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Datum: Montag, den 15. März 2004, um 0:05 Uhr

Betrifft: SLT Special Report: Living the Principle: Inside Polygamy

In der heutigen Salt Lake Tribune findet sich ein sehr ausfÃ¼hrliches Spezial zur Polygamie in Utah.

â€¢ Under his command: Jeffs brought FLDS into public focus
â€¢ Thou shalt obey: Jeffs has tightened grip on followers
â€¢ Polygamy was rejected under the gun
â€¢ Fundamentalist vs. mainstream LDS doctrine on polygamy
â€¢ Enforcing polygamy bans is tricky
â€¢ A divided enclave in British Columbia
â€¢ Centennial Park: Neighbors wards apart
â€¢ The ’Lost Boys’: Outcasts find a friendly refuge
â€¢ FLDS: Time to close the circle
â€¢ The law has been slow to step in

Under his command
Edicts from FLDS leader Warren Jeffs have brought the reclusive church into public focus

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune

Warren Jeffs, Rulon Jeffs
One morning in January, Warren Jeffs stood and spoke with the voice of an angry God.
Twenty-one men had sinned, Jeffs said the Lord had told him, and now they would be made to repent.
The prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints spoke for an hour that day in Colorado City, Ariz. Some 1,500 men and boys sat in stoic silence as Jeffs read off the sinners’ names. There were Barlows, Jeffs, Johnsons, Wylers, Jessops. One by one, Warren Jeffs cast out men who had built the community and the faith.
Jeffs told the men to stand. He asked if they accepted his judgment. After each answered yes, Jeffs told them to leave their homes and families. Confess your sins, he said. Repent from a distance.
By dusk, they were gone.
What happened that January morning has cracked the calm that normally lies over Colorado City and its twin, Hildale, Utah. Some young women fled from their homes. Law enforcement officials in Utah and Arizona vowed a closer look. And, once more, national attention came to the polygamous communities that quietly flourish in the Mountain West.
Jeffs, 48, became president of the LDS church after his father’s death 18 months ago, and moved swiftly to take command of the 10,000 people who live in the twin border towns of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah. The church adheres to a 19th-century version of Mormonism that includes plural marriage and is made up of mostly good, earnest people trying to live up to a difficult holy ideal.
He oversees a multimillion-dollar church trust that controls property, companies and assesses up to $1,000 monthly tithes on families. He doles out land, homes, jobs and wives according to spiritual promptings.
Jeffs also has now ousted scores of men he views as spiritually flawed, troublesome or as rivals, and taken away their homes, wife or wives and children. Even the beloved bishop Fred Jessop, 93, was whisked away in mid-winter and hasn’t been seen since.
Some families have been "reassigned" to other men -- a brother, a disliked neighbor, a church leader -- whose selection seems designed to sharpen the pain of loss.
"Holy prostitution," is how one woman characterizes what is happening in the twin cities. "Overwhelming devastation," offer others.
Yet thousands continue to revere Jeffs as their prophet and to instantly follow his direction.
Where is he headed? No one is sure.

   JEFFS DOES NOT GIVE INTERVIEWS. Followers and foes alike are reluctant to speak, too, out of fear of being cut off from relatives still under Jeffs’ sway.
So speculation spreads in whispers outside the dusty, red-rock towns on the Arizona Strip, which became a fundamentalist enclave nearly 80 years ago.
Is Jeffs merely delivering a faith-refining lesson? Or is he a paranoid leader resorting to mean-spirited tactics to consolidate power?
"This man is a dingbat," said Richard Holm, a former Colorado City town councilman and construction consultant whom Jeffs ousted in November. "He’s had some dark revelations from some place, and he’s jealous as can be."
Some believe Jeffs is preparing to flee to Mexico.
And then there are those who believe he is cutting out people he sees as spiritually flawed in preparation for the long-predicted return of Joseph Smith as the "One Mighty and Strong" who will set Zion in order as the righteous are lifted up to heaven.
Those to be "lifted up" are, of course, the FLDS. Predicted dates for this glorious event have come and gone, explained away as due to believers’ shortcomings.
Jeffs’ tightening grip also comes as Utah and Arizona are under public and political pressure to stop crimes said to be occurring here under the aegis of polygamy -- underage marriages of teen girls, welfare abuse, sexual molestation.
Such allegations have long tainted the community, and even triggered its most infamous moment: when Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle, bent on cracking down on polygamy, ordered a predawn sweep on the twin towns -- known then as Short Creek -- in 1953. Men were imprisoned and families torn apart. The photos of stricken-faced women and children being rounded up outraged people across the nation.
Ultimately, the community regrouped, strengthened by their calamity. The Short Creek raid, dubbed Operation Seagull, proved a disaster.
And so, it turns out, was last summer’s 50th anniversary commemoration of the event -- approved by Fred Jessop and organized largely by Barlow men, who are sons, grandsons and foster sons of the community’s great forefathers, John Y. Barlow and Leroy S. Johnson.
On July 26, the Barlows unveiled a monument inscribed with Johnson’s words calling the polygamists’ survival the "greatest miracle of all time." Long lines threaded through the newly renovated Short Creek Schoolhouse Museum’s collection of artifacts, news stories and photographs of the raid.
The one person notably missing that day: Warren Jeffs. His absence should have been troubling.
Two weeks after the dedication, Jeffs began wielding his ecclesiastical authority like a wrecking ball, inadvertently providing a peek inside this deliberately insular community.
On Aug. 10, Jeffs told his people he had had a divine revelation. The people had sinned, he said, by erecting "monuments to man." The Lord wanted them to "repent of their idolatry" lest he unleash a scourge "to purge the ungodly from among you," according to Benjamin Bistline, who reprinted the revelation in his new book The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Arizona.
Jeffs ordered the monument destroyed -- it was rubble 30 minutes later, some say -- and the museum shuttered.
He suspended all baptisms, marriages, priesthood and church meetings indefinitely while the people repented of their wicked ways. And he told them to keep silent about it all.
Months later, the expulsions began.
"You look at what Warren has done to this people and this community in the past six months and it is more devastating to the people than what [Pyle] was going to do to the people," Holm said. The count of men exiled now exceeds those arrested in 1953; Jeffs has not only tampered with earthly relations, but, according to FLDS belief, heavenly salvation.
Earlier leaders also have made "corrections" but none so draconian as Warren Jeffs’ moves to break up families.
To date, just one man -- Jeffs’ brother Brian -- has been allowed to return to the community. The four ousted Barlow brothers showed up briefly at a funeral last weekend in Colorado City.
With a single exception, Jeffs’ expulsions remain legally unchallenged. While some men might dispute being kicked out of their homes, they have little recourse for dissolution of their plural marriages.
"There are really, really good, clean people in this community but also simple-minded people who are being taken advantage of," said Ezra Draper, who moved his family to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, last June after becoming disillusioned with Jeffs. "We have had a lot of visitors up here, a lot of men with broken hearts."

