This article is a preview from the Winter 2017 edition of New Humanist.
Straddling the US state line that separates Utah and Arizona is a small desert township known informally as Short Creek. Surrounded by towering vermilion mountains and hostile desert peppered with cacti and cattle skulls, most of its population are members of a breakaway Mormon sect called the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints.
The people of Short Creek live in accordance with the earliest Mormon beliefs set out by founder Joseph Smith, the most controversial being their ongoing practice of polygamous marriage. Men here take multiple spouses, believing an early revelation from Smith that having three or more wives guarantees entry to the celestial kingdom. In this members-only afterlife, they will become gods, able to create worlds populated by their many wives and children. Women have no access to the afterlife without permission of their husband, so they must be careful to keep him sweet while living together on earth. The FLDS have lived in line with these beliefs for almost a century, but for the past ten years the Utah government has moved the ground beneath them, testing the boundary between heavenly and earthly law.
Plural marriage, as the religion refers to it, was made illegal in the United States in 1862 through the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act. The aim of the legislation was to reform the recently established Mormon Church, which was enthusiastically encouraging followers to take up polygamy. The law came at a time when public outrage over the practice was reaching boiling point. The Mormons were successfully recruiting hundreds of citizens into the religion. This stoked public fears that the entire country was at risk of being switched on to plural marriage. In a Congress address, President Ulysses S Grant even described the Mormon practice as “a remnant of barbarism, repugnant to civilisation, to decency and to the laws of the United States”.
In defence of their lifestyle, Mormons cited the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. This argument was tested in the Supreme Court in 1879. The defendant, an English immigrant to Utah named George Reynolds, claimed he should be free to marry as many women as his religion commanded him. Sadly for George, the court found his plural marriage morally odious and compared it to the practices of “human sacrifice” and ritualistic suicide. The court determined that polygamy would not be protected under the First Amendment on the grounds that it was an affront to Christendom. Reynolds was fined $500 and spent two years in jail. His wives were left at home.
Under the weight of continued governmental pressure, the Mormon Church eventually acquiesced, releasing a manifesto to followers formally advising them to stop the practice of plural marriage. Over the next generation, most Mormons fell in line. However, a small number were determined to adhere to their fundamentalist beliefs. In the 1930s, a group of families committed to the early ideals of the religion packed up and relocated to a remote ranching town 140 miles from the Grand Canyon.
Word of the settlement spread, and the population boomed. But the immediate success of the community was short-lived. Irritated at the audacity of the polygamist town, Arizona Governor John Pyle led a huge and now infamous raid on Short Creek in 1953, replete with military backup and reporters. Police went into the town. They arrested 122 men and women and seized their children.
Norma, aged 50, is a member of the FLDS. Her mother was living in Short Creek in the 1950s and was targeted by Pyle’s raid. “At the time there were only two mothers in the family. It was her and her sister who were married to my biological father. My mother was living on the Utah side but my other mother was living on the Arizona side, so she was taken all the way to Phoenix with her children. They did not know when they would ever see each other again.”
Unexpectedly for the governor, the publicity surrounding the raid backfired. In a reversal of the 1878 Supreme Court case, public opinion was with the polygamists. An influential Life magazine pictorial essay, produced at the time of the raid and titled “The Lonely Men of Short Creek”, took a whimsically nostalgic and sympathetic view of the polygamist group as an innocent relic of days gone by. Pyle was widely criticised for his “un-American” invasion of a poor rural community. He failed in his re-election bid the next year. The mothers of Short Creek, for the most part, were reunited with their children, and life in the town returned to normal.
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The raid had uncovered a shift in public attitude. Polygamy no longer presented the growing existential threat to civilisation perceived by 19th-century puritans. Now, it was relegated to the fringes of society; most definitely immoral, but no longer dangerously so.
Fearful of another PR disaster, law enforcement avoided any serious interventions into the Short Creek community for the next four decades. Left relatively unchecked, the town members formed a local governance, police and fire brigade made up entirely of FLDS members, sealing off the community from the judgement of the outside world.
