The Echo of an Earlier Polygamist Raid

The raid on their Eldorado ranch has revived historic memories for members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Days Saints (FLDS). It has reinforced their belief that government is a Satanic force bent on destroying them, using the guise of enforcing sex abuse laws to destroy their constitutional right to practice a tenet of their religion: polygamy. Meanwhile, officials in Utah and Arizona wonder whether the Texas raid, which was bigger than they had been led to believe, has damaged their efforts to build bridges to the polygamist communities as they try to root out child abuse, sexual misconduct and fraud. Asked by the Deseret News if he would have considered a raid of that size in his own state, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said, "Heavens no!" The raid is feeding paranoia among the groups, says Paul Murphy, Shurtleff's spokesman. "It's important that we continue to communicate so that little problems don't become big problems."

The stories of persecution have been passed down like lore for three generations in the FLDS: accounts of the mass raids against polygamist communities in the West in 1935, 1944 and 1953 — the last the most famous, the raid on Stone Creek, an FLDS community straggling the Utah-Arizona border. It was conducted by the Arizona National Guard under the command of the Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle, who denounced the polygamists for a "foul conspiracy" to engage in "white slavery." Some 263 children were removed from the community and most kept in state custody for two years. A few parents never saw their children again.

But Stone Creek turned out to be a triumphant story for the FLDS in the longer run. Archived black and white pictures on the Salt Lake Tribune web site show women in plain calico dresses, surrounded by children, their wooden homes more humble then the Eldorado log cabins. Like the Eldorado contingent, many who were taken away sang hymns while others gathered around a flagpole singing "God Bless America." The pictures and the news report were the political undoing of the Arizona governor. The Stone Creek women and children spent two years in state custody and then returned to the renamed communities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. A monument stands in the center of Hildale, carved on it the words: "We must never forget how the Lord blessed us in restoring our families taken in the 53 raid."

FLDS members maintain they can practice polygamy because of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. In the late 1800s, the fundamentalists broke with the mainstream Church of the Latter Day Saints when it rejected plural marriage. There are an estimated 50,000 members of polygamists sects in the western United States, British Columbia and northern Mexico, the FLDS being the largest. "Celestial marriage" — plural marriage — is a vital tenet of their faith rooted in the Biblical belief that Abraham had multiple wives and plural marriage is essential to reach the highest level in Heaven.

Texas officials insist Eldorado is not a church/state matter and that the Eldorado removal has no similarity to the Stone Creek raid. "This is not about polygamy. This is not about a person's religion," says Darrell Azar of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS). But for the fundamentalist Mormons it is all about polygamy and Stone Creek. "They have been talking about Stone Creek forever," says Murphy, the spokesman for Utah's Attorney General. "This confirms their worst fears about government." And he notes that after the Stone Creek raid, "They all came back with an absolutely stronger resolve."

Since the Texas raid, Murphy, who is also a liaison to the polygamist communities, has been fielding calls from all the groups. "They are very upset, very fearful and they are asking 'Are we next?'" Ironically, the night before the raid, Murphy had been meeting with some of the groups' members and assured them there would be no raid. Texas officials had given the Utah AG's office "a heads up" that something was in the works, Murphy says, but the warning was not specific and certainly Utah officials did not expect a raid of such magnitude.

In 2004 Utah AG Shurtleff and Arizona AG Terry Goddard formed a task force aimed at tackling child abuse and underage marriage in the polygamist communities, with the approach laid out in "The Primer," a detailed guide to polygamy sects available on their web sites. Rather than using the anti-polygamy laws, which typically do not carry large penalties and can be difficult to prove, the two AGs have been using child abuse and welfare fraud statutes. (Some of the polygamist groups push a practice called "Bleeding the Beast" — illegally availing themselves of welfare benefits, food stamps and aid to single mothers — which is legitimate in their eyes as part of their fight against the "evil" government.)

That new approach has had one notable success: the conviction on accessory to rape charges last fall of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the FLDS sect. Ironically, Murphy acknowledges that the new approach by Utah and Arizona may have driven some FLDS leaders to leave the state and set up their communities behind gates and walls. "We never had a compound here," Murphy said, referring to how Eldorado is organized. Smaller, walled compounds with watchtowers have also sprung up in Colorado and South Dakota.