1-13-11 Transcript Day21 of The Reference Case On Polygamy - Dan Fischer & Anne Wilde

1
Preliminary matters
1 January 13, 2011

2 Vancouver, B.C.
3
4 (DAY 21)
5 (PROCEEDINGS COMMENCED AT 10:00 A.M.)
6
7 THE CLERK: Order in court. In the Supreme Court of
8 British Columbia at Vancouver this 13th day of
9 January, 2011, recalling the matter concerning the
10 constitutionality of section 293 of the Criminal
11 Code, My Lord.
12 THE COURT: Mr. Dickson.
13 MR. DICKSON: Yes, Chief Justice. The witness had his
14 witness -- sorry, the amicus had his witness
15 Dr. Matt Davies scheduled for today. The amicus
16 has concluded, however, that the evidence of
17 Dr. Davies will not be of assistance to the
18 reference and is therefore withdrawing his
19 affidavit, which is Exhibit 71.
20 The other parties were informed of this last
21 night. Mr. Macintosh is in the Court of Appeal
22 this morning but he wished me to apologize
23 expressly for the lateness of this determination.
24 We do have available, however, the video of an
25 interview of our witness Anne Wilde. The video is
26 Exhibit E to her affidavit, and her affidavit is
27 presently marked as Exhibit J for Identification
28 with Exhibit 67 reserved. And as I understand it,
29 My Lord, the affidavit is marked for
30 identification because it refers to Ms. Wilde
31 being tendered as an expert given her long
32 experience with a number of fundamentalist Mormon
33 communities as you will hear about today in the
34 video. I believe Mr. Jones and the others do not
35 take any issue with the admissibility of any of
36 her statements, but does take issue with her being
37 tendered as an expert. And we are content,
38 My Lord, to have her affidavit admitted on the
39 basis of her being an ordinary fact witness on
40 that basis, and so I ask that the affidavit be
41 marked as Exhibit 67.
42 THE COURT: Thank you.
43 THE CLERK: Exhibit 67, My Lord.
44
45 EXHIBIT 67: Affidavit of Anne Wilde
46
47 MR. DICKSON: And the video itself is on five DVDs
2
Preliminary matters
1 spanning about two and a half hours.

2 Now, we also -- the AGBC also has a video of
3 John Fischer which was going to be played the
4 other day and we've agreed that that video be
5 played first just because of availability of
6 counsel.
7 THE COURT: Sure. And that's 35 minutes?
8 MR. DICKSON: That's right?
9 MS. ZALTZ: Yes, My Lord. 36 I believe.
10 THE COURT: Okay.
11 MR. DICKSON: And then I understand that Mr. Wickett
12 wished to speak to something.
13 THE COURT: Right.
14 THE CLERK: Sorry, My Lord, just for the record,
15 Exhibit 71 has been withdrawn?
16 THE COURT: Correct.
17 THE CLERK: Thank you.
18 THE COURT: Thank you for that. And there's no need to
19 apologize for the lateness. It happens.
20 MR. DICKSON: Thank you, My Lord.
21 MR. WICKETT: Good morning, My Lord. If I could just
22 pass this up. I would just like to address the
23 question of the anonymous witnesses for a moment.
24 THE COURT: Yes.
25 MR. WICKETT: My Lord, I'd hoped that Mr. Messenger was
26 going to be here and I thought he was here, but in
27 any event I would just like to address the
28 practical considerations that have arisen with
29 respect to the anonymity order. As Your Lordship
30 will recall, the order says that witnesses may
31 elect to testify behind a screen.
32 THE COURT: Yes.
33 MR. WICKETT: And I must say to Your Lordship that in
34 conceiving the relief that I sought, which is what
35 I sought, I hadn't turned my mind to the practical
36 realities and I've been given an education from
37 court services with respect to what -- the art of
38 the possible, if I can put it that way.
39 THE COURT: Nothing is as simple as it seems.
40 MR. WICKETT: Indeed. For a variety of reasons
41 erecting a screen is impractical. The main
42 reasons for that are, number one, they don't have
43 any, so they'd have to construct them, because
44 witnesses don't testify behind screens, so I'm
45 told.
46 THE COURT: Actually they do in child sexual assault
47 cases.
3
Preliminary matters
1 MR. WICKETT: Well, all right. I had heard from --

2 THE COURT: That's interesting.
3 MR. WICKETT: In any event, I won't --
4 THE COURT: They don't have any?
5 MR. WICKETT: Exactly. He said he would have to put up
6 some white boards and paper and all of which would
7 be not very practical. Secondly, because of the
8 sightlines within the courtroom, it was very
9 difficult to conceive how it would actually work
10 without people being able to see the witnesses.
11 And finally there was a staffing issue, and
12 they're tight of course.
13 So Mr. Messenger has proposed two options to
14 me which -- both of which would require a revision
15 to your order. I mean, to the extent that it says
16 the witnesses are testifying behind a screen. The
17 two options I've set out in this piece of paper.
18 The first would be what I would describe as
19 the usual video evidence option where the
20 witnesses would appear in another room in the
21 courthouse and everybody would be convened here,
22 there would be a video screen for Your Lordship
23 and there would be a second video screen set up
24 beside Your Lordship's bench there facing towards
25 you where I would be -- it would proposed where I
26 would be standing. So Your Lordship and I would
27 have a view of the witnesses. We would conduct --
28 I would conduct the examinations in chief and then
29 my learned friends would conduct their
30 cross-examinations from the podium here in the
31 usual way except for the fact that they won't be
32 able to see the witness.
33 The second option, and is one that I urge upon
34 Your Lordship for reasons I'll explain in a
35 moment. The second option involves the -- another
36 courtroom being reserved and locked and Your
37 Lordship and myself and Mr. Spencer and the court
38 clerk would convene in that courtroom, and video
39 equipment would be set up showing Your Lordship
40 and me at the counsel stand and with the witnesses
41 being in the witness box in the ordinary way and
42 video scenes being set up here in courtroom 55 in
43 a manner that they would be facing the entire
44 courtroom, and a sheriff would attend to open the
45 courtroom. Everybody, public included, would
46 attend, Your Lordship would convene the court in
47 that other room and everybody here would see
4
Preliminary matters
1 Your Lordship and me, and then the examinations

2 would proceed.
3 So the differences obviously between the two
4 really are that Your Lordship either sees the
5 witnesses live or on video, and it is that
6 distinction that causes me to urge you to adopt
7 option number B because I think the -- seeing
8 these witnesses -- I mean, I could have had them
9 -- well, I couldn't have had them videotaped
10 without violating anonymity, but I think it's
11 important that Your Lordship have an opportunity
12 to see them live. Video is sometimes less -- it's
13 less easy to see the nuances and demeanour and all
14 that sort of thing. I'm told by Mr. Messenger
15 that it is no more difficult to arrange option B
16 than it is option A, and all they need is some
17 notice of it. I will be speaking to Ms. Smolen
18 this morning to ensure that the courtroom that
19 we're thinking about is reserved and there are
20 other measures being put in place that all of
21 which are doable with court services staff, with
22 the registry and with the sheriffs.
23 THE COURT: Mr. Messenger is here now.
24 MR. WICKETT: There he is. Thank you.
25 THE COURT: Okay. So option A or option B. You prefer
26 option B?
27 MR. WICKETT: I do.
28 THE COURT: And there's not a terrible lot of
29 difference in setting up either option?
30 MR. WICKETT: That's what I'm told, yes.
31 THE COURT: And do the other parties have any
32 submissions?
33 MR. WICKETT: I told my learned friends about this and
34 gave them this piece of paper but I haven't heard
35 anything from anybody about it.
36 MR. JONES: I think Mr. Wickett, My Lord, has well
37 synopsized the relative advantages of option B.
38 Although I think A would leave us all on a more
39 even playing field I don't think that's what this
40 is about. If the court can gain an advantage from
41 being in the same room as the witness, then that's
42 what should happen. For us it comes down to
43 essentially conducting it by telephone in any
44 event, so we're content to work with whatever Your
45 Lordship decides.
46 MR. REIMER: My Lord, the only comment Canada would add
47 to that perhaps, and I wasn't clear from
5
Preliminary matters
1 Mr. Wickett's discussions with Your Lordship, I'm

2 not sure what the usual practice is. I mean, in
3 child protection cases you had indicated that, in
4 fact, they often testify behind screens and I
5 wasn't sure if they were actually doing physical
6 screens or were in fact doing option A. And I
7 just sort of -- perhaps we could follow the usual
8 practice if in fact there is one in these cases.
9 THE COURT: Well, when I said there's a usual practice,
10 I think there's a number of usual practices and
11 this would become another one of them.
12 MR. REIMER: Usual but unusual practice?
13 THE COURT: This would be an extraordinary practice.
14 But it seems to me that option B wouldn't be
15 inconsistent with whatever practice has developed
16 around this sort of extraordinary taking of
17 evidence.
18 So provided -- and I understand it's
19 courtroom 303, which is over the bridge, and I
20 have no trouble making that migration personally,
21 so I'll go with option B if that's satisfactory to
22 court services. Will it be clerked from this
23 courtroom, Madam Registrar?
24 THE CLERK: My belief is it would be clerked from the
25 other courtroom, My Lord.
26 THE COURT: So the DARS will have to be operated there?
27 THE CLERK: Yes, My Lord.
28 THE COURT: Okay. So that's where you will be left
29 with me?
30 THE CLERK: Yes, My Lord.
31 THE COURT: Okay. That's not a problem.
32 MR. WICKETT: Yes, it's correct, My Lord, that it's
33 conceived that, as I said, the clerk and
34 Mr. Charest and myself and yourself would convene
35 in the other room.
36 THE COURT: Okay. Great. Option B it is. Thank you.
37 MR. WICKETT: Thank you, My Lord. Sorry, My Lord, one
38 last thing. I don't know that -- I probably
39 shouldn't be asking this. I wonder if it's
40 necessary though to draft a revision to the order.
41 I'm sorry, I shouldn't be asking you the question.
42 Let me consider, and if appropriate, I'll draft a
43 revision to the order for signature by counsel.
45 MR. WICKETT: Thank you, My Lord.
46 MR. REIMER: My Lord, if I might, just before the
47 videos are started, there's one other issue that
6
Preliminary matters
1 has been discussed among counsel and I think we're

2 still working on it. I just raise it for your
3 attention at this time. And that deals with the
4 scheduling of the exchange of written arguments in
5 this case. There are some ongoing discussions but
6 I will probably bring that matter back up before
7 the court early next week, hopefully on Monday if
8 we can arrive at some consensus between the
9 participants.
10 THE COURT: Right.
11 MR. REIMER: Just flag that at this time.
12 THE COURT: And two weeks have the parties had a chance
13 to reconsider whether that's going to be enough.
14 MR. REIMER: For actual closing arguments? No, I don't
15 think we've had any further discussions about how
16 long people will be in their closing arguments.
17 There's still ongoing discussions is probably a
18 fair statement.
19 MR. DICKSON: Do we actually have two and a half weeks?
20 THE COURT: Well, I'm away two of the days.
21 MR. DICKSON: I see.
22 THE COURT: But I can -- my schedule is such that I
23 think I can get you more time in April, you know,
24 sort of approaching Easter. I don't mean to go to
25 Easter but I will keep my diary pretty flexible.
26 MR. DICKSON: I do have some concern that we'll need a
27 long time. The opening statements took a week.
28 THE COURT: Right. Now, Ms. Judd is going to be
29 approaching you to see there's room to discuss
30 having a template for argument. In other words,
31 that the parties try to stay within so the
32 arguments are responsive to each other and they're
33 easily compared. That may not be possible but
34 it's something to think about. It's been used in
35 other long cases. It may not include all the
36 interested persons because they have a much
37 narrower focus perhaps, but it's something to
38 think about and Ms. Judd will be approaching you,
39 and you may say it's simply not possible, we're
40 too far down the road, our view of the case is too
41 different from my friends. You know what I mean.
42 The arguments are set up in much the same way so
43 the judge can then readily determine the
44 differences between the positions of the parties
45 on critical issues.
46 MR. REIMER: Well, that's, in fact, some of the
47 discussions we're having is trying to make sure we
7
Preliminary matters
1 can actually achieve a responsive argument to try

2 and assist Your Lordship and --
3 THE COURT: Symmetry.
4 MR. REIMER: -- not just talk past each other.
5 THE COURT: Exactly. Okay. Well, that's the objective
6 of what I was suggesting. Okay. So may I invite
7 you to have any discussions you want with Ms. Judd
8 about that?
9 MR. REIMER: Certainly. Thank you.
10 MR. WICKETT: My Lord, we're turning to videos now?
11 MR. JONES: Yes, My Lord, we had a couple of points to
12 make about scheduling but one of them might
13 require Mr. Mackintosh's absence, so if it's all
14 right with Your Lordship, we'll wait until after.
15 MR. WICKETT: I was just going to say, My Lord, I have
16 some matters to attend to at this time and seek
17 Your Lordship's permission to withdraw from the
18 videos, but perhaps -- we'll wait for
19 Mr. Macintosh to address other schedules issues.
20 Is that what we're doing?
21 MR. JONES: Yeah, I'm not sure if my friend Mr. Wickett
22 would want to speak to this. The issues are --
23 well, one of them perhaps can be dealt with
24 quickly, My Lord, and that is we presently have
25 the 21st free but we've got two things that might
26 go over into that. One is a possible witness
27 spillover and the other is we might need that date
28 for arguing the admissibility of our late
29 evidence, if I can put it that way, our new
30 evidence. We have three affidavits that are in
31 dispute.
32 THE COURT: Okay. I was giving a speech that day.
33 MR. JONES: Okay. Well, the 21st --
34 THE COURT: Well, I don't know the time so it may not
35 be --
36 MR. JONES: Okay. I wanted to raise that with the
37 court. And the other thing I wanted to raise that
38 perhaps Mr. Wickett should be here for. We -- I'm
39 making no suggestion that anything with respect to
40 the cancellation of today's evidence was tactical
41 in any respect. Nevertheless, the preparation for
42 these things is extensive. I wanted to ask the
43 court perhaps to impress upon my friends that if
44 there are going to be any more of these
45 withdrawals of evidence and I appreciate sometimes
46 last minute withdrawal can't be avoided, but if
47 there are going to be any more withdrawals, that
8
Preliminary matters
1 we be informed sooner rather than later and

2 preferably this week, because a lot depends on
3 these things.
4 THE COURT: Well, there's a high degree of
5 professionalism being demonstrated in the case by
6 counsel. I'm sure that the earliest possible
7 notice will be given.
8 MR. DICKSON: That's exactly right, My Lord. I'll just
9 leave it with that. My friends will know exactly
10 as soon as we do.
11 MR. JONES: Well, with respect, it's not -- the
12 amicus's evidence isn't our principal concern. We
13 have a couple of, call them Schroedinger's Cat
14 affidavits that have been put in.
15 THE COURT: What are they called?
16 MR. JONES: That's an expression, My Lord, sorry.
17 Schroedinger's Cat. I won't bother explaining.
18 THE COURT: Don't.
19 MR. JONES: Things that are neither alive or dead until
20 a certain point. And so we've been informed I
21 believe that Mr. James Oler's affidavit will be
22 withdrawn but it hasn't yet, and there's another
23 affidavit upon which a great deal may turn, and
24 that's Mr. Palmer, and we have been told that
25 maybe yes, maybe no. But it seems to me that this
26 is the time to commit on that sort of thing now.
27 MR. WICKETT: Allow me to address that directly,
28 My Lord. My friend is correct. I have given him
29 notice that Mr. Oler's affidavit will be
30 withdrawn, and to the extent that requires formal
31 notice, I'm hereby giving it, although my friends
32 have known about this for some time.
33 With respect to Mr. Palmer, my friend is
34 correct, I've not yet decided. There are two
35 issues. One is an issue with respect to scope of
36 cross-examination and there may be an application
37 in conjunction with his evidence to restrict the
38 scope of his cross-examination because I wish him
39 to testify.
40 But there's a second issue, a personal issue,
41 and on that it has been -- I can advise the court
42 has been the primary reason I have been unable to
43 advise my learned friends of the position that is
44 going to be taken with Mr. Palmer. I want him to
45 testify and I'm not -- and I can completely
46 appreciate the issue with my friends in preparing
47 for cross-examination that might not occur, but
9
Preliminary matters
1 let me say this. If Mr. Palmer testifies -- well,

2 two things. Firstly I will notify my learned
3 friend as soon as I am able to resolve this issue,
4 personal issue. Secondly, if Mr. Palmer
5 testifies, I would anticipate that he will proceed
6 during the week of the 24th and I would say that
7 he would be the last witness. And we have four
8 days commencing the -- sorry, I believe it's the
9 25th of January, Tuesday the 25th for the
10 anonymous witnesses, and I don't think that they
11 will take four days, and so I feel fairly
12 comfortable in saying that if Mr. Palmer testifies
13 that we would, to give my learned friends as much
14 notice as possible as to his appearance, schedule
15 him last on the 28th or whatever it is. The last
16 day of that week.
17 That's all I can say at this point about that,
18 My Lord.
19 MR. JONES: I appreciate those clarifications, My Lord,
20 but they do raise the one further concern that if
21 it's my friend's position that Mr. Palmer will
22 only testify if there is an order restricting
23 cross-examination beyond the order Your Lordship
24 has already given, then we need to be thinking
25 about scheduling that because we're quite tight.
26 MR. WICKETT: Fair point. Obviously I haven't made the
27 application because it's not a real issue at this
28 point. I would suggest, My Lord, that if -- once
29 the decision is made and I'm going to endeavour to
30 have it done by -- one way or another if not by
31 tomorrow then very early next week. That's my
32 expectation. And if the decision has been made
33 that he will be appearing, then I would think we
34 could schedule the application to deal with the
35 cross-examination restrictions also during the
36 week of the 24th. That's my suggestion. And
37 if -- and I have had, of course, discussion with
38 my learned friends about my issues on
39 cross-examination, and so I think we know what the
40 matters in issue are and so -- but I will, of
41 course, give them as much advance warning as I'm
42 able to do so as to the specific order of the form
43 I'm seeking and --
44 THE COURT: Well, let's see if the first hurdle is
45 gotten over tomorrow or early next week.
46 MR. WICKETT: Thank you. With that, My Lord, I think
47 I'll withdraw. I don't think the other matters
10
Don Fischer (for AGBC)
Video affidavit
1 involve me.
3 MR. REIMER: May I also be excused, My Lord?
4 THE COURT: Yes. Thank you.
5 MR. REIMER: Thank you.
6 THE COURT: So it's going to be Don Fischer?
7 MS. ZALTZ: Yes, My Lord. Just -- I was incorrect in
8 the length earlier. This is 33 1/2 minutes and
9 there may be a few points where it's difficult to
10 hear and we apologize for that. We will also need
11 to change computers at the end of this to start
12 the next one so that may be a bit early but it may
13 be a good time for the morning break.
14 THE COURT: At that point, sure.
15
16 (VIDEO PLAYED)
17
18 Ms. Greathead: Okay. And you're done for
19 sure?
20 A Yes.
21 Q And my name is Leah Greathead, and you're
22 here with me and Karen Horsman, and as we
23 explained, we're lawyers for the Ministry
24 of Attorney General in British Columbia,
25 and our court -- our British Columbia
26 Supreme Court is going to be answering
27 the question whether our criminal
28 prohibition against polygamy is
29 constitutional or not.
30 A The court is a little bit like the
31 England court, huh?
32 Q A little bit, yeah.
33 A Is it like that, the English?
34 Q Yeah. And you kindly agreed to come and
35 answer some questions for us about --
36 about growing up and about life in the
37 FLDS.
38 A Do you wear wigs?
39 Q We don't wear wigs but we wear the --
40 well, yeah. Can you tell us what FLDS
41 is, what it stands for and --
42 A It's the name of a religion. It's just
43 the name of the religion.
44 Q So it's the Fundamentalist Church of
45 Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
46 A Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
47 Latter-day Saints, and we believe in
11
Video affidavit
1 polygamy.
2 Q And were you born into the FLDS?
3 A I was born into the FLDS.
4 Q Where were you born?
5 A Hildale. Hildale, Utah [inaudible].
6 Q And tell us about your family.
7 A Um, well I got three moms, I have 33
8 brothers and sisters and pretty much grew
9 up there.
10 Q And how many children did your mother
11 have?
12 A 12. My mom had 12 kids. I was the
13 fourth from her oldest, and...
14 Q Did you live all together in one house?
15 A Yeah.
16 Q With your 33 siblings?
17 A In one house. We had 15 bedrooms, 15
18 bathrooms and 3 different apartments and
19 kitchens. Moms all had their own rooms
20 there. My dad had his own room and we
21 pretty much bunked up three or four kids
22 in a room for a lot of years until I was
23 about ten, and then a lot of the older
24 ones were moving out and getting their
25 own houses and getting married, so we had
26 our own room for -- I had my own room for
27 a year or so before I was gone. And I
28 moved to Canada when I was 15, 14, 15. I
29 had my 15th birthday there.
30 Q And just stepping back, before you went
31 to Canada did you go to -- where did you
32 go to school and what happened there at
33 school?
34 A Phelps Elementary and that was before
35 they shut down all the public schools. I
36 don't know if you know that out there
37 Fells [phonetic] elementary school. I
38 went to fifth grade there.
39 Q That was a public school?
40 A It was a public school but all polygamous
41 kids, so the state funded. They had
42 teachers that were from Saint George and
43 that weren't -- they had a lot of
44 teachers that were polygamists that were
45 a part of the church, but there were a
46 few that weren't. And after -- after
47 that Warren Jeffs and [inaudible] got
12
Video affidavit
1 rid -- started the private home schools

2 and all that.
3 Q What happened in the private home
4 schools?
5 A Um, pretty much they taught you a bit of
6 math, a little bit of English, a little
7 bit of science and church history. There
8 was a lot of church history. That was
9 the main focus, was study, study, study
10 about the church and be good and go to
11 heaven and get lots of wives and build
12 the kingdom of God.
13 Q And so that's what you were taught about
14 marriage, to get lots of wives and that?
15 A Pretty much.
16 Q And what was supposed to happen?
17 A Well, pretty much, you know, we were
18 taught from Joseph Smith, you know Joseph
19 Smith was the prophet of God and
20 everything [inaudible] and we were
21 supposed to go back and redeem Zion and
22 build the temple, and the end of the
23 world was supposed to come and we were
24 all supposed to get lifted up and
25 everybody was supposed to be destroyed
26 and then [inaudible] and polygamists
27 roaming around on the earth. It was
28 pretty much all about the end of the
29 world and the destruction and make sure
30 you do things right and do whatever they
31 told you.
32 Q How far go did you go in school when you
33 were -- what grade did you go to.
34 A Sixth, seventh. Grade six.
35 Q And what happened after six or seventh
36 grade?
37 A I went to Canada.
38 Q You moved to Canada. And then one more
39 question before we go to Canada. I
40 didn't ask you what it was like living
41 with all of those kids and all of those
42 people.
43 A It's pretty much -- you know, in a way
44 it's not really that bad. It was a lot
45 of fun. You have your own football team,
46 you know. You have a lot of brothers and
47 sisters to play with, a lot of friends.
13
Video affidavit
1 And so it's -- I don't know.

