[14] Some of their secrecy might be attributed to a fear of arrest for living in plural marriages, as had happened in 19591960 when being investigated by the Davis County Grand Jury, which some members claimed was organized by LDS Apostles Mark E. Peterson and Spencer W. And her ex-husband's parents, Merlin and Carolyn Kingston, were uncle and niece. _____, --Conclusion: Mormonism is Sick--and So (Genetically Speaking) Are the Faithful Followers of the LDS Legacy of Blood-Poisoned Polygamy. The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake. "They've got this idea that their blood is pure and that they want to keep it pure.'. . "Yet, Aleck says, some children are more seriously affected by the disorder than others. "While discussing health problems at a family gathering with some of my cousins wives, we discovered astonishingly that three out of four of us, all polygamy descendants, had borne a son with a clubfoot. "There is no cure for the disease, which impedes the body's ability to process food at the cellular level. . Duringa 2020 trialfor a California businessman accused of carrying out a nearly $500 million biodiesel fraud scheme with a member of the Kingston Group, attorneys for the businessman called the Kingstons an incestuous polygamous group that is always scheming to defraud the US government in what the group calls bleeding the beast., A spokesman for the group, Kent Johnson, called those allegations categorically false.. . Various congenital and genital defects, dwarfism, fused limbs, fingernails lacking, mental illness and mental retardation, spina bifida, and microcephalous are some of the diseases and mutations. 'If the community gets larger, the number of people with fumarase deficiency gets larger. The chickens are coming home to roost. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more. . The children who can't walk, the medical experts say, have most likely suffered strokes during severe seizures. The Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes the Kingston clan as an " incest and white supremacy " group for its practices outlined in Escaping Polygamy, which include teaching children to not associate themselves with non-white people and, as mentioned by the lawsuit, marrying underage children off to family members of The Order. Interview with the owner of Desert Tech: The son of Paul's sister Rachel herself a daughter of Ortell and LaDonna Kingston [Nick] Young was the only current member of the Kingston clan, out of the many contacted for this story, who consented to a live, on-the-record interview. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. "Two years later, a pair of geneticists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., flew to Utah where they hoped to stage a seminar for Kingston family members about the dangers of incest and birth defects, and, presumably, gain permission to study the clan. . . ". [5] Michael Janofsky, Young Brides Stir New Outcry on Utah Polygamy, New York Times, February 27, 2003, Late EditionFinal Section A-1. . " Then he scooted away, smiling, aboard a plastic toy car, his feet smacking the sidewalk. "Today, six sons and two daughters of John Ortell and LaDonna have married at least 20 half-sisters, nieces and first cousins, giving birth to a family tree that twists and tangles, and, at times, withers with children born of genetic deficiencies. "'One lady I know, she just cannot physically pick [her son] up anymore to get him into the bathtub,' Wyler says. [Andrea] Moore-Emmett [author of 'God's Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18 Women Who Escaped'] contends that [in polygamy] incest, statutory rape, torture, physical abuse, forced marriages, and trafficking of girls is rampant. _____, --How "God's Genes" Do Ugly Things: The Biological Attack on "Modern"-day Followers of Mormonism's Originally-"Revealed" Doctrine of Polygamy. died of multiple sclerosis, also leaving a family of small children behind. [8][3] There are approximately 3,500 members,[9] some of whom are known to practice polygamy. The samples could be tested for the gene at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. "Throughout the world, most polygamy is exogamous, or breeding outside the group. Those unions fell within Utahs consanguinity restrictions and, if discovered, would be considered incestuous under the laws of the state. One outspoken Mormon matriarch who attended the same Sunday meeting for 50 years commented about the health of the polygamous descendants versus the monogamous descendants, 'You see it in the obituaries. The children live in the twin polygamist communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. Garrad's Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. Kingston Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter, This page was last edited on 2 February 2023, at 17:32. From her article, "Fatal Inheritance: Mormon Eugenics": "[My] cousin], [her sister] and I all grew up to marry and start families of our own. As bad as this past is, the mounting evidence is far worse. Where Are Escaping Polygamy Cast Members Now? - The Cinemaholic D. Michael Quinn, former Brigham Young University professor, states, 'The Mormon practice of polygamy enabled men to marry daughters, nieces, cousins, granddaughters and former wives of other General Authorities.'. The lone man suing said three Order men raped him when he was 16 or 17 and that when he left the group and announced he was gay, was tracked down and severely beaten by a group of boys acting at the direction of the Order, the lawsuit alleges. So many young people.'