   JEFFS’ ASCENSION TO THE FLDS PRESIDENCY is disputed by some who believe other leaders -- the ousted Louis Barlow or Winston Blackmore of the Canadian FLDS branch -- were more legitimate successors.
"No one has produced any evidence that Warren Jeffs was ordained [president] ever," said one community member, who fears use of his name will harm his family.
Of the 800 FLDS members in northern Idaho and just over the border in British Columbia, about half are now following Blackmore while the rest remain with Jeffs’ appointee, Jimmie Oler.
Many leadership transitions in the history of what is now the FLDS church have led to schisms over contested authority or doctrine. The Intermountain West’s two other prominent fundamentalist groups, the Apostolic United Brethren and the Kingston clan, both emerged from these disputes. (See leadership graphic).
The FLDS church is the most restrictive of the three, particularly since Rulon and Warren Jeffs declared that total authority rests in one man who is to be followed with "perfect obedience" in all matters. Members belong to a united order, to which they dedicate property, income and labor.
Faith and family are the primary focus, and the twin cities boast the largest family sizes in the country. But living "The Principle," as it is called, is a financial challenge and residents have no qualms about "bleeding the beast" -- their term for using government aid such as food stamps, Medicaid and cash.
For example, in 2002, an estimated 66 percent of Hildale residents received Medicaid, compared to 6.5 percent overall in Utah, according to the Utah Department of Health.
But the nearly $8 million in public aid to residents of the twin cities annually is perfectly legitimate, according to state officials in Utah and Arizona.
"We’ve investigated it and there is no abuse," said Vince Wood, assistant director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s benefits division. "They abide by all the regulations."
Meanwhile, property battles and rumors of rampant sexual abuse and forced marriages of underage girls keep the church in the public spotlight.
Through its United Effort Plan Trust, the FLDS church owns all property and allows residents to build and occupy homes as "tenants at will" -- which means they can be evicted at a moment’s notice.
Such evictions have produced decades of legal battles; the most recent began Jan. 14, when Jeffs ordered Ross Chatwin to vacate his home and leave his wife and six children. Chatwin, backed by his wife, refused and has taken the church to court.
The other allegations -- of sexual molestation and forced marriages -- have stymied government officials.
"We need people willing to come forward to testify so we can prosecute people for crimes," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "We are dealing with a people who don’t trust government, who don’t trust outsiders. So how do you bring help to them when they are fearful of the people who are offering the help?"
The hard truth is that, within the context of the FLDS culture, many young girls see marriage as inevitable and desirable, even when the groom is old enough to be her father.
"We’ve had younger cousins, 10 or 11, and all they want to do is be married," said Amber Louie, 18, whose family has broken away from the FLDS branch in Canada. "I have one who wants to be married at 15. As soon as they know sewing and cooking."
Most young women and their parents acquiesce to these pairings, even those they have no say in, that involve no courting and take place on a moment’s notice. One person told the Tribune about a couple, ages 17 and 25, who were called at 3 a.m., told to report to Jeffs and were then married immediately.
Occasionally, girls rebel.
Two teens who fled the community in January allege they were on a bride-to-be track, despite their desire for additional schooling; their parents dispute that and characterize the girls as merely acting out.
Boys have broken away or been encouraged to leave for similar reasons, but also because they are seen as competition for marriageable girls.
But most residents embrace the life, viewing themselves as engaged in a noble endeavor even though it is often misunderstood or ridiculed by outsiders.
There has been no mass exodus because of Jeffs’ directives, no showdown between community factions. The people have complied, even the men who were exiled.
Jeffs has told them to submit their sins in writing and see if they matched up with wrongs he said God revealed to him.

   DAN BARLOW, THEN COLORADO CITY MAYOR, and his brothers got crosswise with Jeffs over the Short Creek monument, which celebrated a "miracle" that the Jeffs, newcomers to the Strip, had missed.
For other men, there are myriad possibilities: Some admit minor infractions of Jeffs’ rules, others to human failings or more serious moral indiscretions confessed to and forgiven decades ago. Now they are being made to repent again.
Whatever the reasons, most men have remained silent, some telling relatives they welcome this "correction" and the chance to get their lives in order as directed by Jeffs. They are, as long counseled by their prophets, doing their best to "keep sweet."
"It’s a beautiful thing," one man told Draper. "He said, ’If this is what I need to go through to earn my salvation, I’ll do it.’ "
Alvin Barlow said this of his brother, Dan: "All is well. His love of the gospel guides him. He said this experience has only strengthened and verified that love."
Of course, "Warren has taught that talking about the adjustments was sympathy against authority and grounds to lose your family," said one community member. "So everybody is real careful talking about it."
Some wives and their children remain in their homes, dangling the prospect of redemption.
That may be, in part, why these men have quietly accepted their punishment so far.
It could be a vain hope. Consider Richard Holm, who calls what Jeffs did to him an "execution."
On Nov. 11, Jeffs ordered Holm to leave his home, two wives and seven children. At the time, Holm said, Jeffs led him to believe the problem would be resolved quickly. Holm did as he was told.
In the days that followed, he sent letters and placed dozens of calls to Jeffs. All went unanswered.
"I went for weeks thinking today is the day," said Holm, who stayed away from other ousted men to avoid jeopardizing his and their standing with Jeffs.
Six weeks passed. And then Holm got a call from a brother who reported he had just been married to Holm’s wives as directed by the prophet.
Holm is devastated, and he said such actions have killed other men. Among them: his brother, Con, who died at age 52 on Jan. 14 of a "broken heart," as his obituary put it, after being "abandoned and rejected by his community."