2 Q Okay. Lots of kids around. What about
3 time with your parents? How much time
4 would you ...
5 A You don't -- like I was saying, you don't
6 really have a lot of time with your
7 parents. You pretty much -- you're off
8 to school or you're running around
9 playing in the yard or you're running
10 around and your mom is off doing the
11 laundry or cooking dinner and you don't
12 have a lot of one-on-one time after
13 you're up and walking. As soon as you
14 can walk you're just running around
15 discovering the world and you don't have
16 that connection or anything with your
17 dad.
18 That's the -- kind of difficult to
19 explain really because as far as I knew
20 that's the only thing I knew and you
21 didn't know any different or know that
22 you could have more time. I got two
23 boys, five and three, and I spent all --
24 hours with them, you know, just -- and so
25 it's -- it makes you kind of think back
26 and wonder but you don't really know what
27 you had because you didn't have that
28 experience.
29 But it's kind of interesting having
30 that experience with my kids and then not
31 ever having that with my dad or my mom.
32 I really don't get along with my dad
33 because he was pretty abusive, so we
34 always butted heads. I was the only kid
35 that stood up and would run away from a
36 beating or stand up to him. Everyone
37 else you had to take it because if you
38 didn't take your punishment, you got a
39 worse punishment. I'm sure it's everyday
40 life like every kids, but...
41 Q And so you talked about at 15 going to
42 Canada. Why did you go to Canada?
43 A Um, pretty much my dad had to get rid of
44 me because I was getting in the way of
45 him -- I mean we -- we would sit there
46 and argue and fight all the time and I
47 would tell him -- I would step in. I
14
Video affidavit
1 wouldn't let him hit any of my brothers

2 and sisters. I wouldn't let him beat
3 them or anything. If anything happened,
4 I would run over there and jump right in
5 between them, and he said I was
6 interfering with God's word and his right
7 to correct his children and basically to
8 rule with an iron fist.
9 You rule with an iron fist, you
10 force them to do what you want. If you
11 tell them to do it and you don't do it,
12 you get beat. It's something as simple
13 as spilling milk at the dinner table you
14 would get beat for it, and I wasn't okay
15 with that, so I would jump right in
16 between them. And he'd be sitting there
17 yelling and screaming face to face like
18 this, and I'm a 10-year-old kid and I
19 would tell him he couldn't do. And we
20 would sit there and fight over the
21 scripture, read the scripture, and he'd
22 tell me how [inaudible] told me, I could
23 beat my kids with a willow if they're not
24 doing what I told them. I said, no, you
25 can't. You just talk to them. I don't
26 know where I got that from, but, you
27 know, I just -- for some reason it
28 wasn't -- I just couldn't stand it.
29 It started with me running away, and
30 you don't run away. You don't run away
31 from my dad. That was -- if you had done
32 something or got tattled on for some
33 little minor infraction like maybe
34 throwing sand on -- you know, being mean
35 to one of your little brothers or sisters
36 and your dad got home then he would
37 pretty much -- you don't get dinner until
38 after everybody goes to bed, and he come
39 up to my room and you'd bring a stick
40 with you and you take a beating and
41 that's what you did. And eventually when
42 I was 10 I just started, no, I'm not
43 going to do it. I'll run away. And I
44 would run away. I would hide for three
45 days down in the creek or up in the
46 mountains and sneak back at night and
47 steal food. I would run away from him.
15
Video affidavit
1 And he kind of -- that was a big issue

2 because no one had ever done that with
3 him, stood up to him.
4 And then I started standing in for
5 my little brothers and sisters saying,
6 you can't do that. I wouldn't let him do
7 that. So he got sick and he went to the
8 prophet, he went to Rulon Jeffs about it
9 and said, hey, he's interfering with me
10 being able to run my family, because the
11 head of the household, you know, you're
12 priesthead. He runs his family and he's
13 the owner. He owns you. And I was
14 interfering with that, so he thought that
15 that was the best thing to do was get rid
16 of me and ship me off to Canada.
17 Q Are where did you go in Canada?
18 A I went to Fort Hill. Fort Hill and
19 Creston or -- yeah, Creston, Lister and
20 worked for Winston.
21 Q And was that Winston Blackmore?
22 A M'mm-hmm.
23 Q And that was the Bountiful community
24 there?
25 A Bountiful, yes.
26 Q And you were 15 you said?
27 A I was 14.
28 Q 14. And did you go to school in Canada?
29 A No, we didn't go to the school. Pretty
30 much the people that were in Canada, that
31 lived in Canada, they went to school in
32 their homes -- in their private school up
33 there, but the boys who were shipped up
34 there it was kind of a work camp, reform
35 camp, keep them busy doing nothing but
36 working night and day so they can't go
37 off and be bad. So we didn't go to
38 school, we just went and worked.
39 Q Did you get paid?
40 A Yeah, they actually did pay us kind of an
41 allowance. So we lived in whatever
42 houses, you know, he had. They supplied
43 us with food and all that and we got, I
44 think, $60 Canadian every two weeks. We
45 got $120 Canadian every month. So just a
46 little spending money and whatnot.
47 Q And did you have religious teachings when
16
Video affidavit
1 you were up in Canada?

2 A Yeah, same thing as in Colorado City.
3 Church every Sunday. Priesthood meeting
4 every -- once a month, same thing. You
5 know -- whatever family you were staying
6 with up there, wherever you're staying
7 you just go to the classes every night
8 and the morning prayers. And family
9 was -- it was the exact same thing except
10 you were just living somewhere else in
11 another family where all you had was go
12 to work.
13 Except for it was a little bit
14 different for me because I thought
15 Winston was cool. I thought he was a
16 badass. We got to go play hockey. And
17 he wasn't mean, you know. I was growing
18 up and raised my whole life with my dad
19 who was just pretty mean and, you know,
20 saying, I'm beating you because I love
21 you and I got to take you to heaven,
22 that's why I'm beating you. And so I
23 really liked Winston. I thought -- I
24 thought he was a great guy. I really
25 looked up to him, you know. It was kind
26 of almost like a father figure because I
27 didn't have that. And that's one thing
28 my step dad too, is my step dad Allen, he
29 never yelled. I never saw him yell at
30 his kids or, you know, he never yelled at
31 me, and it was kind of a shock for me
32 because I was just -- I grew up getting
33 yelled at and beat, so...
34 Q Right. And can you explain for the tape
35 here how you came to have a stepfather.
36 A I actually -- my dad had had his family
37 taken away before -- Warren Jeffs split
38 up my dad's family before he died.
39 Probably -- that was when I was --
40 probably about a year before he died, so
41 I was pretty much reassigned and had
42 [inaudible] with my step dad until --
43 well, and then my dad died, so it wasn't
44 because he died that they got reassigned.
45 Warren Jeffs did that.
46 Q And so your mother was reassigned to
47 Allen Steed?
17
Video affidavit
1 A My mother was assigned to Allen Steed.

2 Q How were you told that? How did that
3 happen.
4 A That's why I actually came back down from
5 Canada. I got a phone call one day from
6 my mom and she said, Warren, you know,
7 our family -- your dad isn't your dad
8 anymore, you got to come down here. So
9 they threw me on the plane and I came
10 down because all the family has to be at
11 the marriage ceremony, the wedding
12 ceremony. All the children, you know,
13 because you're pretty much getting
14 married to that guy too. And so I was
15 just pretty much told just like that,
16 here's your new dad. I came down and the
17 next day my mom was married to Allen
18 Steed.
19 Q Wow. And did you stay there after that?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Did you live in Allan Steed's house?
22 A For about two years and I got 60 new
23 brothers and sisters. I became really
24 close to almost every one of them. I
25 thought they were my -- still to this day
26 I think of them as my actual family. Got
27 like 16 new moms.
28 Q 16 new moms?
29 A 16 new moms and 60 new brothers and
30 sisters.
31 Q So what happened after that? What
32 happened after? You were about 15 then
33 when you came back, or?
34 A Yeah, I was 15 when I came back and
35 actually went to work for Allen Steed
36 [inaudible] company and just pretty much
37 lived and worked in the community.
38 Q Were you getting paid when you worked?
39 A We were getting paid. Pretty much how it
40 worked is they would pay you and you
41 would turn in your cheques to your dad or
42 to the prophet or to whoever. That's
43 what you're supposed to do is turn in
44 your -- you know, a lot of people didn't
45 get paid. I was actually getting a
46 paycheque and then I was supposed to turn
47 it all in it, but I never did. That was
18
Video affidavit
1 one of the reasons I was kicked out

2 because I was being rebellious. I would
3 take my money and go get CDs and movies
4 and beer and cigarettes.
5 Q And can you tell us about when you were
6 kicked out.
7 A Um, pretty much one day me and my brother
8 were -- we had been going off and
9 watching movies and all that stuff and we
10 just got a call from my step dad and he
11 said, you guys aren't supposed to go to
12 church or priesthood meeting until you
13 have an appointment with Warren Jeffs.
14 And so we knew we were in trouble or
15 whatever. And then later that night they
16 actually set up a meeting, said, you
17 know, today at noon you're going to go
18 see Warren Jeffs. So we went out there
19 and waited for a couple hours for our
20 step dad Allen Steed, and he never showed
21 up, and we said we can't do it. So we
22 went home, and about 8 o'clock that night
23 he came in and told us, he says, he
24 doesn't want to see you, doesn't want to
25 talk to you, you got to be off the
26 property by midnight. So, you know,
27 pretty much headed out. It's like, you
28 guys have any money. And we both said
29 no. And he gave me and my brother Walt,
30 he's like, here's $100 dollars, see you
31 later. You're garbage bag and your
32 clothes and head out.
33 Q And how old were you?
34 A 15.
35 Q How old was your brother?
36 A He was 18 -- he was about 17, 18.
37 Q What did you do?
38 A Went to -- we called up our older brother
39 and talked him into giving us a ride to
40 St. George and he drove us down here,
41 bought us a hotel -- got us a hotel room
42 for one night and left. Left us there.
43 And we hung out there and then started --
44 pretty much started saying, what is going
45 on, why is this -- why is this happening,
46 what are we going to do, and they decided
47 and talked to Warren -- our step dad
19
Video affidavit
1 talked to Warren and they decided that,

2 you know, we couldn't go to church,
3 couldn't have anything to do with our
4 families, talk to them. We couldn't go
5 out of Colorado City but we could still
6 stay working in St. George because they
7 were working doing construction.
8 So we still stayed working for my
9 step dad's company. And one of my uncles
10 brought us a travel trailer and put it in
11 the trailer park here and we lived in a
12 trailer in a trailer park. And pretty
13 much the only reason we were -- the only
14 reason we got that help or received that
15 help was because we had -- we eventually,
16 you know, we got meetings with Warren and
17 talked to him. We told him, hey, we're
18 sincere, we want to repent. We want to
19 get back in.
20 If we weren't doing that, we were
21 just kicked out. We would have just been
22 on our own on the streets. But we wanted
23 to stay working for the church and paying
24 our tithing. He pretty much said, if you
25 still pay tithing to us, but don't come
26 around. So we stayed -- we were trying
27 to get back in, so we stayed working.
28 Q Did you get back in?
29 A I did. I got back in about eight months
30 later, rebaptized, got back into the
31 church. And my brother Walt never did.
32 He just -- he stuck it out for eight
33 months and said, I'm not going to do
34 this. I'm not going back. And he -- I
35 don't know -- I'm not sure exactly. I
36 think he just moved back to Georgia with
37 -- one of my uncles had left, you know,
38 ten years before and went to work for
39 him. And so I stayed out for a few more
40 years until I was 18 when I decided to
41 leave.
42 Q How was that when you were --
43 A How was?
44 Q When you went back? This is back to
45 Hildale and Colorado City?
46 A It's a little bit different because
47 everyone knows and everyone looks at you
20
Video affidavit
1 and you were supposed to be repenting and

2 doing better than ever, you know, you got
3 to really put on a show and be good and
4 everyone knows that you did something
5 wrong and got kicked out. But it wasn't
6 the same as living out there before, you
7 know. You were still the bad kid who is
8 just on his way to repentance.
9 Q What does being good mean exactly in
10 practical terms?
11 A Being good in practical terms. Not
12 watching movies. Not swearing, not
13 thinking -- you actually can't think an
14 evil thoughts. If you think about
15 watching a movie, if you think about
16 saying hi to a girl or waving to a girl,
17 where you think about listening to music,
18 that's not being good. And the prophet
19 supposedly knows that and he can tell if
20 you're thinking amoral thoughts and so
21 pretty much just doing exactly what they
22 say is being good. No music, no TV.
23 Q What were you taught about girls as you
24 were growing up?
25 A Pretty much that they're snakes. You
26 treat them like snakes and you don't
27 trust them. And that was -- you
28 [inaudible] that when God decides you're
29 ready to get married, you get married.
30 And you can't --
31 Q Are you taught they're like snakes and --
32 A You're not supposed to even wave to them
33 driving down the road or talk to them.
34 You're not supposed to have anything to
35 do with them. Because that's amoral.
36 A Even if they're your sisters?
37 A Your sisters you're not supposed to touch
38 either. You're not supposed to go near
39 them. Even playing sports with your own
40 family it's -- you can't touch -- no
41 contact sports, you know. So yeah, you
42 can talk to your sister but you can't --
43 it's completely different from a family
44 relationship out here where you give your
45 sister a hug. That's never even heard
46 of. You don't hug your brothers or
47 sisters up there at all. You know, I --
21
Video affidavit
1 we hugged our parents but we never hugged

2 our brothers and sisters at all.
3 Q So you went -- you went back after eight
4 months out and then you went to the --
5 you left at 18?
6 A M'mm-hmm.
7 Q What happened there?
8 A That was when the church -- Warren --
9 Rulon Jeffs died, Warren took over and
10 proclaimed himself the prophet and the
11 church split. You know, Winston took a
12 lot of people went with him, and when the
13 church split up, then I decided something
14 was going on. Something was fishy,
15 something is wrong, and I went and joined
16 Winston's group. And then I decided I
17 wasn't interested in that either, so I
18 got completely out of the entire religion
19 altogether after about a year of being
20 Winston's [inaudible].
21 Q So you went back up and lived in Canada
22 for a year?
23 A Yeah. M'mm-hmm.
24 Q And how do you get -- how do you get a
25 wife within the FLDS community?
26 A When the prophet assigns you one. When
27 God decides to give you a wife. Pretty
28 much if you're doing everything you're
29 supposed to, you're being -- you know,
30 you're not doing anything wrong, God
31 decides you're good enough and thinking
32 enough good thoughts, then he'll give you
33 a wife.
34 Q That's the theory?
35 A Pretty much.
36 Q And so how would you compare your life
37 now to your life when you were within the
38 FLDS community?
39 A Life. Being alive. Pretty much you
40 didn't know it then but now that I'm out
41 here and I do what I do, I didn't exist
42 out there. I wasn't a person. I wasn't
43 alive. It's completely -- it's black and
44 white. I don't know how to explain, you
45 know, the difference but it's -- it's
46 night and day.
47 Q And so you have -- can you talk about
22
Video affidavit
1 choices and is there more ability to

2 choose things?
3 A Oh, yeah definitely. You get to decide
4 what you want to do and where you want to
5 go and who you want to be with and who
6 you can hang out with, and if you want to
7 go be a doctor or lawyer. Whatever you
8 want to do, you have the choices. You're
9 free to be somebody, whereas out there
10 you're controlled. You do what they say
11 when they say it and you don't really
12 have options. You're just -- you're one
13 of their slaves. You're just another
14 person. You're pretty much treated as an
15 object, as cattle out there, where out
16 here you get to be a person. You get to
17 be yourself.
18 Q And you talked -- we talked a little bit
19 about education and how far you went in
20 school, to about sixth grade or so.
21 A Yes.
22 Q Do some people go higher, get a higher
23 education?
24 A Yeah. I mean, not really anymore. Now
25 it's pretty much eighth grade and you're
26 out working. But, you know, before when
27 there was still public school and whatnot
28 people went through high school and got
29 their high school diploma. I was after
30 that time.
31 Q Right. And could they decide to take up
32 any kind of courses, studies that they
33 wanted after high school?
34 A Not really. You go to work. As soon as
35 you're out of high school you're out
36 working. I mean, you can decide A, I
37 want to go into employment or excavating
38 or whatever job it is but you don't
39 really have a choice of, like, going and
40 -- to college and choosing a career and
41 education. Pretty much go to work and
42 that's your career. That's your
43 education.
44 Q Right. And I understand one of your
45 brothers is a dentist?
46 A M'mm-hmm.
47 Q And he was a dentist when he was within
23
Video affidavit
1 the FLDS community?

