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Gauracandra

Polygamy on trial

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I have never understood exactly why polygamy is illegal. Personally I don't think it is a good practice, and certainly not for most people. But orthodox Mormons view it as part of their religious commandments. Why is marriage even governed? If two people want to get married, go do whatever ceremony you want and you're married. There is no need for any government intervention. If this man had not been married and simply had 5 girlfriends no one would have noticed. Still the having sex with a minor is disturbing in this case. But that aside, I don't think that polygamy should be banned (especially considering all the other 'family' structures that have of late been seen as 'normal'). Just one man's opinion.

 

Gauracandra

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Utah polygamist found guilty

May 19, 2001 Posted: 6:29 AM EDT (1029 GMT)

 

PROVO, Utah (CNN) -- A jury in the U.S. state of Utah has found an avowed polygamist guilty on four counts of bigamy.

 

Tom Green, 52, a self-professed "fundamentalist" Mormon who lives with his five wives and 29 children near Trout Creek, 125 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, had testified that he married the women in a spiritual sense.

 

Along with the bigamy charges, the jury also found Green guilty of failure to pay child support.

 

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He faces a possible prison sentence of 25 years.

 

During the trial -- Utah's first high-profile bigamy case in half a century -- Green flouted a judge's warnings by going on national television to defend a lifestyle which was common Mormon practice until the mid-19th century.

 

After the verdict was delivered Friday night, Green lambasted Mormons such as Juab County prosecutor David Leavitt, the brother of Utah Governor David Leavitt, for what he said was a rejection of their Mormon heritage.

 

"How can somebody claim to be a Mormon and say that plural marriage is wicked,?" Green said in remarks quoted by Reuters.

 

Green added that polygamy had been practiced by two revered Mormon leaders -- Brigham Young and the prophet, Joseph Smith.

 

Banned since 1890

Polygamy's legacy in Utah dates back to the 1840s, when members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, as the Mormon church is formally known, first settled in the state.

 

But the practice never gained wider currency outside the Church. By 1890, the Church banned the taking of multiple wives, with the penalty for offenders being excommunication. Utah's constitution formally outlawed polygamy as a condition of statehood.

 

But despite the ban, polygamy never died out in Utah. An estimated 30,000 polygamists, most of them in Utah, live in the American West, according to the Associated Press.

 

For this reason, Green maintained that he was being unfairly singled out for perpetuating a practice that was once a cornerstone of Church theology.

 

Though raised as a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, Green said he awakened to his fundamentalist beliefs in the 1980s -- part of which embraced early Church teachings accepting the taking of multiple wives.

 

Though polygamists were sometimes imprisoned up until the 1950s, Green said polygamy had been "the unwritten rule for 50 years in Utah." He described the arrangement as one of, "You'll pretend we don't exist and we'll pretend you don't exist," AP reported.

 

During the trial, Green cast himself as a supportive husband whose efforts to provide for his family were beset by the destruction of his mobile home in a windstorm, and a fire in January 1997, in which he lost a three-year-old child.

 

He said that one of his wives suffered smoke inhalation and had to be admitted to a hospital after rescuing children from the flames.

 

The defense focused its efforts on parrying prosecution charges that Green married teenagers, divorced them and then collected their welfare payments as he continued living with them.

 

Green also faces a charge of first-degree felony rape of a 13-year-old girl with whom he allegedly had sex in 1986. He subsequently married the girl. The charge carries a prison term of five years to life, Reuters reported. A trial date is yet to be set.

 

 

 

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Originally posted by Gauracandra:

If this man had not been married and simply had 5 girlfriends no one would have noticed.But that aside, I don't think that polygamy should be banned (especially considering all the other 'family' structures that have of late been seen as 'normal'). Just one man's opinion.

 

Gauracandra

One man's opinion shared by others.Now the Feds are going to go after the other polygamists in Utah as there is no clear state law agaist the practice.

