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Two articles on the polygamist Mormon groups.
In Polygamy Country, Old Divisions Are Fading
In Polygamy Country, Old Divisions Are Fading
By KIRK JOHNSON
ST. GEORGE, Utah, Sept. 7 — For generations of rural religious polygamists like those Warren S. Jeffs once led, this was the big town and the citadel of sin all in one.
St. George, founded on the southern route to California in wagon train days, was the place to buy groceries or spend an occasional night out. But it was also the local fortress of mainstream Mormonism, which is vehement in its opposition to polygamy.
The polygamists, in turn, looked down on Mormons as apostates who lost their way more than 100 years ago by denouncing polygamy, and thus the teachings of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, in a political compromise to achieve statehood for Utah.
Now Mr. Jeffs is being tried on felony charges that he was an accomplice to rape in arranging polygamous marriages between under-age girls and older men, and the jury is being drawn from a pool of St. George residents.
The trial is expected to throw a sharp light on polygamy and on the culture of Mr. Jeffs’s group in particular, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is estimated to number about 10,000 people throughout the West. Jury selection began Friday, and Mr. Jeffs, 51, could face life in prison if convicted.
The old and bitter history of intra-Mormon relations hangs over everything here. But many people said the divisions were not what they once had been. Even as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is known, has cracked down on polygamy in recent years, an intermingling of cultures has begun to bubble up here, opening hearts and minds in greater understanding, if not quite tolerance.
Economics, not religion, is driving the change.
St. George and Washington County have exploded with growth over the last 10 years, as retirement and tourism melded with the draw of Las Vegas, about two hours away. For years, the county has ranked near the top of the nation in its rate of expansion.
In the polygamist communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., which Mr. Jeffs presided over as a prophet of God, according to his followers, family-based construction companies dominate business. St. George, about 35 miles away, grew and changed, drawing more non-Mormons than ever before, and polygamist builders were often the ones framing rows of new homes and pouring concrete foundations.
And so the two sides got to know each other better. Some people here said that they hated what they had read about Mr. Jeffs, but that they had come to like some of the polygamists they had met.
“Awesome workers,” said Aaron Svedin, who works in quality control in a vitamin manufacturing plant in St. George where three young men from polygamist families have recently been hired. The first started as a mechanic, and Mr. Svedin, a member of the Mormon Church, said the other two were hired because the first man worked out so well.
Mr. Svedin, 38, said he thought he could be fair in judging Mr. Jeffs if he had been called as a juror, partly because he had gained a broader sense of the people in Mr. Jeffs’s world.
“I hope Warren Jeffs gets a fair shot,” Mr. Svedin said.
Few people in fundamentalist polygamy communities will talk to a reporter, let alone be interviewed. In Centennial Park, Ariz., about an hour southeast of St. George, one construction-business owner agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. He said that he had done jobs in St. George and that the town was a different place now.
“St. George had to grow up,” the man said. “They needed the help as they grew, and capitalism takes over very fast.”
Thousands of newcomers to St. George, Mormon or not, have also diluted the community’s opposition to polygamy in ways that could potentially affect the jury, residents said.
Amber Clark, 28, an Army veteran who moved here from California about two months ago and who described herself as an active Mormon, said she thought polygamists should be left alone, so long as no one was under age or coerced into marriage.
“I’m liberal in that respect,” Ms. Clark said. “If it’s legal in some states for people of the same sex to get married, why is it not legal to marry more than one wife?”
Some polygamist communities are responding to the new environment as well.
Earlier this year, for example, a cafe called the Merry Wives opened in Hildale, acknowledging plural marriage, something that probably would not have happened as recently as a year or two ago, said the manager, Charise Dutson.
A mural on the restaurant wall depicts three women working together in an idyllic, sun-drenched garden. Waitresses in long skirts serve breakfast. Most of the business comes from curious travelers on the highway, said Ms. Dutson, 35, but locals have increasingly warmed to the idea that it is acceptable not to fear outsiders so much.