2 A Yes. One of my brothers is a dentist.
3 My sister is a doctor and probably four
4 or five of my brothers are paramedics,
5 and volunteer firefighters. And a lot of
6 my family went to school and got
7 educated. One of my moms was a
8 schoolteacher at the public school before
9 it got closed down, so she went to
10 college.
11 Q And how is it they were able to get -- go
12 to college and get university degrees?
13 A Well, pretty much if the prophet decided
14 that you needed to go do that, you need
15 to do this, to be a schoolteacher or hey,
16 you need to go be a doctor because we
17 need a doctor. They're basically told to
18 go to school [inaudible].
19 MS. GREATHEAD: Is there any other areas to
20 cover, Karen?
21 MS. HORSMAN: One thing, Don. You've talked
22 about the fact that you left the
23 community permanently when you were 18
24 and you're 26 now; is at that right? And
25 you've still got your mom back in the
26 FLDS community and siblings that are
27 still there?
28 A Yeah.
29 Q What's your relationship like with them
30 these days?
31 A There's not a relationship. You know, I
32 can't talk to them. I can't see them.
33 They can't talk to me. We don't
34 communicate at all. I haven't seen them
35 in -- pretty much since I left. So there
36 really isn't a relationship. It's like
37 we don't exist.
38 Q So you haven't talked to your mom at all
39 since you left the community?
40 A Since I have left I have seen her and
41 talked to her briefly for, you know,
42 maybe two times, but the last time was
43 five years ago. I just happened to be
44 driving around out there and one time I
45 actually -- actually both times I talked
46 to her I was just driving through the
47 town and I seen her out in the garden and
24
Video affidavit
1 I stopped and got out and walked over

2 there and she just stood up and she
3 looked at me and she goes, is that Walter
4 or Don? And I'm like it's Don and I go
5 running over to her and give her a hug
6 and she's just standing there staring at
7 me like she seen a ghost and then she's
8 just scared and starts shaking, I can't
9 talk to you, I can't see you, I'm going
10 to get in trouble. And so we talked for
11 maybe five minutes and then I left. And
12 then a few months later I seen her
13 walking down the road out there and
14 stopped to talk to her again, but she
15 wouldn't really talk to me. She just
16 walked off. But I haven't seen her for
17 probably five years.
18 Q So neither of your children have met
19 their grandmother?
20 A They actually did. They actually did
21 meet her. Treven was just born. He was
22 only a couple of months old when I was
23 driving down the road and saw her on the
24 side of the road and I stopped and I
25 said, this is your grandson, you know,
26 and I said, hold him. I told her this is
27 my oldest son and this is Treven, this is
28 Tyson, and tried -- I said, you know, you
29 can hold him, and she looked at my older
30 brother who was with him walking down the
31 road, and she just thought, what should I
32 do. Can I -- can I? And he shrugged his
33 shoulders and he wouldn't even say hi to
34 me. I said, hi, how are you, not one
35 word. He looked the other way and walked
36 on. And so I handed -- I pretty much
37 just forced her. She wouldn't do
38 anything. I just handed him to her and
39 she held him for about 30 seconds and
40 like, oh my gosh, what is his name. I
41 told her and she's like, okay, here you
42 go. Handed him back and walked off.
43 So I mean you could tell and you can
44 see that she wanted to know and say hi
45 and -- but she was so scared to, you
46 know. She -- she was scared she was
47 going to get in trouble and go to hell.
25
Video affidavit
1 Q What about the girls your age? What

2 happened to them?
3 A The girls my age?
4 Q In the FLDS community? Did you see
5 them -- did they go working or were they
6 required to get married, or?
7 A They pretty much get married off and
8 they're, you know -- whenever -- they
9 don't go out and work. Guys go out and
10 work. Girls get married off. So yeah,
11 they pretty much all got married. I
12 knew -- I knew a few -- I know quite a
13 few that have left. A lot of them have
14 left Colorado City, that community, but
15 the rest them are married. There's
16 pretty much not a girl that's not married
17 out there. They all marry them. The
18 entire purpose of a female is to have
19 kids. They're just like how they treat
20 them. Your whole purpose. Everything
21 they teach you growing up is you -- your
22 whole purpose here, you're growing up,
23 you're getting married to somebody,
24 having as many babies as you can as fast
25 as you can until you can't have babies
26 anymore.
27 Their whole reason for existing is
28 to produce kids for God, for the kingdom
29 of heaven. For some reason they think
30 they got to have a lot of people to do
31 that. So that that's pretty much -- the
32 guy's whole purpose is to be this great
33 man of God and have lots of wives and be
34 a God when he goes to heaven; the woman's
35 job is to make babies. They're not
36 really treated as anything but cattle.
37 MS. GREATHEAD: Thank you very much.
38 THE WITNESS: You're welcome. Hopefully I
39 have time to get there. What time is it?
40 MS. GREATHEAD: We'll stop this.
41
42 (VIDEO STOPPED)
43
44 THE COURT: So we'll take the break a little early.
45 Thanks.
46 THE CLERK: Order in court. Court is adjourned for the
47 morning recess.
26
Anne Wilde (for AGBC)
Video affidavit
1
2 (MORNING RECESS)
3
4 THE CLERK: Order in court.
5 MR. DICKSON: Yes, My Lord, as I say, the video of Anne
6 Wilde is on five different DVDs and the first two
7 together last about an hour, so that might work
8 well before the lunch break and we might take the
9 lunch break a little bit early and --
10 THE COURT: That's perfect because I have a commitment
11 at lunch anyways.
12 MR. DICKSON: Yes. Very good.
13
14 (VIDEO PLAYS)
15
16 (An interview with Anne B. Wilde dated January
17 10th, 2007, by John P. Dehlin. Part 1 FLDS
18 Practice of Polygamy)
19
20 Q Hello, Anne Wilde.
21 A Hello, John.
22 Q Thank you for coming on Mormon Stories.
23 A Thank you for asking me.
24 Q It's a pleasure to be here in your home
25 and I have waited a long time to
26 interview you.
27 A Well, I'm glad we were finally able to
28 work it out.
29 Q Yeah. Well, thank you. The way I kind
30 of wanted to begin was to do a quick
31 overview of the history of polygamy
32 within the LDS church and beyond through
33 your eyes.
34 A Okay.
35 Q Because I assume that up to a certain
36 point members of the fundamentalist --
37 fundamentalist Mormons or, you know,
38 members of LDS church sort of believe the
39 same history, at least to a certain
40 extent. So for our listeners who aren't
41 up to speed on that history would you
42 mind taking us through, you know, LDS and
43 Mormon polygamy history through your
44 eyes.
45 A Okay. Well, initially of course it was a
46 Bible doctrine. We're taking it back
47 into the Old Testament with Abraham,
27
Video affidavit
1 Isaac and Jacob, Moses. A lot of the

2 early prophets had plural wives. And so
3 when Joseph Smith was about to restore
4 the Gospel directly from the Lord, I
5 believe one of the principles and
6 ordinances that was revealed to him was
7 that of plural marriage. We prefer to
8 call it celestial plural marriage because
9 that determines how you live it on a
10 higher plane, rather than just plural
11 marriage and polygamy as the world might
12 see it.
13 In the early 1830s apparently he did
14 receive a revelation which is now
15 reported in section 132 of the Doctrine
16 and Covenants and it was to the fact that
17 -- or the effect that Joseph Smith asked
18 why some of the earlier prophets had more
19 than one wife and God's answer to him was
20 that it was an eternal principle and that
21 he was commanded to live it and also
22 reveal it to the other leaders and
23 members of the church over a period of
24 time.
25 So it continued on in the church for
26 years. It did not -- it continued on as
27 a law of the priesthood, I should say,
28 for many years. In 1852 after Brigham
29 Young led the saints out here to the
30 valley, it was voted on and accepted by
31 church members as a law of the church, a
32 tenent of their belief. And so from then
33 until 1890 it was actually an established
34 practice and belief of the LDS church.
35 Because of a lot of persecution from
36 the government and threats of taking away
37 church property and personal property and
38 so forth they issued what is called a
39 manifesto which I'm sure most people are
40 familiar with. It was really a press
41 release. Fundamentalist Mormons don't
42 really consider it a revelation because
43 it started out "thus sayeth the Lord" and
44 we're not aware of too much revelations
45 that start out with to whom it may
46 concern.
47 So they issued this press release to
28
Video affidavit
1 the government with the idea that they

2 would know that we were going to try as a
3 church to discontinue that practice so
4 that the persecution would stop and so
5 eventually we could become a state. So
6 in 1890, even though the manifesto was
7 issued at that time, there were a lot of
8 leaders of the church that continued
9 living plural marriage, taking new wives,
10 performing other plural marriages, and so
11 it wasn't until really 1904 when the
12 second manifesto came along that there
13 were teeth put that in first manifesto.
14 So we believe then that it was a law
15 of the priesthood at the time Joseph
16 Smith had it revealed to him and it has
17 continued as a law of the priesthood
18 until contemporary -- until today. It
19 was a law of the church from 1852 to 1890
20 and then it became a law that
21 priesthood -- continually, but back in
22 the responsibility of a priesthood
23 ordinance after the church gave it up is
24 one of their beliefs. So even though
25 section 132 is still in the Doctrine and
26 Covenants and we still believe it's an
27 eternal principle, we understand why the
28 church gave it up, and we are very
29 careful in our regard and our respect for
30 the LDS church. We feel like they do a
31 lot of good and even though they have
32 given up or changed a lot of those
33 original doctrines, we feel like there's
34 still, you know, a lot of very fine
35 people in the church and we respect and
36 honour the organization.
37 Q So that was a great overview. Thank you
38 for giving that. If you don't mind, I
39 would love to delve a little bit deeper
40 into the actual practice of polygamy in
41 the early church to the extent that
42 you're comfortable or knowledgeable about
43 it.
44 A Okay.
45 Q So as I understand it, they're saying
46 that -- they say that Joseph Smith
47 received the revelation maybe around
29
Video affidavit
1 1831?
2 A M'mm-hmm.
3 Q And the first potential wife that he took
4 on was Fanny Aldred.
5 A Fanny Aldred. Louisa Beaman was the next
6 one.
7 Q What do you know -- do you know anything
8 about Fanny Aldred? Some people say that
9 that wasn't a really good example of how
10 polygamy ought to have happened. What do
11 you know about that story?
12 A Well, I understand she was staying in the
13 home kind of helping Emma with the
14 chores, and it was a secret from Emma and
15 of course that's not the ideal, is to
16 have it be a secret. In some cases that
17 has to happen if the first wife is not in
18 agreement. But there's so many different
19 ways of living as there's not a recipe
20 book that says this is the way you live
21 plural marriage. There wasn't then and
22 there's not now. It has to depend on the
23 family and their relationship with the
24 Lord and what they feel impressed to do,
25 as long as people are treated fairly.
26 I think, and I've read some journals
27 and other histories of the church, where
28 it seems to me like the way it was
29 started was that Joseph Smith would call
30 one man into an office or Emma recalls
31 seeing them walking along by the banks of
32 Mississippi River, and he would teach
33 them the law of plural marriage and then
34 ask them to go into that lifestyle.
35 So it was done very secretly at
36 first. Gradually. Of course it got out
37 and many of the people living in the
38 areas surrounding where the Mormons were
39 found out that they were living that
40 lifestyle. They were persecuted because
41 of it, and so it's kind of a lot that way
42 today. It's comparable, because in many
43 cases plural families do live this
44 principle very quietly. In some cases
45 the neighbours probably don't even know.
46 If the wives aren't all living in the
47 same house, he might visit and then go to
30
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1 another house and visit another plural

2 wife and the neighbours probably just
3 think he's away a lot. So there's all
4 different ways of living it.
5 Q And so when we have a rigid conception of
6 what polygamy ought to be like, sort of
7 taking traditional American monogamous
8 families and trying to say that it --
9 with Joseph it should have looked as much
10 like that as much as possible, just with
11 a couple of extra wives, that's probably
12 unrealistic or maybe even unfair?
13 A Well, there's a lot of similarities and
14 there's a lot of differences. Naturally,
15 after it became a law of the church there
16 was a kind of pattern that was suggested.
17 Orson Pratt had 27 rules that he thought
18 would apply and would be a good guide for
19 plural families.
20 There was a time when the order of
21 things was that the prospective husband
22 would go to the father, the church
23 president would be involved in the
24 decision and they would go to the girl
25 and get permission along the way, but as
26 the church grew and then of course the
27 church gave it up, then those -- that
28 pattern was not continued. You just did
29 the best you could.
30 In 1886 John Taylor received the
31 revelation from the Lord we believe as
32 fundamentalist Mormons, and in that
33 revelation it said that men must use
34 their free agency in these matters,
35 because God knowing that the church would
36 eventually give it up he provided a way
37 for that to be kept alive, like I
38 mentioned, as a priesthood.
39 Q So you mentioned earlier that under some
40 rare circumstances that a husband may
41 even have to keep polygamy from their
42 wife and not let her know about it. And
43 those who have read about Emma and Joseph
44 know that that might have happened with
45 them. How in the world could a woman or
46 even a faithful person who believes in
47 just being honest, how do you grapple
31
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1 with that?
2 A Well, hopefully that's a minority of
3 cases.
4 Q Sure.
5 A That's not the way it should be. In
6 fact, in section 132 it talks about the
7 law of Sarah, which is that the first
8 wife gives any subsequent wives to her
9 husband. It's with her knowledge and
10 consent. And the actual ceremony shows
11 her placing the hand of the current -- or
12 the forthcoming wife into the hand of her
13 husband. It's part of the ceremony.
14 There are cases, though, where I am
15 aware that the first wife is so adamantly
16 against it that in that case the husband
17 can be exempt from the law of Sarah which
18 means he does not need to get her
19 permission, but he goes ahead and lives
20 it without that. But that is not the
21 ideal.
22 Q As a woman, how, I mean, would -- you
23 would probably be sad if you found out
24 your husband was doing that and you
25 didn't know about it. How do you sort of
26 grasp the morality of that or the ethics
27 or --
28 A Well, a lot of things have to be done in
29 secret and if you do not go along with a
30 principle that means everything to the
31 husband, then usually the way I have
32 understood that the husband will say
33 okay, I believe this doctrine. I want to
34 live it. I would like you to live it
35 with me, but I cannot let you make that
36 decision for me which I feel affects my
37 exultation.
38 Q Right.
39 A So you open the door for that wife. You
40 encourage her. You try and help her
41 understand it to the point where she will
42 accept it. But after a period time, and
43 there is no definite period of time, but
44 you can see -- if the husband can see
45 that she is definitely not going to give
46 her consent, then he may have to do it
47 without her knowledge.
32
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1 Q Right. And so following along that lines

2 with Joseph's practice of polygamy, a lot
3 of people, when they read about the
4 Nauvoo time, you know, have some
5 confusions. I, growing up, was sort of
6 taught that the reason why Mormons
7 practice polygamy was because all the men
8 were being killed off on the frontier by
9 those who were persecuting us, so all
10 these women were left with spouses and so
11 polygamy was instilled to help give these
12 women a home and comfort, et cetera.
13 A That's what Mark E. Peterson taught in
14 his book The Way of the Master. He just
15 said it's -- kind of called them "welfare
16 wives," but that is not the way we
17 perceive it at all. We perceive it as an
18 eternal principle, an exulting principle,
19 and without living that in a righteous
20 way you will not get to the highest
21 degree in the celestial kingdom. It has
22 nothing to do with numbers.
23 Q Okay. And so having grown up with that
24 understanding myself then when I found
25 out that a lot of the women that Joseph
26 married were 16-, 18-, 14-year-olds, that
27 sort of threw that theory out the window,
28 and I think studies have shown that
29 polygamous marriages tend to marry at a
30 lower age than the husband, not a higher
31 age. So it's probably fair to say that a
32 lot of the polygamous marriages that
33 happened in the early church were teenage
34 women; is that right?
35 A Oh, I think some of them were. I don't
36 know what the percentage was, but I do
37 know that a lot of them maybe were
38 widows, or maybe their husband had left
39 the Mormon church and she was without a
40 husband and had small children and so one
41 of the other leaders or adult male
42 members of the church would marry her to
43 provide for her and her children. So
44 it's not always they marry young wives.
45 Q Right.
46 A Although I understand that did happen.
47 Q So what is your perception on a man
33
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1 taking a really young additional wife?

2 You know, how do you grapple with that?
3 Some people say, oh, that's
4 inappropriate. I know there's a
5 different context between today and 150
6 years ago, but what are your thoughts on
7 that practice of, you know...
8 A Well, I think in the early days of the
9 church a woman was -- or a young girl was
10 more mature at an earlier age. The older
11 sisters in the family usually helped take
12 care of the younger kids in the family
13 and so they -- and they didn't have malls
14 and other things to hang out in where
15 they remained, I think, at a lower
16 maturity level.
17 Today I believe that, and we
18 encourage people in our lifestyle, to
19 wait until the girls are 18, which is the
20 legal age in the state of Utah. That is
21 just -- to me it's common sense. Now,
22 there may be occasions where there should
23 be an exception to that and that may be
24 up to the family. But since we have been
25 with the Attorney General's office and
26 they -- that law is on the books in the
27 state of Utah, that you're 18 for a legal
28 marriage, or any marriage for that
29 matter. The law was changed recently.
30 It used to be 14 with parental consent
31 and 16 is a legal marriage. They raised
32 that a few years ago. Now it's 16 with
33 parental consent and 18 for a legal
34 marriage. Well, you have to understand
35 in our lifestyle that that applies only
36 to legal marriages.
37 The first marriage that we have is
38 usually a legal marriage. The subsequent
39 marriages are priesthood sealings or
40 religious commitment ceremonies and that
41 law of parental consent does not apply to
42 that type of a religious sealing. Only
43 to the legal marriages.
44 Q I see. And I imagine the legal age for a
45 women to be married back in the 1830s and
46 40s was 14. Do you have any idea what
47 the --
34
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1 A I think it was around 14, but I'm not

2 sure.
3 Q Okay. Okay.
4 A And I know it was younger than it is now.
5 Q Okay. Another huge issue that a lot of
6 the LDS people are struggling with today
7 is the notion of polyandry. At times
8 Joseph Smith apparently married women who
9 were at the time married to other living
10 men, who were in marriages with other
11 men.
12 A Right.
13 Q Are you aware of that and how have you
14 worked through that yourself?
15 A Well, I read Todd Compton's book In
16 Sacred Loneliness and I realized as I
17 read through -- and I had heard even
18 before I read his book that he did marry
19 women that were already married.
20 I have a couple of things that have
21 helped me in understanding this. One is
22 I have a strong testimony that Joseph
23 Smith is a prophet of God. That is the
24 foundation for my beliefs. I believe too
25 that he probably knew -- before he came
26 down in this life he knew in the
27 pre-existence which women were to be --
28 he was to offer to be a wife in his
29 family. Doesn't necessary mean they
30 would join his family, but I think he
31 somehow knew in the pre-existence that he
32 was to offer them that opportunity.
33 So knowing those two things, I think
34 he went about living that principle and
35 he -- even though it's hard for people to
36 understand and it's really hard in a few
37 ways for me to understand, when they
38 indeed were married to a righteous man
39 already. But maybe he had a prior
40 knowledge that we're not aware of, and so
41 I don't criticize Joseph Smith for his
42 living of plural marriage.
43 Q Right. Okay. I would say that at least
44 half the members of the LDS church are
45 completely unaware as to the
46 circumstances that sort of led up to
47 his -- to Joseph's martyrdom and how
35
Video affidavit
1 relevant the polygamy question was in his

2 eventual martyrdom. I would imagine that
3 that's an important thing in your
4 perspective. It's at least part of what
5 he died for or was willing to die for.
6 Can you tell us your understanding of
7 what role polygamy and plural marriage
8 played in the circumstances that led up
9 to his martyrdom.
10 A Well, that was one of the reasons that
11 the saints were persecuted as much as
12 they were. They went from state to state
13 and in five -- four or five different
14 states that the saints lived in it was
15 against state law to live plural
16 marriage, but they lived it anyway. And
17 so because of the fact that they were
18 perceived as law breakers and so forth,
19 that was one of the reasons they were
20 persecuted.
21 However, polygamy is the most
22 obvious and noticeable doctrine that the
23 church had that they were prosecuted for.
24 There were some other things too. One of
25 them, Joseph Smith was a candidate for
26 president. He read some of the eastern
27 papers and he said, gee, I seem to be so
28 popular I'm afraid I might win. So I
29 think the fact that there was a political
30 issue there that had something to do with
31 his martyrdom. Plural marriage I think
32 certainly was one of them. I think the
33 fact that they were at one time the
34 largest city in the state of Illinois
35 before Chicago became really a big city,
36 and they had a -- one of the largest if
37 not the largest military organization
38 with the Nauvoo Legion, that was a
39 threat. I think there were so many
40 things that were happening that the
41 people outside the LDS church began to be
42 a little bit intimidated and a little bit
43 fearful of the amount of control that
44 Joseph Smith had over this growing group
45 of people in this church.
46 So I think there were several
47 reasons why the martyrdom came about.
36
Video affidavit
1 Q Do you sort of agree that at least some

2 of the immediate circumstances were that
3 William Law, who was a member of the
4 first presidency at the time --
5 A Right.
6 Q -- never liked the idea of polygamy,
7 didn't know about it for a while? When
8 he found out he --
9 A I'm sure he was one of the people that
10 brought this on. I think John C.
11 Bennett. I think the Law brothers, the
12 Higbees, the Fosters, there were several
13 that were meeting secretly. There was a
14 story about the conspiracy of Nauvoo
15 where Joseph Smith asked two young boys
16 to go to this conspiratorial meeting,
17 find out what was going on and then
18 report back to him, which they did and
19 they did it at the risk of their lives.
20 So there were leaders in the church
21 that absolutely were dead set against
22 polygamy and felt like Joseph was living
23 it incorrectly, and so they were
24 conspiring to take his life.
25 Q When William Law published the Nauvoo
26 Expositor, one of the allegations was
27 plural marriage.
28 A Right.
29 Q And is it fair to say that Joseph was
30 worried that awareness of polygamy would
31 become too broad and it might lead to
32 unbearable persecution and that's why he
33 ordered the destruction of the printing
34 press?
35 A Well, yeah. Nobody likes to see
36 themselves strung through the mud, and
37 that's what they were doing in this
38 Nauvoo Expositor. They were revealing
39 things that probably he didn't want the
40 public to know. They were hard to
41 explain to people. I'm sure that was
42 another thing that had something to do
43 with it.
44 Q So you feel it might have even been
45 reasonable for him to order the
46 destruction to keep the peace and to
47 protect the city, et cetera?
37
Video affidavit
1 A Yeah, there's probably a lot of reasons

