints about child rape and forced marriage within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Jeffs — the FLDS prophet — was convicted Thursday of child sexual assault and aggravated child sexual assault of a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old. He was the eighth FLDS member to be convicted in Texas since a 2008 raid on the church's compound.

Key to the conviction of the 55-year-old, fundamentalist Mormon leader was DNA evidence of his fathering a child with a 15-year-old and bizarre audio tapes. One tape was made as he ritualistically raped [a]12-year-old with others watching.

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Warren Jeffs Finally goes on Trial

Warren Jeffs's trial is in its second day of jury selection. 

Here is a link to the CBC article: read more

An Essayist Asks Whether a Liberal Society Should Tolerate Polygamy

Elizabeth Abbott, a senior research associate at Trinity College, University of Toronto, asks several thoughtful questions about polygamy in her piece published on 7th June in the Vancouver Sun.  She writes:

When the British Columbia government's polygamy reference case opened at the province's Supreme Court of Canada on Nov. 22, 2010, a stream of participants and witnesses, including representatives from the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, REAL Women of Canada, the Christian Legal Fellowship, and academic experts, testified about the many harms associated with polygamy. Carolyn Jessop, who fled a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FDLS) community in Utah with her eight children in the middle of the night, summed it up well: "Polygamy is not pretty to look at. It is nice that it is tucked away in a dark corner where nobody has to see its realities, because it's creepy."

But George Macintosh, the amicus curiae appointed to present the opposing argument, came out swinging. He characterized Section 293 of Canada's Criminal Code, which bans polygamy, as an overly broad and grossly disproportionate law rooted in Christian prejudices, a law demeaning to polygamists. Women in polygamous marriages anonymously testified that they were happy, that they'd made the right decision. According to the CBC, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association argued that "consenting adults have the right -the Charter protected right-to form the families that they want to form." And the Canadian Association for Free Expression maintained that the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005 strengthened the individual's right to enter a polygamous marriage.

The rights argument carries considerable weight in a liberal society. But rights can't be separated from the culture in which they arise. They are inextricably linked to institutions that form the backbone of a society; and in every society throughout history, the fundamental organizing institution has always been marriage.

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