 

In this US of A we have such a hypocritical stance on many things.As you said if he hadn't married them there would be no problem.Even if he was having sex with both men and women.No problem.Even some states are allowing sexual unions[marriages]with full legal protection for people of the same sex.Even some churchs are performing homosex marriages.All that and more and this man may go to prision for 25 yrs.

 

This is the problem we face when we have a make it up as you go along society.

 

Homosex can be taught in school as just another lifestyle, but don't mention God or you may lose your job.

 

Madness reigns.

 

 

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Something very odd occurred in the American culture that has caused a great deal of detrimental harm in my opinion to the United States of America. There came to be developed a notion that majority does not rule, but rather that the majority must bend to the will of the minority. Now I understand that we must put in place systems that prevent targeted harm towards people belonging to minority positions. Heck, I’m a minority (a vegetarian-American). But at some point this “logic” becomes ridiculous. Everything can be “logical” in a cultural vacuum.

 

Let me give a real life example not related to the article, and then address the article directly. Currently I am working on a big project at work that seeks to segment our book of business into finer buckets so as to allow the creation of the optimal pricing structures for our clients. I am now in the process of answering questions from a government agency that feels our approach will be discriminatory to devout Muslims. According to the Koran, devout Muslims are not allowed to use credit. Our plan, in part, looks at a person’s credit history in determining what bucket they fall into. So if you are Muslim and have always used cash (never took out a mortgage on a home from a bank, rented a car from the airport, made hotel reservations etc….) you won’t have a credit history. I don’t know what percent this is, but I suspect it is less than 0.1% of the population. Yet we are being told that we have to modify our entire plan to accommodate this 0.1% of the population. Now I don’t believe in discrimination, but this is stupidity.

 

Yet this sort of logic pervades our entire governments approach to policy. We are being told now that homosexuals have a right to get married. Personally I don’t care what you do in your bedroom. But marriage has always been between a man and woman because it was viewed as the best structure to raise children. To combat this argument we are told that not ALL married men and women decide to have children. Thus the argument, they say, is invalid. The idea being if you can show that not every situation is covered then the argument doesn’t hold. So they redefine marriage and say it is based on ‘love’. What is ‘love’? Its really anything we wish to define it as. So if two men love one another then they should be allowed to get married. Forget the fact that this in no way benefits the principle reason marriage has developed in hundreds of cultures, independently, around the world – that is raising children. But if marriage is based on ‘love’ then logically there will be no way to prevent the adoption of plural marriage into this definition. Polygamy was banned, rightly or wrongly, because it was viewed as harmful to the raising of children. If homosexuals get the right to marriage, then there will be no logical reason to prohibit polygamy. Why can’t a person ‘love’ 5 different women? Why can’t 3 men and 2 women all love one another? As soon as you define marriage as any partnering of individuals, you immediately make marriage meaningless. If marriage means everything, then marriage means nothing. This is an unfortunate byproduct of this so-called ‘logic’.

 

It should be noted that none of this man’s wives and children were against him. They all were supportive of him as he was being prosecuted. I understand some will be against him because he was a drain on the welfare system. This is understandable and I support this line of reasoning. But that is a problem of the enforcement of the welfare provisions and not a question of polygamy.

 

Gauracandra

 

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Polygamy is not encouraged because increase sex desire. More women the guy has more sex he'll have. Another issue are the children, how much attention he can pay to 29 children? (like the guy in the report)

It is not conducive to spiritual life.

In the past was allowed if the men were wealthy and potent enough to satisfy the wives. You want the women happy, otherwise they'll make your life hell!

Another thing that come to my mind is that now in Asia that is so common the killing of the female embryo, the ratio of men and women population is changing drastically. There are more men than women in Asia and that will create lots of problems. Maybe the women will have more that one husband in the future.

