Polygamy in Politics
The Associated Press released a story this week about Polygamy and Elections in Utah; specifically for the office of Utah Attorney General. I found two source for the article, and I’m sure there are more:
I’ve posted a few comments of my own on the matter of Polygamy and how it relates to “Mormons”:
LDS vs FLDS
And a number of other posts back when I was actively involved with Delphi Forums that I need to find and re-post here (if anyone has a paid Delphi account and can search for all my old posts and provide me direct links to them, I would greatly appreciate it).
I was living in Utah when Attorney General Mark Shurtleff was first elected, and I most likely voted for him too. What I remember most about him is that he’s always, from the beginning, been asked what he was going to do about the “Polygamy Issue”. It’s a question that’s been asked in politics since around the time the “Mormons” moved west to settle Utah and escape persecution and threats of extermination.
Being a member of the LDS church, the polygamy issue is one that hits very close to home, and for many of us, it’s something many of us wish we could put further behind us. One would think over a hundred years would be enough, but with radical self proclaimed “Fundamentalists” (like those in the FLDS Church) still lurking around in the tens of thousands, it’s certainly not something that’s easily dealt with, and that is miss-understood more often then not.
I remember Mark himself saying he would do what he could when he was first elected, but has on at least two occasions that I can recount, give a disclaimer that it would take time and wouldn’t be easy to get the evidence needed for a conviction of the FLDS leaders; Texas is a good example of how difficult it can be to properly prosecute such secretive groups, when hundreds of kids taken from the FLDS’s compound were ordered to be returned because of the improper procedures taken by the Texas Child Protective Services.
As I watched that tragedy of injustice unfold, I couldn’t help but think how the children were being victimized by the State, rather then the State going after the true criminals and child abusers; not to mention that the Child Protective Services agency did a very poor job of verifying the claims; especially considering the third hand source of information they were given.
Today, the FLDS sect leader, Warren Jeffs, has now been in jail for a few years. Many other FLDS leaders are also now facing criminal charges in Texas. It seems that Mark is making a dent in this group, but with tens of thousands of people he’s certainly going to need help from other States and federal authorities.
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