. "Until the test is available, Tarby says, the best prevention measure remains refraining from crossing Barlows, Jessops and their relations--who make up half the population of the polygamist enclave. Five of the women suing alleged they were coerced into marriage as minors and raped by their husbands. Isaac Wyler, a former FLDS member who was excommunicated from the church . Second, that prophet organizes his followers into missionary forces that dispense the truth to all the world, utilizing the priesthood to perform saving ordinances. [19] For many years, members of the Co-operative lived in poor conditions, and those in need had no legal way to apply for assistance. . J. Ortell Kingston aggressively pursued a financially-expansive agenda for the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc.[25] in the hopes of improving the financial condition of his followers. KUTV A large police presence swarmed a well-known polygamous family's property in South Salt Lake Wednesday.A Department of Justice Spokesman Peter Carr confirmed to KUTV that it is involved in . . . [41][42] Despite this, the latest suit alleges marriages as young as 16 within the Latter Day Church of Christ have continued. The Kingston Group is believed to have a few thousand members, mostly in Utah and Idaho. "Several Kingston offspring of incestuous couplings also have been born without fingernails, a disease that could be linked to a number of genetically caused abnormalities, although an exact diagnosis is impossible without closer study of medical records. This seemed to apply in my own kindred because those of us who left Mormonism and married outsiders are less riddled with the deleterious genetic legacy than relatives who married within the ancestral Mormon gene pool. Escaping polygamy and the Kingston clan: Whistleblower Mary Nelson on [O]ver the first 50 years of Mormonism, a highly inbred hierarchy became even more inbred through their illegal marriage and childbirth practices. . Some of these marriages will include parents who both are carriers of the fumarase deficiency gene, making it certain that more children will be afflicted with the disease. Early polygamy was rife with incestuous and eugenic ideas and practices as well. While they affirm that they now carry the torch first lit by Joseph Smith, their agenda focuses only on plural marriage and their own brand of united order. Many from Africa do it too, at least we in N Europe have lately gotten serious problems with immigrant children of polygamists who have various defects. "Dr. Theodore Tarby has treated many of the children at clinics in Arizona under contracts with the state. Current scientific knowledge indicates Grants lack of sons resulted from his own genetic defect, since only men carry the male Y chromosome to make a son. "15 years ago, a strange-looking child suffering from severe physical maladies and acute retardation was brought into the office of [pedatric neurologist] Dr. Theodore Tarby. "An unknown number--but believed to be in the thousands--of Barlow/Jessop descendants carry the recessive gene that causes fumarase deficiency. The girl, born to John Ortell and Isabell Johnson, was not the product of an incestuous marriage. "During this early period, polygamy was practiced secretly by the Mormon leadership, men who covertly preached and expanded polygamy while publicly deceiving the general Mormon population about the practice. They do develop to some degree, but it's way behind their peers.'. "The fact that fumarase deficiency had shown up in one child was startling enough--there had only been a handful of cases reported worldwide. If two descendants of hierarchical polygamy marry, the chances for genetic defects increase if the families were ever interrelated. . ", -Apostle Heber C. Kimball, as quoted Stanley P. Hirshon, "The Lion of the Lord: A Biography of Brigham Young" [New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969], pp. People most at risk likely lived and married within the same small communities their ancestors founded. The Co-op members practiced plural marriage and abided by a rigid hierarchy of leadership and deference. 'They have the authoritarian structure necessary to keep this from happening, but I don't think they have the advanced thinking,' Aleck says. "The widespread presence of the fumarase deficiency gene in the bloodlines of the founding families of Colorado City is going to make reaching any such goal extremely difficult. Video unavailable This video. They are quick to point out to reporters that they no longer practice polygamy and excommunicate members who continue to do so. . In this regard, officially-canonized LDS scripture that currently endorses polygamy is not the only image problem for the Mormon Church (thank you, Warren Jeffs). This is the equivalent of a religious rationalization for the practice of incest. _____, --Case Study in Mormon-Moored Mutation: Utah's Mormon Offshoot Kingston Clan. . . Only the FLDS prophet can arrange and perform polygamous marriages, and those marriages are taking place in a community in which almost everybody is related. The Kingstons represent an intriguing branch on the Mormon fundamentalist tree. Therefore, to keep the bloodline 'pure,' the Kingstons intermarry--half-brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and so forth. "Tarby believes the recessive gene was introduced by one of the community's polygamist founders. Kingston members today generally claim that keys were received anew from heavenly messengers directly to Elden in 1935, although it appears he left no formal testimony to that effect. 