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Originally posted by atma:

[Another thing that come to my mind is that now in Asia that is so common the killing of the female embryo, the ratio of men and women population is changing drastically. There are more men than women in Asia and that will create lots of problems. Maybe the women will have more that one husband in the future.

More than one husband?Never!Pandavas being the exception.

 

More likely there will be more wars to kill of the competitors.

 

MC

 

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Guest guest

Letter to: Karandhara

--

Bombay

9 January, 1973

 

73-01-09

 

Los Angeles

 

My dear Karandhara,

 

Please accept my blessings. Your letter dated December 28, 1972,

is in hand and I have noted the contents carefully. According to

our Vedic process, polygamy is allowed. For example, Krsna married

16,000 wives, Arjuna married 3 or 4 wives, Krsna's father Vasudeva,

married 16 or 18 wives, like that. So according to the Vedic system

polygamy is not prohibited. But it is not a farce also. Every wife

must be provided for sufficiently. Krsna married 16,000 wives, but

each wife was provided a palace and He was personally present at

each palace. It does not meant to marry many wives and maintain

none of them. If anyone is able to keep more than one wife and give

them all comforts of life, there is no objection for having more

than one wife. But if he creates trouble by marrying, he should not

marry even one wife, this is my judgment. Now you can do the needful,

taking into consideration the circumstances of the laws of your

country, the customs of your people, the reputation of our society,

the example which will be set for future devotees to follow, like

that. For karmis, the Vedic system of marriage was given by Krsna so

they may come gradually to the point of becoming devotees. But for

devotees, it is advised to minimize sex life to the point of nil.

So if that cannot be done, then there is regulation of sex life by

marriage. Actually the system of polygamy is natural because the human

entity is meant for transcending the animal forms of life and going

back to home, back to Godhead. Therefore there should remain a class

of men who do not marry in the society. But that will create an

unfavorable situation of excessive population of unmarried women.

Therefore it is advised that all women get themselves married, and

if there is any man who is better able to maintain wife and family,

he is advised to marry as many women as he can maintain and thereby

free other men in the society to remain brahmacari. So I can

understand that many men of our society have got themselves married

only for some disastrous result. That means that not all of our men

are meant for married life, but because there are so many women we

may not leave them unprotected without husband, that will also not

serve us well. Therefore it will be the best idea if those who are

well-qualified as husbands to keep more than one wife very much

satisfied in every respect, if such men can marry more than once.

That will free the others to remain brahmacari. But you must

consider very carefully the possibility of becoming scandalized in

the public for breaking their laws in this way. And in future also

the devotees who are neophyte may not understand our policy in this

connection, and we gradually could wind up attracting only a class

of men who are very eager for unlimited sex life only. These things

must be avoided at all cost.

 

 

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Forgot to add signature to the above letter:

 

<h3>Signed:</h3>

<h3>A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada</h3>

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Does it really? I never read their books (other than the general bible). But didn't thier founder and prophet approve of polygamy? It's been awhile since I read their history, so I don't recall many details.

 

Maybe you were referring more generally to the bible.

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Originally posted by jndas:

Does it really? I never read their books (other than the general bible). But didn't thier founder and prophet approve of polygamy? It's been awhile since I read their history, so I don't recall many details.

 

Maybe you were referring more generally to the bible.

I don't know about "The Book of Mormon", but the Old Testament has many accounts of men with more than one wife. POLYGAMY IS NOT FORBIDDEN in these faiths.

