MC anti-polygamy movement
 
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Tri-State News Network
 
LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. – What started out as an informal lunch for a group of friends, blossomed into a large organizational meeting of concerned citizens in Lake Havasu City on Monday. All were concerned about the alleged abuse of underage girls being ceremonially married off to much older men in the Fundamentalist Later Day Saints community of Colorado City in Mohave County.

"That was the key to why we did this meeting," said Widell. "We wanted to mobilize ourselves, and our resources, so that we could respond when something needed to be done."

Colleen Widell, President of the American Institute on Domestic Violence, expressed her surprise that so many people quite unexpectedly arrived to meet Flora Jessup, and demonstrate their concern, and willingness to get involved with the effort.

The meeting touched on many of the aspects of suspected abuse within the community, from alleged sexual assaults, and sexual conduct with minors, which is the Arizona equivalent of statutory rape, to the alleged gross financial abuse of the state and federal welfare system by the community. The FLDS is a breakaway group from the mainstream Mormon Church, which condemns the practice of polygamy.

It is estimated that due to the huge size of most families in Colorado City, most of whom are receiving government assistance in some form, that the burden to the Arizona taxpayer is staggering when contrasted to similar sized, non-polygamist communities.

By some estimates Colorado City gets back eight dollars in benefits for every dollar their residents pay in state taxes, while Mohave County as a whole averages about one for one.

Many people at Monday's meeting, such as former Arizona State Senator Linda Binder, were asking why state officials have been turning a blind eye, for years, while the residents of Colorado City practice their freedom of religion, which requires men to take multiple wives, oftentimes producing more than thirty children per household, at tremendous taxpayer expense.

Flora Jessup, a former member of the FLDS polygamous community in Colorado City, an activist who considers herself as having ‘escaped’, spoke briefly. She said she thought there were many more women who would leave the community, if they thought they would be safe, and could start a new life. She said many young women had run away from the community, in the past, only to be returned by authorities, and treated as typical teenage runaways. There was some discussion regarding fundraising for the establishment of some form of safe house for women who do leave, if they can be reached, to help transition them into mainstream society with an emphasis on job training and life skills.
 
Tri-State News Network
Originally published Wednesday July 27, 2005
 
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