http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1089555

Glad this thread was active enough to close although I regret that some postings on polygamy being equated to same-sex marriage took up valuable space. I've experienced polygamy allies trying to use this reasoning and find it ignorant of polygamy. If not apparent, not in the mood to carry people there.

Synopsis of sightings of Mormon-based belief system of polygamy are as follows:

Bluffdale, Utah
Draper, Utah (west of)
Pleasant Grove, Utah
Ogden, Utah
Bountiful, Utah
Sandy, Utah
Manti, Utah
Hildale, Utah-Colorado City, Arizona (Short Creek)
St. George, Utah (Wal-Mart where women and children likely had come in from Colorado City and Hildale)
Bountiful, B.C., Canada
Las Vegas, Nevada

List is at 11 communities where polygamy has been actively sighted in public. Teaching pre-adolescent boys and girls that they and their family can't get to heaven unless they marry in the assigned manner of their cult has been criminalized in nuanced ways. Unfortunately law officers including police, sheriffs, and district attornies in the Moridor protect Mormon values over US law and child abuse. Polygamy needs a social solution outside of law enforcement apparently. How do you stop men like Joseph Smith, Warren Jeffs, Winston Blackmore and their like in 2013? Could Joseph Smith Jr. be stopped in 2013? I'm not sure.

Is the solution found through empowering women politically more somehow?



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2013 09:29PM by gentlestrength.

How about north-central Wyoming. We have open polygamists here. Many of them are friends and neighbors. They don't dress differntly than the rest of us but they do practice fundamental mormonism. The famous Cody Brown of the show "Sister Wives" grew up here and his family has been our neighbors forever. This was a TBM family who decided things had been done wrong since the "manifesto". Several other locals joined them and several families moved to the area. They don't seem to be like the fundamentalists who force young girls into arranged marriages. We have a large LDS population here as people from Utah were called here to settle the area and build irrigation canals for crops.

Lovell, Wyoming?

FWIW

I don't see the difference between forcing polygamous marriage on underage girls and programming them to believe that polygamous marriage is an eternal doctrine that is essential for the acceptance and love of sky family and earth family. If the programming starts from birth and results in an 18 year old young woman "chooses" polygamy, I would be prepared to prosecute that as not choice, but indoctrination.

Yes, Lovell, WY and the surrounding area.

Olemar, are you currently living in the area of Northern Wyoming, or are you from there?

I am from there and didn't think anyone else from the area would post on here. Hahaha.

I knew Kody Brown growing up, although we're a slightly different generation. His dad converted to the Allred Group and became an apostle while Kody was on his mission, IRC.

I have distant relatives who are living in the Allred group in Lovell--it doesn't make me proud.

Go to Hurricane, you feel out of place with just one wife

Several years ago before the YFZ raid my wife and my niece wanted to see Colorado City, so we went. They were a little more open then and we attending sacarment meeting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2013 01:34AM by scmd.

The FLDS have communities in a lot of places. The raid in Texas netted law enforcement approximately a billion pages of records (no that is not an exaggeration, it is what has been reported). The records named their "places of refuge," which include Mancos, CO, and Pringle, SD. In addition, FLDS men have been sent away from the community to "repent from afar," which means they have to leave, are not allowed to have contact with their families, but are nevertheless supposed to work and send money back to the church. They go pretty much everywhere, but many are in North Dakota where there is a big oil boom. I have heard that some FLDS women are also there. Actually, I've seen pictures of FLDS women there. There are either zero or very few people left in Texas at the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) ranch. The state is preparing to seize that property under forfeiture laws. There was a hearing about it a couple of weeks ago that was reported in the SLTrib.

I have heard that there are still FLDS left in Texas, but they are apparently spread out. For another "sighting," I saw some in Poway, CA, though their dress was not quite what the FLDS wear.

Hurricane, UT, Cedar City and the smaller towns in between Short Creek are also places where they go to stores and/or have businesses. In addition, a few miles down the road from Short Creek is Centennial Park, which has a group that broke away from the FLDS in the 1980s.