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Mormonism has a long standing history with regard to polygamy. Its founder Joseph Smith was unquestioningly a polygamist, with an estimated 18-25 wives. Brigham Young, his successor also engaged in plural marriage with many women. Actually polygamy can be very good in assisting small religions in their early start. In my opinion this is one of the reasons that Mormons have such unity. Originally some 15-20 thousand Mormons travelled to Utah. About 25% engaged in plural marriage. Most of these were only of the 2 wives 1 man variety. Some had 3, but only the top church leaders could ever afford more than 4. Due to polygamy the bonds of social cohesion in a small community are greatly enhanced. Think about it. If Joseph Smith had 25 wives and had 2 kids each on average, that would be 50 children who were part of the direct link to the Prophet. If each of these 50 had multiple wives etc...well you get the picture. The fabric of society becomes tightly interwoven, and you all stick together as family, as a community. This is one of the strongest keys to the Mormon's success. They actually work together as a unit, in a very focused and determined manner. The church officially got rid of polygamy in order for Utah to be admitted into the Union as a state. But most church leaders still practiced it well into the early 20th century. But it has become bad publicity, so now the church actively denounces it. Many Mormon polygamists view such activities as "siddhantic" deviation. Originally the number of wives you had was part of attaining (to some degrees) higher levels of godhood in the Mormon henotheistic system. Just a few thoughts.

 

Gauracandra

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I happened to see a program on that family in Utah, and it was heart rending, the effect on them due to the government's sudden intervention in their personal affairs. They were very closeknit and nonenvious, seemed very affectionate towards each other, whatever one may say about their reliance on welfare or the man's patriarchal outlook (which by the way did seem to give the women a sense of security and support). If this man goes to jail they have lost a husband and father; they have lost the centering force in their household.

 

Anyway, the hypocrisy, as detialed in your above posts, MC and Gauracandra, was blatant on that program. Bunch of busybody controllers, our government.

 

Hmm, more than one husband someone said? Not a very attractive idea! It's tough enough finding even one suitable husband. Posted Image

 

JR

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<h3>Wanted: Lovely woman to join us in marriage</h3>

 

If polygamy is illegal, why do its advocates operate Web sites with impunity?

 

Nate Hendley

National Post

"I am 50 years old, blond hair, blue eyes, six feet tall, and weigh 200 pounds. I work as a business consultant. My wives are 33 and 22 years old and they both help me in our business. We don't drink, smoke or take drugs. We don't object to social drinking now and then. However, we do object to smoking.

 

"We are seeking a Christian lady with a kind spirit who has a positive attitude towards the Lord, their own life and towards others."

 

The above is an ad from a trio of evangelical Christians named Adolph, Mary and Megan in the "Family web-pages" section of www.polygamy.com. The site is dedicated to the premise that polygamy benefits all involved.

 

Government authorities tend to think otherwise; plural marriage is against the law in North America. Last month, Tom Green, a Mormon polygamist from Utah, was convicted of bigamy. Green, who has five wives and more than two dozen kids, was notoriously outspoken about his marriage arrangements. So are most online polygamy organizations, although the latter have largely escaped prosecution.

 

Which may be why the creators of polygamy.com and its sister site, polygamy.net, would prefer to keep a low profile. An interview request was forwarded to the sites' spokesman, a cheerful young man named Mark Henkel.

 

Henkel works as a Web consultant and pastor of an "independent home church" in Old Orchard Beach, Me. He also runs an organization called Truthbearer, (www.truthbearer.com) which advocates the legalization of plural marriage.

 

Polygamy.com was set up in 1999 by "a solid Christian" gentleman who lives "out West" and is adverse to publicity, explains Henkel, adding that polygamy.com is "meant to be generic," while polygamy.net is "meant to be Christian."

 

The first site contains a collection of essays with titles such as "Polygamy: the Ultimate Feminist Lifestyle" and a profile of a "Vietnamese polygamy king." The site's personals page contains notices from Christians, Muslims, Taoist/Pagans and Jews.

 

The polygamy.net site, on the other hand, focuses primarily on "Christian polygamy," a theology supposedly based on the Bible.

 

Like Mormon polygamy (which stems from the notion that Mormon men should marry and procreate as often as possible), Christian polygamy is male-centred, the ideal being one husband and many wives.

 

Although willing to discuss the theoretical underpinnings of polygamy, Henkel hesitates when asked about his own marital background. "That's a question that really can't be answered at this time, because of the chill factor raised by the Tom Green case," he states.