“We are who we are,” Ms. Dutson said. “We’re proud of our heritage.”
The increasing contact is also building confidence that life after Mr. Jeffs, no matter what happens at the trial, will be different.
Paul Hanson, who lives in a fundamentalist community about an hour from St. George and works for a building products company, said he had come to understand that the Mormon splinter groups and the Mormon Church, based in Salt Lake City, shared the same flaw: they want their members to think a certain way.
“The reason I haven’t joined any of the groups, even the Mormon Church, is that there’s not enough freedom,” Mr. Hanson said. “You can’t express your own opinions.”
Boys Cast Out by Polygamists Find Help
Boys Cast Out by Polygamists Find Help
By ERIK ECKHOLM
ST. GEORGE, Utah — Woodrow Johnson was 15, and by the rules of the polygamous sect in which his family lived, he had a vice that could condemn them to hell: He liked to watch movies.
When his parents discovered his secret stash of DVDs, including the “Die Hard” series and comedies, they burned them and gave him an ultimatum. Stop watching movies, they said, or leave the family and church for good.
With television and the Internet also banned as wicked, along with short-sleeve shirts — a sign of immodesty — and staring at girls, let alone dating them, Woodrow made the wrenching decision to go. And so 10 months ago, with only a seventh-grade education and a suitcase of clothes, he was thrown into an unfamiliar world he had been taught to fear.
Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been expelled or felt compelled to leave the polygamous settlement that straddles Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.
Disobedience is usually the reason given for expulsion, but former sect members and state legal officials say the exodus of males — the expulsion of girls is rarer — also remedies a huge imbalance in the marriage market. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives.
State officials say efforts to help them with shelter, foster care or other services have been frustrated by the boys’ distrust of government and fear of getting their parents into trouble.
But help for the teenagers is improving. In St. George, a nearby city where many of them wind up, two private groups, with state aid, have opened the first residence and center for banished boys. It will offer psychological counseling and advice on things they never learned, like how to write a check or ask a girl out politely, as well as a transitional home for eight who will attend school and work part time.
The polygamous settlement is largely controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and allies of its jailed prophet, Warren S. Jeffs, who is about to stand trial on charges of sexual exploitation.
Now 16, living with a sympathetic aunt and uncle, Woodrow is one of the luckier boys, though he rarely sees his parents and says, plaintively, “I really miss them.” Some boys end up in unsupervised group rentals they call “butt huts” because of the crowded sleeping, while others live in cars or end up in jail.
Utah officials say they realized the extent of the problem only about four years ago, when they learned that hundreds of boys from the sect were roaming on their own and often in distress. While most have construction skills to help earn a living, few have more than a junior high education.
“The house is a milestone, but it’s just a start,” said Paul Murphy, director of communications and policy for the Utah attorney general’s office who has worked with state and private agencies to muster help. “We’re finally reaching out, but it’s been painfully slow.”
The church settlement is essentially one town crossing the border, a jumble of walled compounds, trailers and farm fields at the base of spectacular red bluffs. Nearly all of the 6,000 residents follow the dictates of Mr. Jeffs, who they believe speaks for God; women wear ankle-length dresses, and children are taught to run away from outsiders.
Mr. Jeffs, 51, is in the Purgatory jail in southern Utah, his trial scheduled to start on Sept. 10 on charges of being an accomplice to rape, for his role in forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry an older cousin. He faces several other sex-related charges in Arizona.
But his allies still control the church, former members say, and teenage boys continue to trickle out of the community, by force or by choice.
“In part it’s an issue of control,” Mr. Murphy said of the harsh rules. But underlying the expulsions, he added, is a mathematical reality. “If you’re going to have plural marriage, you need fewer men,” he said.
Andrew Chatwin, 39, the uncle who took Woodrow in, left the sect 10 years ago. He explained how the expulsions usually happen: “The leaders tell the parents they must stop this kid who is disobeying the faith and Warren Jeffs. So the parents kick him out because otherwise the father could have his wives and whole family taken away.”
