Polygamous sect's sway has dwindled in twin towns on Arizona-Utah line. Residents enjoy new freedoms

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. (AP) — Until courts wrested control of the towns from a polygamous sect whose leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, was imprisoned for sexually assaulting two girls, youth sports, cocktail hours and many other common activities were forbidden.

Jacques Billeaud
February 2, 2026

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. (AP) — The prairie dresses, walled compounds and distrust of outsiders that were once hallmarks of two towns on the Arizona-Utah border are mostly gone.

These days, Colorado City, Arizona, and neighboring Hildale, Utah, look much like any other town in this remote and picturesque area near Zion National Park, with weekend soccer games, a few bars, and even a winery.

Until courts wrested control of the towns from a polygamous sect whose leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, was imprisoned for sexually assaulting two girls, youth sports, cocktail hours and many other common activities were forbidden. The towns have transformed so quickly that they were released from court-ordered supervision last summer, almost two years earlier than expected.

It wasn’t easy.

“What you see is the outcome of a massive amount of internal turmoil and change within people to reset themselves,” said Willie Jessop, a onetime spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who later broke with the sect. “We call it ‘life after Jeffs’ — and, frankly, it’s a great life.”

A dark turn

Some former members have fond memories of growing up in the FLDS, describing mothers who looked out for each other’s kids and playing sports with other kids in town.

But they say things got worse after Jeffs took charge following his father’s death in 2002. Families were broken apart by church leaders who cast out men deemed unworthy and reassigned their wives and children to others. On Jeffs’ orders, children were pulled from public school, basketball hoops were taken down, and followers were told how to spend their time and what to eat.

“It started to go into a very sinister, dark, cult direction,” said Shem Fischer, who left the towns in 2000 after the church split up his father’s family. He later returned to open a lodge in Hildale.

Church members settled in Colorado City and Hildale in the 1930s so they could continue practicing polygamy after the sect broke away from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the mainstream Mormon church that renounced plural marriage in 1890.

Stung by the public backlash from a disastrous 1953 raid on the FLDS, authorities turned a blind eye to polygamy in the towns until Jeffs took over.

After being charged in 2005 with arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to a 28-year-old follower who was already married, Jeffs went on the run, making the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before his arrest the next year. In 2011, he was convicted in Texas of sexually assaulting two girls ages 12 and 15 and sentenced to life in prison.

A court-ordered overhaul

Even years after Jeffs’ arrest, federal prosecutors accused the towns of being run as an arm of the church and denying non-followers basic services such as building permits, water hookups and police protection. In 2017, the court placed the towns under supervision, excising the church from their governments and shared police department. Separately, supervision of a trust that controlled the church’s real estate was turned over to a community board, which has been selling it.

The towns functioned for 90 years largely as a theocracy, so they had to learn how to operate “a first-generation representative government,” Roger Carter, the court-appointed monitor, pointed out in his progress reports.

The FLDS had controlled most of the towns’ land through a trust, allowing its leaders to dictate where followers could live, so private property ownership was new to many. People unaccustomed to openness and government policies needed clarification about whether decisions were based on religious affiliation.

Although the towns took direction from the sect in the past, their civic leaders now prioritize residents’ needs, Carter wrote before the court lifted the oversight last July.

‘Like a normal town’

With its leader in prison and stripped of its control over the towns, many FLDS members left the sect or moved away. Other places of worship have opened, and practicing FLDS members are now believed to account for only a small percentage of towns’ populations.

Hildale Mayor Donia Jessop, who was once distantly related to Willie Jessop through marriage, said the community has made huge strides. Like others, she has reconnected with family members who were divided by the church and quit talking to each other.

When a 2015 flood in Hildale killed 13 people, she was one of many former residents who returned to help look for missing loved ones. She got a chance to visit with a sister she hadn’t seen in years.

“We started to realize that the love was still there — that my sister that I hadn’t been able to speak to for in so many years was still my sister, and she missed me as bad as I missed her,” the mayor said. “And it just started to open doors that weren’t open before.”

Longtime resident Isaac Wyler said after the FLDS expelled him in 2004, he was ostracized by the people he grew up with, a local store wouldn’t sell him animal feed, he was refused service at a burger joint and police ignored his complaints that his farm was being vandalized.

Things are very different now, he said. For one thing, his religious affiliation no longer factors into his encounters with police, Wyler said. And that feed store, burger joint and the FLDS-run grocery store have been replaced by a big supermarket, bank, pharmacy, coffee shop and bar.

