DENVER — Are polygamous groups "cults"?

That question was debated here Friday as former members of polygamous groups shared their stories of abuse and control in fundamentalist communities.

They came to participate in the 2006 conference of the International Cultic Studies Association, a group of academics, therapists and former cult members, being held over three days at a hotel near Denver.

Several sessions dealt specifically with polygamy, and members of the polygamous community of Centennial Park, Ariz., were among those who showed up to challenge the notion that they're "cult members."

"Your experience is not mine," one woman told a panel of ex-polygamous wives and therapists. "My experience is not yours."

She would not give her name to the Deseret Morning News but said she and others from the polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border came here to educate themselves on the components of a cult and take steps to avoid falling under that definition.

The definition of a "cult" is something that not everyone here at the ICSA conference agrees upon. One man's religion is another man's cult, and in some cases mainstream religions consider other mainstream religions to be cults.

In the case of polygamous congregations and communities, "What you see is you have different definitions," said Mike Kropveld, the director of Info-Cult, a cult monitoring center in Montreal, Canada. "Do they all operate the same? Some are maybe more abusive and harmful. Some are probably more moderate, and with each group you cannot generalize, either."

Cults are generally considered authoritarian, closed groups that exploit their members. However, some in polygamy freely say they are very happy in their lives.

"You can say every religion can be a cult," the woman from Centennial Park said. "Destructive, I guess would be the word. We do not want to be destructive."

Polygamous groups will not escape being classified as a cult, said Andrea Moore-Emmett, a member of Tapestry Against Polygamy and a presenter at this conference. She has been speaking about polygamy at the ICSA conference for the past five years.

"They are cults," she said Friday. "They have all the dynamics of a cult as we discuss (it) here. They're definitely considered a cult in my mind."

Some ex-polygamists freely used the term to describe their former lives. Sylvia Mahr, who lived in the Utah-based Apostolic United Brethren's enclave in Pinesdale, Mont., said all polygamous groups are "abusive."

"The outside world sees them as a quaint, Amish people," she said.