2 for that.
3 Q For you Joseph Smith's a prophet and so
4 you're --
5 A Not that he was perfect.
6 Q Right.
7 A He even said -- and he says, you believe
8 in me when I speak as a prophet.
9 Otherwise, when I speak as a man,
10 consider it as such. And there were two
11 times that I'm aware of that he issued a
12 false prophecy. One was regarding going
13 to Canada to get the copyright for the
14 Book of Mormon. So he was not perfect,
15 but I think he was -- he was an excellent
16 prophet. I really do. I have a
17 testimony of that. And he was the man
18 that God wanted to be there to restore
19 the Gospel.
20 Q One last question about Joseph's
21 practice. Do we know whether he
22 cohabitated with his plural wives? Some
23 people say they were just in spirit or in
24 name only. They were spiritual wives but
25 not --
26 A I'm sure there were some like that. I
27 know -- I can't say I know. I feel in my
28 heart and in my research that yes, he did
29 co-habit with some of them. And there is
30 the account where he had a daughter
31 Josephine. So he -- and then there are
32 evidences in journals where somebody says
33 Joseph and so-and-so one of his wives
34 stayed in such-and-such a room in the
35 house where they were. So there's pretty
36 good evidence that yes, he did cohabitate
37 with at least some of them.
38 Q At least some. Okay. So when Brigham --
39 oh. One very important thing. I think
40 it's pretty much fair to say that Joseph
41 publicly denied ever practicing polygamy,
42 and that even when Emma was interviewed
43 after all of the LDS church had left
44 Illinois, that she claimed that he never
45 practiced polygamy. And the whole
46 reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of
47 Latter-day Saints seemed to have been
38
Video affidavit
1 built on the foundation that polygamy was

2 never practiced by Joseph and that in
3 fact it was Brigham Young that started
4 polygamy.
5 How do you reconcile the fact that
6 he had to be dishonest publicly about it?
7 A Well, frequently that's the case. When
8 you're the leader of a church you say as
9 much as you can publicly, but there's a
10 lot of things that you don't want the
11 world to know and it's not really any of
12 their concern.
13 However, Emma was actually a witness
14 to his sealing to the Partridge sisters
15 and to the Lawrence sisters. The fact
16 that she denied it later, that was --
17 that was her decision. She didn't want
18 her children knowing that he lived that.
19 However, Joseph, the oldest son, and
20 David -- yeah, I think it was David, the
21 youngest one, actually made trips out to
22 Salt Lake and talked to some of Joseph's
23 plural wives, and they had to admit that
24 he did live plural marriage. So whether
25 or not he actually got up and said, I'm a
26 plural -- I live plural marriage, I don't
27 see that recorded anywhere. But he
28 definitely lived it and there's all kinds
29 of evidence that he did. It did not
30 start with Brigham Young.
31 Brigham Young made the statement
32 that, I teach nothing save that Joseph
33 Smith taught it to me first. He did
34 enlarge upon some of the doctrines, like
35 the ceremony and things like that, but
36 most of the changes came from Joseph
37 Smith to Brigham Young and he just
38 carried them on.
39 Q And the fact that he felt like he had to
40 deny it you just see as a practical
41 reality for living in a harsh world?
42 A Well, yeah, I mean, I'm sure President
43 Hinkley doesn't tell us everything that's
44 going on in their quorum meetings. It's
45 not something that you say publicly.
46 Well, Joseph Smith was in a very
47 precarious position. He lived at a tough
39
Video affidavit
1 time and there was all this persecution

2 going on. He would tell the people as
3 much as he felt like he could, and the
4 rest of it he had to keep quiet.
5 Q Okay. So Brigham Young -- you know
6 Joseph Smith was martyred. There were a
7 few years of uncertainty in the church
8 and then Brigham Young brought many of
9 the Latter-day Saints out to Utah. Is
10 there anything interesting about how
11 polygamy evolved in terms of how it was
12 lived or how it was incorporated into the
13 doctrines or teachings or structures of
14 the church? And one of the things I'll
15 add, you know, that a lot of people say
16 that early LDS leaders actually taught
17 that polygamy was not just a good thing
18 to do, it was a requirement for
19 exultation.
20 A It was a requirement for exultation.
21 Q So talk about the Brigham Young to
22 Wilfred Woodruff years of polygamy in
23 Utah.
24 A I recently put together a little book
25 called An Essential for Exultation, and
26 in that is a compilation of 33 quotes,
27 scriptures and early experiences that
28 said that a celestial plural marriage was
29 essential to reach the highest degree of
30 the celestial kingdom. That was a
31 teaching in the church at the time that
32 they accepted it. Let's see, I was going
33 to say something else about that. It's
34 slipped my mind right now.
35 But I do know that it was a very
36 strong teaching and requirement -- oh, I
37 know what I was going to say.
38 In 1882 there was a revelation that
39 was given to John Taylor I believe, and
40 it said that he was to call Teasdale and
41 Hubert J. Grant and I think one other
42 person to the -- one of the positions as
43 a general authority, an apostle or an
44 assistant or a seventy, if they could
45 conform and obey his law, meaning the law
46 of plural marriage.
47 So at that time, in the 1880s, it
40
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1 was a requirement to become a general

2 authority, was to live plural marriage.
3 So it was very definitely emphasized.
4 Q And taught by many that it was a
5 requirement for exultation?
6 A Right.
7 Q Not just something good?
8 A And I believe that today.
9 Q But the Book of Mormon -- if you read the
10 Book of Mormon, it almost talks about
11 plural marriage as something that is by
12 design, a temporary situation. You know
13 the scripture I'm referring to?
14 A In Jacob 2 -- whoever is talking, Jacob
15 or whoever, I think it was -- but you
16 know, when you read that whole chapter,
17 one or two chapters surrounding that
18 Jacob 2, he's talking to the people at
19 that time and they were very wicked and
20 they were abusing women, and the women
21 were calling upon the Lord in sorrow to
22 take away this abuse and so forth that
23 was happening. And so God no longer
24 required that from their hands because of
25 the abuse. So yes, they were told to
26 just have one wife at that time.
27 However, we don't know what the leaders
28 were doing then. Maybe they were taking
29 wives, just like Joseph Smith did, and
30 nothing was said about it publicly or on
31 record.
32 So I know people point to the Book
33 of Mormon and say yeah, but the Book of
34 Mormon said you only should have one
35 wife. But you have to understand the
36 situation and circumstances surrounding
37 that passage of scripture.
38 Q Right. Okay. So lots of persecution
39 ensued in Utah early -- in the late 19th
40 century. Eventually we had to come out
41 and say we're going to stop the practice.
42 But I think pretty much everyone
43 acknowledges that between 1890, which is
44 the manifesto that is in the LDS's
45 scriptures today, and 1904, 1905, like
46 you said, not only were members of the
47 church allowed to still perform
41
Video affidavit
1 polygamous marriages but apostles and

2 even -- maybe members of first
3 presidencies not only performed
4 additional polygamous ceremonies, but
5 also some of them took on additional
6 wives themselves.
7 A Themselves, right.
8 Q Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?
9 A Well, it's kind of confusing for people
10 to read that and try and figure it out,
11 but I think they realized that it was a
12 law of the priesthood, and that they
13 could continue living it as a law of the
14 Gospel, law of the priesthood, even
15 though it was no longer a law of the
16 church.
17 So with that information, which I'm
18 sure they were aware of, they continued
19 to live it until it just got to the point
20 where it had to totally go underground.
21 And then that's where fundamentalist
22 Mormonism came in, starting at 1886 with
23 John Taylor, setting apart men to keep
24 that principle alive separate from the
25 church. And it's just continued on down
26 to today with priesthood being passed on
27 and the right to perform that ceremony,
28 that ordinance, outside the church.
29 Q So it sounds like -- you know, what do we
30 know about John Taylor's deliberations
31 about whether or not to end it. If he
32 ever considered ending it. What do we
33 know about --
34 A Absolutely.
35 Q What do we know about the deliberations
36 that Wilfred Woodruff experienced? Was
37 there turmoil as they tried to decide
38 what to do, and what do we know about it?
39 A I'm sure there was. In fact, it was
40 according to history and records George
41 Buchanan was very concerned about it, as
42 well as a lot of the members of the
43 church and the leaders. How much
44 persecution should they go through for
45 this principle? So they were considering
46 a manifesto when John Taylor was
47 president of the church. And Joseph
42
Video affidavit
1 Smith brought him a manifesto of sorts

2 and said, would you take this up with the
3 Lord and see if we should issue this.
4 And so John Taylor did and that's where
5 this 1886 revelation came from.
6 When he asked the Lord about whether
7 or not to sign this manifesto he -- the
8 next morning he reported the answer came
9 clear and strong to him from the Lord,
10 and it said -- he said rather than sign
11 that, I would rather have my tongue torn
12 out of my mouth and my arm severed from
13 my body.
14 So he was adamant in the fact he
15 would not compromise with the government.
16 And then there was one revelation that
17 John Taylor received that -- trying to
18 think. I think that was in 1889, and in
19 that revelation it said make no more
20 compromises with the government.
21 So, you know, the Lord was trying to
22 prepare the way for the leaders and
23 especially John Taylor to remain firm in
24 the belief of that doctrine. That is
25 kind of interesting. The whole time that
26 the government was passing some of these
27 laws against plural marriage, like the
28 Edmonds law, Edmonds Tucker moral law,
29 God was making -- was revealing things
30 to -- Wilfred Woodruff received a couple
31 of them himself, and then John Taylor
32 received most of them.
33 During that decade, between 1880 and
34 1890, these revelations were to encourage
35 the saints and help them to be valiant
36 and stand by the doctrines and not
37 compromise.
38
39 (VIDEO STOPPED)
40
41 (Video played entitled The Birth of Mormon
42 Fundamentalism. Understanding Mormon
43 Fundamentalist Polygamy. An interview with Anne
44 B. Wilde, independent Mormon fundamentalist and
45 polygamist, January 10th, 2007, by John P. Dehlin.
46 Part 2, The birth of Mormon fundamentalism)
47
43
Video affidavit
1 Q This revelation you talk about that John

2 Taylor received, did you say 1886?
3 A M'mm-hmm.
4 Q Tell us again what that revelation was
5 and where it's recorded.
6 A Okay. Well, it's -- there is a copy of
7 it in John Taylor's own handwriting, and
8 it has been put in pamphlets and booklets
9 that fundamentalists have put out. But
10 the story is that he gave -- there were
11 five copies of it and they passed down --
12 one of them to his son John W. Taylor and
13 apparently from what I understand there
14 is an original copy of it in the church
15 archives or church presidency's safe. So
16 there is a way that you can trace it, but
17 the church calls it a spurious
18 revelation. Mark E. Peterson certainly
19 did. But we as fundamentalists believe
20 that it was an actual revelation and very
21 important in knowing what the desires of
22 the Lord were to us to keep that doctrine
23 alive.
24 Q Remind us what it says again just one
25 last time.
26 A Well, it just said you use your free
27 agency in these matters and can I -- it
28 was eternal law and can I revoke an
29 eternal law? No, he could not. And he
30 that said he wouldn't. So based on that
31 we have that -- we feel like we have the
32 right and the authority and the
33 commission to keep on living that
34 doctrine.
35 Q Okay. So from your point of view John
36 Taylor was a true prophet until the end?
37 A Absolutely.
38 Q Which sort of sets up -- I imagine
39 Wilfred Woodruff to be the guy that maybe
40 fell off the --
41 A Well, you know, some fundamentalist
42 Mormons are quite critical of him. I
43 choose to feel like he was there for a
44 reason and he did what was best for the
45 church, and he himself knew that this
46 could be continued as a priesthood law.
47 But when the majority of the people
44
Video affidavit
1 themselves didn't want to live this, I

2 mean, when that was presented in the
3 tabernacle or wherever it was that it was
4 presented at conference time in early
5 October of 1890, the report is that of
6 course that everybody voted for it.
7 Well, there were some that did not. But
8 a lot of -- excuse me. A lot of the
9 members of the church at that time were
10 relieved to have that burden -- they
11 considered it a burden -- lifted from
12 them. They didn't have that
13 responsibility or requirement to live it
14 anymore.
15 So that was fine with the majority
16 of the church and I feel President
17 Woodruff was acting on their behalf.
18 Q Were there apostles that opposed
19 adamantly the decision?
20 A Well, I'm sure there were. There was
21 Mathias Kelly and John W. Taylor, which
22 were two that were dis-fellowshipped and
23 excommunicated from the quorum in an
24 effort to show the government that the
25 church meant business, that they were
26 going to handle those people that took
27 more wives. D.H. Roberts, there's the
28 account of him sitting on the stand, and
29 when it was put to a vote he says, I
30 could not vote for it, it was the
31 awfulest day of my life. And his hand,
32 he just couldn't raise it in favour of
33 it.
34 So I'm sure there were people in the
35 audience that either didn't vote or maybe
36 a few that voted against it, but you
37 don't have too many records of that,
38 other than in journals.
39 Q Okay. So it sounds like they had some
40 behind the scenes discussion and decided
41 consciously we're going to publicly state
42 a position that we're going to stop it,
43 but we are going to continue the
44 practice?
45 A As a priesthood law. Not as a church
46 law.
47 Q So there's a separation of priest -- talk
45
Video affidavit
1 about that for a second.

2 A Well, I think I mentioned that, that John
3 Taylor called men the next day after he
4 received this revelation, and appointed
5 men to keep this principle alive and to
6 see not a year passed that a child was
7 not born in a plural marriage. So that
8 was passed down through men that were
9 appointed with the authority and the
10 calling to keep that alive.
11 Q But that's probably something that the
12 LDS church would deny ever happened.
13 A I probably would imagine, m'mm-hmm.
14 Q Okay. So that's -- that's through
15 journals or personal accounts?
16 A Yes.
17 Q That version?
18 A In my way of looking at it, there's
19 enough evidence for me to believe that.
20 Q Okay. So there's a separation of
21 priesthood from the church in some
22 aspects, which would be foreign for a
23 member of the LDS church to think about,
24 because they think of them as completely
25 intertwined.
26 A I know, and that's not the way we look at
27 it at all.
28 If you look back on the history of
29 the church, in 1829 the Aaronic
30 priesthood was restored to Joseph Smith.
31 This is probably a year before the church
32 was organized in 1830. And even though
33 we don't have the exact date of the
34 restoration of the Melchizedek
35 priesthood, it's common belief, except I
36 know Michael Quinn feels like restoration
37 of the Melchizedek priesthood came after
38 1830, but let's just say for the sake of
39 argument, because that's what most people
40 believe and the church teaches, that both
41 priesthoods were restored before 1830.
42 Well, there was no church and yet there
43 was priesthood, so that proves that you
44 can -- that priesthood can exist separate
45 from the church.
46 Q Right.
47 A So I feel like as long as the church is
46
Video affidavit
1 obeying and adhering to priesthood laws

2 and ordinances, then there are men that
3 naturally hold that priesthood. But if
4 they do away with the priesthood laws,
5 then I feel like that those laws can be
6 lived separate from the church as a law
7 of the priesthood.
8 Q Okay. So at some point there was sort of
9 a fork where the church, the official
10 church, ended it and it stopped it and
11 realized they had to really cut it off,
12 but it continued.
13 A Well, it's just like when does it get
14 dark, you know; the sun just gradually
15 goes down. I think it's that way with
16 plural marriage. There were people that
17 kept on living it long past 1904, so it
18 wasn't all of a sudden the church no
19 longer practiced plural marriage because
20 there were individuals in it that kept on
21 living it.
22 Q So talk about how it continued, you know,
23 through the mid 1900s to today. I mean,
24 what is its genealogy? Historically.
25 A Well, it depends on who you ask as to how
26 to trace that, but I can say generally
27 that, like I say, John Taylor set aside,
28 set apart, men to keep plural marriage
29 alive. Those men, one them was Lorin C.
30 Woolley and then when -- and there was
31 George Buchanan, Daniel Bateman, Charles
32 Wilkin. Joseph F. Smith was called back
33 from his mission in Hawaii and he was
34 given that commission. So there were --
35 Q Joseph F. Smith.
36 A Joseph F. Smith. He became the sixth
37 president of the church. These men were
38 commissioned to keep plural marriage
39 alive, and actually this was a secretive
40 thing. You aren't going to read that in
41 church history, but it's definitely in
42 some of the journal entries and
43 information that's been passed down
44 through fundamentalist Mormons.
45 Q Okay.
46 A Okay. So these men then, and they began
47 dying off. I mean, they kept that
47
Video affidavit
1 principle alive, from what I understand,

2 and then until Lorin Woolley, who was a
3 bodyguard at the Centerville house where
4 John Taylor received this revelation, he
5 was the only remaining member of that
6 group of men that was commissioned to
7 keep plural marriage alive. So he,
8 according to our information, called six
9 other men so that they would have a
10 council of sorts or enough men to keep
11 these principles alive.
12 And so just briefly, so it was Lorin
13 Woolley. He called Joseph Broadbent,
14 John Y. Barlow, Joseph Messer, LeGrand
15 Wooley, Charles Zitting and Louis Kelch.
16 Then gradually those men began to die
17 off, but when Joseph Messer was the
18 senior member of that council there
19 became a split, and that's where he
20 called Rulon Allred and Owen Allred and
21 some of the other brethren to start a new
22 council. That's where the Allred group
23 came from, called Apostolic United
24 Brethren. And some of the others in the
25 original council, like John Y. Barlow, he
26 wanted to call Leroy Johnson and Marion
27 Hammond, and so there was a lot of
28 confusion. I don't know if I need to go
29 into too much detail here, but that's how
30 the FLDS down in Short Creek got started
31 is that they started with Roy Johnson and
32 Marion Hammond and then later -- they
33 were just called the community at Short
34 Creek. Later on they formed what is
35 called the Fundamentalist Church of
36 Latter-day Saints and they are now known
37 as FLDS. After Leroy Johnson, it was
38 Rulon Jeffs. Rulon Jeffs' son took over
39 even before Rulon died, and that's Warren
40 Jeffs, and that's the one that people
41 know all about today.
42 So that's kind of the history of
43 that group, and then the Allred group
44 started with Joseph Messer, and there
45 have been other groups that have come up
46 because -- their main difference pretty
47 much is differences in claims of
48
Video affidavit
1 authority, in a priesthood authority.

