Is polygamy like a huge problem in America?

[AlCzervik]

Anderson Cooper is spending an awful ot of time covering it. I read the newspaper this morning and i saw nothing at all about it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Not sure. I'll check with one of my husbands.

[madmusic]

10. LOL! Thanks for the laugh.

No problem for me, either. If someone doesn't like it, change the channel.

[mcscajun]

2. Not a problem for me...

...not in the slightest.

[BlueCaliDem]

16. As a Christian, I'm personally against polygamy. As a Liberal, I say...

...people have the right to make their own choices just as long as it doesn't burden society---or entail marrying off 13-14 year old girls to 50-60 year old men.

Some (mature) women really do want to be in a polygamist relationship. It makes them feel happier. So, why not?

I just don't think that people who choose a polygamist relationship should burden the welfare system, since their situation is a chosen one, and welfare benefits are for those who have found themselves destitute by circumstances beyond their control.

[mcscajun]

30. I agree with your position on abuse of polygamy and the welfare system

No way do I condone the power trips these Mormon radicals embrace, where some leader decides who marries whom, and young men are thrown into the streets so that the elders can marry all the young girls, children really.

If someone can support those they choose to include in their household/family, fine; not if we all have to support them. NFW.

[Subdivisions]

3. No, it's not a huge problem...

it's questionable whether it's a religion or a cult, but it's isolated to mostly Utah and few other small pockets in other states.

[Dems Will Win]

7. Incorrect. It is estimated that 3% of 14 million Mormons

are polygamists. That makes 420,000 polygamists in the states where there are regular Mormons. Then there are the fundamentalist Mormon cults like the one Warren Jeffs is the tyrant of. That's about another 50,000. Usually only the fundamentalists are counted but within regular Mormon temples there are polygamy families who are quietly tolerated as long as it does not come out in the open.

So the real figure is closer to half a million and they are in at least half the states

[Dems Will Win]

14. Here is more, from Polygamy FAQs

Typically polygamists are only excommunicated if they are vocal about their polygamy. I know faithful Latter-day saints that practice plural marriage in the privacy of their own homes and hearts which are never X'd by the church. It's not really the practice of polygamy that is punishable, but the flaunting of it to the rest of the world. Course, I walk on the fringes of the LDS church, and see many things that are not evident to the more mainstream LDS members.

Based on the polygamists that I have known over the years, I estimate that about 3% of those you see in an LDS church on Sunday are practicing polygamy.

Next time one of the brethren at a ward picnic introduces you to his sister, or his mother, or his aunt, who happens to live in his home, or introduces you to his single next door neighbor, you might wonder about what relationship they really have...

It is very common for polygamists to rent or buy a duplex, and for the families to live side by side. It is an excellent way of being discrete.

[FreeState]

18. Link?

As someone who was a member for almost 30 years I have a hard time believing what you posted. Its nearly impossible if you fully understand Mormonism. Got a link for that?

[KatyMan]

23. But...

So the real figure is closer to half a million and they are in at least half the states

Yes but if they're all married to each other, doesn't that make the number smaller? Just askin'...

[ToeBot]

28. Sorry, not a chance.

There may be ten's of thousands of polygamist's in splinter groups, but there are not hundreds of thousands of polygamists in the Mormon church.

[Bill McBlueState]

4. not to me it isn't

In general, people should be allowed to marry whomever they want to marry.

[Breeze54]

22. 60 year old men should be allowed

to marry nine year old girl's?

I don't agree!

[Bill McBlueState]

31. who said that?

I don't agree, either.

[mrdmk]

5. Gee, I really need a consensus from the wives, then again I am the head

of the household and do not need a consensus. No problem here!

[Sparkle]

6. Why is it always the men that get to have more than one spouse?

n/t

[mcscajun]

8. That's only in these outcast Mormon sects.

Poly families in the US also accomodate women with more than one husband.

Some people really ARE "High-maintenance".

[gatorboy]

9. And have the guys try to outman one another for the wife's affections?

It would turn into a Popeye/Bluto cartoon!

[Renew Deal]

11. Because men can impregnate multiple women at the same time.

[pinto]

12. No. I'm sure it's a pressing and important issue for those involved, but

otherwise, it's a good story for cable shows. Voyeurism is always big in the cable line up.

[OwnedByFerrets]

13. Neither is a 10yr old murder case.....

but an inordinate amount of time is being spent on that also.

[Bozita]

15. Romney's a good guy -- Isn't that what they want to hear?

Why else all this polygamy stuff?

Is it because the 2008 pres run to the primaries is starting in 87 days?

Sorry, ... I've got more questions than answers.

[alittlelark]

17. One husband says yes, another hubby says no.....

I'm not sure, I'll ask my third hubby for a tie breaking answer.