As well as cementing the Church’s control over the civic arena, leaders had solidified the economic power of the community by developing a property trust called the United Effort Plan. This holding, referred to as the UEP, was created in line with a Mormon commandment that followers should dedicate their lives and material substance to the Church. In real-world terms, it required all FLDS members to sign over their property to the UEP. Those who refused were forced out of the sect and doomed to carry the title of apostate. According to the FLDS, these unforgivable creatures are enemies of the Church and must never be associated with again.
By 2000, the population of the sect had grown to 10,000 members and the value of the UEP, now comprising dozens of properties and acres of land, was estimated to be around $100m. Just as the town’s fortune was reaching its zenith, a deeply disturbed leader rose to power. His actions as supreme prophet of the religion would set in motion the disintegration of the entire community.
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Warren Jeffs is a spindly and pallid man, with glassy saucer-like eyes and an insipid smile. A favourite child of the fourth FLDS prophet, Rulon Jeffs, Warren assumed the role when his father died in 2002.
Both paranoid and authoritarian, he became obsessed with the obedience of his followers. He banned television, pulled down basketball nets, closed the town zoo and forbade community dances. He prohibited any contact with the outside world, including non-FLDS friends and apostatised family members. Church members were asked to report on one another, creating a culture of suspicion and gossip between families. Later, members were required to write confession letters.
As prophet, he assumed leadership of the UEP Trust, giving him the authority to evict any people living in UEP property if he deemed them “not of good standing”. He excommunicated 20 male heads of families in 2004 on charges of “disobedience”. Being thrown out of the religion meant they lost everything – property, family and, of course, salvation.
For Norma, an FLDS member who still considers Jeffs her prophet, these directives had the well-being of the community in mind. “People say he’s torn apart families.Absolutely not, he’s saved families. Uncle Warren was a very kind and gentle person.” Norma reasons that Jeffs simply removed the bad apples who did not share the ideals of the Church.
Excommunicated members are less sympathetic. Donia Jessop left the religion at 42 years old, following an attempt by Jeffs to break up her family. “When you’re in the Church, you’re taught, do not question, just be obedient. I didn’t know any different. When Warren sent my husband away to work elsewhere, it felt like a privilege. Now looking back, I’m like, ‘Holy crap, I can’t believe I did that’.”
As more and more individuals like Jessop left the church and assimilated into secular society, state authorities began to pay attention to Short Creek again. Fearing the FLDS property trust was being mismanaged, the Attorney General stepped in and took over the multi-million-dollar land holding. Law enforcement dug into the dark rumours circulating about Jeffs. This time, there was no need for a tide of moral indignation. The state police had actual testimony from excommunicated members that Jeffs had been sexually molesting children in the community and was taking girls as young as 12 and 15 as wives.
The authorities launched a full investigation, and in 2011 Jeffs was tried and found guilty of child sexual assault, the meticulously kept church records working against him as damning evidence. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Back in Short Creek, the news of Jeffs’ conviction was received with dismay. The majority of the community, already sceptical of the world of apostates, called conspiracy and hunkered down for the coming apocalypse. Meanwhile, Jeffs continues to submit religions proclamations to his followers from prison, maintaining his position as prophet and controlling his people from afar.
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With the FLDS leader behind bars, state authorities began the process of parcelling up the land of Short Creek and handing deeds to the people who had righteous claim over property here. However, by now, the community was a mix of fundamentalists and apostates with competing stakes in each home. Arbitration went on and on, racking up millions in administrative costs as the courts failed to iron out issues of religious freedom, ownership and the duty of the US government.
Losing patience with the stalemate, the Utah State Courts decided that people who were familiar with the history of Short Creek should be given authority to oversee the process and appointed a board made up primarily of excommunicated members of the FLDS. Shirlee Draper is one of the seven board members. She left the Church 14 years ago. “I had an idyllic childhood. Then Warren Jeffs came to power. I felt like we were about to fall off a cliff, I didn’t want to be there any more. I had no money, no rental history, my home belonged to the Church. It took me four years of preparing in secret to actually get out.”
