False Claims of Religious Persecution

In a June 3, 2008, newspaper article, The Canadian Press quoted Winston Blackmore, the polygamist sect leader of the Bountiful community as crying "religious persecution" over Attorney General Wally Oppal’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate possible polygamy related criminal offenses in Bountiful. Blackmore’s group is an offshoot of the infamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) that has a history of compulsory marriages with underage girls. According to Beth Cook, a former plural wife of convicted child rapist, Tom Green, she was married at age 12, her sister at age 9, to the same man old enough to be her father.

It takes intestinal fortitude for a man of Blackmore’s background to accuse others of persecution when it is an established fact that the oppression of women is a major part of FLDS dogma.

In Blackmore’s case accusing antagonists of "religious persecution" is an emotional response designed to stifle reasonable inquiry. It has worked in the past but shouldn’t this time. The separate, sordid stories of dissidents from the FLDS are so much alike that coincidence is extremely unlikely. Women are brainwashed into accepting the illogical ideology that absolute obedience to priesthood is contingent upon their exaltation. Women and children are also inculcated with the belief that apostates, government and gentiles in general are wicked and if given the opportunity will destroy god’s priesthood.

There is much more about this so-called religious lifestyle that is rooted in sophistry - fallacious reasoning that offends logic. Because much of Mormon doctrine dealing with the supernatural cannot be factually verified, what is called "belief" should be classified as "opinion." Sophistry then is the "manipulation of logic" to justify an opinion. In the case of intelligent design, the argument can be made that facts are manipulated to justify the opinion that ID is scientific.

Eighteenth Century and early Nineteenth Century antisemitism is an example of bonafide religious persecution. Consider the Russian pogroms, the holocaust and the refusal of some countries to accept Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.

Mr. Blackmore’s accusation of "religious persecution" is made more meaningless by the bigotry that persists throughout Mormon fundamentalism. There are those who refer to Jews and Blacks with contempt, those that think the holocaust was a fabrication to build sympathy for Jews, and those like James D. Harmston who profess that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is factual. And what I found particularly farcical are the numerous conspiracy theories like the Illuminati - a group of wealthy Jews who manipulate international wars and the world economy.

If Winston Blackmore and his theocracy are as benign as he suggests then he should throw open the doors and welcome reasonable inquiry. Let him introduce to the special prosecutor his plural wives (rumored to be 26), their ages and the dates they were sealed to him. Allow the women and children (he is rumored to have 80) demonstrate that their civil rights are not being violated. Let us see free agency and freedom of thought in the actions and demeanor of the women and children. And let him show the world that his theocracy doesn’t aspire to sophistry - namely a doctrine of fear of other races and outsiders. Last but not least, show the special prosecutor the curriculum taught in his sect’s private schools.

A call for an investigation is based on sound reasoning and not persecution. An investigation has in mind the best interest and civil rights of the women and children. The Constitution that enables Mormon polygamist prelates form opinions and call them religion does not sanction dictatorship over women and children; nor does it allow self-imposed priesthood miscreants to capriciously do as they like with them. To allege religious persecution suggest there is something to hide. If Winston Blackmore has nothing to hide then an investigation will validate his claim of innocense and put to rest the petitions of dissidents.