B.C. polygamist leader decries sexual abuse

DIRK MEISSNER

The Canadian Press

June 7, 2008 at 12:15 PM EDT

VICTORIA — Polygamists living in Bountiful, B.C. abhor sexual abuse of children as much as any other caring parent, says the leader of one of the most controversial communities in Canada.

Winston Blackmore, who openly admits to having numerous wives and dozens of children, said parents at Bountiful protect their children from abuse.

But he declined to discuss allegations that older men in his community marry teenaged girls – a violation of statutory rape laws – while other girls are sent to sister polygamous groups in the United States to marry older men there.

Bountiful is located in southeastern B.C.'s Kootenay region near the town of Creston and about one kilometre from the U.S. border at Idaho.

“I don't know of any parents around here that are not concerned about their children and if they are abused or not,” said Mr. Blackmore in an e-mail to The Canadian Press. “We sure are about our children.”

B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate laying charges in Bountiful. Mr. Oppal said he will examine the likelihood of criminal convictions on charges ranging from polygamy to sexual assault.

For his part, Mr. Blackmore accuses the attorney-general of religious persecution of the polygamous community.

He said parents in Bountiful want their children to grow up safe and happy.

“I know that my children shall hear from their parents that they should finish their school, they should grow up, they should be virtuous, they should live the 10 Commandments, and that they should make good choices in their lives,” Mr. Blackmore said.

“I want them to learn how to work and pray, be honest in their dealings, and when they make commitments, I want them to keep them,” he said.

“If they make mistakes in their lives, I want them to fix them, and I want them to know that their dad will do the best he can do to help them make it right.”

Recently, more than 450 children apprehended by child-welfare authorities from a polygamous community in Texas, including at least one teenage girl from Bountiful, were ordered returned to their parents.

Texas authorities removed the children from their homes after a call to a domestic abuse hotline, purportedly from a 16-year-old in the Yearning For Zion community saying she was forced into a marriage with a man three times her age. That girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the call was a hoax.

Mr. Oppal said B.C. authorities have been struggling with the Bountiful issue for more than two decades.

The communities at Bountiful and the one in Texas are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway group from the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago and disavows any connection.

More than 800 people live in Bountiful where they are split into two different factions; one follows Mr. Blackmore and the others follow jailed American FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, in prison for being an accomplice to rape. Mr. Jeffs was convicted in Utah last year of forcing a 14-year-old into marrying an older man.

Mr. Oppal appointed the special prosecutor despite two earlier legal opinions saying that proceeding with criminal charges on polygamy would be difficult because anyone charged criminally under the prohibition of polygamy may decide to defend themselves on grounds that their rights to religious freedom are protected.

Mr. Oppal said the right to religious freedom is not an absolute right to break the law.

One legal examination suggested launching a court challenge of the laws barring polygamy as opposed to a criminal prosecution.

But Mr. Oppal said public concerns, which boiled over in the wake of the Texas raids, played a strong part in the decision to review charges.

Recently, East Kootenay MLA Bill Bennett, whose riding is close to Bountiful but does not include the community, told the B.C. Legislature that the practice of polygamy there must be stopped.

“It damages the lives of women and children,” he said. “Polygamy is the underlying phenomenon from which all of the other alleged harms flow.

“We must take action to support women and children trapped in this polygamist cult.”

In 2006, an internal B.C. Health Ministry report examined teen birth rates in the Creston area, which includes Bountiful, from 1986 to 2004.

The report found there were 181 births by teen mothers during that period, while the expected number was 76.

It said 69 of the 181 births were linked to Bountiful, and accounted for 38 per cent of births to mothers aged 14 to 18 in the Creston area. It also found that, of the 69 births, almost 50 per cent of the fathers were five years or more older than the mothers, and 28 per cent were 10 or more years older.

Nancy Meraska, the Alberta spokeswoman for the national organization Stop Polygamy in Canada, applauded Mr. Oppal's decision to seek criminal charges in Bountiful.

And she rejected Mr. Blackmore's comments about sexual abuse.

“He will never answer a direct question,” Ms. Meraska said.

“He tries to make it look like what he's doing in Bountiful is no different than what happens out in what he calls the ‘real world.' It's really, really ludicrous because he knows that polygamy is a crime in Canada. He's knows that trafficking girls for the purposes of sex, or the purposes of child-bride marriages is illegal in Canada and all the other crimes of polygamy.”

 

 

 

Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada) wrote: The government has a fiduciary duty to promote marriage between One man and One woman. Two people of the same gender can never replace two biological parents a fact that is ignored in Canada in preference to gay and lesbian political pressures.

Two men alone or two women alone cannot make a baby, our population growth is negative and our governments failure to promote marriage between one man and one woman is responsible.

It will get worse. Our government is criminalizing men who marry women, a very large number of them upon separation are sent to jail for no other reason than to prevent them from having access while the mothers go into same sex relationships frequently collecting child support from two fathers whose reputations have been destroyed and who are paying support at many times the guideline amount due to feminist judges making support orders contrary to all the evidence.

Full time fathers are routinely thrown in jail for not paying support when they did not earn an income.

Canadian Judges don't like men being parents while a mother works, that offends Feminist doctrine.

So whats next on the crazy list. Multiple dependent wives collecting survivor benefits from one husband, and whats stopping those wives being married to more than one man and collecting survivor benefits etc from more than one husband.

Just look at the financial incentives, form a cult, and the government provides a high paid retirement plan.