FLDS men work a lot in Nevada. They get building contracts in Las Vegas. They work (maybe own) a concrete facility or quarry near Moapa. And the Browns of Sister Wives live in the Las Vegas area.

I have also heard that there are polygamists (FLDS) in Southern Idaho. I think near Pocatello/Blackfoot. The reality is that there are probably very few towns along the Wasatch Front that don't have polygamists living in them or visiting them.

Salt Lake City isn't on the list, but there are many polygamists there. The Kingston group owns a law office there. I think it's on State Street. They are reported to own many businesses in Salt Lake but that is the only one I have every actually been told about specifically.

Most polygamists can't really be "sighted" because most polygamists look like everyone else. Only the FLDS and some of the people in Centennial Park wear distinctive clothing and hair.

As for empowering women politically as a solution for polygamy, women and men in Utah share similar beliefs and there is not great discrepancy in the way they vote. Would it make a difference if more women were in office, or in law enforcement? Maybe, but I doubt it.

What would really make a difference, IMO, for the Kingstons and the FLDS would be to crack down on their welfare fraud. When women apply for benefits they should be required to name the fathers of their children as a condition of receiving benefits, and the fathers should be tracked down and required to pay child support through the Office of Recovery Services. That would take millions of dollars away from the leadership of those groups. A few years ago (maybe 10 or 15) the leader of the Kingston group agreed to pay a couple hundred thousand dollars for welfare reimbursement in exchange for not being required to do DNA testing, which would have exposed his incest. Why did they not do both: prove the incest AND the welfare fraud? He was plainly guilty of both. (The Kingstons do incest because they believe in maintaining their blood line.)

No one wants to starve children. Unfortunately, the children don't necessarily get the benefits when families get food stamps because these "religions" have figured out how to scam the system and get the money for the leaders.

Last Thursday night, Doris Hansen's TV show (Polygamy: What Love Is This) had an interview with a young woman who escaped from the Kingston group. The episode probably isn't up online yet, but it will be in a week or two. She said that her father forbid telling his children that he was there father. I don't recall if she said why, but I'm thinking, the better to conceal his incest and welfare fraud. (Doris is a Kingston clan escapee.)

If Utah were really interested in prosecuting these leeches they could do it. IMO, they just don't want to.

The other thing they could do is to set up facilities for people who want to get out. There are some private groups doing this, but they never have enough resources. Utah set up "The Safety Net Committee" to come up with ways to help polygamists who needed state help, but it was basically captured by polygamist sympathizers who were enablers of the status quo. The worst of the enablers are no longer with the Safety Net, so it might be a resource that could make a difference for those who want to leave. It just hasn't been so far.

Anyway, the best suggestions I can come up with are these:

1. Crack down on the welfare fraud. This would hit them in the pocket book and hold fathers accountable for the support of their many, many children.
2. Provide resources (housing, job training, food) to those who want to leave. That would include women, children, lost boys, and disabled men who want out.
3. Enact some laws about home schooling, requiring some testing of home schooled children in critical core subjects, and require schooling until at least 8th grade. I would prefer an older age but under a Supreme Court case (Yoder v. Wisconsin), the state probably can't require education past 8th grade. (In the interview referenced above with Doris Hansen, the former Kingston member said that the Kingstons have set up a public school that they want to get funding for, so they are trying to make it be a charter school. I thought, "Yeah, another way for them to get money from the state while they strive for as little accountability as they can under the auspices of a charter school.")

Those are my suggestions.

Thanks for the insights and detail.

Here is a link on reporting welfare fraud. As I am sure most of us suspect this is handled on a county level which is ideal for Mormon priesthood to not concern itself with Mormon-related crimes. FLDS and Brighamites believe in Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon, First Vision, restored priesthood, and living prophet. They have far more in common with each other than Brighamites and Baptists or Brighamites and Catholics.

California

http://www.ehow.com/how_5129180_report-welfare-fraud.html

Here is Utah, anonymous--my firsthand experience is Utah locals are permissive of polygamy even though they have taken oaths to enforce laws, so perhaps FBI may be more appropriate or if we can find one for a federal hotline. Mormons bleed the beast, all Mormons bleed the beast.

