Edited to clarify: OK, I was right the first time - re the Mackert sister who told her story about her brother becoming her "husband" - it was her half-brother, not her step-brother, so that _is_ incest, right?

Incestuous sex - not so holy I'm thinking.


Original Post:

Two Mackert sisters were interviewed on our local news just now. They are among the witnesses who will testify in the polygamy trial that started here yesterday (a "reference trial", without a defendant or a prosecution) to determine whether Canada's law against polygamy is constitutional or not.

Their supporter is a member of "Stop Polygamy in Canada". The women told the news reporter that they were forced to "marry" their brother. "One day he was our brother and the next we were told he was our husband", one of them said.

The reporter mentioned that anti-polygamy activists avow that (religious fundamentalist) polygamy harms women in every sphere, including reproductive choices.

It's good to hear all this come out. The Stop Polygamy woman said that the Bountiful commune is "Mormon Polygamy" and they are determined to get all the information out to the authorities and the public and that the law in Canada against polygamy will stand fast.

It will certainly be interesting to follow the proceedings and finally get an answer. For now, I'm busy counting how many times they use the word "Mormon". I wonder if the COB is making plans to push some PR our way. Maybe they think Canada is too insignificant to worry about. But it must surely have an effect on their proselytizing efforts here. A lot of people watch the news. And nobody, including reporters, seem too worried about using the M-word (Mormon), despite COB PR efforts to the contrary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2010 12:52PM by Nightingale.

It is catching some attention down here. I've been able to use "Mormon" and "polygamy" in a sentence a couple times today to illuminate folks.

The Mackerts are from Utah, which further ties in with the Mormon association to this. They said their ancestors helped to found the polygamy colony in Canada. They are the SEVENTH generation of polygamists in their family!

The "brother" they mentioned is actually a step-brother, not that that makes the incestuous nature of these arranged marriages any less abusive or appalling.

Debbie Palmer is an ex-plural wife and anti-polygamy activist in Canada. She grew up in Bountiful, B.C. and at the age of 15 "married" a man 40 yrs older than herself (Winston Blackmore's father, the leader of the group). Debbie has stated that "there are no sexual boundaries" in [Mormon fundamentalist] polygamy". One of the Mackert sisters just said in the TV interview that female toddlers are sized up for future "marriage" arrangements, which is part of how fundamentalist polygamy objectifies and sexualizes young female children. Not only do the family lines get confusing (although, curiously, not to the plural wives, who can recite the intertwining relationships like they're reading it from a book) but, as Debbie said, the young men learn to regard any female as a potential sexual partner, as they never learn that sisters and other close relatives are off limits. Not surprising, considering that they are not taught that and they don't see proper boundaries modelled. This is a factor that gives rise to the sexual abuse that occurs.

Is this anything like the type of polygamous life led by JS et al? I know the men, for whatever reason, are drawn to "marrying" sisters and then children of the sisters. But are the abuse and blurry sexual boundaries similar in LDS polygamy?

It's amazing how in these cults that preach morality their sexual practices all too often turn out to be completely immoral. Not to mention strange and creepy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2010 09:34PM by Nightingale.

Don't think so.

I believe that incest is defined by genetic relationship. There is no genetic relationship between you and a step-brother.

Not to say that what happened wasn't screwed up, but I don't think that we can call it incest.

Not be be flippant but isn't Mormonism based on the principal of eternal incest, i.e the belief tat all humans are literaly brothers and sisters and are the production of their daddy's relationship with his holy harem of sisters? And that this was how his daddy did it (and who know how many generations before), and this is how all humans are intended to behave, and all of their descendents, for ever and ever.

I do get confused with all the unnaturally close relationships. Once the men have several pairs of sisters as "wives" and they all have children and then some of them end up married to each other, I lose track of who is blood-related and who is just step-related.

But yeah, it's good to try and keep the facts straight.

most common way that they broke what we think of as normal sexual barriers.

Then there is one prominent guy who married a young woman whose 40 year old widowed mother came along. It was heavily implied that the man slept with Mom as well as the daughter, without telling the daughter, and perhaps secretly married the Mom.

These guys were only 1-3 generations into polygamy and barriers were falling, and creepy stuff was being accepted.

I think in traditional long term polygamy in other countries, they develop rules about the creepy stuff. Mormons didn't have time, didn't have social pressure from their peers against it, and they didn't seem to care if it got in the way of more sex.

Another thing I note is that in one of the video clips of Winston Blackmore they show over and over he is bending over to kiss a little blonde toddler smack on the mouth. It always gives me a strange uncomfortable little shiver. I've always figured that mouth kissing is for adults who are in a sexual relationship with each other.

Or is that just a hang-up of my repressed English upbringing (not to mention the self-imposed religious overlay: thou shalt not touch a member of the opposite sex in any way, even if thou art dating)?

I've seen creepy mouth kissing with young ones too. It's not just you. It makes me uncomfortable too.

Sick, sick, sick. Let me say it again, sick.

The very fact that these people are claiming this practice is OK based up the Charter of Rights is disgusting. I only wish someone in BC had the intestinal fortitude to shut this dirty old man and his band of fellow poligamists up in jail for a long, long time.

The women are so brainwashed they have no concept that they are being abused.

And in some places stepbrother is too. I think that's because stepsiblings can be in positions of power and "groom" younger siblings to be their sexual partners -- so it becomes a crime because of abuse of power rather than a crime because of genetic harm to offspring.

The law is fluid when it comes to things like that, I hope, as language itself is.

Don't most family courts in the US now consider incest to be sex between two close family members living together as a family? They don't require proof of blood relationship between 2 family members for sex between them to be prosecuted as incest, do they?

Which makes stepfather having sex w/ stepdaughter = incest. Stepsibling to stepsibling= incest. Half-sibling to halfsibling= incest. Uncle (or boyfriend of mom), with any child in the home= incest. Stepmother to stepson, incest. Grandmother to adopted grandson, incest. Father to adopted daughter = incest. Brother to adopted sister, incest.

Is there a chart showing which US states do and don't view things this way? And do AZ and UT go easier on people who violate such laws, if they exist, than do states like OH where polygamy was not culturally or historically accepted?

Regardless of age, or alleged consent, to me blood relationships matter less than position/function within the family. As long as the two people in question live within a family, or occupy family roles (sister, father, brother, mother), then the degree of consanguinity is irrelevant to me. If they have sex, it's incest.