'Right away I asked the parents if there were any other children with the same problem.' ', "Wyler says he has seen some fumarase deficiency children who can walk, but others can barely move and spend their entire lives prone. 'And is that religion popular in heaven?' One Former LDS Fundamentalist Polygamist group understands - XMission Still, if children are caught up in an abusive or incestuous situation, Williams would encourage policing. [8], In the late 1990s, three members of the LDCJC faced scrutiny for entering into incestuous relationships. ', "Aleck says the fact that so many people in the polygamist enclave are blood relatives of the founding Barlow and Jessop families 'shows the magnitude of the problem.'. Children are allowed to attend public school and many go on to college. The Bear Clan's Kevin Walker told Global News on Wednesday that while the organization is still actively hitting Winnipeg streets, the way they operate has changed due to COVID-19. . . . [7] Some members of the church are also believed to practice consanguineous marriage, or marriage to relatives within the group. The notoriety will just make them zoo specimens. . He interpreted his dream to mean that God approved of his leaving the Church. Tarby recounts a conversation he had with a member of the Barlow clan in which he tried to explain why so much fumarase deficiency was occurring among Mormon polygamists. . LuAnn Kingston, a former member of the clan who in 1995 at age fifteen was forced to marry her first cousin, shared: The joke used to be that if you werent married by 17, you were an old maid.[5], Within the Kingston Group, the primary polygamists are the immediate Kingston family and heirs. . In the 1940s, members of the Co-op wore blue bib overalls. "'This problem is going to get worse and worse and worse,' predicts . ", ("Doctor: Birth defects increase in polygamy community," Associated Press, 9 February 2006, at: http://www.azcentral.com/health/news/articles/0209PolygamyBirthDefect09-) "With no other options available, more FLDS families will be faced with the difficult burden of caring for children suffering with fumarase deficiency. . . "Fumarase deficiency began to manifest in the community when three sets of Joseph Smith Jessop and Martha Moore Yeates' great-grandchildren married each other. The complaint against the Kingston Group also known as the Order was filed in Salt Lake City last week by 10 people, including Amanda Rae Grant, who starred in the A&E docu-series Escaping Polygamy.. . . Men and boys wore blue coverall-type suits tied with strings; women and girls wore plain blue denim dresses. . 'As soon as I saw her, I knew she had the same thing as her brother,' Tarby says. . "Her half-brother is still married to another half-sister (whose parents also were half-sister and brother) and are still members of the Kingston's order. A member of a polygamist clan today was convicted of incest with his 16-year-old niece, who testified that she had been forced to become his 15th wife. By 1935, his followers began to move to Bountiful, Utah, intending to live under a United Order communal program as defined by Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants. The group has drawn legal attention before. "All of these men have or had multiple wives and scores of children. . . That apparently was John Ortell Kingston's intent, although most studies of first-cousin mating show their offspring test lower on IQ exams, Jorde says. His father wrote: Brother Elden received a new covenant up on the top of the highest mountain that is east of Bountiful, Utah. "Like his father-in-law, John Y. Barlow became one of the towering patriarchs of the fundamentalist Mormon community and served as FLDS prophet from 1935 until his death in 1949. . . Carolyn regularly worked at and tended . . The adoption of children among family members sometimes disguised sterility. Police raid Utah properties of well-known polygamist Kingston Clan and several polygamist men serve in local government positions, including as mayors . . "Medical experts say the incidence of the disorder will increase because the FLDS community is refusing to accept recommendations to reduce the likelihood of producing babies with fumarase deficiency. . . . [18][7], The Cooperative had its birth during the Great Depression when many families struggled immensely to provide for their families. Excerpts from the article "Understanding Polygamy," distributed by "Humanists of Utah": " . "'My guess is this man had used some of these inbreeding practices in his herd so he was probably in the camp that believed superior genetics could be propagated in a particular line,' Green says. . 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Im a trophy husband with 3 wives they work while I stay home, I grew up in a cult with my dad, 5 moms and 44 siblings I loved my childhood, Polygamous leader accused of having underage wives pleads not guilty, I have 102 children but cant have more kids because of inflation, Squirrel to blame in temporary power outage in Minneapolis, Canadian teacher with size-Z prosthetic breasts placed on paid leave, I'm a professional cleaner ditch these 4 household products immediately, Another train derails in Ohio, forces residents to shelter-in-place -- just weeks after East Palestine disaster, Tom Sandoval speaks out on Raquel Leviss affair: I deserve your anger, Shoeless Ariana Madix awkwardly tries to avoid cheating Tom Sandoval, Prince Harry was scared to lose Meghan Markle after fight that led to therapy, Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant allegedly flashes gun at a strip club, Chris Rock Places All The Blame On The Will Smith Slap On Jada Pinkett Smith And Red Table Talk: Everybody Called Him A Bitch!, Ariana Madix, Tom Sandoval have awkward moment amid cheating scandal. "In polygamy . 