Utah

http://www.ors.state.ut.us/faq_fraud2.htm



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2013 01:47AM by gentlestrength.

Utah does nothing to fix the situation because many LDS General Authorities and LDS lawmakers are related to the FLDS families by blood, marriage, and contact.

Also, I think that to condemn FLDS polygamy, or the polygamy of other Mormon fundamentalists, is a tacit acceptance of past mistakes of the church.

sophia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


>
> As for empowering women politically as a solution
> for polygamy, women and men in Utah share similar
> beliefs and there is not great discrepancy in the
> way they vote. Would it make a difference if more
> women were in office, or in law enforcement?
> Maybe, but I doubt it.
>
> What would really make a difference, IMO, for the
> Kingstons and the FLDS would be to crack down on
> their welfare fraud. When women apply for
> benefits they should be required to name the
> fathers of their children as a condition of
> receiving benefits, and the fathers should be
> tracked down and required to pay child support
> through the Office of Recovery Services. That
> would take millions of dollars away from the
> leadership of those groups. A few years ago
> (maybe 10 or 15) the leader of the Kingston group
> agreed to pay a couple hundred thousand dollars
> for welfare reimbursement in exchange for not
> being required to do DNA testing, which would have
> exposed his incest. Why did they not do both:
> prove the incest AND the welfare fraud? He was
> plainly guilty of both. (The Kingstons do incest
> because they believe in maintaining their blood
> line.)
>
> No one wants to starve children. Unfortunately,
> the children don't necessarily get the benefits
> when families get food stamps because these
> "religions" have figured out how to scam the
> system and get the money for the leaders.
>
.............
>
> If Utah were really interested in prosecuting
> these leeches they could do it. IMO, they just
> don't want to.
>

Thanks again for the detailed and thoughtful post. I come from the base that Utah and Mormonism, Brighamites are the core of American polygamy.

I believe the ongoing existence ofmpolygamy is an enabling, knowing choice of Utah/Mormon law enforcement, social work, and leadership. They are polygamist allies.

I do believe that external solutions to the system inlace need to be created to protect the child abuse, fraud, and RICO violations, and "slavery". Child brides and abdonement of young men are the primary objective to stop. If a Mormon community is little factory of this production it must be shut down.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley. I see women that operate froma place of leadership and empowerment. Perhaps the tools and processes they use can help Mormon, former Mormon, and former FLDS speak with "outsiders" that can help them meet the failed needs of the FLDS boys and girls. Escaping from the true practice of Mormonism could be the equivalent of the "underground railroad". Those abolitionists made real sacrifices, and real change.

www.//http:LeanIn.org

Thanks for mentioning homeschooling. My guess is that many polygamist groups pay for a few women to go to law school just to protect homeschooling laws. I would also guess polygamists pretty much reside is states were homeschooling laws are minimal and/or rarely enforced.

Thank you for the links. I'll see what, if anything, I can do with them.

As for the FLDS and Brighamites, I think a good case can be made that the FLDS are the true Brighamites, and that the mainstream church is the Woodrowites, who followed Woodrow's phony manifesto. He didn't intend it to really be the rule, but eventually the mainstream church followed it anyway.

Very good point,I had a similar thought, but have not seen that term used by others and want to communicate. I think you are right though.

Woodruffites is the easier to discern from a G.A? Smithite, but they kept doing polygamy for decades. I think it was G.A. Smith that made polygamy an excommunicatable offense. You are right though, the church as it exists today was Woodrowite unless there came a time of major change again, perhaps correlation, hiding the financial books, excommunication for departing from correlation, or the blacks receiving the priesthood.

So Brighamites to differentiate between chain of succession disputes for the reatored priesthood, and in some cases polygamy disputes.

Brigham took the whole Joseph Smith mythology with him to Utah and ramped up the polygamy.

It was Woodruffites that changed the policy in 1890, but allowed it to continue, but also experienced incredible splintering over the next several decades which led to the now FLDS, but they like you said are the true Brighamites in many ways apart from a mutually accepted line of priesthood authority and recognizing the correct living prophet. They still believe most of the same things, just disagree on the people.