The sect, which has smaller outposts in other states, has no ties to the mainstream Mormon church, which outlaws polygamy.
Church leaders refuse to speak to the press, and the mayors of Colorado City and Hildale both declined to comment. Mr. Jeffs’s defense lawyer did not respond to calls or e-mail messages.
With Mr. Jeffs and other polygamists, the authorities in Utah and Arizona have prosecuted sexual crimes, but they have not pursued cases involving the neglect of teenagers, in part, Mr. Murphy said, because the boys invariably refuse to testify.
In April, six banished teenagers who brought what became known as the lost boys suit against church leaders agreed to a settlement in which $250,000 will be used to promote education and emergency support for expelled youths. The money will be raised through selling some of the church’s large property holdings, now in receivership because church officials never appeared in court to defend against this lawsuit and others. The court-appointed agent now controlling the properties also gave each of the plaintiffs three acres of church land.
One plaintiff was Richard Gilbert, now 22. He had to leave Colorado City at 16, he said, when he refused Mr. Jeffs’s order to drop out of the public high school.
“I absolutely believed I was going to hell,” Mr. Gilbert recalled.
For a time, Mr. Gilbert lived in the nearby town of Hurricane, where five boys rented a two-bedroom apartment but had as many as 19 sleeping over. Some boys, he said, had literally been dropped off with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
“A lot of guys go off the deep end,” Mr. Gilbert said. “For me, it meant a ton of alcohol and partying.”
Now he works in construction, has been married for a year and has a child.
Mr. Gilbert estimates that 100 boys from his school class, or 70 percent of them, have been expelled or left on their own accord; there is no way to verify the numbers. “There are a lot of broken-hearted parents, but you question this decision at the risk of your own salvation,” Mr. Gilbert said.
The problem of surplus males worsened in the 1990s when the late prophet Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs’s father, took on dozens of young wives — picking the prettiest, most talented girls, said DeLoy Bateman, a high school teacher who watched it happen.
Warren Jeffs, taking the mantle after his father’s death in 2002, adopted most of his father’s wives and married others, and also began assigning more wives to his trusted church leaders, former members say. Forced departures increased.
Shannon Price, director of the Diversity Foundation, an educational nonprofit group near Salt Lake City, estimates that 500 to 1,000 teenage boys and young men have left Mr. Jeffs’s sect in the last six years, based on the hundreds who have contacted her group and another nonprofit, New Frontiers for Families.
Established by Dan Fischer, a wealthy former sect member, the Diversity Foundation has been a rare source of aid for ejected boys — and girls who have left the sect to avoid polygamy — helping many go to high school and college and raising public awareness about their plight.
The new venture, the eight-bedroom house in St. George, is being run by the two nonprofits with private grants and $95,000 from the Utah Legislature.
The one thing nearly all the boys share is a strong work ethic and experience in construction. But many, moving from total control to total freedom, get in trouble with drugs, alcohol and crime.
“These are kids, and they still need a connection with adults who can nurture them,” said Michelle Benward, clinical director of New Frontiers for Families.
A 21-year-old nicknamed Marc, who is on probation for selling cocaine, has straightened out and now works as a mentor to boys leaving the sect. Marc refused to give his name because he wants to preserve relations with his father, who still believes in Mr. Jeffs despite having been expelled himself. Marc described how abruptly his world shattered in 2004, when he was 17.
“I was a good boy, working 13-hour days,” he said. But he had been raising questions, especially after his father’s four wives were assigned to other husbands. Then Marc got caught driving to a nearby town to watch a movie.
One evening as he was making a chicken sandwich, he recalled, “My two older brothers came and said that because I’d gone to the movies, Warren said I’m out.”
“I went into my bedroom and my mother was already packing my things, and crying,” he said. “That night they drove me to a relative’s home in St. George.”
