Last Updated: Thursday, January 8, 2009 | 7:24 PM ET
The leader of a polygamous sect in Bountiful, B.C., says he is being persecuted for his religious beliefs and politics is behind the decision to charge him with polygamy ...
He acknowledged Canada has a law against polygamy, but he also said his religious ways are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ...
Blackmore, the one-time bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the rural community in B.C.'s Southern Interior, has been reported to have fathered about 80 children by 26 wives, some as young as 15 when he allegedly married them.
In 2003, he and about 1,000 other members of the Bountiful community split from the church after rejecting Warren Jeffs, the church's U.S.-based leader, as a prophet. Jeffs then appointed Oler as his leader in the community ...
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/01/08/bc-polygamy-winston-blackmore.html?ref=rss