More on victims of polygamy
 
Opinion
The Spectrum
 
No one denies that victimization sometimes happens within polygamous cultures. The perpetrators are identifiable and their actions match the profile of an abuser. Some crimes are horrid and disheartening and very often when people talk about victims in polygamy they associate the victim with the worst kind of abuse. Naturally, our first reaction is to the stop the perpetrator and demand punishment. Every good person wants to lend to the solution and stop the abuse.

There is another side to the story! The polygamous people have experienced great difficulty in achieving the "access and awareness" that good communities must have. This is a result of a 150-year history of events and hate policies against them. It is critical for anyone who wants to be a catalyst for genuine progress to have a clear understanding of the road that brought us where we are today.

In the past 150 years, more than 1,100 men and women have served time in prisons in Utah and Arizona with various charges, but the underlying reason was that they were polygamists. When people in our culture speak about these individuals we say, "Mother" or "Dad," "Grandma" or "Grandpa." You see, this is acutely personal to us.

I get emotional every time I try to recount what my mom's mom told her as a little girl. Her dad was in prison serving his first term for living polygamy. Her mom was faced with a very real possibility that her children would be removed by the state. She had to sit her four little children down and prepare them for what might lie ahead. She told them that if they were taken from her they must never forget where they came from, and that one day they must all find their way back to the Salt Lake Valley and try to regain contact with each other.

My heart breaks and even now tears stream down my face as I think of the courage it took to give this kind of advice to her little children while their father was already behind bars. Each person in that story was a victim. This is not the type of victim that comes to mind when you read the opinion piece printed in The Spectrum, Nov. 11, 2006, entitled "Safety Net committee far from secure."

This is where the disconnect lies: If we want to reach out to the families that are in crisis we must not be afraid to acknowledge the factors that exist to make victims vulnerable. You and I listen to stories of high profile polygamist abuse cases and feel sad and angry at the reports. I would not discredit the need for support and intervention in these cases but my experience was very different. I grew up happy, protected and with a constant knowledge that my parents loved me and would protect me at all costs.

As an adult, I was in an untenable marriage and suffered great heartache during my divorce. My family did not push me into the marriage. It was completely my choice. Although it proved to be a bad choice, I didn't feel to blame my family or their religious views.

In my house, our religion was about a God who loved us and worked for the benefit of His children. Our family was a group of people, each one striving for self improvement and watching out for the benefit of the others. It's not that my family was void of hardships, but we viewed them as barriers that could be overcome and certainly did not shake the core values of our belief or faith.

The jumping-off point to provide access and awareness to those who are vulnerable is to stop the victimization and destabilization of families that would otherwise be functioning families; in addition, to send a message that it is inappropriate for states to target investigations and differentially impose penalties on an unpopular minority religion.

We must have information disseminated about the necessity of governments acting responsibly towards their citizens and knocking down the laws that sanction or sponsor the hate against individuals who hold beliefs that are not embraced by the larger sector.

While we work to grant protection to victims within polygamous communities, we must be cognizant of the real issues that are inhibiting access and awareness in the culture. Good communities are not made by allowing the marginalization and class distinctions of intolerance, but by granting equal protection. Polygamy must be decriminalized to begin chipping away at the walls that 150 years of bad policy and intolerance have erected.

Joyce Steed is a resident of Centennial Park, Ariz.
 
TheSpectrum.com
Originally published February 14, 2007
 
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