“Like a normal town,” he said.

People with no FLDS connections have also been moving in.

Gabby Olsen, who grew up in Salt Lake City, first came to the towns in 2016 as an intern for a climbing and canyoneering guide service. She was drawn to the mountains and canyons, clean air and 300 days of sunshine each year.

She said people asked “all the time” whether she was really going to move to a place known for polygamy, but it didn’t bother her.

“When you tell people, ‘Hey, we’re getting married in Hildale,’ they kind of chuckle, because they just really don’t know what it’s about,” said Olsen’s husband, Dion Obermeyer, who runs the service with her. “But of course when they all came down here, they’re all quite surprised. And you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a winery.’”

A ways to go

Even with the FLDS’ influence waning, it’s not completely gone and the towns are dealing with some new problems.

Residents say the new openness has brought common societal woes such as drug use to Hildale and Colorado City.

And some people are still practicing polygamy: A Colorado City sect member with more than 20 spiritual “wives,” including 10 underage girls, was sentenced in late 2024 to 50 years in prison for coercing girls into sexual acts and other crimes.

Briell Decker, who was 18 when she became Jeffs’ 65th “wife” in an arranged marriage, turned her back on the church. These days, she works for a residential support center in Colorado City that serves people leaving polygamy.

Now 40 and remarried with a child, Decker said she thinks it will take several generations to recover from the FLDS’ abuses under Jeffs.

“I do think they can, but it’s going to take a while because so many people are in denial,” Decker said. “Still, they want to blame somebody. They don’t really want to take accountability.” ___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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SPACE KULT GROOMING

New LDS curriculum flops in teaching eternal polygamy to children

(RNS) — Carol Lynn Pearson writes, ‘Children will be indoctrinated with the understanding that if a ‘man of authority’ tells us God wants us to do something we believe is wrong, we are to do it anyway.’

A screenshot from the 2025 curriculum for Primary, here depicting Joseph Smith as he explains plural marriage to his first wife, Emma.

 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-stories-2025/44-plural-marriage?lang=eng

Jana Riess
January 10, 2025

(RNS) — This guest column is from Carol Lynn Pearson, author of “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy,” reacting to the 2025 curriculum for children of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This year, the entire denomination is studying church history, so it’s not surprising that the issue of plural marriage would come up.

But Pearson — and many others — can see major problems with the way it’s handled, especially because the church is presenting it as a good thing that came from the Lord. The curriculum uses Joseph Smith’s decision to practice polygamy as an object lesson that we should all have “faith to obey a law from the Lord, even when it’s hard.”

While it may be a step forward for the church to be acknowledging the reality of Smith’s plural marriage instead of trying to sweep that history under the rug, I think Pearson is correct that any theology that tells children to obey even if their conscience says not to is a step backward. — JKR

Guest column by Carol Lynn Pearson:


Author Carol Lynn Pearson.

This one took me by surprise. There it was — on the official website of my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — a short lesson to be taught in 2025 in Primary, the organization that serves the children, a cartoon storybook about plural marriage in our church’s history.

The children are assured that, even though Joseph Smith was reluctant to take more wives, God himself ordered our founding prophet, already a husband to Emma, to “marry” up to 40 women and girls. Some were even in their teens, and some were already married to other men. Historical research has demonstrated that some of Joseph’s “marriages” were sexual in nature. Stories suggest that many of these women did not want to become his wives but did so because they believed in Joseph’s divine authority.

What does this Primary lesson communicate to our kids?

Children will be indoctrinated with the understanding that if a “man of authority” tells us God wants us to do something we believe is wrong, we are to do it anyway. Child molesters will be very pleased.

Nothing in the history of our church continues to be as much of a painful mess as polygamy. In 2016 I wrote and published a book titled “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts and Heaven of Mormon Women and Men.” It was the result of a snowball survey that was taken by more than 8,000 members and former members of the church. Among those, 15% thought our history of polygamy was just fine, while 85% said it was hurtful and wrong. In write-in comments, many said the history of polygamy damaged their sense of self, their relationships with the church, with God and often with family members, particularly spouses.

Despite the claim to have given up polygamy, our church is still devoted to it. A man can be married in the temple for eternity to several women sequentially with the promise that they will all be his in the next life.