   OUTSIDERS MAY WONDER AT WOMEN who compliantly leave their husbands, at fathers who dutifully accept banishment, at parents who disavow troublesome children, at siblings who abandon one another.
"Their minds are absolutely taken over," said Marvin Wyler, one of the winter exiles, whose son, Ross Chatwin, also was ousted. "They won’t realize [Jeffs] has crossed boundaries that aren’t compassed by the words of Jesus Christ."
Stephen Kent, a University of Alberta sociology professor who specializes in alternative religion, said such behavior is comparable to that seen in controlling and abusive relationships.
"They have such intense commitments to their group that they cannot leave it, even when the group’s activities are very harmful," Kent said. "For people who believe their salvation lies within this group and with this leader, it is unthinkable to them [to consider] living out the rest of their lives separate from it."
Yet, Draper is among those who believe a growing number of people will come to see Jeffs as they do: a destructive, misguided leader and that his way is not the only way to live their faith.
"He does need to stop destroying these families," he said. "And people need to know they have options. How that happens is still a mystery."
And the fact is, despite any hardships, the vast majority of those who live in their desert redoubt don’t care to leave.
Their history is there, innumerable family ties, and with Jeffs, they believe, their deliverance.

Thou shalt obey
Since succeeding his father as FLDS leader in 2002, Warren Jeffs has tightened the grip on his followers in part by casting out "sinners"

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune

As principal of Alta Academy for 22 years, Warren Jeffs was a stickler for the little things. Sloppy handwriting, an untucked shirttail, a bad grade -- all were signs of a personal flaw that needed to be confessed, corrected and often punished.
Now, as president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the scope of his dominion has grown from 300 students in the Salt Lake Valley to 10,000 people on the Arizona Strip.
His discipline has hardened into law, and his goal is perfection on earth. To err is to risk one’s eternal salvation.
"I believe Warren is trying to accomplish something that even God hasn’t heretofore," said a close associate. "To be able to pull together a captive group of followers who are measured by a mortal man as being perfectly united in mind and body and purpose."

   NEVER A PUBLIC MAN, Jeffs, 48, exercises power over his people from a walled compound on Utah Avenue in Hildale. Outside, there are whispers about why he recently exiled so many men, whose families might be scattered next, and whether a wholesale decampment to Mexico is in the works.
Loyalty seals his followers’ lips. Many people who have been kicked out won’t speak, for fear of ending any hope of rejoining the faith and their families. And those who abandoned the church long ago worry that talking freely could cause trouble for relatives still under Jeffs’ rule. Special Report

FLDS attorney Rod Parker didn’t bother to ask Jeffs if he would consent to an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. "He has never given one," he said. Even Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has been rebuffed in his attempts to meet with Jeffs.
That leaves mostly critics and those wounded by Jeffs’ actions to offer an unflattering, and incomplete, portrait of the man many consider their unerring prophet.
The church he heads is one of Utah’s largest, and most insular, fundamentalist faiths that follow early teachings of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith, including plural marriage.
Jeffs assumed leadership of the FLDS church in 2002 after the death of his 92-year-old father, Rulon Jeffs.
But he has helped shape the sect for many years, first as an educator, then as spokesman for his ailing father and now as its leader.

   JEFFS GREW UP IN THE SALT LAKE VALLEY, the second son of his father’s fourth -- and favored -- wife, Marilyn Steed, and one of dozens of full and half-siblings. He graduated from Jordan High School in 1973, one of nine seniors who placed in the top 3 percent of the class.
As a youth, Jeffs came across as "humble and righteous" -- but also willing to rat out others’ mischief. A fleeting, "quietly wild" period "showed he was human and subject to temptation, like all of us," the associate said.
After high school, Jeffs worked briefly with his father, an accountant, and then became a teacher at the church’s new private school, Alta Academy.
He taught math, science and computer programming for about three years before being named principal.
Jeffs presided over Alta Academy, located in the family’s compound near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon, until its closure in 1998.
It was in that role that he set about making students live up to this motto: Perfect obedience produces perfect faith, which produces perfect people.
Jeffs didn’t hesitate to expel those who were troublesome, several sources said.
"Parents would plead for a second chance and he’d give them a meager second chance, but not hope," the associate said. "He succeeded in pushing dozens of children out of the school that with patience and love could have remained, with no regard to the long-term well-being of those kids."
The curriculum was selective by design, teaching U.S. history only to the time of the establishment of the Constitution, for example, and ignoring events church leaders have deemed fiction -- from dinosaurs to Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.
Jeffs personally oversaw students’ religious instruction. The lectures he gave in morning devotionals and in church history and home economics classes were taped, and many families still use those recordings in the education of their children.
In one 1995 tape, Jeffs lectures on the need to be "perfectly obedient and come out of the world" to avoid apostasy and reiterates a well-worn theme about following a single, God-anointed leader -- at the time, his father. "That one man is as God over the people and has the right to rule in all areas of life," Jeffs says.
Today, Jeffs is intent on making it clear he is that one man -- even as some dispute his claim to authority -- and on defining what perfect obedience entails.

   JEFFS IS A TALL, LANKY MAN whose church-sermon cadence is described as mesmerizing; even critics compliment his skills as an orator.
He has a dry sense of humor that was most visible at Alta Academy, where he often joined in school plays -- once giving a "hilarious" spoof of Sherlock Holmes and another time a dead-on impersonation of Jerry Lewis in "The Disorderly Orderly."
He is estimated to have around 40 wives, at least a dozen of whom were formerly married to his father, and about 56 children. Most of his time is spent managing church affairs, but he also is described as an accomplished singer/songwriter.
Among Jeffs’ credits are "Zion from Above" and "He Will Be Renewed," an ode to his father. He has embellished several well-known LDS hymns with new verses.
And, accompanied by some wives, he has produced tapes and CDs that are available to followers.
Rulon and Warren Jeffs moved to Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. in 1998, when they began to predict that the Apocalypse was near and the Salt Lake Valley had a bull’s-eye on it. More pointedly, some say Warren pushed the move as a prelude to taking over the church.
Age and a series of strokes were taking their toll on Rulon Jeffs, and Warren Jeffs began to deliver messages that routinely began with the words: "This is what Father wants me to tell you."
Some directives came over the pulpit. Others were delivered in personal interviews, as many as 50 a day, with families or individuals who made sure not a button or collar was out of place, that sleeves were pulled just so to reveal a bit of the long undergarments worn by the faithful. Some sessions were recorded, including those in which members were challenged about misdeeds.

