Still, some of its members continued to practice in secret at the risk of being excommunicated. By 1935, some of the men who’d been expelled from the Mormon Church formed their own breakaway sect, first known as ‘The Work’ and decades later as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They viewed plural marriage as a central tenet – and the only way to attain eternal salvation.
Members of the FLDS believe they are following the true Mormon religion as it was first envisioned by Joseph Smith. One of its central teachings is the idea of celestial marriage, in which a man must have a minimum of three wives to gain admittance to the highest of the three levels of heaven. That [my] Dad was getting a third wife meant that he had begun to secure a place in the Celestial Kingdom for himself and his family. Elissa Wall, Stolen Innocence pp7-9
In any event, it is easy to predict that within the FLDS community there would be a lot of pressure on fathers to put their daughters forward to be married as quickly as possible. And Joseph Smith took a 14-year-old wife, didn’t he. So the age of 14 is likely not coincidental.
One of the women interviewed on the Larry King show described her terror when she found out that her father had entered her name in the ‘joy book’. She resorted to various kinds of acting out in an attempt to try to delay the announcement of her marriage. She eventually escaped the FLDS community at age 16. In most cases, only a couple days’ notice was given between the announcement of marriage and the marriage itself.
The key witness at the Jeffs’ trial described her experience in similar terms. The man she was married was her first cousin. He was 19; she was 14. He had regularly bullied her throughout their lives. She touchingly described the emotional trauma she faced after a lifetime of believing that sex was dirty and then suddenly at age 14 start having sex with someone she not only did not love, but instead feared and detested.
The ‘joy book’? This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984. And, more to the point, straight out of mainstream Mormonism. Remember the ‘Courts of Love’? Bob McCue, board post 24th November 2006 ‘The Joy Book’
It was all so superficial and to me phoney and shallow ... I prostituted myself to get to heaven. Mary Mackert, polygamist wife
I felt like one more mouth to feed. Like a burden on my parents. And it reduces men to just sperm donors. Mary Mackert
At age 15, Debbie was ordered to marry leader Ray Blackmore, who was 57. He was married to 5 other women at the time and had 30 children, most of whom were older than his newest wife. Ray Blackmore was also Debbie’s step-grandfather.
Two years later, Ray Blackmore died and his son, Winston Blackmore, became Bountiful’s ruler. He has 30 wives and 80 children. He is the church bishop and superintendent of the (taxpayer-funded) school, runs the businesses, edits the newspaper and controls the reporting of abuse allegations. Winston Blackmore is also Debbie’s step-son. He is described as ‘all but omnipotent’.
During her life in the colony, Debbie was married 3 times and had 8 children. She suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse. When she saw the same cycle repeating itself in her children’s lives, fearing for their safety, Debbie flees Bountiful. In the whole wide world, she knew only one person outside the colony, an aunt who was a mainstream Mormon.
Since leaving Bountiful, Debbie Palmer has become an advocate for the women and children still trapped in the colony. She fights against what she calls ‘illegal cross-border trade in Canadian and American female children for sexual and breeding purposes’. Nightingale, board post 16th November 2002, ‘Leaving Bountiful’
Salt Lake City – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicates any church member who practices polygamy. The Church has publicly disowned Mormon fundamentalists, representing the sects of Mormonism which embrace early Mormon teachings that made polygamy a central part of the Mormon faith – the ongoing legacy of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
While the LDS Church says it does not sanction polygamy, behind closed temple doors, and in Mormon databases, many excommunicated Mormon fundamentalists (and their plural wives) have been reclaimed through posthumous rituals for the dead – and, in numerous cases, posthumously reinstated through ‘resurrected’ original LDS ordinances, including baptisms.
Reinventing its polygamous history, the LDS Church is ushering deceased excommunicated Mormon fundamentalists – such as Rulon Clark Allred; Rulon Timpson Jeffs; and members of the LeBaron clan, including notorious killer, Ervil Morell LeBaron – back into the LDS fold.
