Reporter: Michael Rowland
Polygamists in Utah have renewed their campaign to be legally recognised.
TONY JONES: In the United States, there's a new twist to the family values debate. Polygamists, long shunned by America, are mounting a renewed campaign to win legal recognition for their unconventional lifestyle. They say they are simply practising their faith and the nationwide ban on polygamy breaches the US Constitution. The push comes as a notorious polygamist leader prepares to face court on sexual abuse charges. North America correspondent Michael Rowland travelled to the rocky mountain state of Utah, the centre of polygamy in the US.
MICHAEL ROWLAND, NORTH AMERICA CORRESPONDENT: Meet Valerie and Vickie, two suburban mothers juggling all the demands of family life. It's just their family is bigger than most.
VALERIE, POLYGAMIST: Well, I came into the family as a third wife and - so the other two were well-established, but it was just a really easy adjustment for all of us. I mean, it had its ups and downs, just like it would with anyone coming into the home or anything and we had to get used to, you know, different things with each other and our ways.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Three wives, one husband, 21 children. Polygamy may create a crowded house, even the odd dash of jealousy, but those involved would have it no other way.
VALERIE, POLYGAMIST: We really enjoy it and we enjoy the camaraderie and we enjoy each other's company. We will go out all the time, all the four of us, all the time, you know, just go out to dinner and enjoy each other's company and you know, go to a play or movie, whatever, and just spend time with each other. That's just as important to us, I think, as my spending alone time with my husband.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: It may be unconventional and even in many people's eyes perverse, but polygamy is a fact of life in States like Utah. There are an estimated 37,000 polygamists here, and the numbers are growing. 160 years ago the early Mormons trekked over the Rocky Mountains, fleeing persecution in the east. Salt Lake City became a Mormon citadel, a place where a husband having several wives quickly became the norm. Polygamy remained a central tenet of the Mormon faith until the church formally dissociated itself from the practice in 1980 as part of its bid to win statehood for Utah.
KIM FARER, MORMON CHURCH: The vast majority of people who practise polygamy today have nothing whatsoever to do with our faith and we have nothing to do with their faith. So it does become confusing to those who hear them call themselves fundamentalist Mormons. From our point of view, there is no such thing as a fundamentalist Mormon. There is no fundamentalism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Modern day polygamists run afoul of not just the Mormon Church. Polygamy is against the law in you tar, as it is in every other US state. It is punishment by a prison sentence of up to five years.
Even though polygamy is illegal in Utah, the State Government had for decades turned a blind eye to the practice. This don't ask, don't tell policy allowed polygamist communities to thrive to the point where they effectively took over entire towns. But this hands-off approach also encouraged some of the more radical communities to take the concept of multiple marriage a bit too far, with girls as young as 12 and 13 forced to marry much older husbands. Authorities have now decided to end this public charade and are aggressively going after those polygamists who are so brazenly breaking the law.
And this man is the biggest catch - polygamist sex leader Warren Jeeps - once number one on the FBI's most wanted list, is being charged with being an accomplice to rape. He's accused of forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her much older cousin. Until his arrest last year, Jepps presided over one of the more secretive polygamist communes on the Utah-Arizona border.
MARK SHURTLEFF, UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL: When I came into office and found out, my first few months in office, that these girls - young girls - were being forced to marry older men. I immediately said, Well, that's not going to go unpunished.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Utah's Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is the man who has decided to take on the self-declared polygamist prophets. For him it is about prosecuting sex offenders and he is realistic about what he can and can't do.
MARK SHURTLEFF: We obviously don't have the resources, the prison bed space to put every single practising polygamist in prison and if we do, then we have 10, 20, maybe 30,000 kids who we have to put into our welfare system, foster care system, and that would be overwhelming.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: For those in his sights, it all smacks of religious persecution, a claim the committed Mormon strongly rejects.
MARK SHURTLEFF: We've always said this is not about religion and its really not about polygamy. We've made that very clear. We are only going to focus on crimes against women and children, and to force a young girl into a marriage in the name of religion, in the name of a polygamist practice or a religious belief simply is a crime and we are going to prosecute it.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Rowenna Erickson knows how bad life can get in some of Utah's polygamist communities. For 34 years, she and her sister were married to the one man, but after raising eight children, Rowenna grew to loathe the polygamist lifestyle.
ROWENNA ERICKSON, FORMER POLYGAMIST: Families were cruel to their children. They wanted obedience. Men were cruel to their wives, physically and emotionally.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Rowenna got out but says there are hundreds of other women living lives of misery.
ROWENNA ERICKSON: They have no place to go and they feel like they would go to hell if they leave. They don't know because they've been so confined. They don't have access to money. So, if you take education and money away from people, you have power over them.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: So it is all about power and control?
ROWENNA ERICKSON: It's the power and the control. They really have an ego. When they can have that much power and have that many children - having that much prosperity is a big ego trip for them, even though they don't even know whose kids are whose.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Rowenna Erickson and another former polygamist John Llewellyn are part of a group this helps women and children fleeing polygamist communities.
