Federal authorities conducting a child-porn investigation raided the headquarters Saturday of a ministry run by a convicted tax evader once labeled by prosecutors as a polygamist who preys on girls and women.
High levels of incest, child abuse and wife battering. But the crimes are rarely reported because of the secrecy surrounding polygamous communities, law enforcement officials say.
Enrollment at Mohave Community College’s campus in a polygamous community at the Utah-Arizona state line has dropped more than 50 percent over the past five years.
A new state law wrests control of Colorado City schools away from polygamist zealots
By John Dougherty
Published on May 19, 2005
Much to my amazement and delight, Arizona has finally delivered a powerful blow to the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist theocracy that controls all aspects of public and private life in Colorado City.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2005-05-19/news/education-reclamation/
A community college in rural Arizona is asking local law enforcement and social service groups to leave their office space on campus, following claims by the local polygamous community that their presence made the institution unwelcoming.
Eviction Letter
Sara Hammon, 31, says she suffered incest and sexual abuse as a child in Colorado City, and left at 14 to avoid marriage.
Pennie Petersen, at age 14, found out she was to be married to a 48-year-old man who she said had previously molested her. She ran from the sect.
As you probably know, Polygamy was practically invented* by the Mormon Prophet, seer and revelator, Joseph Smith. Though officially illegal, it is still practiced by Mormons in Utah and in Other states. Many LDS men prepare for polygamy by being “sealed” to more than one woman.
Utah schools have one of the lowest ratios of teacher to child.
Utah has the highest per capita sugar consumption in the US.
Utah has the highest incidence of Child abuse in the US.
In some polygamist towns up to one third of the families get welfare from taxpayer money.
In other words, polygamy rests, inevitably, on child abuse and neglect.
Polygamy and under-age marriage are only part of a larger public concern about the psychological and physical harm children may suffer from being raised in what appears to be an insular, authoritarian environment.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/commentary.aspx?id=19969