'Children should not be victims of such programs.'. "Rather than polygamy being about religion, Moore-Emmett believes that many polygamous marriages are about sex and power. . . "For the first time, the faith-promoting stories about my great-grandfathers heroism for defying the federal government when they outlawed polygamy interested me. The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women-stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious. Elden passed away from cancer in 1948 and was succeeded by his brother John Ortell Kingston (commonly known as Ortell). Several charges of incest would eventually be leveled against various Kingston members. They operate in Salt Lake Valley, Utah. . [23][36] These relationships are defined as incestuous according to Utah's Criminal Code 76-7-102 (2021), which states: "Related person" means a person related to the provider or actor as an ancestor, descendant, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, or first cousin, and includes: (i) blood relationships of the whole or half blood without regard to legitimacy; (ii) the relationship of parent and child by adoption; and (iii) the relationship of stepparent and stepchild while the marriage creating the relationship of a stepparent and stepchild exists. . Certainly if MORmON Jesus had done this, we would hear all about it from the LDS as *proof* that God was doing his modern work via MORmONISM, but alas there is no such manifestation ! [1] Charles William Kingston, Autobiography, 2324; spelling and punctuation standardized. Charles Zitting (one of Lorin C. Woolleys High Priest Apostles) introduced Kingston to plural marriage, causing Kingston to be cut off from the Church in 1929. By l980, this theory changed dramatically as many other Utah families accepted the diagnosis. [39] In 2007, the group told Deseret News that it was encouraging its members to wait until their partners were 18 to marry them,[41][43] with one member reporting that "we do encourage them to be 18 now". The accusers describe a patriarchal doctrine known as The Law of One Above Another, which they claim designates everyone a rank in the groups hierarchy. Members of a powerful polygamous group in Utah claim they were forced into underage marriages with their relatives to keep their blood pure, were raped by their husbands and had to perform child labor, according to a bombshell lawsuit. Inside the Kingston Kingdom: Former employee reveals clan's secrets Even the few highly educated people there . . When Incest Becomes a Religious Tenet - culteducation.com "Marriages among first and second cousins have been common for decades in the community, where religious doctrine requires men to have at least three wives to gain eternal salvation. Even if a genetic screening test were available, Wyler says, Jeffs would have to be cautious about how he allowed it to be implemented. ", ("Mormon Polygamy: Frequently Asked Questions," at: http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/polygamy_summary.htm). . "Her book . "It is important that Mormons fight the tendency to discount history and the actions of their leaders in favor of a faith- promoting history while neglecting important facts. One of their daughters married another of the community's founding patriarchs and religious leaders, John Yeates Barlow. He was kicking people out, too, who weren't obedient. "Experts say the number of children afflicted in the FLDS community is expected to steadily increase as a result of decades of inbreeding between two of the polygamous sect's founding families--the Barlows and the Jessops. . Consanguinity also causes rare recessive disorders to mask as dominant. In fact more than half of today's Klans formed in the last three years. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream church, which abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it. We cannot afford to neglect the possibility our ancestors practiced a form of marriage that was unhealthy and debilitating to our children, to us, and to society. The Kingston Clan is where Jessica, Andrea, and Shanell escaped over a decade ago. Gluttony - The Kingston Clan Part Two - Apple Podcasts But that's like spitting in the ocean.'. Two weeks after is excommunication, Kingston had a dream wherein he believed he was visited by Jesus Christ and God the Father. Eldens solo experience of receiving the priesthood keys and authority is truly singular and contrasts the pattern previously given by the Lord for important priesthood conferrals that require more than one witness. Escaping Polygamy is an American documentary television series that premiered on December 30, 2014, on LMN.The show now airs on Lifetime, but can also be viewed on Tubi, and follows the work of three sisters who left the Kingston clan, a polygamous group based in Salt Lake City, Utah known as The Order, as they help family and/or friends break free of polygamy. Through diligent money management and hard work, the Davis County Cooperative Society became very financially successful. . Family members attribute the defects to the advanced ages of the mother and father -- he was 64, she was 45. "FLDS marriages, Wyler and other community experts say, are an extension of a breeding program that began with Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith in the 1830s. . . requote from Steve's excellent post ! Escaped members report some patriarchs believe it is their duty to give a daughter her first marriage lessons. This means all other covenants were of no effect through which source they can. Young is the owner of Desert Tech, a Utah gun manufacturer. Polygamy today is comprised of early Mormon polygamy descendants and these families are now interrelated by a factor impossible in monogamy. . . . . "What was going on in my Utah pioneer family? . . . It is these discredited ideas that foster this genetic legacy. LDS scripture teaches that in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established (D&C 6:28; 2 Cor. "The same right of marriage approval was wielded by John Ortell Kingston, who began the incestuous lineage. 