Turns out that Brian Mitchell, the abductor of young Elizabeth Smart, was, guess what? A believer in the fundamentalist polygamy beliefs of the Mormons, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. After being thrown out of the regular LDS Church, he went hunting young girls...
ELIZABETH SMART ABDUCTOR WAS FUNDAMENTALIST EX-LDS POLYGAMIST
Mitchell, who was excommunicated from the mainstream church, appears to have kidnapped Smart to make her his second of what he vowed would be eight wives. Investigators reported that his legal wife, Wanda Barzee, 57, claimed Mitchell was instructed through revelations to take seven young wives, because they would be more likely to submit to plural marriage.
Smart, who appears to have cooperated to some degree with Mitchell, has been raised in an affluent Mormon family. Obedience to men is stressed in Mormon culture.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2003-03-20/news.html/1/index.html
There is no evidence that Mitchell had any direct connection to the FLDS, a fortress of polygamy in the West, with about 6,000 devotees living in the northern Arizona and southern Utah enclave. But there are indications that Mitchell shares much of the FLDS' philosophy.
Hundreds of teenage girls - some younger than the 15-year-old Smart - have been joined with older men in legally unsanctioned "spiritual" marriages performed by FLDS elders in the Colorado City-Hildale area.
FLDS members believe polygamy is the only way to reach the highest levels of heaven. The FLDS bases its belief on a doctrine called the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, a manuscript that Mitchell also embraces.
Mitchell's desire for seven more wives is modest compared to the insatiable quest for females by FLDS leaders. Warren Jeffs succeeded his father, Rulon, as the leader of the church after the 92-year-old's death last September. Rulon was believed to have had upwards of 70 wives, some of whom have since become his son's spiritual spouses.
Fundie LDS Polygamist and the small percent of regular LDS Polygamist women believe if they are totally obedient spiritual wives they will get to go to heaven. Also the Phoenix Arizona Central that even regular LDS members believe that although they must live in monogamous relationships here on Earth when they go to heaven they will live in celestial polygamous families in Mormon Heaven! This helps me to understand why they do what they do.
Utahgirl, is this true?
This is what happens when the Republicans don't stop this and defend Polygamists in the newspaper (Orrin Hatch, State Rep. Zolman). This FLDS mania is spreading to reportedly 30 states and Canada.