And an extra one, on non-Mormon polygamy in NYC.
In Polygamy Country, Old Divisions Are Fading
By KIRK JOHNSON
ST. GEORGE, Utah, Sept. 7 — For generations of rural religious polygamists like those Warren S. Jeffs once led, this was the big town and the citadel of sin all in one.
St. George, founded on the southern route to California in wagon train days, was the place to buy groceries or spend an occasional night out. But it was also the local fortress of mainstream Mormonism, which is vehement in its opposition to polygamy.
The polygamists, in turn, looked down on Mormons as apostates who lost their way more than 100 years ago by denouncing polygamy, and thus the teachings of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, in a political compromise to achieve statehood for Utah.
Now Mr. Jeffs is being tried on felony charges that he was an accomplice to rape in arranging polygamous marriages between under-age girls and older men, and the jury is being drawn from a pool of St. George residents.
The trial is expected to throw a sharp light on polygamy and on the culture of Mr. Jeffs’s group in particular, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is estimated to number about 10,000 people throughout the West. Jury selection began Friday, and Mr. Jeffs, 51, could face life in prison if convicted.
The old and bitter history of intra-Mormon relations hangs over everything here. But many people said the divisions were not what they once had been. Even as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is known, has cracked down on polygamy in recent years, an intermingling of cultures has begun to bubble up here, opening hearts and minds in greater understanding, if not quite tolerance.
Economics, not religion, is driving the change.
St. George and Washington County have exploded with growth over the last 10 years, as retirement and tourism melded with the draw of Las Vegas, about two hours away. For years, the county has ranked near the top of the nation in its rate of expansion.
In the polygamist communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., which Mr. Jeffs presided over as a prophet of God, according to his followers, family-based construction companies dominate business. St. George, about 35 miles away, grew and changed, drawing more non-Mormons than ever before, and polygamist builders were often the ones framing rows of new homes and pouring concrete foundations.
And so the two sides got to know each other better. Some people here said that they hated what they had read about Mr. Jeffs, but that they had come to like some of the polygamists they had met.
“Awesome workers,” said Aaron Svedin, who works in quality control in a vitamin manufacturing plant in St. George where three young men from polygamist families have recently been hired. The first started as a mechanic, and Mr. Svedin, a member of the Mormon Church, said the other two were hired because the first man worked out so well.
Mr. Svedin, 38, said he thought he could be fair in judging Mr. Jeffs if he had been called as a juror, partly because he had gained a broader sense of the people in Mr. Jeffs’s world.
“I hope Warren Jeffs gets a fair shot,” Mr. Svedin said.
Few people in fundamentalist polygamy communities will talk to a reporter, let alone be interviewed. In Centennial Park, Ariz., about an hour southeast of St. George, one construction-business owner agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. He said that he had done jobs in St. George and that the town was a different place now.
“St. George had to grow up,” the man said. “They needed the help as they grew, and capitalism takes over very fast.”
Thousands of newcomers to St. George, Mormon or not, have also diluted the community’s opposition to polygamy in ways that could potentially affect the jury, residents said.
Amber Clark, 28, an Army veteran who moved here from California about two months ago and who described herself as an active Mormon, said she thought polygamists should be left alone, so long as no one was under age or coerced into marriage.
“I’m liberal in that respect,” Ms. Clark said. “If it’s legal in some states for people of the same sex to get married, why is it not legal to marry more than one wife?”
Some polygamist communities are responding to the new environment as well.
Earlier this year, for example, a cafe called the Merry Wives opened in Hildale, acknowledging plural marriage, something that probably would not have happened as recently as a year or two ago, said the manager, Charise Dutson.
A mural on the restaurant wall depicts three women working together in an idyllic, sun-drenched garden. Waitresses in long skirts serve breakfast. Most of the business comes from curious travelers on the highway, said Ms. Dutson, 35, but locals have increasingly warmed to the idea that it is acceptable not to fear outsiders so much.