   CRITICS VIEW JEFFS AS A USURPER and believe some of Rulon’s last "decisions" were merely his son’s machinations, such as the 2000 demand that followers pull their children from public schools and an order that Salt Lake City FLDS members move to Hildale and Colorado City before the 2002 Winter Olympics, which, it was said, would forever corrupt the state.
Another example: Some say Warren orchestrated Rulon’s dismissal of Winston Blackmore as leader of the FLDS’ Canadian branch in 2002, removing both a rival and a more senior leader.
With Jeffs’ ascendancy, the mantle of authority passed not to the next most worthy senior man, as it has historically, but in the father-to-son ascendancy of a monarchy.
"What we witnessed was a power play," said Ezra Draper, one of Rulon Jeffs’ many grandchildren, who moved last June from Colorado City to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, after becoming disillusioned with Jeffs.
"Through careful manipulation he was able to disqualify, on false accusations, one person after another."
So it may not be surprising that Jeffs travels with an entourage of bodyguards.
"He is paranoid about people trying to get to him," said Benjamin Bistline, a former FLDS member and author of the newly published The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Ariz. "You don’t see him around."
Warren Jeffs does not yet have the allegiance and recognition that followers gave to past prophets, including his father, Bistline and others said.
He lacks the down-to-earth warmth of "The Boss," as some called Leroy S. Johnson, Rulon Jeffs’ predecessor. And Draper said Rulon was accessible but more reserved.
"Roy would go out of his way to find the person who was having trouble," he said. "Rulon tolerated those who were having challenges. Warren disfellowships them."
Under Warren, Rulon’s admonishments have become gospel, which some find unnervingly difficult even as they are cast as the way to salvation.
Rulon Jeffs advised people to limit television viewing and suggested getting rid of their TVs if that proved impossible. Warren Jeffs demanded they toss out their sets, along with VCRs, video games and Internet connections. Period.
After some FLDS boys’ misadventures during a sea cruise, Rulon Jeffs told his flock to avoid cruises with the statement, "Let’s stay off the water" -- which Warren is said to have translated into a ban on boating, fishing and the like.
Jeffs also banned community recreational activities, such as basketball games, that take members away from home. (Schoolyard basketball standards were removed within a day of that edict, some say.)
"Everything he has done was to take things to an extreme," said Richard Holm, one of dozens of men Jeffs has banished in a series of "adjustments" that are becoming the hallmark of his presidency.
Nineteen-year-old Brigham Holm, Richard’s nephew, is among the community’s teens who found the increasing restrictions too much to handle.
"It got to the point where me and my friends didn’t care anymore," he said. "Living there wasn’t fun anymore. I would tell my parents I was going to priesthood meeting and go off and watch movies. I just didn’t care. When we couldn’t even play basketball and stuff, that was it."
Parents were told to scrap most children’s books -- including Bible and Book of Mormon storybooks -- and videos, particularly those involving fantasy or that depicted animals with human characteristics.
Draper and his wife, LeighAnn, had built a sizable library to instill a love of reading -- and learning -- in their children.
"My wife was just in tears," Draper said. "She said ’You can’t just lay a Book of Mormon before kids at age 5 and get them to read.’
"I said, ’Don’t worry, I’m your husband, not Warren Jeffs. You do what I want you to do,’ " Draper said.
Still, he said, "We had all those books in our living room and we moved them into a separate room in the house so if guests came in they wouldn’t be seen."
Women especially feel pressure to keep their homes tidy, their children in check, behavior controlled -- pressure that often is unbearable.
Jeffs has instructed adults to quit patronizing distant restaurants, calling it a waste of time and money. He has scrapped community and holiday celebrations -- from marking past leaders’ birthdays to Pioneer Day festivities -- along with dances, socials and other get-togethers.
And people have been warned that laughter causes the spirit of God to leak from their bodies, amplifying an obscure tenet in Joseph Smith’s Doctrine and Covenants.
"We tried not to laugh," Draper said. "We wondered ’How do we do this? Is there anyone who is going to make it?’ "
He recalls telling his wife, "Gee, LeighAnn, all we can do is eat."

   IN A KINDER LIGHT, Jeffs’ actions can be seen as attempts to fulfill the long-standing prediction of his ecclesiastical forefathers: In order to be spared the Apocalypse that will precede the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the church needs a select group of true believers who are pure and perfect in following its teachings.
Of late, Jeffs is said to have suggested that members not bother reading scriptures or listening to tapes and instead rely solely on his instructions, which, he says, are inspired of God.
Most FLDS members are willing to do whatever it takes to be part of that great event regardless of how their actions may be interpreted by outsiders.
Susan Hammon, an FLDS member and dean of Mohave Community College, says the news media and critics are unfairly depicting the community as being in upheaval.
"I know there are concerns about Warren Jeffs," Hammon said. "But so much is made up. This is a totally media-driven drama."
But others say Jeffs’ control over the community, as prophet and his father’s "mouthpiece," has proven bizarre, hurtful and even scary.
Marvin Wyler came to that conclusion after the ailing Rulon Jeffs sermonized one Sunday in 2001 about former follower Jason Miles Williams.
Williams had sued FLDS leaders for alienation of affection, claiming they persuaded his only wife to leave him. With Warren at his side and occasionally prompting him, the elder Jeffs called on the flock to unite their prayers in asking God to "handle" Williams, even if that required his destruction.
The next morning, Warren led a community prayer that asked for fulfillment of his father’s wish, Wyler said.
Several sources say a similar awkward moment occurred one Sunday when Rulon Jeffs brought up the subject of Ruth Stubbs, then involved in a public child-custody fight with her husband, Rodney Holm. "God will bless that girl," Rulon Jeffs is reported to have said -- only to be corrected by Warren, who audibly told his father "No, no, no, Father, she is fighting against us."
Rulon Jeffs twice more suggested God would bless Ruth Stubbs. Each time he was corrected by Warren.

