Two fundamentalist Mormon leaders from Bountiful, B.C., are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on polygamy charges.

Winston Blackmore and James Oler have yet to enter a plea.

Blackmore, 52, is the former bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Bountiful. Oler, 44, is the current bishop, who replaced Blackmore.

Blackmore’s indictment lists 19 women with whom he is said to have “practised a form of polygamy or practised a kind of conjugal union” between May 1, 2005 and Dec. 8, 2006.

Oler’s indictment lists only two names: Renae Oler, his legal wife, and Amelia Steed.

Blackmore and Oler each lead a faction within the Bountiful community of about 1,000, which has been bitterly divided since 2002.

Source/Full Story: vancouversun.com

Utah’s highest court weighed in on the long running dispute over a polygamous sect’s property trust Wednesday with one central question: Why did sect members wait so long to challenge a judge’s decision to remove the trust’s religious foundation?

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints claim their Constitutional rights were violated when a judge reformed the United Effort Plan Trust, transforming it into a secular trust.

Rod Parker, an attorney representing the sect, said the sect initially viewed the trust takeover as a “religious test” but reached a point where they decided “the test was over and they needed to protect the trust.”

Parker told the justices he believes there is no time limit for raising constitutional objections in a matter that is “wrapped up in religion.” He asked the justices to stay all court proceedings, including sale of land considered sacred by the FLDS, while they consider the sect’s petition.

Source/Full Story: KCSG-TV

…photographer Stephanie Sinclair, with the help of National Geographic, somehow convinced the insular FLDS to let her in with a camera — perhaps because the FLDS wanted to show that there’s more to their religion than what you see on HBO. Sinclair spent more than a year documenting small communities in the American West and in Canada, and has this story in the February issue of National Geographic magazine. Hear Sinclair discussing her experiences on Talk of the Nation:

Source/Full Story: NPR

A B.C. religious leader who was charged with polygamy last year is suing the provincial government for damages due to “unlawful” prosecution.

The charges against Winston Blackmore, one of two warring leaders of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in the Bountiful community of southeastern B.C., were quashed in September.

In his lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Mr. Blackmore claimed that the attorney general’s ministry acted in a manner that was “high-handed, arbitrary, reckless, abusive, improper and inconsistent with the honour of the Crown and the administration of justice.”

Mr. Blackmore, who has at least 25 wives and 101 children, said he became “deeply indebted” to his lawyers after charges were laid and he had to travel to Vancouver on at least one occasion to attend a hearing.

“As a result of the pending charges, Blackmore suffered business and other financial losses and he and his family were put under extreme stress and anxiety,” said a statement of claim.

Source/Full Story: nationalpost.com

If this isn’t screwed up I don’t know what is.  Polygyny is a form of marriage, people.

A large proportion of Canadians believe certain specific social behaviours are morally acceptable, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion published in Maclean’s. At least 79 per cent of respondents feel this way about contraception, sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman, divorce, and having a baby outside of marriage.

In addition, at least half of respondents think medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos, abortion, sexual relations between two people of the same sex, doctor-assisted suicide, gambling, buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur and the death penalty are morally acceptable.

Less than 20 per cent of respondents believe married men and/or women having an affair, polygamy, cloning humans and paedophilia are morally acceptable.

Source/Full Story: Angus Reid Global Monitor

What do you tell a person who has been living happily in a polygynous relationship as the second wife, has two small children, and now all of a sudden has to separate from her husband and sister wife because the hitherto happy family has realized, no doubt with the help of their Christian friends, that polygamy is wrong ?   The family wonders about moving to a place where wife #2 can live in a house or apartment of her own yet close to her former husband and sister wife so that the children still have both parents to grow up with and the poor second wife does not lose her husband’s and sister wife’s friendship because they are all really close.  But doing this of course would still pose a danger in their Christian friends’ opinion because who knows, they might be falling back into their terribly sinful polygamous lifestyle if the second wife does not take her children and move away and have her husband pay to support her and the kids from afar.

What would you tell wife #2 ?  What would you tell her husband ?  What would you tell the Christian “friends” who advise them ?

Well, I have advice for them all.

To the wife I would say:  Rejoice, there is nothing wrong with your marriage.  Return to your husband and sister wife and be happy and may Yahweh bless you with many more children.

To the husband I would say: Rejoice, take your two wives and be happy, and repent from the sinful idea of putting away your second wife.  Also, get rid of those so called friends who told you polygamy was wrong. They are of their father, the devil.

To the Christan friends I would say: Leave the poor family alone !  Your advice is wicked and ungodly, it creates pain rather than relieving it, it robs a wife of her rightful husband, and children of their father.  Keep your false teaching to yourselves and stop looking for biblical wisdom that helps you to argue against polygamy – there is no such thing because the bible tells you that polygamy is marriage, nothing more, nothing less.  Stay out of other people’s lives since you do not have biblical wisdom to offer, but only the adversary’s lies.

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors.   But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.”  (Gen 37:3-4)

You might wonder why in the world I am quoting this verse in connection to jealousy and polygamy.  And indeed, why in the world would I, since obviously, the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers that we are told about in Gen 37 has nothing to do with polygamy.  We are told specifically why Joseph’s brothers were jealous of their youngest sibling:  Their father favored him because he was the son of his old age.

There is, of course, a reason why I quote this in connection with polygamy.  It has been said by good Christian critics of polygamy that quite obviously, polygamy causes strife, not only between wives, but also between brothers, as we can see in the example of Joseph who gets sold to the Ishmaelites because his brothers are so jealous of him.  In order to blame this jealousy on the polygamous lifestyle the family led, one has to  assume that Israel loved Joseph more than his other children because he was the only (at that point) son of Rachel, the wife Israel favored. This assumption has its roots in the romantic ideas modern day Christians, just like the “rest” of society, have about love.

But Scripture clearly tells us that Israel loves Joseph “because he was the son of his old age”.  So we have another case here of people leaning unto their own understanding / assumptions rather than relying on the plain facts of Scripture.  It’s really a little ridiculous that something like this has to be pointed out, but experience has taught me that no argument is too silly for those good Christians who oppose polygamy that they would not use it.