Soon after the publication of “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy,” I sent a copy of the book to each member of the First Presidency of the church, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other top leaders. I signed the books to each by name, “with appreciation and with the hope that you will lead us into a truly post-polygamy future.”

I knew I would not hear back from any of them, but soon I received the following email from my friend Curt Bench, the owner of a major LDS bookstore:

I learned from [Brigham Young University professor M.] that [BYU professor of religion and history H.] was asked by the Twelve Apostles to report about your book and … basically told them that it was their fault that the problem with “eternal polygamy” and the way people feel about it (as shown in your book) exists today. Nothing about their response.

I began to hope. Surely these good men would find a way, quickly or gradually, to rid our people of this harmful doctrine.

I was wrong. This new Primary lesson demonstrates that leaders of our church are determined that polygamy retain its place in history as a commandment of God. They are teaching that our place as members will always be to follow what the Brethren tell us God says, no matter the dictates of our minds and hearts.

I still receive letters and emails from women (and men) who thank me for “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy,” telling me it has brought them great peace of mind, even saved their marriage.

Hundreds of messages tell a story similar to this one:


Joseph Smith ruined everything when he brought in plural marriage for eternity. This is hell, not heaven. I’m 69 and still worry this may become my hellish future that no, I will NEVER agree to. So heartbreaking. My brother says I could live polygamy and grin and bear if I had to. But I never will. I am distraught. Thank you for all you do.

I wrote back:


Please don’t be distraught over eternal polygamy! I’m convinced it is a fiction. A paper dragon. A nothing burger. It is the wind waking you at night making you think it is robbers. It is the dark monster under your bed that was never there!

Joseph’s polygamy came from his own creative mind, never from God. Eternal polygamy never was and never will be a reality. Please have peace of mind. Please sleep well. Please give this awful Ghost not one more ounce of your energy.

That is the message I wish I could give to every one of my sisters and brothers in this church of ours, this splendid church that yet carries in its doctrine an error. It’s an error that is not just bothersome, but — for believers — potentially poisonous.

The Brethren have shown that they can correct errors in our history. They have given significant attention to righting the wrongs done to our Black brothers and sisters, who were denied temple access and priesthood ordination for decades. Comparatively little has been done to right the wrongs done to women, who likely constitute a majority of the active members of the church.

It is my hope that the Primary teachers who are tasked with teaching that polygamy came from God will listen to their own personal guidance and teach accordingly.

(Carol Lynn Pearson is an author of more than 40 books and stage plays. She is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and lives in Walnut Creek, California. One of her most famous books is “Goodbye, I Love You,” a powerful account of her marriage to a gay man, their struggle, divorce, ongoing friendship and her caring for him as he died of AIDS.)

Related content:

Eternal polygamy?: How LDS temple sealings and cancellations became a raw deal for women

Mormon women fear eternal polygamy, study shows

Polygamy lives on in Mormon temple sealings

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POLYGAMY IS NOT POLYAMOURY

Polygamy down sharply, in line with incomes in post-pandemic Malaysia

The decline was attributed largely to the syariah court’s concerns that the husbands would not be able to support multiple wives financially. 

ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM

Zunaira Saieed
Malaysia Correspondent
APR 21, 2024,


KUALA LUMPUR – The number of Malaysian Muslims practising polygamy legally fell by almost half in the past five years, with more than one-third of such applications to marry another woman rejected by the Syariah Court.

The rejections during this period were mainly on the grounds that the men were financially incapable of supporting additional wives.

Muslim men in Malaysia who wish to enter into a polygamous union – having more than one wife at the same time – must meet the requirements set by syariah law and obtain special permission from the courts.


Polygamous marriages fell by about 47 per cent in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah to 1,609 in 2023 from 3,064 in 2019, according to data from the Syariah Judiciary Department, provided by the Religious Affairs Ministry. Data for Sarawak is compiled separately by that state and could not be immediately obtained.

The fall in polygamous unions was attributed largely to the Syariah Court’s concerns that the husbands would not be able to support multiple wives financially, or be able to treat all wives equally, Religious Affairs Minister Mohd Na’im Mokhtar said.

“The falling income of men that was led by the slowdown in Malaysia’s economy from the pandemic was also one of the factors that possibly resulted in the decline of polygamous marriages,” he told The Straits Times.

In fact, the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020 to 2022) had led to about 20 per cent of the country’s middle-income group slipping into the lower-income category, then Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said in a written parliamentary reply in 2021.