13, p. 195, "We breathe the free air, we have the best looking men and handsomest women, and if they (non-Mormons) envy us our position, well they may, for they are a poor, narrow-minded, pinch-backed race of men, who chain themselves down to the law of monogamy, and live all their days under the dominion of one wife. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. "The rate at which Kingstons marry each other is 'frightening,' she says. He faces up to 30 years in. ", -Prophet John Taylor, "Millennial Star," vol. "State investigators found no wrongdoing among members of the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. The Kingstons claim that Elden received a new dispensation is problematic in another way. ', "The ultimate goal of the breeding program, Wyler says, is to create the perfect race. "Tarby says the disease could begin to show up in children at Warren Jeffs' new FLDS headquarters . 'They think it is a test from God,' says Wyler, who was born and raised in the FLDS before he was booted out. All are retarded, the neurologist told Salt Lake City television station KSL-TV. Despite its on-going public relations effort to convince Americans that Mormons don't really support polygamy (and despite the belief of many devout Mormons that polygamy came from God as revealed church doctrine which will eventually be reinstated when Jesus returns to the Earth), a quarter of Americans surveyed also have expressed the opinion that most Mormons embrace the idea of plural marriage: "A . "All of the fumarase deficiency children Wyler has seen remain dependent on the parents or caregivers. Upon Ortells death in 1987, leadership passed to his son Paul Elden Kingston. Utah Attorney General's Office and Arizona Attorney General's Office. "The clan's other numerous incestuous couplings among consenting adults . . . . Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a302ff8194befb0 "Of the Kingstons, Williams says: 'There is not much you can do about them. 'Warren Jeffs is also trying to breed a perfect race.'. Members of the Kingston polygamous family facing fraud charges strike . Because I fell down this rabbit hole and now so do you all. "In addition, the Mormon Church touts itself as the quintessential traditional family values church . Wyler's ex-wife's sister has had two babies afflicted with fumarase deficiency. . For 5 episodes that aired on Viewpoint on Mormonism between 9/14-18, 2020, click these: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Interview with Doris Hanson Part 1 Part 2 By Eric Johnson Summary. The stage was set for the appearance of the rare disease when their 12th child, Martha Jessop, married her second cousin, John Yeates Barlow, in 1923, according to LDS genealogy data and Colorado City historian Ben Bistline. . In recent years, former members have lobbied for law enforcement to take action against the sect. "Farm Roots of Incest: Marriages in the Kingston clan must be sanctioned by [the] current head of the church . . Let's revisit the boastful words of Mormon Church Prophet John Taylor and Mormon Church Apostle Heber C. Kimball, both quoted earlier: -Taylor, "Millennial Star," vol. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. _____. ", (Greg Burton, "When Incest Becomes a Religious Tenet: Practice sets 1,000-member Kingston clan apart from other Utah polygamous groups," in "The Salt Lake Tribune," 25 April 1999, at: http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy25.html 'I really doubt that if we could tell them, you know, "This male has the condition and this female has the condition; you shouldn't mate," that wouldn't stop them,' he said. . Tarby. Some 42 different Klan groups were active in 22 . Rather than take steps to avoid the problem, the FLDS loyalists may believe it is their duty to accept their fate. This is a humane coping strategy devised to deal with a dilemma that devastated a woman taught from birth her only value was in the number of children she bore for the Kingdom of God. . We dont expect any of the claims to prevail in a court of law.. "In May, the girl said she was belt-whipped by her father inside a Kingston-owned barn in Box Elder County for fleeing the marriage, and was abandoned in the home of another of John Daniel's wives. "The baby, delivered at Johnson's home in 1983, was taken to Primary Children's Medical Center. The Kingstons are members of the Davis County Cooperative Society or the Kingston Order, which practices polygamy. Men rise in prominence by being obedient and pure of blood and by having large families that can produce a lot of money and workers for the group, the suit continues. [7] Members of the Latter Day Church of Christ are also members of the Davis County Cooperative Society (a separate organization and legal entity) which practices the law of consecration and United Order.