Now, Draper has been tasked with wresting power away from the Church and bringing the town into line with secular norms. She and the board are asking FLDS families to formalise the ownership of their homes by signing up to $100-a-month occupancy agreement with the board. This action should, in theory, franchise the families who would then own their homes independently for the first time.
However, community leaders see a very different situation unfolding. Joseph Allred is the current Mayor of Colorado City, the Arizona section of Short Creek, and a member of the church. “The FLDS people are strongly opposed. They’re holding on to the position that communal property is really the property of their church.”
Allred explains that most FLDS members here reside in houses they or their family have built, on land they already claim ownership over. He is baffled that the board expects people to “rent”, through the occupancy fee, property they already possess.
He believes the appointing of ex-members to the board is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate any chance of negotiation for FLDS members who want to continue living in their properties. “Can you imagine, an FLDS person, greeting one of their fellow Church members and saying, ‘Yesterday I just signed up with our enemies, the apostate people, and I now have the right to stay in this home.’ In effect, they’ve made their choice, ‘I am going to choose my home over my religion.’ It places the FLDS people in an impossible situation.”
Draper disagrees. Although she recognises there is a conflict for FLDS members, she believes the real problem emanates from leaders in the Church. “We know [people are] told not to co-operate with the trust, so we’ve bent over backwards to help. They can talk via an attorney. They can sign a waiver to not pay fees. But every time we’ve made concessions to suit their most recent edict, then another edict comes out saying, ‘Don’t do this now, don’t do that now.’ The leaders are victimising the people.”
Last year, the board reached its limit and began enforcing the evictions of polygamous families who refused to co-operate. Mayor Allred believes the evictions are a direct attempt to destroy the Church. “The government of the United States is sponsoring religious genocide. They want to liquidate the trust piece by piece, keeping the money, and they want to get the whole thing done and over with before someone wakes up to it.”
Draper finds it painful to watch friends and family members become displaced, but she maintains hope that this approach will snap them out of their spiritual daydream. “If they choose to lose their home, and move to surrounding communities, they start understanding the world isn’t against them. All of a sudden, they have other options, because they’re not being watched or punished for thinking. It’s not the end of the world. They will begin to wake up.”
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While those in power hold fast to their principles, FLDS community members – the vast majority of whom are women and young children – face the material consequences. Norma, who is the mother of 13 children, supports evicted FLDS families by searching out affordable rental properties in the area, taking pictures on her phone and sharing them around. “Usually I’m pretty strong when I’m going around and helping, but there have been times when it’s so hard. The anxiety of seeing all my friends and loved ones being pushed out of their homes is intense. The children are traumatised. They start crying when they see an eviction notice.”
So far, her family have not had an eviction notice. She suspects that an excommunicated family member may be paying her fees in secret, but isn’t certain. Despite the looming threat of removal, she firmly resists the option of setting up a deal to save the home she shares with her husband, four sister wives and 24 shared children. “We will not work with anyone on that board. We’re not going to deal with the enemy. The land belongs to our Father, it’s his land, it’s sacred land. For us, we don’t answer to them.”
At the time of writing, around 650 of the 800 polygamous households in Short Creek have been evicted. Rather than acquiesce to the board, most FLDS members have chosen to move into rental properties outside town. Some have travelled to different states. The situation as it stands does not appear sustainable, with many families relying on the charity of other Church members for survival.
Members feel they are being presented with a choice between homelessness or exclusion from their community and their afterlife. Norma is stoic about choosing to side with her religion. “It’s only our physical or, you could say, mortal security that is jeopardised. We firmly believe, if we live the celestial law our reward in heaven is there.” Currently, there is no way for FLDS members to retain both.
“I think we will end up eventually moving out of Short Creek,” Norma says. “The persecution does seem to happen over and over to us. But we always pull together. It only makes us stronger in the end.”