   IT IS THIS HARSHER LEADERSHIP that alarms some FLDS members as well as outsiders, even as Jeffs’ more ardent followers embrace his judgments.
A trickle of expulsions turned into a stream in January when Jeffs ousted some of the community’s most prominent and long-standing members, calling into question their standing here and in the afterlife.
Ever the school principal, Jeffs has told men he has cast out to provide a list of their spiritual failings to see if they match up with transgressions revealed to him by the Lord.
Wives and children have been separated from husbands and fathers; parents and children, brothers and sisters have ended up on different sides of this theological divide. Many are accepting these familial rearrangements in perfect obedience, believing their salvation depends on it.
"There has been so much conflict and needless turmoil and sorrow that has been put on families in the name of religion," said a woman associated with the Canadian branch of the FLDS church. "Kids who used to play with their next-door neighbors aren’t allowed to do that and are saying nasty things to each other when they meet across the fence, like, ’Your father is going to hell.’ "
The pain, some say, is immeasurable.
"There is nothing closer to murder," Richard Holm said, "short of taking a gun and shooting somebody."
Tribune reporters Pamela Manson and Hilary Groutage Smith contributed to this story.

Polygamy was rejected under the gun

By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune

Despite a century of efforts to distance itself from polygamy, the notion of multiple wives clings to the LDS Church in the popular mind.
That’s because it was once at the heart of Mormon identity -- defended from the pulpit, in the courtroom and in Congress. Latter-day Saint leaders forsook the practice only after draconian anti-polygamy measures by the U.S. government left them believing their very survival was at risk.
Today The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicates anyone who promotes or practices polygamy. Candidates for a temple recommend are asked whether they "support, affiliate with or agree with" any opposition groups, which is often seen as code for polygamists. And the church’s global missionaries cannot even begin to share the church’s message with African polygamists.
"It’s behind us,’’ LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said in 1998. "I condemn it as a practice. It is not doctrinal. It is not legal.’’
Still, it’s not so easy to disentangle the principle of plural marriage from Mormonism.
It is still enshrined in Mormon scripture (Doctrine & Covenants 132) and some believe it will one day be re-established, if not on earth, at least in heaven. In his quasi-official 1966 book Mormon Doctrine, which remains in print, the late LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie wrote that "the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming and the ushering in of the millennium."
LDS Church founder Joseph Smith first encountered the idea of taking multiple wives, Mormons believe, during his 1831 study of Bible passages that described the polygamous marriages of Old Testament patriarchs such as Abraham, Jacob and David. It became synonymous with Smith’s efforts to "restore" the ancient order of priesthood, which he taught was lost over the centuries.
In 1843, Smith recorded what he said was a divine revelation, defining "a new and everlasting covenant, including the eternity of the marriage covenant, as also the plurality of wives.’’
Smith introduced the practice to a small circle of associates in Nauvoo, Ill. Most of them initially resisted, but came to believe it was God’s will for them. By the time the Mormon pioneers established their Great Basin kingdom in Utah several years later, plural marriage was an open secret.
In 1852, historians say, Apostle Orson Pratt publicly defended the "doctrine of plurality of wives," arguing it was essential for eternal salvation and to bring more posterity into the world.
Besides, Mormons believed the right to practice their religion was protected by the First Amendment.
It didn’t take long, however, for the federal government to attack that last argument, enacting laws that stripped polygamists of their right to vote, hold office or own property. It eventually disincorporated the LDS Church itself and refused to allow Utah to become a state.
Finally, in October 1890, President Wilford Woodruff proposed a truce. He issued "the Manifesto," which stated: "Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, . . . I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the church over which I preside to have them do likewise."
But most Utah historians believe some LDS leaders continued to authorize plural marriages in secret for at least another 14 years until President Joseph F. Smith issued the "Second Manifesto" in 1904, which threatened church action against those who continued in and promoted the practice.
Within a few decades, LDS apostles would present the church’s new perspective that monogamous marriages in LDS temples were, indeed, "celestial marriages."
"The Book of Mormon makes clear," says Brigham Young University historian Ronald K. Esplin, that "plural marriage was appropriate at special times for God’s purposes, but monogamy is the general standard."
Throughout the rest of the 20th century, Mormon leaders worked strenuously to separate the church from plural marriage by excommunicating polygamists, clamping down on historical research, and eradicating any reference to the practice in the church’s official literature.
Today, Mormon Sunday schools tell of celebrated polygamists such as Brigham Young as well as of little-known polygamist prophets such as Heber J. Grant as if they were 20th century monogamists. There’s nary a hint of more than one wife -- despite the fact that thousands of Utahns are descended from those other wives.

Fundamentalist vs. mainstream LDS doctrine on polygamy

Fundamentalists believe they are following the "true" Mormon faith as laid down by founder Joseph Smith, while the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is "out of order" because of its disavowal of plural marriage, the United Order and other early doctrines.
The LDS Church’s 1978 decision to give the priesthood to black men, in particular, galls fundamentalists.
But it is their marriage views that are most often noted by outsiders.
All trace their priesthood authority to conduct plural marriage back to LDS Church President John Taylor, whom they say had the doctrine confirmed to him in a 1886 revelation.
Fundamentalists believe monogamy is limiting for both men and women -- men because their sexual drive enables them to father more children than one woman can bear, and women because a certain percentage will never find a worthy man to marry and thus be unable to fulfill God’s edict to "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth."
Plural marriage allows a man and his "ladies" greater opportunity to provide bodies for waiting heavenly spirits and increases their ability to populate this and future worlds; righteous plural marriage brings access to the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom.
This belief aside, Utah’s three largest fundamentalist groups have developed distinctive cultures. The FLDS church is the most restrictive when it comes to lifestyle.
Independent fundamentalists believe these organized groups are in error given early counsel to avoid structure or collection of tithing.