2 So today we have the two major
3 groups that I mentioned to you, and we
4 also have Centennial Park. There is a
5 community of about 1,500 that were
6 separated from the Short Creek group.
7 And then we have the Davis County co-op
8 or the Kingston group. They have about
9 1,500 in their community, and they're
10 spread around and interspersed in Salt
11 Lake Valley and elsewhere. And then we
12 have smaller groups as well.
13 And then I can't forget the
14 independents, because those people who
15 are fundamentalist Mormons and do not
16 belong to a group, we term ourselves
17 independents, and -- but we all kind of
18 fall under the generic term of
19 fundamentalist Mormons, because as
20 compared to liberal Mormons or orthodox
21 or feminist Mormons, we are the
22 fundamentalist Mormons because we believe
23 in the fundamental or early teachings and
24 doctrines of the church. We still like
25 to be called Mormons because, after all,
26 we do believe in Joseph Smith who
27 established the Mormon church, and we
28 believe in the Book of Mormon, and that
29 we don't go along with the changes that
30 have taken place throughout the last 100
31 whatever years.
32 Q So this is an interesting notion. So
33 several men were called to continue the
34 practice, Joseph F. Smith being one of
35 them. Yet he ultimately became prophet,
36 so at some point he must have stopped
37 encouraging, or I don't know if he ever
38 started.
39 A Well, there's an occasion where I read in
40 a journal where he performed two plural
41 marriages in Southern Utah and then went
42 back to Salt Lake, came back here and
43 delivered a very fiery sermon against it.
44 So it's just another case of him doing
45 one thing privately and saying another
46 thing publicly.
47 Q Right. But at some point whoever became
49
Video affidavit
1 the apostles and prophets of the LDS,

2 they have to have sort of stopped
3 supporting it. But I wonder if --
4 A Well, publicly they did. We don't know
5 what happened privately.
6 Q Oh. So do we have a sense whether they
7 were aware of the polygamy that is being
8 practiced --
9 A I'm sure.
10 Q -- in the 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s?
11 A I'm sure they realized they were, because
12 they were cutting people off the church.
13 If it was found they had more than one
14 wife, people were excommunicated from the
15 church, so they knew very well that it
16 was still going.
17 A Do you have a sense they were sad that
18 they had to do that, or were they --
19 A I don't know what they felt.
20 Q So -- yeah, because --
21 A I think that because of their position
22 they felt like they were doing what they
23 had to do because of the beliefs of the
24 church.
25 Q Right. Okay. So if the priesthood is
26 the essential thing here in terms of the
27 practice being continued, how do you know
28 when the priesthood is valid and validly
29 handed down versus not valid not validly
30 handed down. It sounds like some of
31 these sects disagree as to who has the
32 authority and who doesn't.
33 A Correct.
34 Q The LDS church stems from the same line
35 of authority at least at some point, so
36 what is your view or a fundamental
37 Mormon's view on when is priesthood
38 authority valid and when isn't it?
39 A Okay. Well, two thoughts come to mind in
40 answer to that question. For one thing,
41 in the 1930s President Hubert J. Grant
42 said, you know, I don't think it's
43 necessary for us to continue conferring
44 priesthood and then ordaining to an
45 office. So he said we're not going to do
46 that anymore, we're just going to ordain
47 to an office. So for 36 years, until
50
Video affidavit
1 President McKay became president of the

2 church, they were not conferring
3 priesthood, Aaronic or Melchizedek. They
4 were just ordaining to an office in
5 whichever priesthood it was.
6 President McKay came along and said,
7 whoops, we should have been conferring
8 priesthood all this time. So he went
9 back to it, and I have copies of the
10 Bishop's handbook where it had the
11 wording for one and the wording for the
12 other, and then the wording became okay,
13 we confer you to the priesthood of Aaron
14 and ordain you to the office of deacon,
15 whatever one.
16 So one question arises then. If a
17 man was ordained to the office in the
18 priesthood during that 36-year period,
19 does he really have priesthood, because
20 he did not confer it. He did not have it
21 conferred correctly. That's just a
22 question.
23 Q Sure.
24 A Another one is, in determining whether
25 somebody has priesthood, I think if they
26 obey priesthood laws and don't fight
27 against true priesthood laws, then
28 chances are they have priesthood if it
29 was conferred properly.
30 Q M'mm-hmm. Yeah, this notion of getting
31 the Aaronic or Melchizedek priesthood
32 separate from the office, I haven't even
33 ever considered that.
34 A Well, I have the actual photographs of
35 the quotes from the bishop.
36 Q But they weren't separate blessings, were
37 they?
38 A No, the way that President McKay changed
39 it back to was we confer upon you the
40 priesthood of Aaron or the Melchizedek
41 priesthood, and ordain you to the office
42 of. That was all in the same blessing.
43 Q So -- okay. So how would we sort out the
44 fact that various fundamentalist sects,
45 if we can call them sects, deny each
46 other's authority? How do we know
47 what --
51
Video affidavit
1 A That's their free agency.

2 Q How -- but I mean, do you view all the
3 authority as valid? How do we know what
4 authority is valid?
5 A Well, that's got to be an individual
6 testimony. There are people in all those
7 groups that they have their own testimony
8 that the leader of that particular group
9 has priesthood authority. I respect
10 that. But my testimony is that I do feel
11 like there's priesthood authority out
12 there but I have never been impressed to
13 join any of the groups. I know people in
14 all the groups. I love and respect them,
15 their decisions. I'm friends with them.
16 And that's why there are members of
17 groups and members -- people that are not
18 members. That's a free agency choice.
19 Q It is pretty safe to say they all deny
20 the validity of each others' -- each sect
21 denies the validity of other sects'
22 authority?
23 A In most cases I think, yeah. Like
24 somebody in the Allred group is not going
25 to recognize the priesthood in FLDS, for
26 example.
27 Q Right. Okay.
28 A Just like the LDS church doesn't
29 recognize the priesthood authority of the
30 Catholic church either.
31 Q Or of any other church?
32 A Yeah. Correct.
33 Q So in your tradition or in your belief
34 system how is authority handed down then,
35 or is it?
36 A Yeah, it has to be conferred correctly.
37 My husband had it conferred on him
38 properly by somebody in authority, and I
39 definitely feel like he had the
40 priesthood and had the right to exercise
41 that priesthood. I saw evidence of it.
42 It's just as an individual, but it has to
43 be conferred by somebody who has
44 conferred on him.
45 Q Yeah.
46 A But that doesn't necessarily have to come
47 through a group in my estimation.
52
Video affidavit
1 Q So let's try and transition just a tiny

2 bit and talk about the beliefs of
3 fundamentalist Mormons. You know, when
4 President Hinkley is interviewed by Larry
5 King he says polygamy is not dark. When
6 the church comes out with a press release
7 it seems like an attempt is made to
8 distance the church as completely and
9 thoroughly as possible from these, you
10 know, fundamentalist Mormons. In fact,
11 the church doesn't even want them to be
12 called Mormons.
13 A I understand that. I feel like we have
14 the right to label ourselves. With all
15 due respect, you know, I can see where
16 he's coming from and I know why he wants
17 to distance it. I mean, you don't send
18 out 50,000 missionaries all over the
19 world and then have any connection to
20 polygamy, because it affects their
21 proselyting program.
22 So I understand that. In fact, we
23 make every effort in the media interviews
24 we've had that we distinguish ourselves
25 from the mainstream church because we
26 don't want them to associate the two. We
27 live it as an early LDS church doctrine,
28 but we do it now separate like I've
29 explained before.
30 It was interesting during the
31 Olympics in 2002 we had media from all
32 over the world come into the Salt Lake
33 Valley, and the joke was -- we know a lot
34 of the local media and so these media
35 reporters would come in, well, where are
36 the venues and where are the polygamists,
37 because they automatically associated
38 Utah with polygamy, the LDS church with
39 polygamy, and that really isn't accurate
40 but that's what outside people have
41 associated. So when they come and have
42 interviews with us we made that
43 distinction that we live it now as a law
44 of the priesthood separate from the law
45 of the church.
46 Q Right. So let's just -- you know, I've
47 always been a little bit uncomfortable to
53
Video affidavit
1 the degree to which the attempts have

2 been made to distance ourselves. It's
3 almost there's like a sense of being
4 ashamed or that these people are unclean,
5 you know. What I want to do is talk
6 about the beliefs that a traditional
7 member of the LDS church and a
8 fundamentalist share. So let's start
9 right at the very top and enumerate for
10 us in a stream of consciousness all the
11 beliefs that we share.
12 A Well, I'd say the Articles of Faith, the
13 four Standard Works, all the early -- all
14 the early teachings of the church that
15 Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and John
16 Taylor taught. I think the church
17 believed in those but they believe in
18 them more as an historical thing now.
19 And so my husband and I wrote 65
20 books. My husband was Ogden Kraut, and
21 we wrote 65 books on church history and
22 doctrine. And one of the books is called
23 95 Theses and that book is a compilation
24 of quotes on 95 different doctrines and
25 ordinances of the Church of Jesus Christ
26 of Latter-day Saints, or of the Gospel,
27 and how they have evolved and changed
28 over the years. And so let's consider
29 just a few of them on how they have
30 changed. Gathering of Israel, the church
31 no longer preaches gathering. They say
32 stay in the countries where you are.
33 Rebaptism is another one. They don't
34 believe in rebaptism anymore. Brigham
35 Young was rebaptized seven times. He
36 said every time he passed a stream of
37 water he had the desire to be baptized
38 and have a clean start.
39 The ordination of Seventies. The
40 position of Seventies. They no longer
41 have Seventies in the States. The
42 position of patriarch has changed. That
43 is an emeritus position now, and the
44 power and position of the patriarch has
45 changed drastically through the years.
46 I can just go on and on with the
47 doctrines that have changed. So
54
Video affidavit
1 fundamentalist Mormons believe in the way

2 those doctrines were taught in the early
3 days of the church, and not the way that
4 they have been changed to what they are
5 teaching now.
6 Q So you believe in God, you believe in
7 Jesus?
8 A Absolutely.
9 Q The Holy Ghost?
10 A Absolutely.
11 Q You believe in the Book of Mormon, Bible?
12 A Yeah.
13 Q Jesus, the atonement?
14 A Absolutely.
15 Q That Joseph Smith was a prophet of God,
16 that he was given the priesthood, that
17 Gold told him to start the church?
18 A Absolutely.
19 Q You believe in eternal marriages
20 obviously.
21 A I hope so. I'm not doing this just for
22 fun and games.
23 Q And you believe in priesthood. Talk a
24 little bit about temple work. Do you
25 believe in proxy work for the dead and
26 the endowment?
27 A We did when the temple work was first
28 started. We believed that there have
29 been changes made in the temple. In 1990
30 there was drastic changes made in the
31 temple ceremony itself.
32 So we believe in temple work yes,
33 but the temples are not open to us right
34 now because people that practice and live
35 plural marriage do not belong to the
36 church and don't get temple recommends.
37 So even though we might believe that
38 that's -- when it's in order that's
39 definitely a good thing. We do not have
40 access to temples right now.
41 Q So is that something you feel sad about?
42 Regret? You wish you could --
43 A No, because I feel like so many things
44 are out of order right now that I am
45 waiting for the promise that's given in
46 the section 85 of the Doctrine and
47 Covenants where it says that the house of
55
Video affidavit
1 God will be set in order. And when that

2 time comes, then I think temples will be
3 set in order as well and that the
4 righteous people will be able to take
5 advantage of that.
6 Q That's actually interesting because we're
7 sort of taught that every dispensation
8 has, you know, God's hand and direction
9 in it and God's true prophet. We're
10 taught that there was apostasy after
11 Jesus left the earth, that the church was
12 created to sort of -- to be the last
13 organization before the second coming of
14 Christ to usher in the millennium.
15 A Right.
16 Q And first of all, I'm not aware of any
17 revelation or talk about the church
18 falling into apostasy itself. It seems
19 like you kind of believe that.
20 A Well, we very definitely believe. Well,
21 how can something be set in order unless
22 it's first out of order. And if we
23 believe in the Doctrine and Covenants,
24 section 85 says the house of God will be
25 set in order. Now, the house of God is
26 not just the church, it's the whole
27 thing. It's the kingdom of God, it's
28 everything. Kingdom of God and the LDS
29 church are two separate things. That's
30 another difference that we have. The
31 church believes in the kingdom of God and
32 the church as being the same thing.
33 Q What is the kingdom of God?
34 A The kingdom of God is a political
35 kingdom, and it includes all churches.
36 And it was set up -- Joseph Smith
37 restored that in 1843 when he set up the
38 council of 50 and that was at that
39 council that was the governing body that
40 kind of helped the pioneers come out here
41 to the valley. It was under that
42 organization. Brigham Young was at the
43 head of it.
44 But it's two separate organizations
45 from the LDS church. One is
46 ecclesiastical, the other is political.
47 Q And the kingdom of God is the political
56
Video affidavit
1 one?
2 A M'mm-hmm.
3 Q Okay. And you still believe --
4 A Much more encompassing that just the LDS
5 church. So when it says the house of God
6 will be set in order, then that includes
7 the church but is not exclusive of it.
8 Q Okay. And this kingdom of God notion,
9 you still believe in it?
10 A Absolutely. Yeah. So Ogden -- we wrote
11 a book -- three books, called The Kingdom
12 of God, and it traces the whole history
13 and the pre-existence, and then the
14 second volume is from Adam to Christ, and
15 then the third volume is from Christ to
16 today, and how that kingdom is defined
17 and functions.
18 Q So what's kept you guys from building
19 your own temples and performing the
20 ordinances in the temples?
21 A Well, I understand one of two of the
22 groups have done that. I don't feel like
23 that's something that I should be
24 concerned with.
25 Q Okay.
26 A Personally.
27 Q And have you thought to wonder why God
28 hasn't continued having a prophet on the
29 earth today, why he's sort of withdrawn
30 that?
31 A Well, you look back through history -- -
32 Q From your perspective.
33 A -- and like you say, there was an
34 apostasy after Christ. There's always --
35 in every dispensation there's been a
36 restoration or an establishment of true
37 principles and then there's been a
38 falling away, and I don't think our
39 dispensation is any different. It's a
40 tough period of time. He said -- Temple
41 prophesied, he says, and there will be a
42 test, a test, a test, and who will be
43 able to stand. I think, in our opinion
44 he was talking about the test of
45 deception and that's an important gift
46 right now, is to be able to -- or to
47 discern. The gift of discernment is
57
Video affidavit
1 important to know where the truth is and

2 what true principles you should live
3 right now, because sometimes it means you
4 have to decide whether you want to stay a
5 member of the church or you want to live
6 eternal principles.
7 Q M'mm-hmm. Now, the term "fundamentalist"
8 seems to sort of indicate that once
9 something is set up, it can't change,
10 that it shouldn't change.
11 A Well, "eternal" by definition means
12 unchanging, never stopping, ongoing. You
13 define that word itself, it doesn't mean
14 that it's true one minute and then not
15 true the next.
16 Q But --
17 A So if it's an eternal principle, it
18 doesn't mean man can stop it. They can
19 stop it as far as their acceptance of it,
20 but the principle will go on being true.
21 Q But I'm sure you acknowledge that there
22 were lots of changes in the Old Testament
23 on how things were practiced and then
24 there is a huge --
25 A But practices and the eternal principles
26 are two different things.
27 Q So help me out with that.
28 A Okay. They weren't supposed to take many
29 than how many steps on the Sabbath.
30 That's a practice. That's not eternal
31 principle. Noah was commanded to build
32 an ark. That doesn't mean it's an
33 eternal principle and we all run out and
34 build an ark.
35 Q Right.
36 A You know, you have to separate the
37 practices from an eternal principle.
38 Q Okay.
39 A It's the eternal principles that don't
40 change.
41 Q So for example between Old Testament
42 Judaic law and New Testament, you don't
43 think there are any principles that
44 changed?
45 A Well, Christ said he came to fulfil the
46 law and, you know, I guess we would have
47 to take it individually, one at a time.
58
Video affidavit
1 But just by definition and my way of

2 looking at it, if it's an eternal
3 principle, it's always true, but people
4 can choose whether or not they want to
5 live it.
6 Q The law of Moses was a practice, not a
7 principle?
8 A Which law are you referring to? The
9 commandments?
10 Q Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. The
11 Ten Commandments.
12 A That would take some explaining probably.
13 Yeah, I understand that. That was a law.
14 I don't know -- that's not eternal
15 principle to me.
16 Q Right.
17 A It's a law. At the time it was a secular
18 law.
19 Q Right.
20 A So -- but just because something is a law
21 doesn't make it eternal principle.
22 Q Okay.
23 A The Ten Commandments too is a substitute
24 law. There was a higher law revealed to
25 Moses and then when he came down and saw
26 the condition of the people and how
27 wicked they were he destroyed that higher
28 law, went back up and got The Ten
29 Commandments. The first set of the laws
30 that he got were written by the finger of
31 the Lord; the second set, The Ten
32 Commandments, were written by his hand.
33 Q Okay. So this makes me a bit curious now
34 as to your beliefs about Jesus and the
35 New Testament times. There -- with The
36 Da Vinci Code out there are people who
37 speculate that Jesus may have been
38 married, so I wonder whether you guys
39 have a view on that, and even more
40 broadly, whether he may have practiced
41 plural marriage.
42 A Okay. Yes, my husband and I wrote -- the
43 very first book that we wrote was called
44 Jesus was Married and we do believe that
45 he was married. In fact, we did take it
46 another step further and we believe he
47 had more than one wife. Mary, Martha,
59
Video affidavit
1 Mary Magdalene. And we believe also that

2 there was a posterity there.
3 And it's interesting now since The
4 Da Vinci Code that there have been other
5 Bible scholars coming out and saying that
6 they do believe Christ was married.
7 For example, he was a rabbi. He was
8 referred to with that title, and at that
9 time it was a requirement for rabbis to
10 be married. And there's -- in the book
11 we wrote it is scholars that existed and
12 were contemporaries of Christ that had
13 reference to that. There's one
14 scripture, an older scripture, that says,
15 and king's daughters were among his
16 honourable wives. So we feel like
17 there's sufficient evidence to show that
18 yes, indeed he was married and had a
19 posterity.
20
21 (VIDEO ENDS)
22
23 THE COURT: We'll take the break until 2 o'clock.
24 THE CLERK: Order in court. Court is adjourned until
25 2:00 p.m.
26
27 (NOON RECESS)
28
30 MR. JONES: My Lord, with the good grace of my friends
31 it's been agreed that I could raise with you the
32 question of the scheduling of the CBC application.
33 Now, their counsel was in contact with me again
34 this morning. It looks like we have canvassed
35 everyone who has an interest in it and the two
36 dates that are available are February 7th and
37 February 10th. I understand that those dates were
38 within the window identified by the court, but it
39 looks like everyone stands ready to discuss that
40 on either of those days.
41 THE COURT: All right. Why don't we do it February
42 7th.
43 MR. JONES: Thank you, My Lord.
44 MR. MACINTOSH: My Lord, I'm not certain at all that
45 the amicus will have any position on that motion,
46 but if it becomes an opposed motion, it might be
47 useful to keep that second day as back-up if it's
60
Video affidavit
1 possible. If CBC is arguing for the cameras and

2 for example the Federal Government is opposing
3 them, as you know there's enough law there I could
4 see a day disappearing and getting into two days.
5 THE COURT: We will keep the 8th open too.
6 MR. JONES: Sorry, My Lord, was that the 8th or the
7 10th?
8 MR. MACINTOSH: Oh, I see. I just heard Mr. Jones
9 having two days and I'm just tossing this in for
10 practical purposes.
11 THE COURT: Right. Is the 8th not available?
12 MR. JONES: The 8th is available for us and Canada and
13 I believe my friends and the amicus, but the
14 others that were canvassed indicated that they had
15 difficulties -- interested persons. There were
16 two or three.
17 THE COURT: I might have a little trouble later in that
18 week depending on what my plans are. So we'll
19 play it by ear. I think the 7th and we'll see if
20 we can't convince people to stay for the 8th if
21 possible. If necessary.
22 MR. DICKSON: Thank you. My Lord, we will continue
23 with this --
24 THE COURT: Now, I take it this was prepared for
25 something else, wasn't it?
26 MR. DICKSON: That's correct. It was prepared as you
27 see in 2007 I believe, and so we have just
28 attached it --
29 THE COURT: Sure.
30 MR. DICKSON: -- to Ms. Wilde's affidavit.
31
32 (VIDEO PLAYED)
33
34 (Understanding Mormon Fundamentalist Polygamy. An
35 interview with Anne B. Wilde, independent Mormon
36 fundamentalist and polygamist, January 10th, 2007,
37 by John P. Dehlin. Part 3. Anne's story)
38
39 Q Well, Anne, if you don't mind, I would
40 like to now take some time to talk about
41 you and your story.
42 A Okay.
43 Q And I would like you to begin just by
44 telling us about your early childhood and
45 your background.
46 A Okay.
47 Q And I'll kind of guide and ask some
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1 questions as we go.
2 A Well, I'll kind of skip through the early
3 childhood in a hurry, but I was born and
4 raised in the LDS church, and I went
5 to --
6 Q Where were you born?
7 A In Detroit, Michigan. My dad was in
8 motion pictures and he happened to be on
9 assignment in Detroit at the time. So I
10 was born there and we were only there for
11 a few more months and then we went back
12 to Hollywood and Beverly Hills where I
13 lived until I was five. And my folks got
14 divorced. My mom got a job, supported
15 the two us and then we moved to Salt
16 Lake. She remarried to a good Mormon man
17 and --
18 Q What age did you move to Salt Lake?
19 A Oh, probably about 8.
20 Q Okay.
21 A No, I was already baptized in Southern
22 California, so I was about 9 maybe.
23 Q Okay.
24 A Between 8 and 9. And then when she
25 remarried we moved back down to
26 California to a little community call
27 Taft, near Bakersfield, and I went to
28 school, high school, graduated from Taft
29 high.
30 Q Did you go to seminary?
31 A They didn't have seminary in Taft. There
32 were only three members of the church in
33 our whole high school.
34 Q Okay.
35 A So we had a small branch at first when I
36 moved in there, and then it became a
37 ward. My dad later on became bishop. I
38 got a scholarship to go to BYU, went
39 there for four years.
40 Q What year, just so I can --
41 A Okay.
42 Q Unless you're uncomfortable.
43 A I graduated from high school in '54.
44 This can tell everybody my age.
45 Q Well, I don't want to --
46 A Which I don't care.
47 Q Okay.
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1 A Then I went to BYU and graduated from