JOHN LLEWELLYN, FORMER POLYGAMIST: The things that these women have been going through, it is something like you would read about in the Taliban or something. It is happening right here in the State of Utah.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: But for many women like Valerie and her friend Christine, polygamy has provided fulfilment and liberation, not subservience.
CHRISTINE, POLYGAMIST: I feel like I have a lot more to offer than whereas if I was just married to one guy. It is not even imaginable really. You know, I just - I love it. I love who I've turned out to be. I love who my children are turning out to be because of it. I can definitely see a growth and theres yeah, I love it.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Polygamists say they would enjoy the practice even more if they weren't breaking the law.
Anne Wilde, who lived in a plural marriage for 33 years, is leading the charge for decriminalisation.
ANNE WILDE, POLYGAMY ACTIVIST: When you look back through history and look what the women had to go through to get the right to vote and be recognised. The blacks went through the same thing and probably still to some degree are going through equal civil rights. The gays have been involved in this for several years now, and now we are just kind of beginning our journey in this direction that we feel we are entitled, definitely, to equal civil rights.
VALERIE, POLYGAMIST: Basically what we are asking when we want it to be decriminalised is for people to accept what they are already accepting in other people's lives, just without the religious backdrop. I mean, we live if a world where anything goes, to a large degree. To say that we - our lifestyle is so different than a man who has a mistress, which has got to be fairly common, or a man who chooses to just have several partners and not make the commitment of marriage, why should what we do be so much worse?
MICHAEL ROWLAND: There are signs American society could be more willing to accept this sort of argument. Polygamy is the subject of a popular television drama series, Big Love. Having their lifestyle sympathetically portrayed in American living rooms won't hurt polygamists, if as widely expected, the decriminalisation debate goes all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Observers like University of Utah law professor Erik Luna believe polygamists have just the same right as gay couples to demand their legal rights.
ERIK LUNA, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: My personal position is that these issues, when they involve adults in consenting intimate relationships - that the state really has no viable interest to be involved and whether it's the relationship between a man and a woman, between two men, two women or in fact a polygamist or bigamist relationship, I question whether the Government has any reason to become involved.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Not everybody is so sure the Government should take its eyes off the polygamists.
ROWENNA ERICKSON: It's one of the worst things they could do because then it will give these men more power and authority over the women. They will acquire more wives, they will be less fearful of the abuse being found out, more will happen because they don't have to be scrutinised anymore. They can do what they want.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Utah's polygamists still have many peaks to climb on their journey to legal recognition.
Polygamists in Utah have renewed their campaign to be legally recognised.
TONY JONES: In the United States, there's a new twist to the family values debate. Polygamists, long shunned by America, are mounting a renewed campaign to win legal recognition for their unconventional lifestyle. They say they are simply practising their faith and the nationwide ban on polygamy breaches the US Constitution. The push comes as a notorious polygamist leader prepares to face court on sexual abuse charges. North America correspondent Michael Rowland travelled to the rocky mountain state of Utah, the centre of polygamy in the US.
MICHAEL ROWLAND, NORTH AMERICA CORRESPONDENT: Meet Valerie and Vickie, two suburban mothers juggling all the demands of family life. It's just their family is bigger than most.
VALERIE, POLYGAMIST: Well, I came into the family as a third wife and - so the other two were well-established, but it was just a really easy adjustment for all of us. I mean, it had its ups and downs, just like it would with anyone coming into the home or anything and we had to get used to, you know, different things with each other and our ways.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Three wives, one husband, 21 children. Polygamy may create a crowded house, even the odd dash of jealousy, but those involved would have it no other way.
VALERIE, POLYGAMIST: We really enjoy it and we enjoy the camaraderie and we enjoy each other's company. We will go out all the time, all the four of us, all the time, you know, just go out to dinner and enjoy each other's company and you know, go to a play or movie, whatever, and just spend time with each other. That's just as important to us, I think, as my spending alone time with my husband.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: It may be unconventional and even in many people's eyes perverse, but polygamy is a fact of life in States like Utah. There are an estimated 37,000 polygamists here, and the numbers are growing. 160 years ago the early Mormons trekked over the Rocky Mountains, fleeing persecution in the east. Salt Lake City became a Mormon citadel, a place where a husband having several wives quickly became the norm. Polygamy remained a central tenet of the Mormon faith until the church formally dissociated itself from the practice in 1980 as part of its bid to win statehood for Utah.
KIM FARER, MORMON CHURCH: The vast majority of people who practise polygamy today have nothing whatsoever to do with our faith and we have nothing to do with their faith. So it does become confusing to those who hear them call themselves fundamentalist Mormons. From our point of view, there is no such thing as a fundamentalist Mormon. There is no fundamentalism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Modern day polygamists run afoul of not just the Mormon Church. Polygamy is against the law in you tar, as it is in every other US state. It is punishment by a prison sentence of up to five years.