Enforcing polygamy bans is tricky

By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune

No matter where they’ve settled in North America, believers in plural marriage never have found respite from laws against polygamy.
Utah was able to gain statehood only after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discontinued the practice in 1890, and the state Constitution expressly forbids polygamy.
State bigamy laws also encompass polygamy, and a person doesn’t have to be legally married to be subject to prosecution for taking another spouse. Living together as husband and wife is enough.
In recent years, Utah prosecutors have brought charges of bigamy and sexual conduct with a minor against several men who have entered into "spiritual" -- read polygamous -- marriages.
A bigamy charge can be brought even if the spiritual wife is an adult. And marrying a girl under 18 can add a sex offense to any charges.
Utah requires parental consent for a legal marriage to a minor age 16 or 17, plus a judge’s consent if the minor is 15. Even with the parents’ OK, a spiritual union is not a legal marriage and sexual relations with the underage partner still are against the law.
Arizona has no specific laws against polygamy, but its constitution also bans it, and now legislators are considering outlawing child bigamy, thus targeting men who take underage brides. Canadian law bans bigamy and polygamy. Going through a "form of marriage," even a rite not recognized as a binding form of wedlock, will make an already married participant a bigamist or polygamist. Traveling to other countries to enter into a bigamous union won’t give Canadian citizens any leeway -- that’s also illegal.
But prosecutors can find themselves in a quandary. Vaughn Marshall, a Canadian lawyer who represents former plural wives, said polygamists have invoked religious-freedom claims under the country’s Charter of Rights to defend themselves.
Mexico recognizes only civil marriage, said Jorge A. Vargas, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. The custom in that country is to first participate in a civil marriage, which includes a contract and is permitted by law only between a man and a woman, and then a religious ceremony the next day.
Besides being a ground for divorce, polygamy is punishable by jail time and a fine, the professor said.
"Mexico is not going to be a haven to introduce practices that go contrary to the values and morality of Mexican people," Vargas said.

A divided enclave in British Columbia

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune

CRESTON, British Columbia -- Bountiful does not appear on any maps.
But just about anyone in the nearby town of Creston, from the checkout clerk at Extra Foods to the cheerful teen at a gas stop, can tell you how to get there.
They know, too, all about the polygamists who live in Bountiful, about their ties to southern Utah and the rift that has divided the families living at the foot of the Skimmerhorn Mountains.
It began in May 2002, when Rulon Jeffs, then leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, telephoned to dismiss Winston Blackmore as bishop of Bountiful. Some believe Rulon’s son, Warren Jeffs, orchestrated the move to ensure his own claim to the church’s presidency.
If so, Warren Jeffs misjudged the depth of the people’s regard for Blackmore, who had led the community for 16 years.
Half of the 800 FLDS members in northern Idaho and Canada sided with Blackmore. Jeffs, now president of the faith, ordered those who remain with his appointee, Jimmie Oler, to have nothing to do with the Blackmore faction.
Deeply intertwined families who live side by side are no longer talking or socializing with one another, mirroring the wreckage Jeffs’ actions have left among some followers in southern Utah.
"It’s a terrible tragedy," said Debbie Palmer, who left the faith in 1988 and has tried to interest authorities in an investigation of the sect. She is a sister of Jimmie Oler, ex-wife of Blackmore’s father Ray and, through complicated intermarriages, is related to most families in Bountiful.
"You do not see your family. You can not say ’hi’ when you are crossing the street," Palmer said. "It’s worse than if you were dead."
The difference between Blackmore and Jeffs, say those who know both, is the difference between optimism and despair -- which is what drew Ezra Draper and his family from southern Utah to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, last June.
"The way Warren taught is there was no hope and you had no choices," said Draper, who said he was with Blackmore when the dismissal call came and heard Warren Jeffs prompting his father.
"With Winston, as long as you’re willing to do better, there is hope because it starts with you. Winston tells people the only man with the right to rule over your life and mine is Jesus Christ."
For years, that promise has drawn people who have run afoul of Jeffs to Canada. More are ready to come, Draper said, though the sheltered lives they’ve lived make it hard financially to break away.

Blackmore may be benevolent, but like Jeffs he won’t talk to reporters. During a trip to Canada, a Tribune reporter and photographer were invited to a Sunday church meeting, which was then canceled just before it was to begin. One person said it was because everybody wanted to go to a hockey game. Another said a forestry products meeting had come up.
Bountiful lies about 8 miles east of Creston, a town of 5,000 renowned for its cherries, its bird sanctuary, 10 golf courses and the locally brewed Kokanee beer.
Blackmore’s uncle and father, Harold and J. Ray Blackmore, came here in the late 1940s, drawn by the same thing that lured polygamists to the Arizona Strip -- isolation. By the 1950s, when Bountiful aligned with what would become the FLDS church, four families were prominent: Blackmores, Olers, Quintons and Palmers.
Those families’ lines are now so intertwined that Debbie Palmer can call herself her own step-grandmother. That’s one reason there is an exchange of marriage partners between Canada and southern Utah -- new blood.
In an interview four years ago -- his first in a decade -- Blackmore refuted one persistent claim: that underage girls are ferried between Canada and Utah to be brides. Canadian and Utah authorities also say they have no proof that is occurring.
A stocky man, Blackmore is described as hard-working, generous and charismatic -- "rock star" is how Palmer put it. "That is why so many girls are wanting to marry him," she said.
Blackmore, 47, lives in a home that looks like a motel at the entrance to Bountiful. He has an estimated 26 wives and as many as 70 children.
His community includes a birthing center, modern school, a rodeo arena, a mobile home park for young married couples, parks and ponds.
The fundamentalists raise canola, timothy grass and wheat on close to 4,000 acres of farmland they own or share. There’s an egg farm, a greenhouse and a trucking company; some women are nurses at Creston Valley Hospital. And Blackmore operates several logging-related businesses.
Dozens of families live in Bountiful, while others are in Kitchener, Yahk, Ryan’s Station, Cranbrook and Bonners Ferry, Idaho. On Sunday mornings, traffic backs up at the Porthill border crossing as those on the U.S. side make the 40-minute drive to attend church services in Canada.
Blackmore is said to be worth millions -- some of which he’ll need to fend off several lawsuits the FLDS Trust has filed disputing ownership of property in Bountiful. The trust has prevailed so far in one case, forcing Blackmore’s followers out of the school near his home. They have since transformed two buildings on a Blackmore farm west of Creston into a new school and a meetinghouse.
In the past, girls often married as they reached their mid-teens and boys moved on to work. Now, Blackmore is said to be encouraging them to finish high school and even college.
"Winston’s side is starting to educate youth because they are losing so many," said Marie Louie, who was 13 when her mother pulled out of the faith, angered that her 15-year-old daughter had been married without her knowledge to a man in his 60s.
As in southern Utah, about a dozen teens -- including one of Blackmore’s daughters -- have rebelled, acting like wild teens anywhere who get into alcohol and partying.
But unlike Jeffs, Blackmore has made no move to force the kids’ parents to turn their backs on them; many young men continue to work for him.
While the Bountiful fundamentalists share their Utah counterparts’ religious sensibilities, they are far more integrated in the local community.
"They are great supporters of the town," said Creston Mayor Joe Snopek. "They come and they buy."
Until recently, the Bountiful community rented the ice rink at the Creston & District Recreational Centre one night a week, contributing $100,000 annually to the town’s coffers, Snopek said.
Earlier this year, the women of Bountiful held a bake sale outside Extra Foods to raise money for the school. The women work out at the Curves fitness center, join in at Tupperware parties and serve on the Kootenay search and rescue team.
"A few years ago, I don’t think the wormen would have been able to do that," said Darlla Murphy, who lives up the road from Bountiful. "It just seems they can do what they want now."
Most years, a Bountiful woman makes the front page of the Creston Valley Advance with the first baby of the year.
While some residents frown on polygamy, Canadians tend to be a live-and-let-live people. That’s why the FLDS is such a part of life here.
"They seem like they are happy people," said Michael Carpenter, former president of the Creston & District Chamber of Commerce. "They are definitely part of the culture."