Still, there are those who can afford to pursue polygamy.

One standout case is that of Malaysian singer Azline Ariffin, 42, also known as Ezlynn, who publicly disclosed in March 2024 that she had tried searching for a second wife for her husband, so she could focus on her career. Her husband, Mr Wan Mohd Hafizam, 47, married his second wife, a 26-year-old doctor, on March 2023.

“I am a busy person, and going on long trips makes me feel uneasy and restless. At the very least, there is someone else to take care of things and I can focus on my work,” said Ms Azline, who sparked an online debate over polygamy.

While Ms Azline’s desire for a second spouse for Mr Wan was unusual, the law does not need her nod for him to marry a second time.

But it has been reported that there have been numerous cases of Malaysian Muslim men who do not register their additional marriages in Malaysia but instead marry abroad, as they are fearful of informing their existing wives.

Women’s rights activists say legal loopholes have enabled husbands to get married abroad, letting them skip the negotiation process with the first wife and register the marriage in Malaysia legally after that.

In Malaysia, the Syariah Court’s decision to approve polygamous unions hinges on factors such as the husband’s income, financial commitments like alimony payments and debts, as well as the first wife’s wishes on the matter, Dr Na’im said.

Malaysian MP slammed for saying polygamy could resolve late marriage issue

Malaysian women’s advocacy group Sisters in Islam’s (SIS) legal officer Syafiqah Fikri told ST that its female clients were primarily concerned about their husbands entering into polygamous marriages without their consent, and ceasing to provide maintenance for them and their children after that.

The unwillingness of Malaysian women in their 30s to accept polygamy could have contributed to the drop in polygamous marriages; the women’s attitudes are a result of more education and economic self-sufficiency, which have also led to the growing number of divorces among Muslims, she said.

“Two-thirds of the female respondents in our findings in 2019 felt that it is fine for a wife to demand divorce if her husband decides to marry another wife,” Ms Syafiqah said. The findings were reported in the SIS survey, Perception And Realities: The Public And Personal Rights Of Muslim Women In Malaysia.

The SIS-commissioned survey by global market research firm Ipsos in 2019 involved interviewing 675 Malaysian Muslim women aged between 18 and 55.

Ms Shehnaz Sulaiman, 37, said she will allow her husband to marry another wife only for a “humanitarian cause”, for example if the woman is a widow who cannot support her children and that is only if he is financially able to cope.

“If it is not for a humanitarian cause, I would file for divorce (though) it is not black and white for me,” said the management consultant.

The divorce rate among Malaysian Muslims jumped by more than 45 per cent to 46,138 in 2022 from 31,650 in 2021, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia.

Data from the National Population and Family Development Board Malaysia in November indicated that lack of understanding, infidelity and irresponsibility on the part of the husband were the three main causes for divorces in the country.

Although polygamy is legal in Malaysia, its practice remains a hot-button issue among Muslims, who make up about two-thirds of the country’s 33.9 million population.

Opposition Islamist party Parti Se-Islam leader Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said in Parliament in November that polygamous marriages help to address the issue of late-age marriages among women, claiming that there are more than 8.4 million single women in the country.

But there was a public backlash against his comments from the women MPs in the Anwar Ibrahim-led government and social media users.

Polyamory:  Sex, Love and the Family

BY DAVID ROSEN

 FEBRUARY 1, 2024
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The picture shows three people in a polyamorous relationship. It was taken within a research project at the University of Vienna titling “Polyamory in media, social and identity perspective” – CC BY-SA 4.0

Since the nation’s founding, individuals, religious groups and radical communities have challenged conventional morality.  They have contested the dominant form of monogamous, heterosexual sexuality and the patriarchal nuclear family.

In 2021, only 18 percent – or 23 million — of U.S. households were “nuclear families” with a married couple and children.  This is a significant drop from nearly 60 percent during the 1970s.  According to one estimate, 19 percent of Americans have been involved in sexual threesomes and in 2019 “polyamory” was practiced by 4 to 5 percent of Americans.  In addition, 20 percent have attempted some kind of ethical non-monogamy relationship.  The term “polyamory” links the Greek poly to the Latin amor becoming “many loves,” and describes a variety of romantic or intimate non-monogamous relationships.