Even though polygamy is illegal in Utah, the State Government had for decades turned a blind eye to the practice. This don't ask, don't tell policy allowed polygamist communities to thrive to the point where they effectively took over entire towns. But this hands-off approach also encouraged some of the more radical communities to take the concept of multiple marriage a bit too far, with girls as young as 12 and 13 forced to marry much older husbands. Authorities have now decided to end this public charade and are aggressively going after those polygamists who are so brazenly breaking the law.
And this man is the biggest catch - polygamist sex leader Warren Jeeps - once number one on the FBI's most wanted list, is being charged with being an accomplice to rape. He's accused of forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her much older cousin. Until his arrest last year, Jepps presided over one of the more secretive polygamist communes on the Utah-Arizona border.
MARK SHURTLEFF, UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL: When I came into office and found out, my first few months in office, that these girls - young girls - were being forced to marry older men. I immediately said, Well, that's not going to go unpunished.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Utah's Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is the man who has decided to take on the self-declared polygamist prophets. For him it is about prosecuting sex offenders and he is realistic about what he can and can't do.
MARK SHURTLEFF: We obviously don't have the resources, the prison bed space to put every single practising polygamist in prison and if we do, then we have 10, 20, maybe 30,000 kids who we have to put into our welfare system, foster care system, and that would be overwhelming.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: For those in his sights, it all smacks of religious persecution, a claim the committed Mormon strongly rejects.
MARK SHURTLEFF: We've always said this is not about religion and its really not about polygamy. We've made that very clear. We are only going to focus on crimes against women and children, and to force a young girl into a marriage in the name of religion, in the name of a polygamist practice or a religious belief simply is a crime and we are going to prosecute it.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Rowenna Erickson knows how bad life can get in some of Utah's polygamist communities. For 34 years, she and her sister were married to the one man, but after raising eight children, Rowenna grew to loathe the polygamist lifestyle.
ROWENNA ERICKSON, FORMER POLYGAMIST: Families were cruel to their children. They wanted obedience. Men were cruel to their wives, physically and emotionally.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Rowenna got out but says there are hundreds of other women living lives of misery.
ROWENNA ERICKSON: They have no place to go and they feel like they would go to hell if they leave. They don't know because they've been so confined. They don't have access to money. So, if you take education and money away from people, you have power over them.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: So it is all about power and control?
ROWENNA ERICKSON: It's the power and the control. They really have an ego. When they can have that much power and have that many children - having that much prosperity is a big ego trip for them, even though they don't even know whose kids are whose.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Rowenna Erickson and another former polygamist John Llewellyn are part of a group this helps women and children fleeing polygamist communities.
JOHN LLEWELLYN, FORMER POLYGAMIST: The things that these women have been going through, it is something like you would read about in the Taliban or something. It is happening right here in the State of Utah.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: But for many women like Valerie and her friend Christine, polygamy has provided fulfilment and liberation, not subservience.
CHRISTINE, POLYGAMIST: I feel like I have a lot more to offer than whereas if I was just married to one guy. It is not even imaginable really. You know, I just - I love it. I love who I've turned out to be. I love who my children are turning out to be because of it. I can definitely see a growth and theres yeah, I love it.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Polygamists say they would enjoy the practice even more if they weren't breaking the law.
Anne Wilde, who lived in a plural marriage for 33 years, is leading the charge for decriminalisation.
ANNE WILDE, POLYGAMY ACTIVIST: When you look back through history and look what the women had to go through to get the right to vote and be recognised. The blacks went through the same thing and probably still to some degree are going through equal civil rights. The gays have been involved in this for several years now, and now we are just kind of beginning our journey in this direction that we feel we are entitled, definitely, to equal civil rights.
VALERIE, POLYGAMIST: Basically what we are asking when we want it to be decriminalised is for people to accept what they are already accepting in other people's lives, just without the religious backdrop. I mean, we live if a world where anything goes, to a large degree. To say that we - our lifestyle is so different than a man who has a mistress, which has got to be fairly common, or a man who chooses to just have several partners and not make the commitment of marriage, why should what we do be so much worse?
MICHAEL ROWLAND: There are signs American society could be more willing to accept this sort of argument. Polygamy is the subject of a popular television drama series, Big Love. Having their lifestyle sympathetically portrayed in American living rooms won't hurt polygamists, if as widely expected, the decriminalisation debate goes all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Observers like University of Utah law professor Erik Luna believe polygamists have just the same right as gay couples to demand their legal rights.
ERIK LUNA, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: My personal position is that these issues, when they involve adults in consenting intimate relationships - that the state really has no viable interest to be involved and whether it's the relationship between a man and a woman, between two men, two women or in fact a polygamist or bigamist relationship, I question whether the Government has any reason to become involved.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Not everybody is so sure the Government should take its eyes off the polygamists.
ROWENNA ERICKSON: It's one of the worst things they could do because then it will give these men more power and authority over the women. They will acquire more wives, they will be less fearful of the abuse being found out, more will happen because they don't have to be scrutinised anymore. They can do what they want.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Utah's polygamists still have many peaks to climb on their journey to legal recognition.