Polygamy: the Red State Answer to Family Values. AZ and UT Attorney Generals Won’t Prosecute It. And Then There's Orrin Hatch.

I take serious issue in how you portray Terry Goddard. He is the heir apparent to Gov Janet Napolitano and a die in the wool liberal democrat. He moved on this with Shurtleff because for over 50-60 years, no one did anything and he knew that he couldn't just walk in there, guns blazing.

Governor Pyle did that and all you (proverbial) that whine and complain about polygamy were decrying Pyle's actions back then on radio and in the newspaper ( before the right wing machine ) about how horrible he is because he was tearing apart families.

So against that backdrop, Goddard decided to take action, however unpopular and dangerous it was and that was to take out the ORGANIZED CRIME part of this situation and that is the FLDS church.

So what has he accomplished:

Warren Jeffs in on trail.
FLDS broken up
School siezed by the State of Arizona
All assets of the town put into recievership
All police officers now fired and new police from Nevada have taken over

HOW in gods name is this weak as your article implies?

Goddard has done more to break the backs of these polgyamists than anyone. You just can't please some frackin people. Gosh Darn.

Since marriage is basically a contractual agreement between consenting adults, I really don't care whether the marriage unit is two or twenty. Since this is a complex "merger", all parties must enter into the partnership with complete knowledge and a special maturity. I would require the second (duplicate sex) spouse to be at least 21, and they should have the option of dissolving their marriage contract at any time, for any reason. Furthermore, a prenuptual agreement must be a prerequisite for the marriage contract.

ethanallen
Polygamy is one area where Muslims are far ahead of Christians. Although it is permitted that a man take up to four wives he may only do so if he can support them all adequately and equally.

As a Jack-Mormon with polygamist ancestors I find the practice to be creepy as hell. What kind of self-righteous megalomania does it take for a man to spread his dna that thinly in a small, closed section of society? Gee, gramps, thanks for the Down's syndrome.

I've been told that my paternal grandfather had 32 aunts and uncles because his grampy had four wives at the same time. I try to put myself in the shoes of one of those aunts and uncles as young people - "here I am one of 32 brothers and sisters in podunk Mormon Idaho; forget trying to find a job in late 19th century boondocks...try finding a sense of self...or a spouse that I'm not related to..."

Yuck.

I am a non-Mormon who grew up in a strongly Mormon community. During my time in that community I saw no traces of polygamy among the mainstream Mormons I knew.

The only evidence of polygamy I encountered occurred when, as a kid, my cousins and I were exploring old, derelict farm houses. In one we found a secret passageway leading from a kitchen cupboard directly into the basement. I was told later by a Mormon acquaintance that safety exits for women were common in polygamous households and were provided in anticipation of an unannounced visit by the sheriff. Obviously, polygamous Mormons work hard in an effort to avoid exposure. Prosecutions would not be easy.

The chief complaint I heard about polygamous Mormons from the mainline variety of Mormon was that the paternal figure of the household rarely had the finances to support a large, polygamous family. It was said that such families were often abandoned by the male head of the household and left to fend for themselves.

The family values at work in polygamy include a breakdown of the nuclear family, the imposition of poverty onto the victims of polygamy, and the trauma associated with parental abandonment. Today’s victims of abandonment by polygamous males end up on the welfare roles. So the claim made by officials that the states of Utah and Arizona can ill afford the costs of foster care for the children of imprisoned polygamists is not true. The cost is offset by the fact that public welfare already supports the abandoned mothers and children of Senator Orrin Hatch’s ‘good buddies.’

A minor bone of contention about "family values". Family values is a concept that has nothing to do with morals or christian thinking. NOTHING.

Family values was a tactical political concept created by the Jim Crow right-wing in the 1970's, (the Nixon right in collusion with the Dixie-crats who are today the Blue Dogs) as a political counter attack on the human rights, social justice, civil liberties 'constitutional values' movements that grew out of the civil rights and anti war movements.

THERE IS NO COMPLAINT FROM THE RIGHT WING BECAUSE THIS IS THEIR ONLY HOPE TO KEEP CREATING WHITE POPULATION VOTERS...

THE ONLY GAY RELATIONSHIP THAT THEY CONDONE THEREFORE IS MARY AND POE BECAUSE IT HAS CREATED A NEW LITTLE REPUBLICAN

------ AS A LIBERAL AND PROGRESSIVE, I HAVE NO ISSUE WITH THE PRACTICE OF MULTIPLE PARTNERS IN A RELATIONSHIP SO LONG AS THEY ARE OF AGE AND CONCENTING

I DO FIND IT INTERESTING TO SEE THE CONSERVATIVE SOCCER-MOM BRIGHT WHITE FUN-DA-MENTAL GROUP "CONVENIENTLY IGNORING" THIS ARENA--- I GUESS POLITICS MAKES MANY STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Let's not rush to oversimplify all this, and let's be fair to our Democratic Attorney General in Arizona. Terry Goddard is a great guy, and is doing what he can. He has moved all this forward farther than it has gone in the 50 years since Governor Pyle was ruined over attempting to move on this.

