DOJ files bias suit against towns home to polygamist sect

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON | Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:45pm EDT

(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday sued two towns on the Utah-Arizona border that are dominated by a polygamist Mormon sect, citing religious discrimination and civil rights violations against residents who do not share the majority faith.

The lawsuit against the twin cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, said the towns and their joint police department and utility providers had allowed the sect to unduly influence the provision of public services, including policing.

Most of the residents of the towns are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect whose leader, Warren Jeffs, is serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in prison in Texas for raping two underage girls he wed in "spiritual marriages."

"City governments and their police departments may not favor one religious group over another and may not discriminate against individuals because of their religious affiliation," Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement announcing the suit.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/21/us-usa-polygamy-idUSBRE85K1QG20120621