SPECIAL REPORT
SALT LAKE CITY — Standing at his kitchen counter, wolfing down taco pizza during his lunch hour and cradling his infant daughter, Dr. Jeremy Thompson, 28, seems to have it all: a thriving medical practice, a comfortable home, a pretty wife, six healthy children and a minivan in the garage.
But he has something most young modern suburbanites don't have: a second pretty wife.
He may look like a typical modern husband, but in fact Dr. Thompson is a practicing polygamist. Born and raised as a fundamentalist Mormon, he believes he must take more than one wife in order to reach the highest level of exaltation in heaven.
In Utah, polygamy is outlawed both by statute and the state constitution. For the past 30 years, state authorities have followed a don't-ask, don't-tell policy toward polygamists, but recent charges of underage marriage and incest within some plural families have thrust what is arguably the most persecuted religious minority in American history back into the line of fire.
Alarmed by reports from an advocacy group called Tapestry Against Polygamy, the state attorney general hired a full-time investigator in October to probe the state's "closed societies." Last month, legislators debated a bill that would have, among other things, banned parents from promoting or teaching polygamy to their children.
"The legislature has become more hostile in the last two or three years because of the perception of abuse," said former state Rep. David Zolman, a rare public official who has come out in defense of polygamy.
In May, the debate over polygamy is expected to draw national attention when Tom Green, a Juab County man with five wives, becomes the first polygamist to face trial on bigamy charges in more than 50 years.
For generations, polygamists have reacted to state crackdowns by going underground, changing their names, swearing their children to secrecy. Those who failed to slink back far enough into the shadows could find themselves arrested, their homes lost, their children taken from them.
But not this time. Faced with a rising tide of angry public opinion, polygamists like the Thompsons are fighting back. Last month, Dr. Thompson's two wives — his legal wife Melanie, 27, and his "spiritual" wife Mary Jane, 23 — made Utah history when they appeared with a group of polygamists at the state capitol to testify against legislation that they said would make it impossible to practice their faith.
Much to nearly everyone's surprise, they won. Lawmakers removed the controversial language in the "child bride bill," a victory that has emboldened some of those in the polygamous community to speak out on behalf of their way of life as never before.
"People were totally shocked when these polygamous women came out," recalled Melanie Thompson. "We had a group of 11, and people said, 'Wow, I can't believe you have this many.' We said, 'Hey, this is nothing.' "
Growing in the shadows
Estimates of how many people now live in polygamy remain sketchy, but state authorities believe there are at least 30,000 in Utah and as many as 80,000 nationwide. Most of those are in the Rocky Mountain West, although polygamous clans have also been identified in Minnesota and Wisconsin, said Ron Barton, who was hired in October to lead the polygamy investigation for the Utah Attorney General's Office.
About half of those belong to a polygamous community or clan. The largest is in the twin border towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, a remote town whose 10,000 residents are nearly all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including the mayor and sheriff. Those unaffiliated with a group, who constitute the other half, are known as independents.
There is little census data on polygamists, but those living in such societies say their numbers are growing. They point to their high birthrates: Women having six or more children are commonplace in polygamy. In one extreme case, Paul Kingston, the leader of the Kingston clan here, is said to have 34 wives and more than 200 children.
Fundamentalist Mormons do almost no recruiting — indeed, in many cases they discourage converts from joining what they consider a difficult way of life. Even so, their ranks have benefited from defections by mainstream Mormons, who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Owen Allred, the 87-year-old leader of the so-called Allred clan, the state's second-largest polygamous community, says he sees about five converts from mainstream Mormonism every month. He attributes the growth of his church, the Apostolic United Brethren, to its strict adherence to the original teachings of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith.
On a recent Sunday morning the church auditorium, which doubles as a basketball court, was filled to capacity with 500 parishioners. Several hundred more crowded into the basement to watch the service on a remote link, despite the fact that it went on for two hours.
"All our priesthood authority comes from Joseph Smith. We don't teach anything different from what he taught," said Mr. Allred, who has eight living wives. "We haven't changed, but [the Mormons] have."
Hiding from the law
Mr. Smith taught that living in polygamy, or celestial marriage, was required not for salvation but for heaven's highest blessings. Many of his followers, including his immediate successor, Brigham Young, continued to live in polygamy after Mr. Smith was killed and his followers fled from Illinois to Utah in 1846.
Plural marriage was commonly practiced in Utah until the federal government made statehood contingent upon the abolition of polygamy. The church's president, Wilford Woodruff, issued a manifesto outlawing the practice in 1890. Six years later, Utah joined the union.
Mainstream Mormons hold that Mr. Woodruff issued the anti-polygamy manifesto not in an effort to curry favor with the federal government, but as the direct result of a revelation from God. "A key tenet of our faith is the belief in continuing revelation," said church spokesman Michael Purdy.
But some Mormons never gave up polygamy, even when threatened with excommunication by the main church. Shunned by mainstream Mormons and subjected to periodic raids and arrests, many polygamists eventually relocated to remote regions of Utah, forming their own churches and societies as they continued to practice their faith.
That wasn't always enough to keep them out of the law's reach. In 1953, Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle, disturbed that a polygamist community had drifted over the state line into Arizona, ordered the arrest of all married men in the border town of Short Creek on charges of bigamy, adultery and rape.
The Arizona National Guard bused 56 women and 153 children to Phoenix, where they planned to place them in Mormon homes so they could live "a proper and normal life." Instead, the public became outraged by newspaper photographs showing children being pried from their fathers' hands.
Given the difficulties of proving polygamy where no marriage licenses existed, the raid resulted in no arrests. Two years later, the episode was judged a massive failure and the families were returned to their former homes. Mr. Pyle ultimately paid for the Short Creek raid with his political career when he was defeated in the next election.
That history of persecution has done little to unite the polygamous clans. Many are perpetually quarreling over differences in their doctrines. Mr. Allred's older brother, Rulon, was killed 24 years ago during a feud with the LeBaron clan.
Still, the old-fashioned 19th-century religion holds a surprisingly strong lure for the young. Most of those attending church on a recent Sunday are under 40, and many are teen-agers.
Melanie Thompson says she had just graduated from high school when she met a polygamist family while working as a nanny.
"I was trying to convert them —you know, 'If you go to my church, I'll go to your church,' " she said. "But instead I had a revelation. I started to read more about what they were saying."
Convinced that fundamentalism was the true faith, she broke with Mormonism and began attending the Allred church. Her family was devastated by the news, although they have since made amends.
"It was pretty hard at first. But now everyone's fine. I have sisters who aren't active in the church anymore, so I'm not the only one who's different," she said.