Traditional morality has long been challenged.  Often forgotten, between 1852 to 1890, about 20 to 30 percent of Mormon families, members of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, practiced a form of polygamy they called “plural marriage.”  In addition, for much of the 19^th century, “free love” advocates and other sexual radicals battled with what was known as the “social purity” movement over sex and the nature of the family.

Among the most notable free love communities of the pre-Civil War era were: New Harmony, a secular utopian community in Harmonie, IN, founded by Robert Owen; the Brook Farm community in West Roxbury, MA, founded by George Ripley; the Oneida community in NY founded by John Humphrey Noyes; and the interracial Nashoba community in eastern Tennessee founded by Frances Wright, her sister, Camilla, and Robert Dale Owen.

A second wave that challenged traditional family values emerged during the 1920s. This threat was represented by the “new woman” who symbolized the modernization that threatened social purists. And the Prohibition-era speakeasy was the nexus of this new erotic experience.

Having a drink at a speakeasy was an act of transgression: One was committing a crime. When one entered a speak, one crossed the line between the socially acceptable and the illegal and, for many, the immoral. Prohibition also gave rise to the “sex circus,” infamous venues of alcohol consumption and sexual liaison, be it heterosexual and/or homosexual erotic indulgence.

The 1960s forged a counterculture that challenged – and changed! — American values. It was the decade characterized by the oral contraceptive pill, the mini skirt, rock-&-roll, long hair and the growing use of marijuana, LSD and other “psychedelic” drugs. It sparked a “sexual revolution” involving premarital sex and “free love,” often involving mate swapping, group sex and homoeroticism.

It saw the Sexual Freedom League host orgies at a home in Berkley, CA. One estimate found that between September 1966 and the League’s final 1967 Christmas Eve party, over 1,200 people attended their orgies. A second example of this insurgent sexuality was the Sandstone Retreat. Founded by John and Barbara Williamson in 1969, it was located in the hills of Topanga Canyon, just north of Los Angles. It was a unique experiment in erotic exploration that drew a fairly wide and often distinguished following among “free love” advocates.

By the 1970s, with the passage of Civil Rights legislation, the end of the Vietnam War, the rise of the new Christian right represented by Phyllis Schlafly’s defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the ‘60s counterculture dissipated. However, its challenge to traditional monogamous sex and marriage persisted among the “polyamorous.”

Polyamory emerged in New York in the 1950s when John Peltz “Bro Jud” Presmont formed the polyamorous religious community, Kerista. It embodied the notion of “polyfidelity,” non-monogamous romantic relations among equal partners. During the 1960s, Kerista-inspired storefronts and communal houses operated in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. It drew admiration from Allen Ginsberg, among others.

Kerista groups consisted of up to twenty-four people dubbed “best friend identity clusters” (B.F.I.C.); discouraged romantic attachment and possessiveness; and two people slept together in a shared bed, but on a rotational sleeping schedule, insuring equal bonding time among B.F.I.C. members of the opposite sex.

Other key figures of the evolving polyamory movement included Oberon (Timothy) Zell (aka Otter G’Zell and Zell-Ravenheart) who founded the Church of All Worlds (CAW), a neo-Pagan group, and the publication, Green Eggs, that promoted polygamous relationships based on the notion of personal divinity. Fred Adams established Feraferi (i.e., “Celebrate Wildness”), a neo-Pagan community that began in Southern California into Goddess worship. In time, CAW partnered with Feraferi to form the Council of Themis and, by the late-70s, some thirty groups were members.

Two women who kept the movement’s spirit alive over the last few decades are Ryam Nearing and Deborah “Taj” Anapol.  Nearing lived outside of Eugene, OR, with her two “husbands.” In ’86, she established Polyfidelitous Educational Productions, a nonprofit group that hosts a conference (i.e., pepcon), “a networking weekend filled with workshops, films, games, dancing, and discussion groups.”  Anapol was a “polyamorous clinical psychologist,” who advocated of erotic spirituality. She co-founded (with Nearing) the magazine, Loving More in 1994. She is the author of Polymore: The New Love Without Limits (1997) and Polyamory in the 21st Century (2010), among other works.

Polyamory has gotten a good deal a media attention, including print and TV/online stories.  To learn more about the polyamory movement, check out The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy (1997), a sex-positive guide colloquially known as “the poly bible”; Elizabeth Sheff‘s The Polyamorists Next Door (2023); and Christopher Gleason, American Poly: A History (2023).

David Rosen is the author of Sex, Sin & Subversion:  The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015).  He can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net; check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com.

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