Remarks given at Peace Officer Conference

Remarks given at Peace Officer Conference – 2005

By Mary Batchelor

For over 150 years, polygamists have been cast off from society, persecuted, prosecuted, and denied their human rights.

In the book, Zion in the Courts, legal historians Edwin Firmage and Richard Mangrum, asserted that the war against Mormon polygamy brought a moral cost to the people of this nation. “Imposing conformity on a group of sincerely dedicated dissenters almost inevitably requires a degree of force that debases the oppressor. In a sorry cycle, resistance breeds repression, which calls forth yet more resistance and yet more savage repression. In the case of polygamy, it may be questioned whether it was worth the price.”

Well, has it been worth the price?

Today, there exists an entire segment of our society, including men, women and children, who have been marginalized as second class citizens for nothing more than their devout adherence to polygamy. They are afraid to call for help from local law enforcement, social services representatives or government agencies. They are, therefore, under-informed about the services available to society at large, such as family support services or the domestic violence hotline, and they are suspicious of any help offered even if they learn of its availability.

Because polygamy is so often sensationalized in the media, polygamists are afraid to reach out for help when they need it, for fear that those who claim to help really just want to prosecute. They are afraid that anything they reveal about themselves or their families will be used against them, or against the religion they hold dear.

Service providers and, by extension, peace officers must take into account that those who need help do not generally fall into just one category. There has been a great deal of publicity about the need to help women and children who want to “leave” polygamy, and there should be help for them. Is the help offered purely for help’s sake, or is it contingent upon their willingness to “leave” polygamy? What about those women and children who may not want to abandon their religion or their community, but who need help with an abusive situation? Whom can women and children call when they have been violated by someone outside their family, where polygamy itself is not an aspect of the problem?

For example, if a child born and raised in polygamy is molested by a non-polygamous neighbor, does this have anything to do with polygamy? Still, the parents of the victimized child may be loath to contact law enforcement or DCFS for help, fearing that once it is discovered that the victim’s family is polygamous, the child’s needs will take a backseat to an investigation into the family’s lifestyle. They fear that the bias and prejudice surrounding polygamy could potentially destroy their family, and could well lead to the removal of all children from the home, or the prosecution of the father for bigamy.

This is a real concern and a very real fear for fathers, mothers and children in polygamous families. These families, these children, should not be left to fall through the cracks because mainstream society thinks that modern polygamy is morally wrong or reprehensible. They should not be ignored as if they don’t exist, because they do exist. Efforts to stamp out polygamy will not make these families vanish, neither will the oppressive policies of the last century destroy this culture of traditional Mormonism.

Welcoming us today reveals a willingness to forge a new path, one that can perhaps embrace these families into broader society, under the protective, encompassing umbrella of citizenship. Some polygamists are well-integrated in society. They are educated, successful and happy in their families and in their life-choices. Yet, there are others who are isolated, alienated and know acceptance only from within their immediate family or community. Clearly, it is much harder to reach those who are isolated than it is to reach those who are mainstreamed. However, all polygamists will suffer if we do not re-evaluate the way we interact with each other.

Several years ago, when a widow of a polygamist was nominated by her children for Mother of the Year, she was quietly asked to decline the nomination in order to satisfy angry complaints by anti-polygamists that no plural wife could be so honored because there was no such thing as a good, polygamous mother. Comments have also been made in the newspapers that good fathers wouldn’t practice polygamy.

I would ask if when polygamists or their children achieve honors and merit acknowledgement for their achievements, shouldn’t they be permitted to receive them? Or are we only willing to applaud achievement and reward the merits of polygamists who abandon their lifestyle and walk away from their families?

Here are some questions to consider: Do we really want to continue to reject decent people and drive them away from all that society has to offer? Wouldn’t it make sense to welcome them back into the mainstream, and offer them even more opportunities for a rich, fulfilling life?

Are we only willing to offer opportunities and provide services to those who promise to conform? Wouldn’t that be like holding services hostage to force compliance? And would such an approach mesh well with the mission of serving and protecting individual freedoms and self-determination?

There’s an old saying, “You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Isn’t it time to get out the honey?

I know a pediatrician who provided care for the children of a woman (not a polygamist) who did not believe in immunizations. She had dismissed several pediatricians prior to coming to this one because, in each instance, she felt those pediatricians were disrespectful of her beliefs and treated her rudely. My pediatrician friend was the first doctor to say to her, “I believe you love your children and want what’s best for them.” He told her he would respect her choice, whatever she ultimately decided, but asked her to read some material about immunizations before completely deciding against it. Not only did she read the material, but when she came back, she immunized her kids.

