Wedgie: A GOP Lawmaker Says Polygamists Deserve an Apology

[Dems Will Win]

Salt Lake Tribune

A GOP Lawmaker Says Polygamists Deserve an Apology



BY DAN HARRIE


One Republican lawmaker believes it is time Utah makes peace
with its peculiar past by issuing an official state apology to polygamists for anti-bigamy law enforcement raids in the 1940s and 1950s. Rep. David Zolman says a public apology for polygamist roundups conducted decades ago would erect a "peace bridge" to isolated fundamentalist communities, and end decades of hostile confrontation.

"The head-in-the-sand solution of the past century is clearly erroneous and someone has got to do something," the Taylorsville lawmaker said Monday. "The way we have been toward them politically is a travesty." Zolman is attempting to generate support for a public apology in the form of a legislative resolution.

Polygamy was a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints until 1890, when it was officially abandoned. But an estimated
30,000 to 40,000 people in several Western states have continued "the
principle" despite their ostracization and excommunication by the LDS
Church.

Zolman, who describes himself as an "orthodox monogamist" with no
bigamists in his ancestry, previously has advocated removing the
polygamy ban from the Utah Constitution and decriminalizing plural
marriage. That remains his long-term legislative objective, but he now
believes such a dramatic change must be accomplished in stages.
Support among colleagues is gaining, Zolman claims, although he has
assured Republican legislative leaders he will not push the resolution next year, when most lawmakers face election.

-snip-

http://www.polygamyinfo.com/plygmedia%2099%20192%20trib.htm

More of the Republican Polygamy Agenda--just because Mormons vote overwhelmingly Republican. Evangelicals Beware, the Republicans betray you!

[mopinko]

1. but, but

isn't polygamy like marrying a box turtle?

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. Not if it's a really rich, politically connected box turtle n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. Geez, what a hypocrite. Wonder what he thinks of polyandry?

Somehow, I think that if a group of people who had a religion that favored multiple husbands for women was unwise enough to move to Utah, the solicitous Mr. Zolman would reject their argument for legal polyandry. Unless, that is, they were sufficiently wealthy and politically powerful to elicit his suck-up relfex.

In my personal view, I've never seen why governments should ban any form of loving intrapersonal commitment that is not harmful to others. When arbitrary pseudomoral barriers get inserted, like against gay marriage, hypocrisy and corrupt politics are always plain to see for anyone who troubles to look.

[Dems Will Win]

4. This is a sicko Fundamentalist cult like Koresh

http://www.exmormon.org/violence.htm

On July 24, 1984, Ronald and Dan Lafferty went to the home of their brother Allen, located in American Fork, Utah, and slit the throats of his wife and fifteen month old child with a ten inch hunting knife. Ron and Dan later claimed that they had received a revelation from God telling them to kill these individuals, and that an additional revelation had instructed them to flee to Reno where they were to gamble and binge on booze, pot, and whores.(6)

In January of 1988, Adam Swapp bombed a Mormon Stake Center in Kamas, Utah in retaliation for the death of his father-in-law, John Singer, who was killed by police nine years earlier. Swapp and his family then proceeded to hold off an army of police officers and federal agents in a 13 day standoff before police finally stormed their cabin and took them into custody following a violent gun battle in which one officer was killed.(7)

In August of 1994, former Mormon church member Jim Harmston organized his own church named The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days. Attracting a devout group of polygamists, the church preaches that Armageddon is at hand and that the Federal Government is corrupt. The group's accumulation of guns and food supplies has resulted in comparisons between them and the Branch Davidians at Waco. Many in the group fear that federal agents will attack them.(8)

The common thread among all these incidents is the fact that the participants were believers in fundamentalist Mormon doctrines, including the practice of polygamy. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) officially renounced the practice of polygamy in 1890, citing the manifesto of Wilford Woodruff, the actual practice of polygamy and adherence to other fundamentalist doctrines has continued to create problems for leaders of the main body of the Saints, and has led to the creation of several splinter groups which have left the larger group for reasons of doctrinal difference.

-snip-

They have sex with girls younger than 14 and pass them around, and they've spread to 30 states.

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. Horrible, horrible beyond words. n/t

[roseBudd]

5. Except polygamists can't afford to support their huge families...

and they end up using welfare. If right wingers can begrudge unwed moms on welfare I think it's fair for me to begrudge men who have more kids and wives than they can support on the dole.

[Dems Will Win]

8. Exactly! 33% of all Fundie Mormons are on Welfare!

They can't marry their "spiritual wives" so they sign them up on welfare as single mothers! It's quite a racket!

YOU GET THE BILL, I'm Afraid.

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. I feel that the barrier shouldn't be at the level of marriage

...but at other levels, like the rules determining levels of welfare they are to be paid. Now admittedly that's my initial response, made without a careful study of these situations.

It seems to me that if the government is to be involved at all in the business of determining who should be allowed to marry, it would be in allowing licenses only to people who could demonstrate that marriage would not render them unable to support themselves. (It goes without saying here that marriages that would be harmful to young children or other criminal situations should also be prevented.) But while superficially appealing, that would be also be problematical. Many couples would then just live together and produce families without marriage, and the hypothetical process of "demonstrating self-sufficiency" to a state marriage officer of some kind sounds like a real can of worms.

[pbartch]

7. It's time Utah.......throw the criminals who practice polygamy in jail

this REPUKE.....makes me vomit.

"Family Values"

???????????????????????????

[w4rma]

9. Repugs are whacked in the head. (nt)