Very good point. Wonnder if historians have used Woodruffites when discussing modern Mormons in contrast to the Mormons that practice polygamy on earth as directed by Joseph, Brigham,Jesus, Abraham, and God.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2013 04:49AM by gentlestrength.

I have seen polygamists near Twin Falls Idaho recently; also, there is a group in southeastern Idaho near Mud Lake area north of Idaho Falls. I have a friend who lives in Idaho Falls and has two wives. He used to be active LDS but was excommunicated.

My girlfriend worked for a polygamist when she was a college student in Rexburg. It was at a coffee shop.

and/or polygamous sympathizers and wannabes.

It's often not possible to identify polygamists by how they look or what they say. Many wear makeup, have normal hairdos, and dress like Mormons generally. Juab county has almost as many polygamists as others.

There are also polygamists in other states, particularly, Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado South Dakota, and California.

I see them at the Walmart every time I visit St. George. It's kind of a visitors spectacle.

That is confirmed, I saw them there frequently when it opened in the early 90's and it does not surprise me that remains the case. Do polygamists actually live, attend school, church, and do business in St. George, Washington, Hurricane, and LaVerkin. My experience with these sightings is that these were the Warren Jeffs clan from Short Creek. I never saw a clearly defined adult male polygamist, just the women and children, mostly girls.

Where is law enforcement in Washington and Kane counties? Are the duplicitious on the fraud and abuse. Since everyone believes in Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Book of Mormon these isolated cults get protection from the mainstream cult?

Shame on Utah, shameful. Please make it stop. Figure it out, it's been going on for over 175 years now.

Except for an occasional exception, the Mormon church and the law hide this fact as much as possible and protect the culprits.

Many plygs do live openly, shop, attend school and mix somewhat with outsiders. Many others have a very poor form of limited homeschooling and are closeted away.

It is my knowledge from first hand questions that Utah law forbids the state from checking on the quality of in home schooling conditions.

A clear choice by the Mormon run legislature, governor, and attorney general to keep the government out of the way of child abuse and exploitation in the home. Especially the ome where the principle ofpolygamy is performed on the children.

This may be response to the Singer case years ago. It involved a homeschooling polygamist family in the countryside near park city. The government kept trying to get them to at least take roll and the state standardized tests. Officials came to call with local law enforcement in tow - the dad ended up dead, shot in his doorway. And after that they decided it wasn't worth people dying for.

The story got stranger when my 5th grade teacher's son married two of the daughters from that family. Online years after Singer's death he bombed a church. It's one of those fascinating Utah crazy stories.

http://m.deseretnews.com/article/865583097/Singer-Swapp-siege-a-turning-point-in-Utah-home-school-policies-practices-and-attitudes.html?pg=all?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fmobile%2Fs%3Frewrite%3D72%26.tsrc%3Dapple%26first%3D1%26p%3Dutah%2Bshooting%2Bsinger%2Bhomeschooling%26pintl%3Den%26pcarrier%3DAT%2526T%26pmcc%3D310%26pmnc%3D410%26fr%3Donesearch

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_(homeschooler)

As you drive along I15 at the border of Utah and Juab counties look to your west and you will see the polygamist community of Rocky Ridge.

I saw a traveling group of women with about a dozen kidlets between four ladies aged from early 20s to upper 40s/50s. Impossible to shake out the dynamics between the women or whose child was whose. What sect they belonged to was likewise uncertain because although they wore ankle length hand sewn denim skirts and similar looking floral print blouses, (not the Colorado City uniform), the very long, uncut fancy French braided hair had the signature "pompadour/ waterfall pouf" on top. You all know the one I mean. All four women had them, that gravity defying polygamette hillbilly version of the Snooki poof.

Anyway, they appeared to be traveling sans-priesthood in two decrepit minvans stuffed to the gills with belongings and children. Aside from the clothing and kids being giveaways, they moved like cult members; furtively. Heads lowered, avoiding talk, touch or eye contact with any of us monogamists.