Centennial Park: Neighbors wards apart

By Hilary Groutage Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune

CENTENNIAL PARK, Ariz. -- Midnight in the desert brings smells that could be bottled and sold and stars so bright they dot the sky as if they have fallen from a giant celestial shaker.
"Take a deep breath. There’s nothing quite like the air out here," said one resident.
But not everyone would consider this prime real estate. Out here, the wind rolls in from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, gathering brush and dust along the way and depositing it in the front yards of homes built amid the harsh desert elements. There are no street lights; no traffic lights and few stop signs. But to the 1,000 people in this hidden community about 40 miles from St. George, it’s a haven.
They love the desolate desert landscape and have come here to protect the fabric of their lives, which includes deep convictions toof a polygamous lifestyle that binds them together and could, if laws against it were enforced, rip their families apart.
"We are just conservative, quiet folks,’’ said one man, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Centennial Park was settled about 20 years ago by a group of men and their families who split from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered across the street in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.
Recent news of turmoil within the ranks of the FLDS church commands little attention or interest over here. In Centennial Park, there are two private schools, a store, business offices, a health clinic and a chapel. Their church is sometimes called the "Second Ward," a play on the way the mainstream LDS Church divides a geographical area into congregations.
People here simply prefer the word "church."
"We have no political agenda. We don’t threaten men and we don’t threaten women," the man said. "What would we threaten them with? Their salvation? The keeper of the gate is Christ."
The difference between Centennial Park and Hildale and Colorado City is immediately evident. Homes in Centennial Park are well kept and complete. In Hildale and Colorado City, many homes are unfinished and appear unplanned, with additions built on every which way.
Centennial Park residents are friendly to outsiders, church services are open to visitors and mimic traditional Mormon meetings -- except this congregation arrives early, stays late and everyone sings the hymns. The choir is superb. Men who preach lapse into pioneer-style cussing at times and upon their return home, members might enjoy tea, coffee or wine with dinner. The Word of Wisdom, which mainstream Mormons believe directs them to abstain, is loosely interpreted.
Here, fashions are modest but mainstream. Across the street, residents dress as if the clock stopped in the 19th century.

Linda Earl, her husband and his multiple wives were among the first to build in Centennial Park, and their hotel-size home stands out on Taylor Court. They left Colorado City in 1983 after FLDS church officials denied their request to build an addition to their home.
Earl, 48, grew up in northern Utah as an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She chose to leave that church and join a polygamous family as the fourth wife 24 years ago.
"The minute I laid eyes on him, I knew he was the one I was supposed to marry," Earl said. "I just felt this tingle go through me."
Earl teaches technology at a nearby public school and is among a group of women who have become outspoken in their support of plural marriage. She has opened her home to reporters, cameras and even Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, although she said he declined a dinner invitation last fall.
Earl’s home is 33,000 square feet, constructed in three wings, each with three levels. There are 31 bedrooms and 36 bathrooms. The fenced back yard has a gazebo that is the site of frequent community gatherings and has a huge playground. The parking area holds a fleet of household vehicles.
"It’s just like a neighborhood, only instead of your best friend living next door, she lives down the hall," Earl said.
The home is spotless and full of happy children and teens engaged in activities ranging from building with blocks and playing tag to baking cookies. Earl and her husband won’t say exactly how many women and children live here -- multiple wives and more than 50 kids is as specific as they’ll get.
All the women work. Among them are loan officers, teachers and secretaries. Those who work outside the home contribute to the salaries of those who work within; for example, of those who run the in-house day-care center.
"I never have to worry who will be home with my kids after school or if they’re getting a hot meal for dinner," Earl said. "All that is taken care of."
The "ladies," as the wives are called, all have private, luxurious living quarters that include jetted tubs, balconies and walk-in closets. Children are grouped by age and sex and sleep two or three to a bedroom, each of which has its own bathroom, computer, televisions and VCRs.
By any definition, the family is wealthy. Earl’s husband is a businessman with interests in several states. Still, he fears retribution because of his lifestyle and won’t allow his name to be used in print.
"Ours is a lifestyle choice," he said. "We are committed to each other forever. In your society, two 20-year-olds figure out they have changed a lot after a few years and they aren’t compatible anymore. If you end up out of sync, then you are supposed to discard a relationship and get one that is more compatible. We make commitments for life. We don’t have to trade."
Nor is "coercion or constraint" a factor, he said. "If a woman approaches me and wants to join the family, I tell her: ’Tell me about the exciting things you’re doing in your life. I want to be stimulated when I talk to you. Don’t follow three steps behind me.’ "
That is not to say that plural marriage is for everyone. "These principles stand up on their own. You might come into my home and think ’Hey, this is great, but it’s not for me.’ I say that’s fine."
For Earl, the arrangement is just right.
"I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to worry about keeping my husband happy every night. Let someone else do that," Earl said. "Yes, my husband sleeps with other women and yes, I know who they are."
Earl insists her life, between work, keeping house and raising kids, is pretty dull. "My life is as boring as yours. I promise you, no one wants the normal story."
Marlene Hammon and Joanne Yarrish would say the same. They grew up in Colorado City and say their polygamous family settings provided them with wonderful childhoods.
Hammon was married at age 16, of her free will and her husband’s, she said. "Definitely, the choice was mine when it came down to it."
She was the first of three wives, who among them have 20 children. Her four birth children still live in the community, and have given her 18 grandchildren. Like Earl, Hammon will not identify her husband.
Yarrish, 38, is a family nurse practitioner and certified midwife who works at the clinic. Her family embraced the principle of plural marriage when she was a teenager, she said.
Yarrish holds two master’s degrees and was taught as a child that only her own intelligence and ambition limited her. She chose to return to her hometown after more than eight years away.
She is married to a man from outside the polygamous culture and has not ruled out the idea being part of a multiple marriage. Her husband is more hesitant.
"He sees the responsibility of the man," she said. "These men are exceptional to take care of multiple children."
Earl agrees. "If this was all about sex, there are certainly cheaper ways for a man to get it."
Tribune reporter Pamela Manson contributed to this story.

