FIGHTING BREAKS OUT IN POLYGAMOUS COMMUNITIES
 
From Ellen Ramsay in Canada
National Secular Society
 
Following on from my last article on the polygamous community in Bountiful, Canada, the situation in the commune has escalated into dangerous warfare between two rival leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In an excellent piece of investigative journalism, Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham describes a fight between self-proclaimed prophets Winston Blackmore of the Bountiful commune and Warren Jeffs of the Utah commune in the United States.

In an apparent escalation of a power conflict between the two leaders, a body guard of Warren Jeffs was stopped at the Canadian customs and revealed to be carrying ammunition clips for a semi-automatic assault weapon. As he didn’t actually have any live ammunition, Canada Customs (foolishly) allowed him entry into Canada even though his employer is a well known polygamous trafficker and has been in hiding to avoid being served papers from a lawsuit which alleges he sodomized his nephew in the church school.

The internecine fight between Jeffs and Blackmore has sparked a rush of "assigned wives" across the U.S./Canada border as the two men line up their supporters for a stand off.

The fight between the two rivals is essentially over control of the commune’ s land, over the control of the polygamous commune, over expenditure of the commune’s money, and over control of the schools (which are partly publicly funded).

At the moment in Bountiful, Winston Blackmore has support of the majority in the commune, but Warren Jeffs in the United States has seized a minority following on the commune since September 2002. According to Bramham, Jeffs "circumvented the usual succession order" and has "excommunicated scores of senior leaders, including Winston Blackmore, the former bishop of Bountiful."

Blackmore has tried to consolidate his position by establishing control of the commune’s school, its non-profit society and 354 acres of land. The property is worth over $1.5 million. The schools have been accused of teaching white supremacism and Winston Blackmore in a sworn affidavit to the B.C. Supreme Court stated that the schools audio tapes teach that "negros [sic] came from a war in heaven and they were turned into negros because they were fence-sitters and would not choose sides" (Vancouver Sun, August 27, 2004).
 
NSS Newsline
Originally published October 8, 2004
 
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