“We are who we are,” Ms. Dutson said. “We’re proud of our heritage.”
The increasing contact is also building confidence that life after Mr. Jeffs, no matter what happens at the trial, will be different.
Paul Hanson, who lives in a fundamentalist community about an hour from St. George and works for a building products company, said he had come to understand that the Mormon splinter groups and the Mormon Church, based in Salt Lake City, shared the same flaw: they want their members to think a certain way.
“The reason I haven’t joined any of the groups, even the Mormon Church, is that there’s not enough freedom,” Mr. Hanson said. “You can’t express your own opinions.”
Boys Cast Out by Polygamists Find Help
Boys Cast Out by Polygamists Find Help
By ERIK ECKHOLM
ST. GEORGE, Utah — Woodrow Johnson was 15, and by the rules of the polygamous sect in which his family lived, he had a vice that could condemn them to hell: He liked to watch movies.
When his parents discovered his secret stash of DVDs, including the “Die Hard” series and comedies, they burned them and gave him an ultimatum. Stop watching movies, they said, or leave the family and church for good.
With television and the Internet also banned as wicked, along with short-sleeve shirts — a sign of immodesty — and staring at girls, let alone dating them, Woodrow made the wrenching decision to go. And so 10 months ago, with only a seventh-grade education and a suitcase of clothes, he was thrown into an unfamiliar world he had been taught to fear.
Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been expelled or felt compelled to leave the polygamous settlement that straddles Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.
Disobedience is usually the reason given for expulsion, but former sect members and state legal officials say the exodus of males — the expulsion of girls is rarer — also remedies a huge imbalance in the marriage market. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives.
State officials say efforts to help them with shelter, foster care or other services have been frustrated by the boys’ distrust of government and fear of getting their parents into trouble.
But help for the teenagers is improving. In St. George, a nearby city where many of them wind up, two private groups, with state aid, have opened the first residence and center for banished boys. It will offer psychological counseling and advice on things they never learned, like how to write a check or ask a girl out politely, as well as a transitional home for eight who will attend school and work part time.
The polygamous settlement is largely controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and allies of its jailed prophet, Warren S. Jeffs, who is about to stand trial on charges of sexual exploitation.
Now 16, living with a sympathetic aunt and uncle, Woodrow is one of the luckier boys, though he rarely sees his parents and says, plaintively, “I really miss them.” Some boys end up in unsupervised group rentals they call “butt huts” because of the crowded sleeping, while others live in cars or end up in jail.
Utah officials say they realized the extent of the problem only about four years ago, when they learned that hundreds of boys from the sect were roaming on their own and often in distress. While most have construction skills to help earn a living, few have more than a junior high education.
“The house is a milestone, but it’s just a start,” said Paul Murphy, director of communications and policy for the Utah attorney general’s office who has worked with state and private agencies to muster help. “We’re finally reaching out, but it’s been painfully slow.”
The church settlement is essentially one town crossing the border, a jumble of walled compounds, trailers and farm fields at the base of spectacular red bluffs. Nearly all of the 6,000 residents follow the dictates of Mr. Jeffs, who they believe speaks for God; women wear ankle-length dresses, and children are taught to run away from outsiders.
Mr. Jeffs, 51, is in the Purgatory jail in southern Utah, his trial scheduled to start on Sept. 10 on charges of being an accomplice to rape, for his role in forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry an older cousin. He faces several other sex-related charges in Arizona.
But his allies still control the church, former members say, and teenage boys continue to trickle out of the community, by force or by choice.
“In part it’s an issue of control,” Mr. Murphy said of the harsh rules. But underlying the expulsions, he added, is a mathematical reality. “If you’re going to have plural marriage, you need fewer men,” he said.
Andrew Chatwin, 39, the uncle who took Woodrow in, left the sect 10 years ago. He explained how the expulsions usually happen: “The leaders tell the parents they must stop this kid who is disobeying the faith and Warren Jeffs. So the parents kick him out because otherwise the father could have his wives and whole family taken away.”