2 there with honours in '58. 1958.
3 Graduated in business education.
4 Q Is that pre-Wilkinson then?
5 A No, he was president of the university
6 when I was there and in fact I worked for
7 him part-time after I graduated because I
8 got a full-time job working for the
9 administrative assistant to President
10 Wilkinson, and then when I got married
11 and had a baby, then I just went back to
12 work occasionally and I took his
13 secretary's place when they would go on
14 vacation.
15 Q So you --
16 A I worked for President Wilkinson.
17 Part-time.
18 Q Oh wow.
19 A And he was -- let's see how do I say
20 this.
21 Q Focused. How about focused.
22 A Yes, he's very focused. I don't
23 intimidate very easily, but he
24 intimidated me.
25 Q Wow.
26 A When he would call in to dictate, because
27 this was in the days you did shorthand, I
28 was nervous. So anyway, fortunately it
29 wasn't my full-time job and I muddled
30 through okay, but, you know, I would not
31 want to work for a man like that as a
32 full-time job. I've had some wonderful
33 bosses and he was not at the top of the
34 list. But he did a lot for BYU.
35 Q Oh, sure.
36 A He really did. He put them on the map.
37 And some of his tactics were a little bit
38 hard to explain in my book but
39 nevertheless, I think he was a man that
40 really was the man that needed to be
41 there at the time. But enough of BYU.
42 Q Real quick. What are your recollections
43 of your church experience, growing up in
44 the church, and of your beliefs and your
45 faith and your testimony?
46 A Oh, I was a dyed in the wool Mormon.
47 Absolutely. I just thought when I went
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1 to the Y that it was the most wonderful

2 school in the world and I was very active
3 in student government. I was -- went
4 through the Cougarettes first, YT, you
5 know, all the honorary service
6 organizations. There was Balnorn, which
7 was one of the prominent -- no, social
8 units because they didn't have the
9 others.
10 Q Right.
11 A Just had a great time at college.
12 Q And even as a child did the church mean a
13 lot to you?
14 A Absolutely -- well, yes, but my mom was
15 married to a non-Mormon at first. My
16 real dad was a non-Mormon. So I don't
17 recall -- I imagine we went to church
18 when I was really young but I don't
19 remember that. I do remember going --
20 after the age of 5 I went to Wilshire
21 ward down in southern California and
22 that's the ward I was baptized in at the
23 age of 8.
24 Q And your experiences in that ward, did
25 the church become extremely important to
26 you?
27 A They always -- that's all I remember is
28 the church being a very vital part of my
29 life.
30 Q Do you remember ever having to gain a
31 testimony or was it just always there?
32 A It grew in degrees and intensity, but
33 yeah, I remember the first time I paid
34 tithing. I got a dime and I went down
35 and paid a penny and filled out the form
36 and stuck it in the envelope. So I have
37 always been a firm believer in tithing.
38 And my mother taught me wonderful honesty
39 principles and the church meant
40 everything to her. She had to learn kind
41 of the hard way, which is amazing to me
42 because my mother was so strong in the
43 church that she would have married
44 somebody outside the church, and she
45 realized that that was probably a
46 mistake. But nevertheless, he was a good
47 man but it just -- the marriage didn't
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1 work, and then her second marriage was to

2 somebody in the church.
3 Then we -- let's see, after I
4 graduated from college, from the Y, I
5 worked for a year and then I married in
6 the temple in monogamy. It was --
7 Q Which temple?
8 A In the Los Angeles temple. And then we
9 moved to Provo because my husband hadn't
10 graduated from college yet. He graduated
11 from the Y and then worked on his masters
12 for awhile and got a job.
13 So anyway, the marriage was a little
14 difficult much of the time, and so after
15 nine years and three children later we
16 got a divorce. And in that of period of
17 time, however, both of us learned that
18 there had been a lot of changes made in
19 the LDS church and we realized that --
20 Q Just so I can understand, though, around
21 what time period was this?
22 A I got married in '59.
23 Q So this would have been in the 60s?
24 A Graduated from BYU in '58.
25 Q Square in the 60s.
26 A Yeah, yeah.
27 Q And so at the time -- this is before
28 Leonard Arrington, so Joseph Fielding
29 Smith was probably church historian.
30 There probably wasn't a lot of church
31 history out there. Published, you know
32 --
33 A Oh, published, sure.
34 Q -- accurate honest church history. Like
35 what were you reading?
36 A Well, documentary history of the church,
37 comprehensive history of the church,
38 those sets were already out there.
39 Q Okay. So what were the things you were
40 reading, you and your husband?
41 A A lot of it was talking to people and
42 then reading journals and just comparing.
43 Okay, journal of discourses, you know,
44 you read in there and I said, oh, they're
45 teaching Adam -- Michael/Adam God
46 doctrine, and they're not teaching it
47 today. And then we just started
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1 comparing about the teachings of the

2 early leaders and then the teachings of
3 today.
4 Q That was starting to trouble you?
5 A Yeah.
6 Q And your first husband?
7 A I don't know if it troubled me. I just
8 realized that it's just like a stream of
9 water; it's the purest at its source. So
10 if these doctrines were once true at the
11 beginning stages of the church, then they
12 must still be true like we talked about
13 earlier, being eternal principles.
14 Q Okay.
15 A So we just began reading and talking to a
16 lot of people and making that decision on
17 our own, but we still kept active in the
18 church.
19 Q Making what decision?
20 A To believe in those rather than in the
21 teachings that were contemporary.
22 Q Did you have friends --
23 A Absolutely.
24 Q -- who were intellectually
25 fundamentalists at that time?
26 A You know, we weren't called
27 fundamentalists then I don't think. I
28 don't recall that term being used when I
29 was with my first husband, and we just --
30 we just believed in the early teachings
31 of the church. But we weren't called
32 fundamentalist Mormons or fundamentalists
33 at that time. That term came later. And
34 I don't -- that term came with Joseph
35 Messer -- well, he died in '54, so maybe
36 it was out there. But I don't -- I don't
37 recall referring to myself as a
38 fundamentalist Mormon until the last 15,
39 20 years.
40 Q So you were just attending a normal ward
41 in the 60s?
42 A I was a regular member of the church but
43 I did a lot of reading about the early
44 history.
45 Q And so did you start thinking of yourself
46 as different from the traditional members
47 then?
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1 A Well, I didn't know but what a lot of

2 them thought the same thing. I didn't
3 know. We didn't go around talking to a
4 lot of people about it, but there were
5 some that we were close to. We had kind
6 of study groups. And then I began to
7 realize well, yeah, you have to be
8 careful what you say because if you say
9 something about some of these doctrines
10 in a Gospel doctrine class, you could get
11 in trouble. So yeah, I realized there
12 were some differences, very definitely.
13 Q But you and your husband talked about it
14 openly?
15 A To each other and to certain people.
16 Q To certain friends, okay. And you had
17 three children you say?
18 A Yeah. Uh-huh. And then when the
19 marriage ended in divorce in the meantime
20 we had met -- like I say, we met with
21 these other people that were believers
22 like we were, and one of them was Ogden
23 Kraut. And so I eventually became his
24 second wife and was married to him for 33
25 years very, very happily. We had a
26 wonderful marriage. I was very, very
27 fortunate to have been sealed to such a
28 good man.
29 Q So there's a jump between -- there's a
30 probably a pretty huge emotional and
31 intellectual jump between maybe believing
32 that -- a little bit differently than the
33 average member of the church and actually
34 deciding to become a plural wife.
35 What -- fill in the dots for me.
36 A Yeah, it was a real decision that we had
37 to do with fasting and prayer, otherwise
38 I never would have made that decision.
39 Q How --
40 A And I don't know if I want to go into
41 that. That's kind of a personal thing.
42 A Okay.
43 A But I will tell you that I got a
44 different answer to prayer. I have never
45 questioned for a minute the fact that I,
46 number one, was to live plural marriage,
47 and number two, was to be in that family.
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1 Never once have I questioned those two

2 things. And so consequently I felt very
3 lucky that I was able to abide by those
4 laws.
5 Q And what are you comfortable telling us
6 about what it was like to live in that
7 family for you? What adjustments you had
8 to make, what was hard. What was easy,
9 what was what fun.
10 A Okay. The wives in Ogden's family all
11 had their separate homes. We never lived
12 together. There were two of them that
13 lived together for a little while, but
14 basically we all had our separate homes.
15 And that's a matter of choice. A lot of
16 fundamentalist families, some of the
17 wives want to live together, or maybe
18 they will live together for awhile and
19 when they start having children and the
20 family gets too big, they have to have
21 separate homes just for space reasons.
22 So every family decides that for
23 themselves if they want to live together
24 or in separate homes. For us living
25 separately was the best. We had a
26 printing press and ink and all the papers
27 and a lot of company, and little kids
28 running around would have been kind of
29 difficult. I wanted to have more
30 children but was not able to and so Ogden
31 and I considered our 65 books our kids.
32 Took about nine months a book. So --
33 Q Where did you live?
34 A Lived in Salt Lake.
35 Q Here in Salt Lake?
36 A M'mm-hmm. Different parts of Salt Lake.
37 Q Did neighbours know? Did they not know?
38 A No, not for a long, long time. We lived
39 it very secretly, very carefully. My
40 kids were still young. I didn't want to
41 burden them with that knowledge when they
42 couldn't even understand how to explain
43 it.
44 So we were very careful. And he
45 didn't live in town, and so he would come
46 in on weekends sometimes. And we'd talk
47 on the phone frequently and get together
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1 on weekends and go visit bookstores and

2 paper companies and start getting
3 supplies and --
4 Q Was that lonely?
5 A No, I'm not a lonely person. Basically I
6 like my space and I loved being with him
7 too, so I had the best of both worlds. I
8 had the independence that I wanted and I
9 could do things with my kids one on one
10 or with girlfriends or, you know,
11 whatever, and when he was there, then I
12 had wonderful times with him.
13 Q So what about your parents or siblings,
14 or?
15 A I'm an only child, so I don't have
16 siblings and my parents didn't know until
17 just a few years before they died.
18 Because I realized that if I told them,
19 it would have broken their heart because
20 they were very mainstream Mormons and I
21 knew that if I told them I was living
22 polygamy, that that would, you know, be
23 very hard for them to accept. So because
24 they lived in another state or at least
25 in another city I did not tell them until
26 later on.
27 Q So how many years went by between
28 entering and telling?
29 A Oh, several. It was just a few years
30 before they died in '91.
31 Q Okay. So probably 20 years?
32 A Pardon?
33 Q 20 years?
34 A I was married to Ogden in '69. Yeah.
35 22 years. Well, yeah, I was married
36 probably approximately 20 years before
37 they found out.
38 Q Did you have any close friends that you
39 maintained -- that were friends before
40 and you maintained the friendships after?
41 A Oh, yeah, high school friends, college
42 friends. They did not know.
43 Q Wow.
44 A And they just thought I was a gay
45 divorcee. They couldn't understand why I
46 was so happy and why I didn't want to go
47 out and remarry, and I said -- my pat
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1 answer was I like things how they are.

2 And I didn't tell them how they were.
3 It's just for the same reason -- it's
4 just why should I explain and go through
5 all that when it's not necessary.
6 Q And it's --
7 A So if I had children in the plural
8 marriage, then I would have had to
9 approach it a different way. But since I
10 didn't have to account for additional
11 children in the second marriage, then it
12 made it a little easier, although we
13 would have loved to have had more
14 children.
15 Q What was Ogden like?
16 A The closest thing to a perfect man I've
17 ever met.
18 Q Really?
19 A He was. Absolutely.
20 Q What was his profession?
21 A He was a scientific photographer, and
22 people didn't know out there until later
23 on and then they knew but they just kind
24 of overlooked it, because there was so
25 much immorality out there. And I don't
26 want to say too much about it, but where
27 he worked that when he was asked about it
28 he said, well, if you want to say
29 something about my lifestyle, I'll report
30 this person and this person and this
31 person that are living -- or sleeping
32 around, you know.
33 Q Yeah.
34 A So at least he was doing it with the idea
35 of it being a strongly held religious
36 conviction. He took responsibility for
37 his wives and children, and it was a very
38 high moral standard that we adhered to.
39 So as far as what he was like, he
40 was kind. He had a great sense of
41 humour. He was honest. He was
42 intelligent. He had a terrific memory.
43 He was an excellent writer. Had a lot of
44 friends. Not many people -- nobody that
45 I know that ever met him and visited with
46 him disliked him. He was just a very
47 likeable friendly guy.
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1 Q What led to him deciding to practice it?

2 A Just reading, just like my first husband
3 and I did. He was an avid reader and he
4 worked on it, the dream mine, for a
5 while, and that's a whole nother story.
6 We don't need to get into that. But he
7 knew Bishop Koyle and he did a lot of
8 reading while he was working down there.
9 He went on a mission without perches
10 [phonetic] script which was very unusual
11 at that time.
12 Q For the LDS church?
13 A Yes.
14 Q So he was raised LSD too.
15 A No, he was a convert. He joined in his
16 late teens and then just started reading
17 everything he could find on the church
18 and on the Gospel. And he went on a
19 mission, like I say, to Southern
20 California and Arizona without perches
21 script, had some wonderful experiences.
22 In fact, he even wrote a book called
23 Missionary Experiences where he compiled
24 and told all about them.
25 He started teaching Gospel doctrine
26 and because of that he decided -- like,
27 people were asking him, for example,
28 well, what about Jesus being married.
29 There was a class on that. So he
30 thought, well, I'll put together a little
31 something on that subject. So he did and
32 it later on became a book and that was
33 his first book.
34 So because of the information he
35 gathered for his classes, that's what got
36 him started writing books. And then he
37 realized as he was doing this research
38 that he would present the information on
39 a particular subject, like say,
40 rebaptism. He would go back to the early
41 days of the church and get quotes and
42 experiences and things and then follow it
43 on through, and then people could see for
44 themselves how it had changed and was
45 eventually given up in the church. But
46 it still remains a law of the priesthood.
47 Q Right, right.
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1 A So these books that he has written have

2 been circulated all over. We get orders
3 even today from people all over the
4 world.
5 Q And you self-publish?
6 A Yeah. And then he became a printer
7 against his better judgment, but he
8 realized he couldn't afford having them
9 printed any other way. So he -- we just
10 started out with a little -- we started
11 out with a ditto machine, then we got a
12 mimeograph machine and then an offset
13 press, and then so ...
14 Q And which of your books might be the most
15 popular?
16 A Jesus was Married.
17 Q And how many copies do you -
18 A Several thousand.
19 Q Several thousand.
20 A I really don't know because -- I got it
21 recorded. I'd have to look it up. But
22 he also wrote one on the Three Nephites,
23 Calling and Election, Seers and Seer
24 Stones. Rebaptism, the Seventies. Six
25 volumes on the holy priesthood, different
26 aspects of it.
27 Q So kind of a scholar?
28 A Yeah. Oh, definitely, yeah.
29 Q So did the entire family ever get
30 together, like for dinner, or?
31 A Occasionally but not very often because
32 of geography. We did not all live in the
33 same town.
34 Q Okay.
35 A And that was by their choice.
36 Q Right. So once a year, or?
37 A I can't -- just occasionally, but not
38 very often.
39 Q Okay.
40 A Our family is not the ideal polygamous
41 family that you'd, oh, pattern your life
42 after this. I mean, we did the best we
43 could, and, you know, we all realized
44 that Ogden's first responsibility was
45 writing books, because that was his
46 mission. And I was just glad that I
47 could work with him. So we saw a lot of
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1 each other in writing the books together.

2 He would write them. I would help him a
3 little bit with the research. I'd
4 typeset them, edit them. He would print
5 them. I would collate them. We would
6 both bind them. You know, we just worked
7 together as a team and it was a wonderful
8 experience.
9 Q So there wasn't a strong sense of
10 sisterhood between you and the other
11 wives?
12 A Somewhat but not as much as most
13 families, and I wished it could have been
14 different, but no, it was not. But we
15 got along okay.
16 Q Sure.
17 A It's just didn't get together and have
18 that bond that a lot of --
19 Q That makes sense. How does -- how does
20 a -- how do finances work in an
21 arrangement? You can talk about yours or
22 generally.
23 A Well, I was always able to support myself
24 and I was glad for that because I didn't
25 want to be a financial burden for him.
26 When he had a big family like that I
27 thought, you know, if I can support
28 myself, that's great. And I graduated
29 from college, was trained in business. I
30 knew office work. I typed theses, and
31 even during the time I was married in my
32 first marriage I helped support the
33 family. So that was --
34 Q What did you do? What kind of things did
35 you do?
36 A Office work.
37 Q Office work.
38 A Uh-huh. I never had trouble finding a
39 job because I was recommended or whatever
40 and, like I say, I worked at home some of
41 the time. And I was always there for my
42 kids when they came home from school. I
43 had part-time jobs or worked at home, so
44 my kids were not latchkey kids.
45 Q So you were industrious?
46 A Well, sometimes it was kind of tight but
47 we managed and we always had, you know, a
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1 nice clean home. We lived in a good

2 neighbourhood. My kids were well
3 provided for and they were happy, and,
4 you know, we just had a good family.
5 Now, in some cases -- this is
6 something that each individual family has
7 to work out for themselves, how to do the
8 finances. Now, if you have a very big
9 family, then it's going to be very hard
10 for a man to support the whole family
11 unless he has a darn good job. So some
12 of the times the wives will work or the
13 older children or whatever. They just
14 work together as a family and make sure
15 that the needs are met of the family.
16 And this is one of the good things,
17 I think, about plural marriage, is that a
18 woman can have the best of both worlds.
19 She can have a family and have a lot of
20 children and then she can also go back to
21 school, get a college degree or advanced
22 degree. She can have a career and know
23 that her kids are well provided for
24 because there's a sister wife that will
25 agree ahead of time that she will take
26 care of the kids. And then in return,
27 the wife that goes to work will share her
28 income maybe with her, or whatever. It
29 just works out.
30 So the idea with a plural family is
31 that the family is an important unit and
32 you try to provide for the needs and the
33 basic necessities for all members of the
34 family, however that can happen. A lot
35 of times people have a family business,
36 you know, where they can work together
37 and provide for each other.
38 Q Did you live in fear of being discovered?
39 A No, not particularly. I played games. I
40 don't live in fear. I call it playing
41 games. For example, if Ogden and I went
42 to the grocery store and I saw somebody I
43 knew, he knew -- he knew just to walk on
44 and pretend like we weren't even
45 together. So I didn't -- you know, maybe
46 some people would call that living in
47 fear. I didn't. I thought it was a fun
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1 game to play. And then we would laugh

2 about it afterwards, and I would say,
3 that's so and so from the ward, you know.
4 We just -- we didn't go places where we
5 thought we would be recognized by
6 somebody else.
7 Q You probably also tried to -- you
8 probably had to be private and guarded
9 about how you talked to people and who
10 you talked to.
11 A They just thought I was a divorced
12 person. Yeah, I just lived that kind of
13 a life. So as far as anybody knew in the
14 ward, I was just a single divorced mother
15 raising three kids.
16 Q So if you're comfortable talking about
17 this, when did you decide to tell your
18 children and how did you do it?
19 A When I thought they were old enough to
20 handle it. I think my daughter was nine
21 or ten, and she was a very responsible A
22 student and so I was able to explain it
23 to her. But I said, you know, it's best
24 if you don't say anything to anybody
25 because it's hard to have other people
26 understand it. And then my boys just
27 kind of gradually when they got older. I
28 can't remember a really traumatic time.
29 I explained it at some point.
30 And they -- my three kids have not
31 accepted this as a lifestyle for them.
32 It has not been their choice but they
33 have respected my choice and they've seen
34 how happy I was. And so -- and they got
35 along really well with Ogden. So it was
36 just a free agency choice.
37 Q Did they maintain relationships with
38 their father? With their birth father?
39 A Yes, for awhile, but you know, he was not
40 the kind of dad that came around much.
41 And he died shortly after, so, you know,
42 it wasn't -- he wasn't really a part of
43 their life.
44 Q And was Ogden in any way able to be a
45 father to them?
46 A He was in a way but he didn't want them
47 to think that he was trying to take the
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1 place of their father and so he was very

2 careful about at that. But he was very
3 good with him. We would go on canyon
4 picnics together and things like where he
5 kind of -- he never was called dad by my
6 kids. He was called Ogden. But he did
7 what he could to be kind of a father
8 figure for them as much as possible.
9 Q And so it was never a traumatic huge
10 issue for them emotionally or
11 psychologically at some point in their
12 lives?
13 A I don't think so. They did resent the
14 fact that when I became more public --
15 when we wrote our book in December of
16 2000 there was a lot of media around and
17 they had a little trouble seeing their
18 mother's picture in the local papers and
19 local TV.
20 Q which book is this?
21 A Voices in Harmony.
22 Q Okay.
23 A That's one. I don't know if you can see
24 that.
25 Q Yeah, sure.
26 A Okay. That's a book that the three of us
27 wrote, that's Mary Bachelor, Maryann
28 Watson and myself. It's a compilation of
29 100 testimonies and experiences that
30 women have had in this lifestyle as a
31 plural wife.
32 Q Now, these women are friends, or just
33 other --
34 A No, we sent out 700 different letters
35 asking people if they wanted to
36 participate in this project of a book,
37 that they could do so anonymously. That
38 we realized that all the media had had
39 for years and years was a negative
40 anti-polygamist -- people that had left
41 with bitter experiences. The government
42 and the media both. That's all they had
43 resource to to report.
44 Well, three of us decided, enough.
45 We wanted somebody -- we thought somebody
46 ought to step forward and show that
47 there's another side to the story, that
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1 there are a lot of women that are very

