Why Polygamy Should Be Legalized

ALBROCK Blog ^ | May 11, 2006 | Alex Bastardas

[albrock]

Why Polygamy Should Be Legalized

Lately, with the FBI's decision to add polygamy sect leader Warren Jeffs to the Most Wanted list, many shows (Anderson Cooper, America's Most Wanted...) have extensively reported on this particular sect.

Polygamy in the United States is forbidden. That, believe it or not, is what causes all the problems and what helps arise dangerous sects like the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

How so? Well, Imagine you are a fundamentalist Mormon (NOT a member of that sect) and as such you believe that polygamy is right and you decide you want to live your life carrying a polygamous lifestyle. Ok, maybe 40 years later, when you have settled a family with 4 wives and 35 children, you are arrested because you practice polygamy. How do you think the family of this father and grandfather will feel? And, further, isn't the United States a nation that protects religious freedom??

Because the government does not allow these people to practice polygamy, they start to feel alienated from mainstream society and start to greatly distrust the authorities and our laws. This is the perfect situation for a nut like Warren Jeffs to take advantage of. In other words, he can create a sect because those people have been forbad to follow their harmless religious believes by the government and need someone that can protect them from the government's tyranny.


Now, many will argue that polygamy is a dangerous practice perse and that this is not a question of religious freedom but of human rights. Wrong. What certainly is deplorable is how Warren Jeffs has perverted the belief and established a dictatorship within the community. But polygamy perse is in no way tyrannical in nature, it is just a lifestyle. An example of a free polygamous society is Centennial Park, AZ; located a couple miles south of the Colorado City/Hildale area. The citizens of Centennial Park are fundamentalist polygamous Mormons but they do not force anyone to practice polygamy, and everyone can join or leave the faith.

It is therefore a mere question of freedom of religion, and because the government is denying this freedom, sects and hostility towards the government arise.

posted by Albrock @ 12:41 AM  

0 comments  

[Cheburashka]

And if both the man and the women want to live such a lifestyle, why the hell should they go to jail for that?
---
Most of these wives start out as underage girls being traded by their polygamist fathers to another polygamist. Who trades one of their daughters back as a new wife to the first one as well.
Organized statutory rape and child abuse.
That's what's wrong with it.

[Alien Gunfighter]

Why should polygamy be legalized?

Because sometimes, the worse thing you can do to an idiot is give him exactly what he wants.

I have enough headaches with one.

[43north]

Polygamy is having one wife too many.

So is monogamy...

Seriously, I have encountered some of these FLDS people - male and female. After speaking with them it soon became obvious that they are not right in the head.

A common practice in their community is for the older men to covet the attactive younger females and eliminate the competition by inventing "crimes against the church" committed by younger, mostly teen-aged males. These males are then excommunicated and expelled from the community. In Salt Lake City there are organizations to help these "orphans" adapt to the modern world that they have been totally cut off from their entire lives living in these whack-job polygamist communities.

Polygamy is only about power coveted by the men who practice it. It goes against human nature and must not become acceptable.

[JewishRighter]

Uh, er, anyone got pictures of the wives? That may give you an answer.

[brwnsuga]

That man has been accused of having sex with young girls and forcing young girls to marry old men. If this is true, he and any others who aided him should be thrown in jail for a long time. The problem with polygamy and islam is the same. Those religions have no respect for women. Both religions are about sex for men here and in the afterlife.

[linda_22003]

My husband says the laws against polygamy are really to protect MEN. :)

[Emmett McCarthy]

OK, but what's trigonometry?

[AnnaZ]

Not to be offensive, really, but you may be just a little out of your mind.

In polygamous societies, young (young!) girls are promised and, therefore, owned, before they can even consider such decisions for themselves.

To those for whom this has already happened, even though it is illegal, there is very little help. Were it legal, there would be even less.

I stayed at a B&B on the Nevada/Utah border a few years ago. Fabulous place, natural hot springs pumped into the tub. The owner was one of six wives. Each had a business. "Hubby", arranged for her for "as long as she could remember", just collected the coin. She was so sweet, and looked so sad. It took the shine off of my stay.