The ’Lost Boys’: Outcasts find a friendly refuge

By Hilary Groutage Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune

ST. GEORGE -- The house looks to be part foster home and part hangout, but it’s, like, totally home to the young men who wander through the door.
"We’re like a family," said Alvin Fisher, 18. "We’re all into helping each other."
The family, then, has most unusual roots and branches. There are about a dozen boys and men, all with ties to Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and all with stories of how they gravitated to this house and its owner, Doug Cooke, because they have no other place to go.
Like a litter of pups, they roughhouse, goof around, then flop on a sofa to take in a video. Some step outside for a smoke: House rules say they can’t come back in for half an hour so they don’t smell the place up.
For these guys, life turned grim when they were kicked out or left their homes and the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There are reasons: They’ve lost faith, they’ve misbehaved, they want things like music and television that aren’t available back home.
And this one: There aren’t enough young women in a community that often marries teenage girls to older men.
You can come up with a lot of names for these youngsters: rogue males, bachelor wolves, outcasts.
Some call them the Lost Boys.
Cooke, 48, a self-employed tilesetter and himself a refugee from the twin towns, puts them to work, starting at $9 an hour plus room and board.
"There’s a lot of good people out there, but it’s not the same place it was 10 years ago," Cooke said.
There are many reasons for that. In recent years, FLDS President Warren Jeffs has clamped down on virtually every aspect of community life, including family life, behavior, education and even recreation.
Most of the youths say their schooling ended with junior high. "They hand you a shovel as soon as you’re old enough to hold it," said 19-year-old Sterling Johnson, who lives in Ivins and stopped by to visit.
So, after work, some of the boys attend classes arranged by a St. George man who works in anonymity to prepare the boys to take a high school equivalency exam.
"It’s good for us," said Brigham Holm, 19. "I’m getting a lot of these guys to go there with me."
Cooke and the others are trying to teach these boys how to hold a job, manage money and learn the life skills they didn’t need back home. Teens who stay with their families, and most do, traditionally marry young and are assigned property and a job through the FLDS church.
Cooke himself was put on "probation" in 2001 by FLDS leader Rulon Jeffs, Warren’s late father. Eventually his wife and children were "assigned" to another man. This after he was told that his salvation hinged on his ability to write a letter to Jeffs confessing all his sins.
"For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what he wanted me to write. I asked; he told me this wasn’t a questionable society. He told me he felt I had the spirit of apostasy, so I left," said Cooke, whose two sons now live and work with him.
Cooke welcomes anyone, as long as they’re 18 or have their parents’ permission to stay.
"They’re good kids," he said. "The best workers in the world. They just don’t know what to do with themselves."
In Jeffs’ view, the purity of the community is paramount, and a boy ’s misbehavior may force his parents to let him go. The boys arrive usually with a long list of traffic tickets and curfew violations.
"I got two tickets in two states in one day from the same cop," said Johnson. Another young man claims to have been given a $60 ticket for impeding traffic on the dirt streets of Colorado City. One kid was cited for "misuse of finite resources" -- wasting gasoline.
Benjamin Bistline, a former Colorado City resident who left the FLDS church, said police are particularly heavy-handed with young men.
"They have to get rid of them and marry the girls to older men. If those boys are just left there, they’ll entice the girls," he said. "Those boys are lucky to have a place to go."
When they sit around Cooke’s table, eating pot pies taken from stacks in the freezer, chugging gallon after gallon of whole milk, the boys probably agree. The worst day on the outside is better than the best day back home, one boy said.
A boy who calls himself "Roogie" won’t allow a photo because he doesn’t want to hurt his mother’s feelings, but said he’s adjusting to "life out here" just fine.
"The one thing is, I don’t know how to date," he said, staring at his shoes and turning bright red. He takes an elbow to the ribs from a friend, but it is clear he is serious.
"They told us it was sinful to look at girls," he said. "In my future, I see being able to raise a family that’s not afraid of me."
Added Johnson: "They brainwash you to think you’re going to hell." He laughed. "Well, I don’t think I’m going to hell, I guess I know I’m going to hell."
Holm said he still believes in Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith.
"He’s just an awesome guy, and he lived polygamy," he said. "I guess it’s good for those who can handle it. I believe in it, I believe it’s a true principle, but religion to me, is kind of like your first true love. It cuts you really deep when it doesn’t work out and you don’t really want to jump right back in."
He also does not want to fight with his parents anymore. "I really love my mom," he said.
There are two young women in the house. One is underage, with permission to stay. The other is 18-year-old Ada Barlow, who said she quit school in the sixth grade to help at home when her mother broke her back. She said she had some doubts about the FLDS church, but when Jeffs reassigned her family three months ago, "that was the last straw."
So she approached someone in Colorado City who, after checking her birth certificate, agreed to give her a ride out of town.
"I put my stuff out in the back yard the night before," she said. "At 5:30 or 6 the next morning, I told my mom I was going for a walk and I guess I’m still walking."
It costs Cooke a lot to run this youth hostel: Electricity and water, about $600 a month, and food more than $2,000. Donations from church and community groups have helped, he said. "It’s making me tired, but they’re great kids."
Never mind the fatigue -- Cooke said he’ll keep helping.