Immunization is not the issue here, just like polygamy should not be the issue when it comes to helping families, or prosecuting sex abusers. The key to this doctor’s success was the fact that he treated this woman with respect, first acknowledging that she had her children’s best interest at heart, and then acknowledging that she was intelligent and capable of making her own decisions. He accorded her the freedom to choose something different from what he himself advised. No doubt this doctor has some patients who choose not to immunize. No doubt he treats them with the same respect with which he treated this woman, and no doubt he allows for the possibility that they, too, have the best interest of their children at heart. Because he does not burn bridges, the door remains open for him to continue to provide the best possible medical care for those children.

I ask that, in your dealings with polygamists, as victims, witnesses, or even offenders, you approach them in a way which will open the door for future interaction, and begin to build a climate of trust.

Today, we ladies are offering many suggestions to create this kind of interaction. We understand that some of those suggestions, like decriminalization of polygamy, are not within your ability to give us. However, some other suggestions are.

First, it is important to stop treating polygamists as criminals or “perps” just because they practice polygamy. I know you’re thinking, “but how do we do that, when bigamy is a felony?”

Unfortunately, the bigamy statute IS your greatest impediment to reaching out to the people of this culture, hence the need for decriminalization. In the meantime, keep in mind that the legal landscape impacting the private behaviors of consenting adults has changed dramatically in the last year, and will continue to evolve as Constitutional protections for the right to privacy and equal protection are expanded further. It is interesting to note that, before the historic Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas corrected decades of moral prejudice, homosexuals in Texas and Oklahoma were required to register themselves as sex offenders, regardless of whether or not they actually engaged in homosexual conduct. The language of the Lawrence decision changed all of that, and could significantly impact Utah’s bigamy statutes, in that it forbids the states from enforcing laws against a minority class where there is no intention of applying the same laws to the rest of society. A few weeks ago, three individuals, all over the age of 40, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit which will test the validity of Utah’s polygamy ban and bigamy statutes in the next few years. We look forward to the outcome of this case.

A short while ago, a plural wife told me of a negative experience she’d had with law enforcement. She arrived home from work one evening to find a burglar in her home. When she entered her house, he ran out of the back door, leaving her shaken and upset. She called the police and, when they arrived, she was surprised to find one of them more interested in the fact that her last name was one often associated with polygamists. He became persistent in asking her questions about her “husband”, determined not to leave until he had learned her husband’s identity. The more he questioned her about it, the more she determined not to tell him. For the life of her, she could not understand WHY he needed to know ANYTHING about her husband, since it had nothing to do with the burglary of her home.

Now, it IS possible that during the course of asking simple background questions, the policeman became suspicious of the woman’s reluctance to answer questions about her husband. He may or may not have been aware that her last name was common to some polygamists. He may or may not have suspected that her reluctance to reveal her husband’s name was due to polygamy. He may have suspected something else entirely.

In any case, this woman is terrified to call the police in the future, because she doesn’t trust what might come of it. One negative experience like this, which could have been a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication on both sides, can spread through the polygamous communities within days, sowing seeds of intense distrust and fear in its wake.

Be aware in your investigations that some questions which may seem like basic information for the average person are hardly basic for polygamists and their families. Because of the current laws against bigamy, please be sensitive to the fact that plural wives will express at the very least an intense discomfort when answering questions about their husbands and family arrangements, or they will simply refuse to answer such questions altogether. This behavior in and of itself should not be perceived as an attempt to hide something devious. It is simply an attempt to protect their husbands and preserve their families.

Whenever possible, try to leave the words “polygamy”, “polygamous”, “polygamist” or “plural wife” out of police reports where the crime or situation has nothing to do with polygamy. Do we really need to know that the woman whose home was burglarized is a plural wife?

Please keep in mind that, contrary to what anti-polygamists would have you believe, polygamy is not the same as incest. It is not the same as welfare fraud or abuse. It is not the same as underage marriage or sex with minors, any more than monogamy is the same as any of those things.

Affording polygamists dignity and respect will begin to reverse the negative cycle of distrust and replace it with a foundation upon which bridges can be built, trust can be established, and the law can be applied for its greatest benefit.

Thank you.