Lesbians have a similar racket, simply get married, bear a few children each, dump the fathers, and collect two lots of child support.

It gets even crazier, two lesbians seek out multiple male unwitting sperm donors, collect support at the single child rate from each one while living in one household.

And that now is the norm in Canada due to Canada's policy of marriage destruction.

At least Mr. Blackmore is one person who believes in marriage.

 

Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: The Wally Oppel Crusade against Polygamy has as much chance of success as the reintroduction of prohibition or removing the right of same sex marriage.

Obviously, polygamy will sooner or later be enshrined in our charter, not that the charter is worth anything in Canada.

If Wally Oppel is stupid enough to launch a prosecution against the Bountiful mob, than he has just written the most impressive application to the Supreme Court of Canada ever written.

Polygamy falls into a sensational headline that sells rags like "man gives birth to baby", if it makes the sensational news, then its probably passes the public interest test for an appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada

We need to be concerned about the cases that the Supreme Court of Canada does NOT HEAR, solely for political not legal reasons.

For example;
NOT ONE SINGLE SELF REP HAS EVER BEEN SUCCESSFUL BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT.



Self reps have extraordinary orders issued against them, not because the lack of merit but because the lawyer on the other side is a lawyer and pits their credibility against that of a self rep.

Wally Oppel has made a mistake, Bountifull will not be a self rep, it will be represented and at the end of the day, Polygamists will have the same rights as Gays and Lesbians who unlike Polygamists of men and women, cannot make babies.

Then the Canadian Crazy Campaign Against normal marriage will get worse.

Then gays and lesbians will demand their right to have plural marriages between more than two men, and more than two women.

We will end up with homes with multiple lesbian mothers all sharing each other, collecting child support from unwilling sperm donors to fund lifestyles that rival the rich and famous.

Oh sorry, factual error above, In Canada we already have a very large number of homes with multiple lesbian mothers already collecting child support from fathers who are full time fathers and the support is paid by second wives. No wonder why men don't wish to be fathers. Such an attitude will doom Canada to increase its present significant negative birthrate.

If you are thinking of becoming a sperm donor, remember your sperm will help destroy the institution of Marriage between One Man and One Woman. Do you really want your child growing up in home with those who specifically wish to ensure that their children don't have a father in their lives?

Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: Self reps have extraordinary orders issued against them, not because the lack of merit but because the lawyer on the other side is a lawyer and pits their credibility against that of a self rep.

Wally Oppel has made a mistake, Bountifull will not be a self rep, it will be represented and at the end of the day, Polygamists will have the same rights as Gays and Lesbians who unlike Polygamists of men and women, cannot make babies.

Then the Canadian Crazy Campaign Against normal marriage will get worse.

Then gays and lesbians will demand their right to have plural marriages between more than two men, and more than two women.

We will end up with homes with multiple lesbian mothers all sharing each other, collecting child support from unwilling sperm donors to fund lifestyles that rival the rich and famous.

Oh sorry, factual error above, In Canada we already have a very large number of homes with multiple lesbian mothers already collecting child support from fathers who are full time fathers and the support is paid by second wives. No wonder why men don't wish to be fathers. Such an attitude will doom Canada to increase its present significant negative birthrate.

If you are thinking of becoming a sperm donor, remember your sperm will help destroy the institution of Marriage between One Man and One Woman. Do you really want your child growing up in home with those who specifically wish to ensure that their children don't have a father in their lives?

Joseph Smith was a Charismatic Criminal who used his Charles Manson like persuasive powers to convince women that god spoke thru him in order to have sex. It has got to go down in History as one of the most famous pick up lines ever.

Now, only those preprogrammed and brainwashed from birth or suffering a mental health problem will believe such nonsense.

Joseph Smith was also a fraud, not only was he the voice of god, but he started his own bank, issued his own currency and convinced enough people that he was right and the rest of the world was wrong to the extent that they should all follow him as the prophet of god.

Man, its time for a movie on Joseph Smith and the realities of the founder of the Mormon Church.

 

You (Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada) wrote: That being said, most Mormons are generally wonderful people and a credit to society, even if include, like many many members of religious cults, those who are gullible and suffer delusions such as hearing voices talking to them that do not exist in this ungodly world and, a phenomenon generally referred to as "an auditory hallucination" and a common symptom of a serious mental health problem all too frequently suffered by those who have unfounded paranoid fears of men that cause them to prevent their children from any contact with their biological father. Ottawa Mens Centre dot com

 

Source

 

Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada) wrote: Readers should note that "Sunday, is a day when the Canadian Judiciary's very private internal email groups runs hot with posts and I'm told that commentary from the Globe and Mail about the Judiciary is part of that reading material.

The word from Judges Chambers is that such comments reach all the right places, except they are like members of the FLDS Cult, they are a Cult of entrenched hatred towards men, engaged in a way against men that can only be described as Gender Cleansing to be processed by way of "the process of justification",

Thats the same "legal reasoning" used by criminals in justifying their crimes. Joseph Smith justified it as "god talking to him".

One thing is for sure, I've never heard a judge in Canada say that God told her or him to treat men with a reverse onus assumption that his children are automatically better of without him and that he should be indefinitely repeatedly incarcerated for seeking to litigate the best interests of his child.

Our Canadian Judiciary include amongst those who are saints and a credit to the legal profession, a pack of very nasty personalities that border on psychopaths willing to flagrantly abuse their power to criminalize those who dare to suggest that they act in any way other way than god.

Ottawa Mens Centre dot com