State urged to scrap its law against polygamy

Sporting buttons saying "Bigger Love," members of Utah's polygamous communities gathered at the University of Utah for a special "town hall" meeting Wednesday night to discuss the problems within polygamy before an audience of government officials, sister-wives, lawyers and activists on both sides of the issue.

"We hoped not to be in your face about it, but we wanted to make a statement," said Joyce Steed, a member of the polygamous community of Centennial Park, Ariz.

The Utah attorney general's Safety Net Committee hosted the panel discussion to get public comment about how to end isolation and help victims of abuse in the state's many polygamous communities.

"I turned a blind eye to it," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said. "In Utah and Arizona for decades, we turned a blind eye."

Many of those in attendance suggested the best way to end the isolation and abuse is to decriminalize polygamy in Utah.

"Polygamy is as old as the world. It is here to stay," said Marlyne Hammon of Centennial Park, Ariz. One of the wives of polygamist John Daniel Kingston stood up to speak in agreement.

"The state of Utah won't let me get married," said Heidi Mattingly-Foster. "What makes them decide who I can and cannot love?"

Some suggested that by decriminalizing polygamy, deadbeat parents would pay child support and women would feel free to come forward and report abuse without fear of being cut off from their religious communities. Others objected.

"This sort of thing is coddling criminals," one person wrote in comments read before the audience.

Carolyn Jessop fled an abusive marriage as the fourth of seven wives to a man in the Fundamentalist LDS Church in Colorado City. She said because of the isolation, it is hard to leave domestic violence.

"It was like jumping off a cliff," she said. "There's an enormous gap between the FLDS community and the real world."

Much of the anger surrounding problems within polygamy were directed at the FLDS Church, whose leader, Warren Jeffs, is a wanted fugitive. But the Utah attorney general defended his decision not to prosecute bigamy among consenting adults in plural marriage.

"Are you willing to pay for 10,000 new inmates?" Shurtleff said, directing some of his comments to members of Utah's leading anti-polygamy group, sitting in the audience. "We don't have the resources, so we go after the most heinous crimes against children and women."