Scooter Libby was convicted for crimes connected to his betrayal of a CIA team, but the obvious direct charge was not prosecuted, because it would have been too difficult to meet the legal burden of proof. Only someone who looked only at convictions would think Al Capone did nothing but have a few tax problems. The point is that criminal activity needs to be prosecuted in ways that can acheive convictions.

Of all aspects of polygamy, the worst is the child rape of forced "marriage". Too often, this is to a much older man that the teenage girl has never had any interest in. Yet even this very horrid crime is almost impossible to prosecute. Even though the girl's age is on record to substantiate a statutory rape conviction, the fact of the "marriage" is not. As it is not filed with the government, one needs testimony of witnesses to get a conviction. But there are no witnesses, ever, except for people who have been raised their whole lives within this community. See/google the work in the Phoenix New Times for details.

Governments should not waste money attempting impossible prosecutions of consenting adults, until after it becomes easier to get convictions for child rape. Unfortunately, the resources of the Arizona Attorney General are stretched extremely thinly. The Republican-controlled legislature in Arizona has kept the Attorney General's office extremely poorly funded, ever since Democrats got elected. It seems that (unlike even normal Republicans) these Republican leaders would prefer criminals go free, rather than allow a Democrat a successful track record. It's disgusting, but what can we do about it?

Arizona is on the verge of turning Blue. We might already have had a Democratic-majority delegation to the US House of Representatives, if not for Rove's US attorney firing in Arizona coming just in time to delay action in the case of Rick Renzi. After the national political scene cleanses itself, then Arizona will be able to get a few more Dems into the legislature, fund the A.G.'s office properly, and then get convictions on the child rapists. Then, after that, see what people are saying about adult polygamy. But don't trust the mainstream media on the details of this story, any more than on all the others.

I am absolutely no Mormon, nor FLDS of course. And I didn't have any contact with any political campaign in writing this comment.

The article is correct in many of it's observations, Orrin Hatch is indeed a toad, but it's point, particularly as an example of hypocrisy, is off the wall and disingenuous. Serial polygamy is now the rule in our society. Forcing underage girls into such a marriage is wrong, but not because it violates "family values". Criminal prosecution which flies in the face of local values is not democratic. If family values is related to family stability, which it must be, those stable polygamous families must be seen as a positive thing compared to the practice of abandoning families so prevalent today. This attack on polygamy per se is more reminiscent of neocon religious bigotry than liberal tolerance of alternative life styles. We have more than enough law enforcement for it's own sake at present. This time I think the writer of this artical is the real hypocrite.

are not for right-wingers who are packing the voter rolls with inbred welps.

American prisons are for the poor and urban minorities. The kinds of people who Orrin Hatch has been working his whole career to criminally disenfranchise with his Jim Crow drug war and other poverty targeted criminal laws.

Looking at the mechanics of the outcomes of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections Orrin's tactics have been quite successful. American democracy is a joke. A lie and a total fraud!

For the gooberment to prosecute some Mormons for polygamy - or for Hatch to make a big deal of it - would call attention to their creating their own reality, which might lead to calling attention down on OTHERS who create their own reality, wink, nudge, know what I mean? If one separate reality is condemned, then they're ALL bad and may be vulnerable to debunking, at least in the B&W world of bu$hCo.

If you ask me.

Haven't we all seen enough in the last 6 1/2 years, if not the last 20 years, to convince us that there are religions that are nothing more than cults?

When Fascism comes to America, it will come draped in the flag and carrying a cross

Oh yes...Vogue Magazine was another unlikely source...they did an expose on the impact on women of these little child bride harem "beliefs." Al Gore would do better to condemn the Mormon cult rather than elevate it as worthy of respectful silence when Mittwit is questioned on his so-called "faith." I guess People and Vogue are used to seeing through cults, since they deal with the Scientologist nuts in Hollywood all the time.

The young men suffer, too. The craggy old men who perpetuate this vile practice have to find ways to get rid of the young men so they can scoop up the young women. It is a closed society and they trump up "charges" against the boys so they can excommunicate them from the community. People magazine, of all places, did an expose on these lost boys. I believe there is an ex-Moron in Arizona who has made it his calling to take these homeless and sheltered young men in and train them for the real world...but the boys are still hurting for the only family they've known.