Anyone who finds this acceptable should probably move to Pakistan.

[Deguello]

The warrants for Warren Jeffs arrest are a year or so old. He is now wanted for interstate flight to avoid prosecution which is now a Federal matter.

Jeffs has been the local San Antonio news for the past eight months. The sudden national exposure beginning with the AMW show last Friday is suspect. I feel that they are playing on public feedback in order to make raid on the sect headquarters in Eldorado, Texas.

The odd notation on the AMW show was that they did NOT think he was in Eldorado.

[AnnaZ]

I haven't followed the story at all, and have never seen AMW. That said, I don't care for federal raids too much (especially some of the latest, more heinous, ones) (yet I have no problem with terrorist roundups. Conflicted?).

At any rate, my earlier comment was based solely against the practice of polygamy as an institution, in that many of the women involved are victims, not willing participants.

[Deguello]

Yes, but you are Texan and I feel that this will become a Texas issue very quickly.

[AnnaZ]

Let's hope not. But you're right, signs are pointing towards something. We'll see.

(And thanks for calling me a Texan. That made my day!)

[43north]

Trigonometry is... having more than one gun. Which is absolutely perfectly normal and OK.

[pandoraou812]

lol. I know this....I would have a very hard time sharing my man with sister wives. We probably would fight or gang up on him. I have issues with all of it myself. Theres the health issues, like what if he got a std and spread it around, the fact that I dont see how you can be a good parent to 35 kids. And I could go on but then it wouldnt stop lol. I do wonder why Jeffs is getting all this exposure now. Its a bit late in my eyes. Something should have been done years ago. I saw on the news that the reason he made the top 10 on the FBI's list was that they had an opening and they felt if he got the media exposure that maybe they could avoid a violent end to his capture. Maybe someone in the public would see him in transit to one of the compounds and call a tip in. I hope so because these people are so brainwashed they would defend him to the death. Hes got the creepist voice I've ever heard, how they can sit there and listen to it is way beyond me.

[linda_22003]

Frankly, I'd never heard of him until this thread was posted. One person asked how he could get so many wives; looking at his picture, it stumps me how he could get ONE.

[albrock]

"Most of these wives start out as underage girls being traded by their polygamist fathers to another polygamist. Who trades one of their daughters back as a new wife to the first one as well. Organized statutory rape and child abuse. That's what's wrong with it." What you are describing is what the sect does, and is certainly not a direct result of polygamy. It is a PERVERSION of the faith. Fundamentalists mormons who are not part of the sect would never trade their daughters or abuse children, ask the women in Centennial Park!

[L98Fiero]

"That man has been accused of having sex with young girls and forcing young girls to marry old men. If this is true, he and any others who aided him should be thrown in jail for a long time."

That is what polygamy is all about. 1st wife getting older, marry a younger second. She gets older, marry a younger third, etc.

[albrock]

Yes, of course that man should go to jail and of course that sect totally disrespects women and treats them as objects. However, polygamy perse does not. To free polygamist communities, living a polygamous lifestyle is a choice, and anyone can opt-out. So, free polygamy is in no way comparable to Islam because in a free polygamist society, women make their own decisions. And if they decide to share a husband, nobody should stop em.

[linda_22003]

I found this on a website about Warren Jeffs. Whether it's even remotely true, I don't know:

"Warren moved in on those women so fast, and with such finesse, that only two of his "mothers" had enough fortitude to stand up against him. Those stunned women, who had sincerely believed that their husband and prophet would live 350 years and give them children, went through the shock of losing their husband to death, seeing him buried, Warren proclaiming himself prophet quickly thereafter and then immediately receiving revelation to marry those women "found worthy of him" in secret ceremonies."

We're not talking about women who are exactly overloaded with brains, are we?

[albrock]

I've been to Eldorado a few times and the compund appears to be dead. But hey they are in their right to establish a temple there; after all, it couldn't get as freer as West Texas. Of course if the nut is inside, they maybe the police should intervene, but we dont want another Waco...