by Douglas C. Pizac, The Associated Press
"I am 50 years old, blond hair, blue eyes, six feet tall, and weigh 200 pounds. I work as a business consultant. My wives are 33 and 22 years old and they both help me in our business. We don't drink, smoke or take drugs. We don't object to social drinking now and then. However, we do object to smoking.
"We are seeking a Christian lady with a kind spirit who has a positive attitude towards the Lord, their own life and towards others."
The above is an ad from a trio of evangelical Christians named Adolph, Mary and Megan in the "Family web-pages" section of www.polygamy.com. The site is dedicated to the premise that polygamy benefits all involved.
Government authorities tend to think otherwise; plural marriage is against the law in North America. Last month, Tom Green, a Mormon polygamist from Utah, was convicted of bigamy. Green, who has five wives and more than two dozen kids, was notoriously outspoken about his marriage arrangements. So are most online polygamy organizations, although the latter have largely escaped prosecution.
Which may be why the creators of polygamy.com and its sister site, polygamy.net, would prefer to keep a low profile. An interview request was forwarded to the sites' spokesman, a cheerful young man named Mark Henkel.
Henkel works as a Web consultant and pastor of an "independent home church" in Old Orchard Beach, Me. He also runs an organization called Truthbearer, (www.truthbearer.com) which advocates the legalization of plural marriage.
Polygamy.com was set up in 1999 by "a solid Christian" gentleman who lives "out West" and is adverse to publicity, explains Henkel, adding that polygamy.com is "meant to be generic," while polygamy.net is "meant to be Christian."
The first site contains a collection of essays with titles such as "Polygamy: the Ultimate Feminist Lifestyle" and a profile of a "Vietnamese polygamy king." The site's personals page contains notices from Christians, Muslims, Taoist/Pagans and Jews.
The polygamy.net site, on the other hand, focuses primarily on "Christian polygamy," a theology supposedly based on the Bible.
Like Mormon polygamy (which stems from the notion that Mormon men should marry and procreate as often as possible), Christian polygamy is male-centred, the ideal being one husband and many wives.
Although willing to discuss the theoretical underpinnings of polygamy, Henkel hesitates when asked about his own marital background. "That's a question that really can't be answered at this time, because of the chill factor raised by the Tom Green case," he states.
The people at 3Coins.com, an online dating service for polygamists, are considerably more forthcoming on such matters.
3Coins is run by Michael Shone Sr. and his two wives, Olea and Kathy. The three live in Orick, a small town in northern California.
The 3Coins site offers some 300 personal ads from polygamist wannabes. About a third of these are accompanied by photographs.
Shone estimates that 60 to 70% of people who post ads are Christians. The remainder belong to other faiths or consist of "folks who don't believe in anything."
You have to be 18 to use the personals at 3Coins, and the Web masters won't post nude shots or suggestive copy. "I've got a folder full of stuff that didn't get on the site," laughs Shone.
He estimates that 3Coins has helped spark 50 "relationships" since its launch three years ago.
He's pleased with this statistic, because the purpose of the site is to promote marriage, not one-night stands.
Shone doesn't charge for the ads on his site; he earns a living doing commercial art for banks and offices. Both his wives work -- Olea in a county courthouse, Kathy in a local school library.
While they proselytize for the same cause, Shone and Henkel have sharply differing views on the Green trial.
Henkel describes Green as a "self-seeker who thought he was helping the cause and destroyed it instead."
Among other sins, says Henkel, Green supported his family by means of welfare, married his 13-year-old stepdaughter and paraded his kin "on trash TV shows.
"This is not what we're about," he fumes.
Shone takes a more nuanced stance. He says Tom Green is "really a family man" who has done a "great job" raising so many kids. Still, Shone doesn't condone child brides or incest: "I know where I come from, we don't marry 13-year-old girls."
Despite these differences, Henkel and Shone have much in common. Henkel serves as the spiritual advisor for Shone's 3Coins.com. Both men are devout Protestants who believe polygamy offers a supportive lifestyle for women.
Shone claims to be a "male feminist, so to speak" and that "3Coins.com allows females to take the lead in initiating plural relationships."
Henkel agrees: "Polygamy would be a better solution for all the abandoned single moms out there rather than the trap of welfare or having to work all day to pay for daycare."
Unlike Green, neither Henkel nor Shone has had any serious run-ins with the law. Which isn't a surprise, considering police rarely enforce statutes prohibiting multiple spouses. Green was the first polygamist put on trial in Utah in half a century. He is one of an estimated 30,000 polygamists living in a state that banned plural marriage more than a century ago.
Such numbers and the relative impunity with which online polygamy groups operate cause outrage among critics of the lifestyle.
"We encourage freedom of speech and educating the public, but anyone soliciting themselves or wives for multiple matrimony could face legal consequences," says Vicky Prunty, executive director of Tapestry Against Polygamy (www.polygamy.org), a Utah-based organization that opposes plural marriage.
In the past, polygamy was more isolated, says Prunty. By contrast, Henkel and Shone are working hard to make polygamy seem mainstream, even mundane.
"It's just a regular marriage," says Shone of his marital threesome. "There's nothing different."
That isn't quite true, however, as even Shone admits.
"It's neat on the anniversaries," he says. "Olea helps me get ready for Kathy's anniversary, and Kathy helps me get it together for Olea. We have some humdinger anniversaries."