The LDS temple system is systematically validating the plural marriages of many deceased Mormon fundamentalists who, when they were alive, were excommunicated from the LDS Church because of polygamy. Some of these polygamists have been posthumously sealed in LDS temples to plural wives they married – after the LDS Church officially suspended polygamy.
Why does the LDS Church condemn the practice of polygamy – including the polygamy of Mormon fundamentalists – as the LDS temple system consistently validates deceased Mormon fundamentalists and many of their plural marriages? Helen Radkey, board post 2nd June 2009, ‘The Mormon Church and Polygamy: A Double Standard’
Let me state clearly that no polygamist group, including those calling themselves Fundamentalist Mormons or other derivatives of our name have any affiliation whatsoever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. M Russell Ballard, general conference October 2011
For one man a fertile corner of north-west Canada has produced a bumper harvest of children. So-called spiritual leader Winston Blackmore has fathered at least 121 children from at least 25 wives. Many were just teenagers when they gave birth. Man with 121 Children and 24 Wives, National Geographic 2010
According to fundamentalist Mormon beliefs it’s not just wives but multiple children that gets believers to the highest levels of heavenly paradise. ibid.
They used to be part of a secretive cult community – the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS run from this temple compound in Texas. The FLDS was led by a self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs. ibid.
Wives ten and eleven married their spiritual leader on the same day. ibid.
Its notorious prophet Warren Jeffs allegedly ordered the blood atonement or murder of a teenage girl who fled one of his arranged marriages. ibid.
Winston Blackmore wasn’t blood atoned. He was ostracised from the FLDS. Followers in Canada had to choose sides. Divisions were so serious some of Winston Blackmore’s wives and children left the family. For those Fundamentalist Mormon followers who stayed faithful to their Prophet Warren Jeffs another scandal would test their faith. And rock the foundations of their church. After a series of alleged sex abuses their beloved prophet Warren Jeffs, believed to be a descendant of Jesus Christ, became one of the FBI’s ten most wanted. ibid.
The girl in this photo is one of Warren Jeff’s alleged underage brides – she was just twelve years old. ibid.
Of at least twenty-five wives, four were under sixteen and six were under eighteen when they married Winston Blackmore. ibid.
He says it was his refusal to cooperate in the planned execution of a girl who fled an arranged marriage that caused him and his followers to split from the FDLS cult in 2002. ibid.
The notion of polygamy as a sacred right or duty was started by the founder of the mainstream Mormon Church. Joseph Smith claimed that God revealed a divine commandment to practise plural marriage in 1831. But he only told people about it when he was allegedly caught cheating on his wife more than a decade later. Was it really a sacred commandment or just an elaborate excuse? ibid.
Winston Blackmore was arrested for practising polygamy in January 2009 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ibid.
Narrator Laurie Allen was raised in the violent LeBaron polygamous sect. Laurie was kidnapped twice, kept as a child slave, and never finished the fourth grade. Escaping Polygamy s1e1: Leah/Hannah
A remote desert town still living in the nineteenth century. A town where women are chattel. ibid.
I was orphaned at age three and sent to live among the polygamists until I escaped aged sixteen. ibid.
Warren Jeffs holds the power. ibid.
Now Ruth lives in a field in a shanty she built from scavenged lumber. ibid.
Parents run their sons out of town so older polygamous men can have their pick of young brides. ibid.
My great uncle Ervil LeBaron received a Life sentence for murdering Fundamentalist polygamous rivals including his brother Joe and my cousin Rebecca. ibid.
‘Lost Boys’ Rally Salt Lake City Utah. ibid.
Warren Jeffs will stop at nothing to suppress rebellion. ibid.
Tighter control closed out the world, made women dress like little girls, and took away their right to choose a husband. ibid.
The Ephraim Bank failure cost taxpayers $13 million. ibid.
We were all victims of abuse. ibid.
Woman are supposed to be subservient to men. ibid.
Who is going to liberate the women and children of Colorado City? ibid.