Texas raid has opened can of worms

The Texas polygamy raid and prosecution is full of ironies.

It's ironic that the 416 confiscated children were sent to a county named Tom Green, even if it is no relation to the convicted Utah bigamist of the same name.

It's ironic that some ostracized former members of the FLDS polygamous sect are exhibiting a perverse pleasure in watching families that they were once torn from being torn apart again.

It's ironic that the attack on polygamous sexual practices is taking place in the same state that recently struck down laws that attacked homosexual sexual practices (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003).

And it's ironic that Texas authorities are, by some, being roundly praised for taking aggressive action while Utah authorities are being characterized as Barney Fife in comparison.

This last is the biggest irony of all, because Utah knows something Texas doesn't: dealing with polygamy isn't that simple.

It seems like it should be. The law states that bigamy, or marrying someone else when you are already married, is illegal. It also states that underage girls cannot wed. That's straightforward enough.

But add religion into the equation, and deception, and the willingness of "Big Love" advocates to live on the fringes to avoid mainstream America, and suddenly dealing with other so-called difficult societal problems — like, say, illegal immigration — looks like a walk in the park.

Here in Utah, authorities have known this for decades. Despite anti-polygamy laws and despite repeated official denouncements by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — an organization that is often accused of controlling pretty much everything in Utah, including the Legislature — polygamous groups have burrowed in and, if not exactly thrived, very much survived.

Squeezing them out is like squeezing out wood ticks.

Not that Utah and neighboring Arizona haven't tried.

During one stretch, polygamists living along the Utah-Arizona border could expect a shakedown every nine years. There was a government raid in 1935, in 1944 and in 1953. In defending the '53 raid, Gov. Howard Pyle of Arizona, as quoted in Martha Sonntag Bradley's seminal book, "Kidnapped From that Land," said: "Arizona has mobilized and used its total police power to protect the lives and future of 263 children. They are the product and the victims of the foulest conspiracy you could possibly imagine. The state of Arizona is fulfilling today one of every state's deepest obligations ... to protect and defend the helpless."

Sound familiar?