[silverojo]

19. It is for the teen girls being forced into polygamous marriages

Protecting our children and young people should be a top priority. Letting polygamists get away with their kidnapping and abuse has stayed under the national radar for too long. I live in a Mormon area, so we often see on our local news these girls who risk their lives to run away and expose the horrors they've endured.

No civilized society should put up with this. It's an abuse of power against young girls, pure and simple.

[don954]

21. thats just pedos looking for an excuse

and a talking point that repubs use to demonize mormans and gays and everyone else they dont like...

[Breeze54]

24. Yeah, and "The Lost Boys"

might be having a problem with it too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/polygamous.htm

Lost boys expelled as surplus

Most of the world first heard of the “lost boys” in 2004 when dozens came to the Utah
Capitol and spoke. All said they were forced out by the current prophet, Warren Jeffs.
They said more than 400 males, ages 13 and older, have been banished from the FLDS
community since Jeffs became supreme ruler in 2002.

They were banished for such infractions as watching movies, ogling girls,
wearing short-sleeved shirts, or listening to popular music.
Their real sin, most critics say, was being surplus males in a polygamous community.

Many of the boys are taken out of school before they reach eighth grade and forced
to do hard labor in the sect’s construction and other businesses on the promise that
the prophet will give them the three wives they need to get into heaven.

They are taught from the cradle up that the prophet must be obeyed as God’s representative,
that the outside world is evil, and that anyone leaving the FLDS will be ground to dust on
earth and damned in the after-life.

Then after years of work for little or no com­pen­sation, they are expelled from the only
commu­nity they have ever known.
Several have been dumped out on the side of the road by their own fathers or church elders.

Several of the lost boys have committed sui­cide. Many are homeless. Many use drugs or steal.

“They live every day like it’s their last day and they don’t care about anything.
They’re told they won’t have three wives, and they’re doomed.
But they all want to go back to their mums,” said Dave Bills, who runs a foundation to help the boys.

Lost boy Gideon Barlow told of trying to give his mother a Mother’s Day present,
but she ordered him to stay away.
When he tried to obtain a Medi­caid card, he learned that his 73-year-old father was drawing
Social Security funds in Gideon’s name. Social Security allows retirement-age parents to
collect money to help support children ages 16 or younger who are living at home.

Why no criminal charges?

These are shocking abuses of hundreds of chil­dren, and some legislators have asked why
parents have not been charged with child abandon­ment or neglect. Utah Attorney General
Mark Shurtleff says the boys do not want to testify against their parents.
He points out that child abandonment is only a misdemeanor in Utah.
He feels that prosecution for a misdemeanor would not change the behavior of parents
who are willing to cast out their own chil­dren on orders from a man they regard as
God’s representative on earth.

There are also practical considerations. “If I charge one, do I charge 800?
Do I have the re­sources?” Shurtleff asked

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More at link....cripes!!

[don954]

20. only as much as gay marriage....

[FormerOstrich]

25. What consenting adults do is really none of my business...

However, I think it is questionable if the children that are born into these cults really understand what they are consenting to. Young girls are given away and they raise young girls to be given away. Boys are frequently ran off because they become competition. The most horrific are the multiple accounts of "babyland" by the various compounds.


http://www.counterpunch.org/mazur03022005.html

[w4rma]

26. Unequal relationships. Master/near-Slave relationships.

Elitist relationships that only the very very wealthy could afford without cheating the social service system.

Corrupt relationships as they usually toss extra males out onto the streets with nothing to their names. Or they kill the male babies outright:
Some of the unmarked Babyland graves.

The submissive partners in the relationship only relatively rarely get to spend time with their "masters" and must spend the rest of their time doing the things that the "master" doesn't have the extra time for such as raising the children, keeping the house, taking an extra job, and basically being a reproductive machine to churn out more "wives".

[skids]

27. Now there's a problem I probably wouldn't mind having :-) n/t

[NMMNG]

29. Only according to the control-freak fundies

If you talk to them polygamy and gay marriage are huge problems that are tearing the very fabric of America apart, and won't somebody please think of the children!?!

[aikoaiko]

32. I say let em legally marry, but they must be held to the same standards

...as monogamists.

Same rules about welfare, same rules about abandoning children, same rules about killing their children, same rules about marrying minors, etc.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

33. To paraphrase a line from a movie

Bigamy is having one wife too many...same as monogomy

[Fierce]

34. Since the relationship itself is inherently unequal,

because it's always polygyny, and almost never (to the point of being statistically insignificant) polyandry, I'm against it. Since it often involves underage children, I'm against it. I reject it as a cultural or religious right.

Of course, I just read "Under the Banner of Heaven," and that put me in a fightin' mood.