The sect, which has smaller outposts in other states, has no ties to the mainstream Mormon church, which outlaws polygamy.
Church leaders refuse to speak to the press, and the mayors of Colorado City and Hildale both declined to comment. Mr. Jeffs’s defense lawyer did not respond to calls or e-mail messages.
With Mr. Jeffs and other polygamists, the authorities in Utah and Arizona have prosecuted sexual crimes, but they have not pursued cases involving the neglect of teenagers, in part, Mr. Murphy said, because the boys invariably refuse to testify.
In April, six banished teenagers who brought what became known as the lost boys suit against church leaders agreed to a settlement in which $250,000 will be used to promote education and emergency support for expelled youths. The money will be raised through selling some of the church’s large property holdings, now in receivership because church officials never appeared in court to defend against this lawsuit and others. The court-appointed agent now controlling the properties also gave each of the plaintiffs three acres of church land.
One plaintiff was Richard Gilbert, now 22. He had to leave Colorado City at 16, he said, when he refused Mr. Jeffs’s order to drop out of the public high school.
“I absolutely believed I was going to hell,” Mr. Gilbert recalled.
For a time, Mr. Gilbert lived in the nearby town of Hurricane, where five boys rented a two-bedroom apartment but had as many as 19 sleeping over. Some boys, he said, had literally been dropped off with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
“A lot of guys go off the deep end,” Mr. Gilbert said. “For me, it meant a ton of alcohol and partying.”
Now he works in construction, has been married for a year and has a child.
Mr. Gilbert estimates that 100 boys from his school class, or 70 percent of them, have been expelled or left on their own accord; there is no way to verify the numbers. “There are a lot of broken-hearted parents, but you question this decision at the risk of your own salvation,” Mr. Gilbert said.
The problem of surplus males worsened in the 1990s when the late prophet Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs’s father, took on dozens of young wives — picking the prettiest, most talented girls, said DeLoy Bateman, a high school teacher who watched it happen.
Warren Jeffs, taking the mantle after his father’s death in 2002, adopted most of his father’s wives and married others, and also began assigning more wives to his trusted church leaders, former members say. Forced departures increased.
Shannon Price, director of the Diversity Foundation, an educational nonprofit group near Salt Lake City, estimates that 500 to 1,000 teenage boys and young men have left Mr. Jeffs’s sect in the last six years, based on the hundreds who have contacted her group and another nonprofit, New Frontiers for Families.
Established by Dan Fischer, a wealthy former sect member, the Diversity Foundation has been a rare source of aid for ejected boys — and girls who have left the sect to avoid polygamy — helping many go to high school and college and raising public awareness about their plight.
The new venture, the eight-bedroom house in St. George, is being run by the two nonprofits with private grants and $95,000 from the Utah Legislature.
The one thing nearly all the boys share is a strong work ethic and experience in construction. But many, moving from total control to total freedom, get in trouble with drugs, alcohol and crime.
“These are kids, and they still need a connection with adults who can nurture them,” said Michelle Benward, clinical director of New Frontiers for Families.
A 21-year-old nicknamed Marc, who is on probation for selling cocaine, has straightened out and now works as a mentor to boys leaving the sect. Marc refused to give his name because he wants to preserve relations with his father, who still believes in Mr. Jeffs despite having been expelled himself. Marc described how abruptly his world shattered in 2004, when he was 17.
“I was a good boy, working 13-hour days,” he said. But he had been raising questions, especially after his father’s four wives were assigned to other husbands. Then Marc got caught driving to a nearby town to watch a movie.
One evening as he was making a chicken sandwich, he recalled, “My two older brothers came and said that because I’d gone to the movies, Warren said I’m out.”
“I went into my bedroom and my mother was already packing my things, and crying,” he said. “That night they drove me to a relative’s home in St. George.”
And an extra one, on non-Mormon polygamy in NYC.