The Unaddressed Problem of Muslim Polygamy
in the United States
Something is rotten in Denmark, aka, the United States.
This is not to show disapproval of any and all measures that coerce
pre-teen girls
into unwanted marriages, or in any way involve compulsion or, forced
choices,
to force women into wedlock. Any and all such efforts to end such
practices
are needed --and the sooner the better.
However, if this is an objective standard, why single out only the FLDS
Mormons ?
While the statistics are only approximations, from 10,000 to 100,000
polygynous
Muslim marriages exist in the USA, far more than among Mormons. Yet at
no time, ever, has anything been done about these households. In the
meantime,
while not every year, there are regular efforts made against Mormon engaged
in polygamy, sometimes involving hundreds of law enforcement officers.
You can argue that maybe half, maybe more, of Muslim polygamous marriages
do not involve coercion. Because of Mid East culture many women may
expect
plural marriage and accept it as quite normative. But Mid East culture also
is
well known for underage "brides," sometimes girls who really still are
children
at the time of their weddings. A good guess is that at least a third of
Muslim
plural marriages, conceivably many more, are in this category, contracted
in Algeria or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan and exported to America.
Why, then, should't these polygamous marriages also be prosecuted ?
Indeed, since they are many more of them, why aren't they the top
priority ?
This is not meant to be a call to arms against all plural marriages. After
all,
others that originate in the Mid East, while few in number, are among
traditional Jews, entered into with Biblical ( OT ) support. More recently
there has been news of scattered Christian equivalents among families
where all the women are obviously past 18 or past 21 or, in cases, past 31.
Plus, how many de facto polygamous unions are there in the USA ?
Probably at least one for every Rock star, every big name athlete,
and so forth. No amount of legislation or law enforcement
will end this sort of thing.
But when the issue is pre teen girls, even if all cases of such abuse
cannot
be ended, there is a serious moral obligation to try, to give it maximum
effort.
starting with the worst form of the problem, among Muslims.
BR
-------------------------------------------------------
States may team to fight polygamy
Trish Choate ("Reporter News," August 21, 2011)
USA - Top cops from Arizona, Nevada and Utah walked out of a meeting in Las
Vegas excited about the prospect of banding together with federal
authorities for a multistate effort to fight crimes related to polygamy.
More than one state attorney general in attendance viewed the confab with
federal prosecutors, the FBI and other federal law-enforcement officials as
a step toward forming a state-federal task force to share information and
tactics.
The meeting in Las Vegas was June 11, 2008. The task force still hasn't
materialized.
Disappointment has replaced anticipation.
Federal authorities apparently remain cool to the idea, but state officials
in Texas, Nevada and Utah remain hopeful.
They say there is a glaring need for a coordinated state-federal effort to
investigate allegations ranging from tax evasion to the sexual assault of
underage "celestial" brides in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints.
The polygamist sect is a sophisticated criminal organization whose members
flow freely across state and international boundaries to evade prosecution,
officials said.
"People, I think, make the mistake of thinking the FLDS and their agents
are sort of local yokels," former Arizona AG Terry Goddard said in a recent
interview. "Many of them are very smart and they have great legal counsel."
The historic raid at the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado that began
April 3, 2008, helped set the tone for the meeting in Las Vegas.
"We just had this explosion in Texas," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff
said in a recent interview. "This was truly a multistate problem. None of
us are going to solve it alone. The strategy of the FLDS is to divide and
conquer, essentially, to get into so many different jurisdictions that even
if one clamps down on them, the others won't."
Authorities must respond appropriately — thus the Las Vegas meeting,
Shurtleff said.
The U.S. Department of Justice assisted with evidence sharing for a while
after that.
"But within a year nothing was happening," Shurtleff said. "In the end,
nothing ever came of it ... We've tried multiple times."
Goddard doesn't believe the conviction this month in San Angelo of FLDS
leader Warren Jeffs for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old
has made a task force any less crucial today than it was several years ago.