 

The people at 3Coins.com, an online dating service for polygamists, are considerably more forthcoming on such matters.

 

3Coins is run by Michael Shone Sr. and his two wives, Olea and Kathy. The three live in Orick, a small town in northern California.

 

The 3Coins site offers some 300 personal ads from polygamist wannabes. About a third of these are accompanied by photographs.

 

Shone estimates that 60 to 70% of people who post ads are Christians. The remainder belong to other faiths or consist of "folks who don't believe in anything."

 

You have to be 18 to use the personals at 3Coins, and the Web masters won't post nude shots or suggestive copy. "I've got a folder full of stuff that didn't get on the site," laughs Shone.

 

He estimates that 3Coins has helped spark 50 "relationships" since its launch three years ago.

 

He's pleased with this statistic, because the purpose of the site is to promote marriage, not one-night stands.

 

Shone doesn't charge for the ads on his site; he earns a living doing commercial art for banks and offices. Both his wives work -- Olea in a county courthouse, Kathy in a local school library.

 

While they proselytize for the same cause, Shone and Henkel have sharply differing views on the Green trial.

 

Henkel describes Green as a "self-seeker who thought he was helping the cause and destroyed it instead."

 

Among other sins, says Henkel, Green supported his family by means of welfare, married his 13-year-old stepdaughter and paraded his kin "on trash TV shows.

 

"This is not what we're about," he fumes.

 

Shone takes a more nuanced stance. He says Tom Green is "really a family man" who has done a "great job" raising so many kids. Still, Shone doesn't condone child brides or incest: "I know where I come from, we don't marry 13-year-old girls."

 

Despite these differences, Henkel and Shone have much in common. Henkel serves as the spiritual advisor for Shone's 3Coins.com. Both men are devout Protestants who believe polygamy offers a supportive lifestyle for women.

 

Shone claims to be a "male feminist, so to speak" and that "3Coins.com allows females to take the lead in initiating plural relationships."

 

Henkel agrees: "Polygamy would be a better solution for all the abandoned single moms out there rather than the trap of welfare or having to work all day to pay for daycare."

 

Unlike Green, neither Henkel nor Shone has had any serious run-ins with the law. Which isn't a surprise, considering police rarely enforce statutes prohibiting multiple spouses. Green was the first polygamist put on trial in Utah in half a century. He is one of an estimated 30,000 polygamists living in a state that banned plural marriage more than a century ago.

 

Such numbers and the relative impunity with which online polygamy groups operate cause outrage among critics of the lifestyle.

 

"We encourage freedom of speech and educating the public, but anyone soliciting themselves or wives for multiple matrimony could face legal consequences," says Vicky Prunty, executive director of Tapestry Against Polygamy (www.polygamy.org), a Utah-based organization that opposes plural marriage.

 

In the past, polygamy was more isolated, says Prunty. By contrast, Henkel and Shone are working hard to make polygamy seem mainstream, even mundane.

 

"It's just a regular marriage," says Shone of his marital threesome. "There's nothing different."

 

That isn't quite true, however, as even Shone admits.

 

"It's neat on the anniversaries," he says. "Olea helps me get ready for Kathy's anniversary, and Kathy helps me get it together for Olea. We have some humdinger anniversaries."

 

 

 

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To people who are steadfastly against polygamy...Two points...

 

1) The male physiognomy is different from females in the sense that their impulses guide them towards multiple mates for purposes of procreation.

 

2) Female pyschology dictates that she obtain a man for herself out of a sense of security and others females become competitors.

 

Hopefully with these two points in mind Mars and Venus can come to some type of synthesis. The over-influence of the orthodox christian monogamous marriage on American culture is unfortunate. I personally believe Vedic polygamy would be beneficial to society, culture, nation-state, and world. Hopefully, one day we will get to see it installed world-wide.

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