I was about to type out the location of the sighting (far enough from the Morridor I grew up in to make them stand out and grab my attention, and an certainly unusual place for them to be) when I realized they might be runners. So I won't specify the location, but just remark that isn't it crazy how they stick out like sore thumbs? Even without the hair, I would likely have spotted them just by their behavioral patterns.

And if they were runners, God, I hope it dawned on them to ditch the hair.

If they're runners, I hope they made it out and can break the cycle for the next generation.

Some of them are obvious because of their dress and hair. Most of them look like conservative Mormons and are impossible to identify unless they reveal themselves by what they say.

Of the polygamists I've met only a small percentage look like throwbacks to the pioneer days. Many of the rest of them you like you or me and might attend regular wards as well as doing their own fundie worship and study at home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2014 04:59AM by Cheryl.

A friend of mine worked a bank in North Las Vegas until about a year ago. She said they came in there regularly and she still sees them all over town. According to her they work on construction jobs there and often get govt. contracts (city or county, not sure which) because they can always give the low bid due to cheap (or no) labor costs.

in Paradise, Utah, too--in Cache Valley. One of my friend's ex-SIL's married into the group.

I've been told the Kingston clan owns most everything in Utah with the "Standard" name on it....plumbing, restaurant supply, wood, etc.. They also own an "Ace Hardware" on Redwood Road in the Taylorsville area. That store seems to be a fun place to see polygamy inbreeding at its best. The store is quite small, yet has at any of the times I have visited there were at least 15 employees? Not a one of them could make a decision on anything and seemed to just be robotic. There have also been LOTS of children in the back. Very interesting set up.

I did visit Colorado City many years ago. One of my little ones needed to use the bathroom so we went into the "general store". We certainly stuck out like sore thumbs. We had to go through the fabric section to reach the bathroom. I'm one of those people who feels the need to buy something when I really just needed bathroom facilities. I let the kids pick out some candy and stood in line to pay. I noticed the people in front of us were signing a form basically to put their items on credit, while others were using food stamps. Our purchase came to just under a dollar. The clerk acted as if she had never seen cash before. I did notice when she opened her register it had NO CASH in it. We left the dollar and got the heck out of there! Bizarre is a nice word for our experience. My husband sat in the car with the other kids and kept thinking we'd possibly been kidnapped since it took us so long to get out!

I helped bring food from Salt Lake to the Huntington Coal Miners for thier strike. We protested several Kingston owned businesses with them. The Hardware store also has a Christmas Tree lot during December and they own many of the strip malls up and down Redwood Road as well as Coal and lumber lots nears the train tracks next to the freeway. Kingston senior threatened us with house fires when we picketed the sidewalk near Ace Hardware. I live in the area and there very dangerous with long memories.

We also have a number of Warren Jeffs followers in our immediate neighborhood. It always amazes me that the rank and file LDS people have no idea that the husband has three or four wives installed in houses in the area and lives with his primary wife. He runs a roofing business and is a five time fellon. His wife is the business owner and they frequently have 12 to 15 year old girls stay with them at the various houses and traffick in them with impunity. The so called upstanding members of the neighborhood and neighborhood watch think there great because they keep a nice garden and have no idea about thier past or the child abuse issues. Like the Kingstons they have a criminal sydicate of various operations going on since they are below the radar as polygamists they also deal in drugs, stollen property and commit others crimes without anyone suspecting a thing. They're also dangerous and completely capable of hurting someone that points them out.

Spring City, UT

I am told "the Allreds" are the majority of the voters and control town government. The LDS ward South of Center street is majority "Allreds".

Last confirmed in person, in town, in August 2008.

Last year someone popped in on this forum saying that the UAB had built their own meeting house and were no longer using the LDS owned one in Spring City. I tried to get details but they didn't respond.

There are several polygamist communities along the Utah/Arizona line, and most of them only allow adults to marry. They tend to dress like really devout Mormons, so if you saw a polygamist man and one wife in St George, you might not realize they were from one of those communities.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2014 03:37PM by adoylelb.