Utahs
Legislature doesn’t have time for polygamists
Salt Lake City Weekly ^ | 17Apr08 | John Saltas
Posted on Wednesday,
April 16, 2008 5:32:09 PM by claudiustg
Many people who comment about the FLDS call them a
bunch of loony kooks trapped in a time warp of misguided beliefs and dated
religious and sexual practices. That may be true, but being loony isn’t against
the law—if it were, don’t you think it would be a wiser spending of tax dollars
to raid the Utah Legislature? Not only are they primarily loony, they fill
their pockets at your expense at a greater clip than polygamist groups do.
Worse, our legislators weren’t born into looniness but came into it via that time-worn path of
ignorance and self-entitlement. We all hear that wah-wah
that polygamists strain the system because their large families need government
assistance in any manner of ways from welfare to health care. As you’re astute,
you know those are the same things said about illegals.
I’d rather give $100 to any part-time needy Jessop, Barlow or Jeffs than give a dime to a full-time greedy legislator
like Springville Rep. Aaron Tilton, who has all the time in the world for his
special interests, but none for you.
The Legislature
doesn’t have time for polygamists, either. Not that it’s fully to blame for
what happened in Texas, but virtually every Utah state legislator for decades
has done next to nothing regarding polygamy. Not counting whiny speeches, that
is. Nary a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Informally, most everyone around here knows that
formality is a joke. Not because modern-day Mormons secretly practice polygamy—and some
do, (Confirmation) risking
excommunication from the LDS Church (Though their
number is not known, the fact is Mormonism’s founder Joseph Smith declared
Polygamy as part of the religion, so that any true believer is faced with
obeying the words of Joseph Smith over those Mormon leaders who generations
later altered Smith’s original doctrines and traditions. The FLDS are
Fundamentalist Mormons, who openly hold to the original doctrines and
traditions of Joseph Smith. In the LDS
there are those those that secretly follow Joseph
Smith’s original doctrines and traditions, and quite probably those number in the
tens of thousands.) —but
because despite what evils may lurk in the hearts of the polygamist collective,
the
majority of Utahans remain sympathetic to polygamists. I know I am. (Confirmation)
That comes with the turf of being descended from a
polygamist, which I’ve never kept secret or tried to deny like certain Leavitts and Romneys try to do.
I’m from the lineage of the fifth wife, so without polygamy, I wouldn’t even be
here. I know, you’re thanking your lucky stars that
Matthew Caldwell felt compelled to marry five times in the 1800s so that you
could be reading this. Me, too. Outside of feeling the
daily tug of gravity, polygamy is about the only thing I have in common with
what is likely half the population of Utah—my fellow descendents of Utah’s
halcyon days of plural marriage.
I talk to liberals who say smoking pot shouldn’t
be illegal because it doesn’t hurt anyone. Polygamists give a similar defense
of their lifestyle. I talk to conservatives who say private property and
personal freedoms are sacrosanct. Polygamists say that’s all they really want.
Then, come raid time, liberals and conservatives both pounce on the polygamists
with equal measures of moral superiority.
Here’s what I don’t understand. Polygamy is
against the law, plain and simple. Yet, who gets arrested for polygamy?
And, of course, it’s the kids. No child should be
abused or forced into any sexual submission ever. But you tell me—that sure was
a lot of manpower down there that may yield some bone fide crimes committed at
the FLDS compound. Meanwhile, child abuse continues on at a nearly unabated
pace in the rest of