2 happy in this lifestyle. They chose it
3 freely as consenting adults and they
4 didn't have to be forced into it as young
5 girls. And so the stereotypes are just
6 not true.
7 So by writing this book and asking
8 people to contribute to it -- it was just
9 like Christmas morning. It was amazing.
10 I'd go out to my mailbox, because my
11 address was the one that -- the address
12 that they were to respond to, and here
13 would be two or three letters from these
14 women. And they could use their initials
15 or a pseudonym or no name at all, because
16 we knew they wouldn't participate at all
17 if they had to use their real name. It's
18 still too risky to come out publicly.
19 So they sent me these letters, and
20 it was so fun to compile these wonderful
21 experiences of women that had just
22 absolutely faith-promoting experiences in
23 this lifestyle.
24 So after I became more public, my
25 kids kind of resented that, and so I
26 tried to be careful and maybe one of the
27 other girls would do the local media for
28 awhile and I would do the ones that were
29 out of state or out of the country.
30 Q Did Ogden help you with that book? Was
31 he still alive?
32 A He printed it. That's the only way he
33 helped, but he was very supportive. He
34 thought it was wonderful that we were
35 willing to step up and speak out. And so
36 we sold a thousand copies in about a
37 month.
38 Q Oh, wow.
39 A And so he printed another thousand copies
40 just shortly before he died.
41 Q How did you avoid feelings of jealousy or
42 envy?
43 A Well, it's easy if you live in separate
44 houses, to begin with. And I know that
45 that is a problem and we get asked that
46 question frequently, is how do you deal
47 with that. That's got to be an
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1 individual adjustment. If you realize

2 the importance of living this principle
3 and you do it for religious reasons, and
4 you take it out of the bedroom and bring
5 it into the kitchen and the living room,
6 where most of your time is spent anyway,
7 then that kind of helps. Fortunately, I
8 was blessed and I did not have those
9 feels of jealousy. I knew how much I was
10 loved by my husband and how much I loved
11 him, and I think if a woman knows that
12 she is really loved sincerely and deeply
13 by her husband, she can make that
14 adjustment. And it's the key for the man
15 to help each wife feel sincerely loved
16 and appreciated and that her voice
17 counts. And that somebody -- if he takes
18 another wife, it doesn't mean he loves
19 the existing wives any less. It's just
20 like a mother having children. When she
21 has the second and third child she
22 doesn't love the first one any less. She
23 has a greater capacity to love them all.
24 So that's the way we feel it is with
25 a plural family. A husband has a greater
26 capacity to love each additional person
27 that comes along.
28 Q Yet I know a lot of men who have a hard
29 time being a good husband to one wife.
30 A Right.
31 Q And, you know, my wife asked the question
32 of me as we talked about this interview,
33 can a man really love and fulfil and
34 satisfy multiple women?
35 A Absolutely. That's my answer.
36 Q But it probably takes a remarkable man.
37 Q It does. Not all men are cut out to live
38 this. Not all women are supposed to live
39 this principle. And if a man is that he
40 might have joy, which is what God has
41 told us, then I feel like if you can
42 receive joy and have a true sense of
43 happiness in this lifestyle, then great.
44 And I truly was happy in it. I had my
45 independence. I had my space. I had the
46 love of a wonderful man, and we worked
47 together on these books and we got
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1 testimonies together and had a lot of

2 friends that we could talk about the
3 Gospel with and do things socially with.
4 I just feel like I couldn't have been
5 blessed any more.
6 Q Do you have a sense for whether Ogden's
7 other wives also were as fulfilled and
8 happy or?
9 A I think they basically were. They could
10 see that we worked together so well that
11 I think there might have been a little
12 bit of resentment there, but, you know,
13 he tried to make up for that by doing
14 things with them and making sure their
15 needs were met. And, you know, we just
16 tried to work it out as best we could.
17 Q Yeah. Okay.
18
19 (VIDEO STOPPED)
20
21 MR. DICKSON: My Lord, this one is 28 minutes and then
22 perhaps we can take a break, and then the last one
23 is 35.
24
25 (VIDEO PLAYED)
26
30 by John P. Dehlin. Part 4, polygamy gone wrong,
31 and right)
32
33 Q So what happened after the book came out,
34 this Voices in Harmony?
35 A Well, that was kind of the beginning of
36 the last six years of being pretty public
37 and having a lot of media and interviews.
38 And we do have a message we would like to
39 get out, and that is that we would like
40 to have people understand our lifestyle
41 better, show an element of respect and
42 understanding, and eventually have it
43 decriminalized. We feel like if it's
44 between consenting adults and all the
45 parties are in agreement, we're not doing
46 anybody any harm. And certainly with all
47 the alternative lifestyles that are out
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1 there today, this is certainly one that

2 ought to be considered as legitimate.
3 Recently I read a newspaper article
4 that said there are more alternative
5 lifestyle -- people living in alternative
6 lifestyles than there are in the nuclear
7 family, which is a husband, a wife and
8 two or three kids. That means that there
9 are more families that are maybe single
10 parents, there may be gay couples, there
11 may be divorced, widowed, a grandmother
12 raising a grandchild, polygamists. All
13 these I categorize as alternative
14 lifestyles as compared to the nuclear
15 family.
16 Well, if there's more of the
17 alternative lifestyle people now than the
18 there are the others, I think that's
19 important for people who are making laws
20 and dealing in social services and things
21 like that, to understand that they cannot
22 put everybody in the same box, that they
23 have to understand there's a lot of
24 diversity in the people and in different
25 families in America.
26 So because of that I feel like
27 people need to understand that ours is a
28 viable family lifestyle, that we in most
29 cases assume responsibility for our
30 families. This lifestyle is all about
31 families, after all. It's having
32 children and bringing up righteous
33 children if possible. So that's a
34 challenge for any parent, I'm sure.
35 Q Yeah.
36 A But so we have tried to get this message
37 out that we should not be criminals. We
38 should not be considered as felons, which
39 in the state of Utah we are if we're
40 taken to court. But we shouldn't even
41 really be guilty of a misdemeanour unless
42 we're breaking some other law. Like if
43 some families are guilty of welfare fraud
44 or forced marriages or any kind of abuse,
45 then naturally those issues should be
46 addressed. And the Attorney General of
47 the State of Utah, Mark Shurtleff, has
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1 been very good to separate the crimes

2 from the culture. And just because
3 somebody is living in plural marriage,
4 doesn't mean they are criminals.
5 So we have worked with him on the
6 Safety Net Committee and fortunately they
7 have consulted with us to understand our
8 communities better and our lifestyle and
9 beliefs so they're better able to make
10 the best decisions about our culture.
11 They're able to provide the services that
12 we are entitled to. And our motto is, do
13 nothing about us without us.
14 Q Right.
15 A So here they were building committees,
16 they were considering laws and all that,
17 and we weren't even -- our voice wasn't
18 even heard. But now, thanks to Mark
19 Shurtleff and Paul Murphy and the AG's
20 office, they have included us in these
21 committee meeting and we're very glad for
22 that because I think it builds confidence
23 and trust in both sides. We're able to
24 help our own people understand, you know,
25 there are services that you qualify for
26 and you need to know how to go about
27 applying for those. And the government
28 is not necessarily an enemy as long as
29 you're not breaking any other laws.
30 And on the other hand, we tell the
31 government officials, okay, we're not
32 criminals by nature. We do not believe
33 in abuse or forced marriages or those
34 stereotypes that some people associate
35 with polygamists. They're certainly not
36 true across the board.
37 Q Let's talk about that. I would love you
38 to characterize two things. One is
39 polygamy gone wrong, which is what are
40 the things that you would say -- you
41 know, there are a lot of stereotypes
42 about fundamentalist polygamists and I
43 have a bunch of them here, that people,
44 like you said, are forced into marriages,
45 that people live too much off the
46 government, there are welfare issues,
47 that there's -- people's wives are taken
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1 away from them and reassigned to others.

2 You know, there's even crazy allegations
3 of animal sacrifice and stuff like that.
4 Tell me -- and underage and incest --
5 tell me -- paint a picture for me of what
6 polygamy gone wrong is, if you're able
7 to. I don't want you to offend anybody.
8 A Okay.
9 Q Paint a picture of polygamy gone wrong,
10 and then counterpose that with polygamy
11 gone right from your perspective. From
12 your perspective.
13 A Polygamy gone right. Okay.
14 Polygamy gone wrong is when there's
15 unrighteous dominion. I think you can
16 just narrow down with that. Whether it's
17 the husband of the family, whether it's a
18 leader in a group, whatever, if he
19 exercises unrighteous dominion over the
20 people that are under his stewardship,
21 then I feel like that's when these other
22 things can enter in.
23 If there's free agency and the
24 desire to obey the laws, not only the
25 laws of the land but God's laws, I mean
26 child abuse is certainly not -- it's
27 breaking one of God's laws. Abuse of any
28 kind, whether it's welfare or family
29 members or anything like that --
30 naturally we feel is an incorrect
31 process.
32 I think in the case of -- that
33 you're talking about, those things that
34 you mentioned, they have existed, to my
35 knowledge, in one or two of the groups.
36 There have been incidents of that. But I
37 hope people understand there's so much
38 diversity in our lifestyle and families
39 that that is not the case in a lot of the
40 families that I'm aware of.
41 The FLDS under the leadership of
42 Warren Jeffs, this is once again an
43 unrighteous dominion situation as far as
44 I see it. There is a man that likes the
45 power, has exercised maybe control that I
46 feel is inappropriate in my personal
47 opinion, and so therefore he has taken
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1 families, split families apart, taken the

2 man away from his wives and children in
3 some cases. I understand maybe the man
4 was so dictatorial that the women asked
5 to be taken away from him. I don't know
6 all the details of those families down
7 there. But it just seems to me there are
8 some inappropriate things that have
9 happened in that particular group, and
10 that seems to be what the media has
11 picked up on over the years is those
12 situations. That is not the general rule
13 in most of the other groups or the
14 independents. We have our free agency.
15 And it's interesting, and when we
16 did our book we sent out a questionnaire,
17 and one of the questions was -- let's see
18 the point I was getting at was -- oh, how
19 many children in your -- adult children
20 in your family entered the principle.
21 And you would think that if a family was
22 really strong in this lifestyle their
23 children would stay in it as well. To me
24 the response came back about a third to a
25 fourth of the adult children. Now,
26 people might think, well, gee, that's a
27 low number. Why weren't there more of
28 them. To me that says that those
29 children being raised by public schools
30 and all the influences in the outside
31 world, at least they were given their
32 free agency and they were not forced to
33 live in it if they didn't want to.
34 Now, in the FLDS community down in
35 Hildale/Colorado City I'm sure the
36 percentage is much higher, because there
37 they're not even supposed to associate
38 with people outside their community and
39 they are most of the time placed in a
40 plural family or told who they should
41 marry by Warren Jeffs or the leader of
42 that community. And I think this is a
43 case of one man having a lot of authority
44 and power over the people, and one of the
45 reasons why Centennial Park, they split
46 from the FLDS people was because they
47 wanted a council rule. They didn't want
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Video affidavit
1 that much power invested in one man.

2 So they formed another community or
3 group, if you want to call it that, in
4 about 1986 which was -- that's why they
5 call themselves Centennial Park, 100
6 years after the 1886 revelation to John
7 Taylor. So they wanted the council rule
8 and then FLDS kept with the one man rule,
9 and that was a real source of contention
10 between those people. So they resolved
11 it in that way.
12 So I think the idea of polygamy gone
13 wrong would stem mostly from unrighteous
14 dominion.
15 Q And breaking the law?
16 A Yeah, breaking laws that really should be
17 kept. Laws of God or laws of man. Now,
18 I understand we're breaking the laws of
19 the land by living plural marriage.
20 That's why we want to get it changed. We
21 would like it to be decriminalized. We
22 would like the Reynolds decision of 1879
23 to be overturned, which said that you
24 could believe what you wanted but you
25 couldn't practice it, referring to plural
26 marriage.
27 So there's some legislation now and
28 some cases that are coming up that we
29 hope at least one will go before the
30 United States Supreme Court where that
31 might be overturned. So there are things
32 in the mill where we're hoping that that
33 can be changed.
34 Q What about lowering the marriage age?
35 A Well, no, I think just generally
36 speaking, and I can't speak for
37 everybody, but I think generally speaking
38 18 is a good age and that is the legal
39 age for it. We recommend to the people
40 as we talk to them in our own lifestyle
41 that it would be wise if possible to make
42 sure that the boys and the girls both are
43 at least 18. So -- and that's certainly
44 what the Attorney General recommends. So
45 ...
46 Q How do -- how does a community deal with
47 the dynamic if they're practicing
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Video affidavit
1 polygamy of there being too many men?

2 You know, someone said that it seems to
3 be an impractical practice because you've
4 got too many men.
5 A Yeah, but you're looking at such a small
6 percentage of the population in Salt
7 Lake, in Utah, in the United States. It
8 just isn't really a problem, because even
9 though I think birth rate is pretty well
10 like 50/50, 51/49, whatever, we're
11 talking about such a small percentage of
12 that that it just hasn't been a problem.
13 I know there are some men that would
14 like to have more wives but, you know,
15 it's not typical for a man to have more
16 than two or three. That's the average.
17 And when we sent out that questionnaire,
18 that's what came back. The average
19 number of wives in a plural family is
20 around two or three. You do hear of some
21 of the leaders having more than that or
22 some of the men maybe having a few more
23 than that, but that's not the general
24 rule. So logistically it's just not that
25 difficult to have more wives.
26 Q Only when you're in contained society
27 maybe.
28 A That may be a problem, and that's where
29 incest I think has come in. Because I
30 know in one or two of the groups they
31 have married cousins and half brothers or
32 sisters or something like that, which is
33 not something that I myself would do, but
34 I'm not going to judge them for their
35 decisions. I mean, you look at the
36 beginning and Adam and Eve, and they must
37 have married brothers and sisters, and
38 even cousins in Old Testament times. And
39 a lot of the states in the United States
40 it's not against the law to marry first
41 cousins. So your definition of incest is
42 going to vary from state to state.
43 Q Okay. Tell us about polygamy gone right
44 and when -- when cohabitating even is
45 involved. You know, you gave us an
46 example of how it can work and may be
47 even a bit easier when the wives live in
85
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1 separate houses. Tell us about polygamy

2 gone right. Paint a picture for us.
3 A Okay. Well, there's so many women that I
4 know that this is just a wonderful
5 lifestyle for them. They have freely
6 chosen it. One experience that I think
7 of every once in awhile when I think of a
8 plural family is this one girl that I
9 know very well. She was raised in
10 polygamy. Her father had a few wives.
11 They all lived together close together
12 but in separate homes. She always knew
13 where her dad was. She could come home
14 from school and if she needed her dad for
15 something she could go over there. She
16 was always welcome in any of these homes.
17 And she could sit down if he was free,
18 just like any father, and have time with
19 him. And the way she described it -- and
20 so backing up a little bit.
21 So because of her happy childhood,
22 she wanted that same happiness for her
23 children. So she is a plural wife. Very
24 happy in it. Her kids were raised with a
25 loving mother and a father and several
26 mothers. And the way she termed it was
27 that there were more people for her to
28 love and more people that loved her. So
29 it's really a matter of love.
30 Q Say that one are more time; I'm sorry.
31 A Okay. There's more people for her to
32 love, there's more mothers and siblings,
33 and there's more people to love her.
34 Q Okay.
35 Q So really a plural family is about family
36 love. Siblings, lot of times siblings
37 are best friends, whether they go to
38 private school or home school or go to
39 public school. Many times they have
40 siblings the same age and they're their
41 best friends.
42 Q Does a child of one wife call the child
43 of a sister wife brother and sister?
44 A Oh, yes. Usually. Yeah. They don't
45 distinguish in most cases like half
46 brother, half sister. This is my
47 brother. And some of them might say,
86
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1 well, his mother is Aunt Susie or

2 something like that. But a lot of them,
3 they just call -- some of them call them
4 momma, mom, Susie or just mom or
5 whatever. They have their own ways of
6 identifying each other.
7 Q Sure. Okay.
8 A In the early days of the church I think
9 they were called "aunt." You know, like
10 Aunt Jane, meaning a sister wife.
11 Q Okay.
12 A But I wanted to get back to after our
13 book came out and we realized that we --
14 it was really interesting to see how
15 thirsty the media was for somebody on the
16 positive side of plural marriage to
17 explain it. They just absolutely thought
18 this was wonderful.
19 So because of that, a couple of us
20 decided -- well, it was a gentleman,
21 decided that he would like to work with
22 me in putting out a book, a magazine
23 called Mormon Focus which we did and that
24 is right here. It was just one issue.
25 The premium issue, and it came out in
26 2003. And it shows three sister wives on
27 the cover. And we were hoping to have it
28 come out like bi-monthly or quarterly,
29 but after setting this up and getting
30 published, we didn't get the financial
31 support we were hoping for, so it was the
32 one issue.
33 But it really stands alone. It has
34 articles in there. Like one article is
35 about three different polygamous families
36 and how each one dealt with the
37 challenges and the family problems and
38 everything that came up, and the rewards
39 as well. And they were different ages,
40 different dynamics in the family.
41 Another one talked about the manifesto.
42 Another one -- article talked about the
43 different diversities of the groups,
44 called "Community Focus," and it tells a
45 little history of the different groups
46 and the independents and so forth.
47 So that has served as a good tool,
87
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1 like if we go out doing a presentation up

2 at the university, for example, in a
3 class, we'll hand out complimentary
4 copies because we pay for the printing
5 expenses now. And when we do a
6 presentation for a social services
7 department, we're able to hand those out
8 so that they can read for themselves a
9 little bit more about the lifestyle.
10 So then after the magazine came out
11 the three of us that wrote the book plus
12 another girl, Linda Kelch, decided that
13 we needed to be kind of an organized
14 entity so that when people referred to us
15 they would have a name by which we should
16 be known. So we called ourselves "First
17 Principle Voices of Polygamy" and about a
18 year or two ago we decided to drop the
19 "polygamy" part and just say "Principle
20 Voices." "Principle" meaning the
21 principle of plural marriage, or a matter
22 of principles to live.
23 So since then we have worked with,
24 like I say, the Attorney General's
25 office, different government agencies.
26 We have done a lot of presentations for
27 social services groups and college
28 classes. We have been a resource for
29 people who are writing articles or books
30 or doing TV documentaries. It's just
31 been a voice that we felt had not been
32 heard before. So now we're glad that
33 people are willing to listen and learn
34 more about us. And what we eventually
35 hope is that people will understand our
36 lifestyle a little better and treat us
37 with respect. After all, many of the
38 people in the LDS church had ancestors
39 that lived this lifestyle, and of all
40 people that ought to be understanding of
41 that, it's people in the church that had
42 those kind of ancestors.
43 Q Sure. What -- do you have a sense for
44 how many people are living under polygamy
45 today in the United States?
46 A In the United States -- excuse me, in the
47 United States I've heard the figure of
88
Video affidavit
1 100,000, but that includes Christian

2 polygamists, secular, Muslims, Jews,
3 Mormon, you know, priesthood Mormon for
4 the polygamists. So all that's kind of
5 the of polygamists. They don't
6 necessarily live it and believe in it as
7 a religious belief, but as a cultural
8 lifestyle. Over about three-quarters of
9 the countries in the world it's not
10 against the law to live polygamy, but of
11 course it is in the United States.
12 But -- so because of that I think
13 that it's necessary for people to
14 understand that we're not the minority
15 really, I mean, the people that actually
16 practice it might be. But as far as
17 those who stem from early Mormonism, I
18 did a survey on that, oh, a couple of
19 years ago and came up with the figure of
20 about 37,000, and that included 15,000
21 independent fundamentalists, 8- to 10,000
22 FLDS, 7,500 Paul Ray group. 1,500
23 Centennial Park. 1,500 Kingstons, and
24 1,500 that were just members of some
25 smaller groups.
26 So out of that 37,000, however, a
27 lot them are children and a lot of them
28 have a belief in it but aren't
29 necessarily practicing it. So it doesn't
30 mean that there's 37,000 actual adults
31 living in a plural family.
32 Q Right. So do you have a sense for -- you
33 talked about sort of polygamy gone right
34 and polygamy gone right. Do you have
35 sense for what percentage of those who
36 are living in it are doing it right
37 versus the more negative stereotypes?
38 A I would certainly hope that there's well
39 over 50 percent that have done it right,
40 but I have no way of knowing that
41 because -- well, to begin with, there's a
42 lot people down in the Colorado
43 City/Hildale community that I think are
44 probably very happy but I have no way of
45 knowing that because they have been so
46 isolated and secluded.
47 Q So as a spokeswoman you're not able to
89
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1 communicate with those groups, to make

