HOW I BECAME A SKEPTIC

            How I got into polygamy is another story.  I was wrong, but had I not, I would not be able to do what I’m doing – exposing the crime, corruption, blatant dishonesty, deception and lasciviousness that seems to be endemic to the Mormon fundamentalist subculture.

            However, how I got out of polygamy is germane to the title of this entry –“How and why I’m a skeptic!”  They use to call it “muckraking” (exposing corruption) and “iconoclasm (challenging cherished believes).

            The lust for wives is so great among many polygamist men that they prey upon each other, and some women, likewise, find ways to go from one family to another in an attempt to better themselves.  James D. Harmston, prophet of the True & Living Church calls it the “Doctrine of Rescue.”  In AU B, a man with a greater priesthood can take the wife of a man with a lesser priesthood.  That way her salvation is made more sure.

            A man who I thought was a friend seduced my first (legal) wife into divorcing me and become his fifth wife. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, I was told it was a sad thing to lose a plural wife.  “No,” I replied, “the guy did me a favor!”  My first marriage was not good and when she divorced me it was worth every cent.       

            It didn’t take long for me to become disenchanted with Mormon fundamentalism.  In 1978, when the LDS Church was inspired to allow African Americans receive the priesthood it sent shock waves throughout the subculture.  AUB and the other polygamist groups, each took the position that the LDS Church had lost the priesthood keys.  AUB now claimed the sacred keys belonged to them and they promptly reorganized to supplant the LDS Church.

            Obedience to priesthood and authority became the main subject of priesthood sermons.  They claimed infallibility, the very thing they had impugned the church for claiming.

            In the mean time, I was aware of the women and children that were being neglected.  Some were forced to go on welfare.  Tithing money was used to finance building projects that enriched the elite or blue bloods, as they called themselves.  Owen gave a talk to a priesthood group in Southern Utah telling them it was only through the good will of the priesthood that they could be exalted and the way to show their appreciation was through their pocket books.  A few pious priesthood men made the rounds among the new, naïve members, attempting to induce them into investing in ridiculous money making schemes.  The priesthood leaders were no better, promoting one failed money making scheme after another.

            AUB claimed to be living “higher laws” but it looked like to me it was a haven for scam artists and pedophiles. In 1994, I learned that the two most prominent leaders in AUB, Owen Allred and J. LaMoinie Jenson were suspected of being involved in the theft of 1.54 million dollars from a gentile woman name Virginia Hill.  It was my ticket out. I became one of two investigators for Virginia Hill which as you know resulted in a Utah Supreme Court Ruling that AUB and their priesthood inner circle had engaged in “a pattern of criminal conduct.”

            In the mean time I reread Mormonism, this time from a secular view point and found the whole thing wanting, especially Section 132.  Verses 6, 7, 55, 64 and 65 were clearing coercive.  I started checking into the behavior of the other polygamist groups and found them also wanting. I became the investigator in a law suit against James D. Harmston of the True & Living Church.  Harmston like the AUB leaders was suspected of “theft by deception.”  It too ended in favor of the plaintiffs I worked for.

            And then I became an adviser to Tapestry Against Polygamy.  I was asked to interview several women who had been victimized by unscrupulous men.  You can read about some of these women in my books. Their stories were heart-wrenching and I felt drained when there was nothing I could do to help them.  

            I asked myself, if these unscrupulous men really believed in God why were they doing these terrible dishonest things; and why did they allow members to neglect and abuse their wives and children.  I concluded they didn’t really believe in God.  All they had to do is convince their gullible followers they not only believed in God, but represented God.  In reality they were God.  And they knew they could get away with it because there was no God to shower upon them, retribution from on high.

            I researched the Mormons from Kirtland, to Jackson County, Nauvoo and across the plains to the Great Basin and found the same disgusting, deceptive, manipulative, abusive things going on – marrying sisters, mother and daughter, half sisters, nieces and 14 year-old girls, “milking the gentiles” and Blood Atonement.  The same thing that go on now.  And why not, Section 132 and the Y-chromosome haven’t changed.

            When I specialized as a sex crime investigator in the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Detective Division I thought WOW, about 70% of human behavior can be traced to the sex urge.  But now with my misadventure in Mormon polygamy I have to add religion to the equation.  90% of human behavior results from the sex urge and irrational religious believes.  In fact the source of these two behaviors has been traced to the same part of the brain.

            I can now rattle off dozens of books, in case your interested, written by reputable scientists that explain irrational religious behavior from a nature/nurture perspective. For me it is much more meaningful and promotes survivability far in excess of what a pope, prophet, priest, oracle, pastor, which doctor, shaman, rabbi or imam could conjure from some supernatural angel, devil or god.

            Although what I did, practice polygamy, was wrong, I make no apology because I was one of the lucky ones.  I am the father of some of the best kids and grandkids a father could hope for. I was the father to 7 wonderful kids who might never have had a father.  How can I apologize to them? 

            I know of several polygamist men who when they got tired of supporting their families simply abandoned them. For the life of me, I don’t know how they could do it.

             In order to maintain an orderly, creative, productive polygamist family you must inculcate upon the pretty minds of your wives that God demands that they obey priesthood, submit to their husband, overcome jealousy and envy, never doubt husband and priesthood, do as your husband dictates and he will resurrect you in the order of your obedience, and then if the prophet will allow you through the pearly gates (Doctrine of Introduction), you may be exalted.    

            I couldn’t bring myself to do it because it was all a great big, cruel lie!   So now I’m a happy monogamist and skeptic. If there really is a God, I don’t want a middleman speaking for me, no pope and no phony prophet, I will work out my salvation on my own.