"At that point, it was to try and keep the bad things from happening in
Texas, and now we're trying to pick up the pieces of bad things that happened
in Texas," he said.
Current Arizona AG Tom Horne did not respond to a request for comment.
Former Jeffs supporter Willie Jessop, who still belongs to the FLDS, was
among those contacted to provide a voice for the sect for this story.
Jessop and FLDS attorney Rod Parker did not respond to messages. But Jessop
recently told the San Angelo Standard-Times that Jeffs "betrayed his
people and the values of his people."
Shurtleff acknowledged that Jeffs holds sway over a number of sect members
who will never believe anything said against their prophet.
"But as I say, they're not all marrying children," Shurtleff said. "We
don't have any evidence that a child bride marriage has occurred in Utah since
2004."
Fresh from a San Angelo courtroom where a jury had just handed down guilty
verdicts for Jeffs, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said he still
supports having a task force.
"We would support that effort to root out any other kinds of problems
either behind YFZ Ranch or any other similarly related issue," Abbott said.
A spokesman in Abbott's office did not respond to a request for further
comment.
A go-nowhere bill introduced July 23, 2008, by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid
didn't provide momentum for a task force.
The Victims of Polygamy Assistance Act contends "organizations that engage
in widespread and systematic violations of state laws and the laws of the
United States in order to enrich their leaders and maintain control over
their members" typically are in control of polygamist communities.
The bill was designed to set up a task force to coordinate state and
federal efforts to investigate and prosecute in federal and state courts,
protect
witnesses, track criminal behavior of polygamist organizations crossing
borders and make sure local officials aren't corrupted because of ties to
polygamy.
Reid's office did not respond to requests for comment about the
initiative.
But Reid had plenty to say July 24, 2008, during a Capitol Hill hearing the
day after he introduced his bill.
Polygamous communities "engage in an ongoing pattern of serious crimes that
we ignore at our peril," said Reid, a member of the mainstream Mormon
church.
In a recent interview, Goddard said he never learned why federal
authorities were ultimately not interested in forming a task force.
"You know, they don't make explanations," he said. "They'll sit, and
they'll listen, and they'll nod politely, and you never hear their side of the
story."
These days, federal officials aren't keen on even acknowledging the idea of
a task force. A query about it resulted in a standard
playing-cards-close-to-chest response: "The department declines comment. We
cannot confirm or
deny the existence of investigations," said Alisa Finelli, Department of
Justice spokeswoman.
But signs of federal involvement are there: Hints surfaced in 2009 of a
federal grand jury investigation, dozens of Treasury Department warrants were
to be served in Colorado City, Ariz., which has a high population of FLDS
members, and a federal search warrant was executed at the YFZ Ranch on April
10, 2008.
The federal affidavit for that warrant was sealed because of a pending
investigation. The mention of a federal grand jury investigation came up when
Jeffs' lawyers questioned two Texas lawmen who declined to answer questions
because of a federal investigation.
More federal involvement: The FBI assisted in the capture of Jeffs by
putting the FLDS prophet on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in May 2006,
based on state warrants.
The FBI also put out its own warrant for him for flight to evade
prosecution.
In August that year, he was arrested during a traffic stop in Nevada.
Texas state Rep. Drew Darby, a Republican from San Angelo, has been
instrumental in calling for reforms.
"I would support Sen. Reid in creating some sort of task force that would
look at how we improve communication between law enforcement from the
various states and encourage support efforts that will protect these children
in
these various states," Darby said.
Texas Child Protective Services declined to comment on what further
legislation might be needed.
The West Texas congressional delegation had varying reactions to the idea
of a task force.
San Angelo Rep. Mike Conaway said he'll look at the issue, though he needs
to know more.
"My overall bias is that unless there's a real clear reason to get the
federal government involved, states should handle these kinds of matters," the
Republican from Midland said.
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