Latest articles by
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Refusal to Cooperate
Refusal to Cooperate
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Small Towns, Small Minds
Small Towns, Small Minds
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Adolescent Idealism
Adolescent Idealism
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Karma Catches Up With FLDS
Karma Catches Up With FLDS
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Mudslinging, Polygamy-Style
Typically, fundamentalist polygamists have tried to keep themselves exempt from the ways of "the wicked world." But the alleged crimes of polygamous patriarchs have eroded their insular world, placing polygamists under scrutiny. And patriarchs have retaliated. In the past week, a series of controversies have proved that polygamists can sling mud with the most seasoned politicians. When FLDS apostate Dan Fischer testified against his former sect before the Senate Judiciary Committee, sect attorneys filed fourteen affidavits from his children and his former plural wives accusing Fischer of lies, non-support, and abuse.
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Why Do Some FLDS Teen Girls Marry While Others Don’t?
Some people ask if early marriage is mandated for FLDS teens? The obvious answer is "no," many are allowed to reach the ripe old age of 18 before being "assigned."
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Incest and Polygamy
Recently a young woman interviewed me for a paper she was writing on polygamy. One of her first questions involved incestuous marriages. People tend to equate polygamy with incestuous marriage partly because of the widely publicized Kingston cas...
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Jessops Behind Bars
Merrill Jessop, a leader in the FLDS community and top dog at the YFZ Ranch, may not be in prison, but two of his namesakes have been arrested, along with three other patriarachs, with bail set at $100,000 each. Raymond Merrill Jessop allegedly assaulted a minor in 2004, and Merrill Leroy Jessop took an ingénue to wife in 2006. After hearing Merrill Jessop's fifth wife, Carolyn, talk about her husband in her book, Escape, I'm amazed that the Jessops try to make marriage work with anyone, let alone a plural marriage to girls who are effectively children! Carolyn reports that sex between fundamentalists is awkward and functional-that they must work around layers of unshed clothing and that sensual pleasure doesn't enter the equation.
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Principle Voices Dissent
Principle Voices, an organization advocating the right to live the religious "Principle of Plural Marriage," disagrees with Senator Harry Reid's Victims of Polygamy Assistance Act 2008. Principle Voices fundamentally objects to the proposal that funds be offered to help people leave polygamy.