2 sure that --
3 A Not that one group. And spokesperson
4 is -- use it very loosely because I am
5 not a designated spokesperson for these
6 groups.
7 Q Okay.
8 A I have worked with a lot of them and we
9 do have a coalition committee now that
10 has representatives from all the groups,
11 except FLDS.
12 Q So FLDS just wants nothing to do --
13 A They have been invited to participate
14 with us and they have chosen not to.
15 Q Okay.
16 A So I do not know first-hand too much of
17 what is going on down there, although I
18 have talked to some people that have
19 left.
20 But the other people that I know in
21 the other groups, they're going to have
22 problems in a monogamous marriage, so
23 you're going to have problems in a
24 polygamous marriage. Maybe even a few
25 more in some cases.
26 But most of the people that enter
27 into this with the full knowledge of the
28 fact that there's going to be more than
29 one wife and with the knowledge that it's
30 a religious principle and that God is a
31 part of their relationship, they know
32 that ahead of time and so they're willing
33 to make sacrifices and overcome the
34 jealousy and the problems that might
35 arise because they're familiar with it
36 ahead of time.
37 So as far as polygamy gone right, I
38 would certainly hope that in most cases
39 it's well over 50 percent, but I have no
40 way of knowing for sure.
41 Q But in your experience, the extreme
42 negative things that are emphasized in
43 the media aren't the norm or typical for
44 the people that you've come to know?
45 A Absolutely not. Because they're focused
46 on, a lot them, FLDS. And, you know,
47 that's -- maybe happens down there. But
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1 as far as --
2 Q Well, numerically they're less than a
3 third.
4 A Yeah. Absolutely. Probably about a
5 fourth.
6 Q Okay. Okay.
7 A Third to a fourth.
8 Q And they sort of -- I don't want to put
9 you on record -- this kind of gives
10 polygamists a bad name maybe.
11 A They do, because that's the only
12 information that the media has been
13 picking up on for years. And our voice,
14 even though it's coming out more and more
15 now, it's still baby steps. And they
16 love to pick it -- the media loves to
17 pick up on the sensational.
18 Q Sure.
19 A The Warren Jeffs trial now coming up and
20 all that, it just focuses on a lot of the
21 negative that happens in the lifestyle.
22 And certainly, you know, a happy family,
23 that's not newsworthy. What do you
24 report on if it's a happy family?
25 I think Big Love has done a lot to
26 dispel some of the stereotypes, and I was
27 glad when we started watching that. The
28 only thing is the first two episodes were
29 a little too intimate for our taste. But
30 I feel like it showed the diversity in
31 our culture. That you have, for example,
32 the plural family that lived in an
33 average neighbourhood, a little above
34 average, they had a swimming pool in the
35 back yard, with the three wives living
36 next to each other. And then they also
37 showed an isolated community that had a
38 very strong leader and had maybe
39 evidences of abuse. So you have to see
40 the dynamics of all different kinds of
41 variety that -- of people that live this
42 lifestyle.
43 Q I forgot to ask you this: Did you
44 continue to attend the LDS church
45 throughout your --
46 A I did for a long time after, and then
47 there came a point where -- we had a lot
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Video affidavit
1 of company, because of the books that we

2 were writing, we had a lot of company and
3 the best day for them to come was on
4 Sunday. So it seemed like my time was
5 better spent talking about the principles
6 of the Gospel that we believed in than
7 going and listening to classes on
8 following the leader and what we term
9 "the milk of the Gospel," which I'm not
10 saying isn't important, but I felt like
11 my time was better spent talking about
12 things that I could not learn in church.
13 Q At least for 10, 15 years you continued
14 going?
15 A Oh, yeah, I continued going. I wanted my
16 kids to be raised in the church, so I
17 went as long as they wanted to go.
18 Q So they were raised in the church?
19 A Oh, yeah.
20 Q Your children?
21 A Right. Well, when they got to be
22 teenagers, they themselves chose to be
23 inactive.
24 Q All three of them?
25 A M'mm-hmm.
26 Q Okay. Do you have a sense for how -- you
27 know, you talk about independent
28 polygamists; is that right?
29 A M'mm-hmm. Independent fundamentalist
30 Mormons.
31 Q Independent fundamentalist Mormons.
32 A We're all fundamentalist Mormons.
33 Q I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
34 A No, that's okay. We consider ourselves
35 to be independent where the others are in
36 groups.
37 Q Okay. Do you have a sense for how
38 prevalent independent fundamentalist
39 Mormons are in Provo or in Salt Lake
40 City?
41 A By area, no. I think probably most of
42 them are in the Salt Lake area, but I
43 know of some in Provo and all over
44 because we had so many people come and
45 visit us that were interested in Ogden's
46 books and in the discussions that we had,
47 they believed in those early doctrines.
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1 So in belief at least they were a

2 fundamentalist Mormon.
3 Q And do you sense that they live in
4 arrangements much like yours and Ogden's
5 were, that the wives lived in separate
6 houses?
7 A If they're independent, some of them --
8 just the same. Some of them lived in
9 separate houses; some of them lived
10 together.
11 Q Do you have a sense for how common it is
12 for them to still attend LDS church
13 wards?
14 A Well, if they do, they have had to do it
15 very quietly without saying how they
16 believe. So if they go to Gospel
17 doctrine class they don't say, oh, but in
18 section 132 it says, you know.
19 Q Yeah.
20 A So I imagine there are some that attend
21 church and believe in the early
22 doctrines, but they go along with the
23 church for whatever reason to whatever
24 degree. Maybe they want their kids to go
25 to primary and be raised in the church,
26 so they're very careful about what they
27 say to enable them to do that. Or maybe
28 they can see a lot of good in the church
29 that they want to take advantage of. But
30 then their private beliefs might be
31 different.
32 Q Do you have a sense that that's the
33 exception for independents?
34 A Yeah. I think most people, if they're a
35 fundamentalist Mormon at all, they are
36 not members of the church. As a whole.
37 But I don't know them all, so I don't
38 know for sure. But I would say that most
39 of them get to a point where they can no
40 longer support the teachings and the
41 leadership of the LDS church and so they
42 are eventually -- either they ask for
43 their name to be taken off or they are
44 discovered by something they say or did
45 and they are excommunicated.
46 Q What has kept this group from banding
47 together and trying to form a church?
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1 A Well, that isn't the -- we're told not to

2 do that.
3 Q Who?
4 A In 1886 when John Taylor had the
5 revelation and told those men to keep
6 their marriage alive, told them that that
7 was a commandment from God, somewhere
8 along the line they were instructed not
9 to congregate, not to proselytize,
10 collect tithing, form churches. That
11 their commission was solely to keep
12 plural marriage alive. That's the way I
13 believe.
14 Now, if you talk to some people in
15 some of these other groups, they vary in
16 that, because they feel like there was a
17 definite council, priesthood council,
18 that was formed at that time and that
19 they were to do the things that the
20 church did not do correctly.
21 But my understanding of it is that
22 the main thing they were commissioned to
23 do is keep plural marriage alive, not
24 form a church.
25
26 (VIDEO ENDS)
27
28 THE COURT: Take a break?
29 MR. DICKSON: Sure.
30 THE CLERK: Order in court. Court is adjourned for the
31 afternoon recess.
32
33 (AFTERNOON RECESS)
34
36 THE COURT: Okay.
37
38 (VIDEO PLAYED)
39
43 with John P. Dehlin. Part 5, Anne's beliefs and
44 testimony)
45
46 Q Okay. So let's turn to a discussion a
47 bit about your beliefs and views relative
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1 to the mainstream LDS church, and kind of

2 close on talking about some of these
3 issues.
4 To begin with, there are a lot of --
5 well, let me ask this first. What are
6 the -- if you had to enumerate, and
7 you've done this a bit. If you had to
8 enumerate the main eternal truths or
9 principles that a fundamentalist sort of
10 feels really should not have been
11 changed, that were really important and
12 crucial, that have been either watered
13 down or taken away, tell us what those
14 are.
15 A Well, I think we discussed some of them
16 earlier and, you know, there's 95 of them
17 at least that we've gone through. But I
18 would say probably the most important --
19 and I'm not saying they should have kept
20 them as a church. That was a democratic
21 decision or, you know, a decision that
22 came as a result of the opinions of most
23 of the people in the church, that they
24 didn't want to believe them anymore or
25 practice them.
26 And so I would say probably the top
27 three would be the distinctions between a
28 fundamentalist Mormon and the LDS church
29 teaching today, polygamy, Adam-God
30 doctrine and the kingdom of God.
31 Q Talk about --
32 A United order -- well, you probably ought
33 to include united order, law of
34 consecration in there. So -- talk about
35 which one?
36 Q Why Adam-God? Tell us what that belief
37 is and why you think that's important.
38 A Okay. The little couplet that says, as
39 God is, man may become; as man is, God
40 once was. And that to me is a --
41 capsulated the Adam-God doctrine, meaning
42 that if man lives a worthy life, obeys
43 all the commandments -- I realize that
44 nobody is perfect, but if they fulfil the
45 requirements, that they can become a God.
46 Adam apparently did that. In his
47 world he lived and kept the commandments
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1 sufficiently so that he qualified for

2 becoming a God. One of those
3 requirements was to have more than one
4 wife. So he worked his way up and became
5 a God, and as far as Brigham Young was
6 concerned, he said Adam was our God and
7 the only God with whom we have to do.
8 So there's a lot more that you can
9 add to that, but that doctrine was taught
10 in the early days of the church. In
11 fact, there's a case where a man was
12 actually excommunicated for not believing
13 in that doctrine, in the days of Joseph
14 Smith.
15 Q I want to ask you about that. So are you
16 saying that the Adam who started human
17 existence on planet Earth was actually
18 God the Father Elohim?
19 A Michael. He was Michael the archangel.
20 He was the only God that we have to do
21 with on our world. He's the father of
22 our spirits and our bodies.
23 Q So when you think about the narrative in
24 the Old Testament, let's say, there's --
25 or in traditional Mormon LDS theology,
26 there's God the Father Elohim.
27 A Elohim is a council of God, so he's a
28 member of that council. Elohim is
29 plural.
30 Q So in it -- so the way I grew up, I
31 thought of God the Father as having the
32 name Elohim. That's not how you
33 understand it?
34 A No, it's -- it's not correct if you
35 define it. Elohim is a plural.
36 Q Okay.
37 A And so that's a council of gods, and Adam
38 and Michael, he was -- as God he was
39 really Michael and when he came down on
40 earth he became Adam. It's a terminology
41 thing. But anyway --
42 Q What about Jesus being Jehovah, in the --
43 A Well, see, I don't believe that Jesus was
44 Jehovah.
45 Q What did Joseph and Brigham believe?
46 A This is -- it's more complicated than we
47 have time to go into. I believe that
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1 Jehovah was the Jesus on Adam's world.

2 So you've got Elohim, Jehovah and Michael
3 as one godhead, and then you've got
4 Michael or Adam and Jesus Christ, and
5 then we won't even go into the third
6 member of the godhead, which is holy
7 ghost. But there's a man that occupies
8 that office.
9 Q Okay.
10 A So there's a dual godhead there, and if
11 you kind of picture it that way it helps
12 to understand it. But it would take me
13 half an hour really to explain this so
14 the lay member could understand it and I
15 hate to get into it in detail.
16 Q No, that's good. So Michael -- so is
17 Jesus the son of Michael?
18 A Correct.
19 Q Who is also God. So how did God govern
20 the world while living in it?
21 A Well, he had a God. He had a God on his
22 earth and he's the one that Michael was
23 learning from. So when he was walking
24 and talking in the Garden of Eden he was
25 talking to his God. It was God on his
26 world when he was a man.
27 Q But Michael -- was Michael who became
28 Adam on planet Earth, is he the God that
29 we pray to now?
30 A Well, he's the God that I pray to.
31 Q Okay.
32 A As Michael. As a God. I don't pray to
33 Adam when he was here on earth. I pray
34 to the office that he had, he held and
35 that he does now hold as God of this
36 earth.
37 Q But since he was brought out of the
38 Garden of Eden and lived temporally,
39 there had to be a time where the God of
40 this earth was actually being a human.
41 A That's right.
42 Q And maybe he had someone else helping
43 him?
44 A Absolutely.
45 Q Okay. So...
46 A Yeah, his God and Jehovah of his world.
47 Q Okay.
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1 A He had to learn --
2 Q On this earth.
3 A He had to learn somehow how to do all
4 this, how to create a world, how to start
5 things rolling. But you know, if he was
6 the father of our spirits, which Brigham
7 Young said he was, why would he send
8 somebody else down to be the father of
9 their bodies? Those of his children.
10 He's entitled to the right to come down
11 after fathering them, the spirit
12 children, he's entitled to come down and
13 start them with mortal bodies as well, in
14 my view.
15 Q So when he died he was transfigured or --
16 A It's just different roles of godhead, you
17 know, like the president of the church
18 can also be a home teacher.
19 Q Right. Right.
20 A Okay. So he can be God. Then part of
21 his being God means you come down and
22 provide mortal bodies for your children,
23 for your spirit children. And then after
24 you get that ball rolling then you go
25 back, and you might take another wife.
26 He brought Eve here, who is the mother of
27 all living, meaning all spirits who were
28 here, the way I understand it, then he
29 might have taken another wife and gone
30 down to another world and started the
31 ball rolling down on another world.
32 Q And would he have then immediately
33 resurrected upon dying? Or would his
34 resurrection have had to happen?
35 A You can't be a God without being
36 resurrected and glorified and sanctified.
37 So he was already all that. Then, by
38 taking and eating mortal food, he became
39 a carnal man again. And then when he
40 quit eating mortal food then he became a
41 God with whatever kind of body gods have.
42 Resurrected body.
43 Q So he had a body before as an --
44 A Because he lived on another world of his
45 own.
46 Q And then -- this is the last question
47 I'll ask. So did he have to lose his old
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1 body to get a new body?

2 A No, he still has the same body.
3 Q Oh, because he didn't have to go through
4 a birth process again?
5 A No, he still has the same body.
6 Q That's how showed up in the Garden of
7 Eden?
8 A But it's different. It's either a mortal
9 body or a resurrected body because it
10 goes through whatever stages depending
11 upon the role that he's playing at the
12 time.
13 Q And in the garden when he talked to God
14 and they made --
15 A He was in a terrestrial state then,
16 because we understand that the Garden of
17 Eden was a terrestrial condition. When
18 he was cast out of the garden, it was a
19 telestial condition. So he had a
20 celestial body, a terrestrial body in the
21 garden, and a telestial body, then he
22 went back to celestial body.
23 Q Do you think he operated under a veil of
24 forgetness while he was on the earth?
25 A Well, when he was cast out of the garden
26 he was. Remember, it was said that you
27 will forget what you've learned here.
28 The veil of forgetting or something.
29 Q Okay. So he -- so the original sin that
30 non-Mormons usually call it, he wasn't
31 sort of knowledgeable of all his past
32 experiences of God. He had --
33 A From what I understand there was a veil
34 placed upon him so that he did not know.
35 Q And during his earthly years he probably
36 didn't know he was a God?
37 A Oh, I think he had a pretty good idea who
38 he was. I mean, I don't know that
39 question.
40 Q All right. I've not actually thought
41 about this, so I'm trying to understand.
42 A Right.
43 Q Okay. So Adam-God doctrine, and then you
44 talked about the kingdom of --
45 A Kingdom of God. Just the kingdom.
46 Political kingdom of God. There is a
47 kingdom of heaven, which is kingdom of
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1 God is the kingdom of heaven on earth.

2 It's the same type of organization.
3 Q Okay. And some day there's going to be
4 political entity that governs humans on
5 the earth that's separate from man's
6 governance?
7 A It will, and Christ will be over that.
8 Q Christ will be over that?
9 A Well, he is now, but we just don't see
10 the evidence of the kingdom in action
11 right now, just like we don't see much
12 evidence of a united order right now.
13 There are different united orders that do
14 exist on some level, but as far as
15 church-wide or any great community living
16 that -- there's not a sizeable group that
17 lives it right now.
18 Q Okay. What about -- what about the
19 teaching of blood atonement? Is that one
20 of the 95 --
21 A Yeah. It's one of the things that have
22 changed. That was a doctrine. I don't
23 know if it was really practiced that much
24 even in the early days, although Brigham
25 Young said that if he ever saw a couple
26 in bed committing adultery in the act, he
27 wouldn't be afraid to run a javelin
28 through them. And the reason he said
29 that is because by shedding their blood,
30 he felt like that was a partial atonement
31 for the sin that they were committing.
32 Now, I really don't understand -- we
33 did write a book on that and I understand
34 it to some level, but I don't know if is
35 really important to get into to at this
36 point. I do feel like I don't ever want
37 to have to be the executor of that
38 doctrine and, you know, I'm glad I don't
39 have to have anything to do with it. But
40 it doesn't mean that it can't be done in
41 a way that would benefit the victims of
42 that. That would be the only reason that
43 I can see doing that, that if you commit
44 a sin that is beyond Christ's atonement,
45 then by shedding your own blood that
46 would help in the atonement. In your own
47 personal atonement.
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1 But, you know, that's another

2 complicated thing that I don't think we
3 have time to get into.
4 Q So separate from early doctrine of the
5 church, as an LDS person who is dealing
6 with the modern world there are all sorts
7 of issues that we have to deal with that
8 I'm curious to what extent you've had to
9 deal with them and how you would come
10 down, or how the average fundamentalist
11 Mormon might come down on it. So I will
12 list a couple and you just tell me.
13 A Okay.
14 Q Birth control.
15 A I will speak for myself on that one. I
16 believe that -- and I never had to
17 practice that because I always wanted the
18 children and they just didn't come. I
19 feel like abstinence is -- for me would
20 be the best way of birth control. I do
21 not -- I would never do anything to
22 prevent having children myself.
23 Q Okay. What about feminism?
24 A You know, believe it or not, this is a
25 feminism lifestyle. And you know people
26 will take exception to that. But if you
27 stop and think about it, the woman can
28 have a family, she can have a career, she
29 can go back to school, get an education,
30 she can have time with her friends to go
31 to dinner and a movie without family.
32 She really has, like I said before, the
33 best of both words.
34 So, in fact, I consider myself to be
35 a feminist fundamentalist, because a
36 feminist by definition is anyone who is
37 concerned about the rights and privileges
38 of women. Well, I feel like I have every
39 right and privilege that a woman would
40 ever want in my estimation. Anything
41 that I would ever want anyway, and I know
42 it would be hard for a lot of women to
43 share a husband, and that would just
44 probably be off the charts for a lot
45 people. But as far as I was concerned, I
46 think it's very close to being a
47 feminist, although I still don't feel
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1 like you should usurp the role of the

2 father in the home. I still look to my
3 husband and did and still do as the
4 father in the home. And I would never
5 want to be the leader in the home, but I
6 want my voice to be heard and considered
7 and appreciated and kind of serve as a
8 counsellor.
9 Q But women in the priesthood, probably
10 not.
11 A I am not in favour of women receiving the
12 priesthood because they already share in
13 the blessings, the opportunities,
14 practically everything but the
15 responsibilities. And there does come a
16 time when she -- if and when shes get her
17 second anointing she does get priesthood,
18 and she is ordained a queen and priestess
19 in the priesthood. So there is a time
20 when she has a priesthood.
21 Q That's another doctrine we used to teach.
22 A Second anointings is not taught anymore
23 either. Well, I understand apparently
24 among the general authorities there are a
25 few that have performed that ordinance.
26 And it's kind of interesting, because you
27 look at the endowment today in the temple
28 and it's a conditional promise. You're
29 ordained to become such without going
30 into the temple ceremony, so you're
31 supposed to live worthy enough to have
32 that sealed upon you, that first
33 endowment. Well, who in the church now
34 gets that? So they're giving the
35 conditional promise without the sealing
36 of the promise. That's kind of
37 interesting. Everybody is in limbo.
38 Q What about -- this is a sensitive
39 subject -- what about blacks and race?
40 A Okay, and we get asked that question a
41 lot, and the reason we are -- one of the
42 things that we are talking about are
43 equal civil rights for ethnic groups.
44 Religious groups. We are trying to get
45 our equal civil rights. I think the
46 blacks ought to have their equal civil
47 rights.
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Video affidavit
1 I don't like to discuss the

2 religious rights because that's where we
3 have some differences. But publicly I
4 think everybody ought to have equal civil
5 rights.
6 Q Okay. How about homosexuality?
7 A Same there. Equal civil rights. I
8 feel -- we are not trying to get legal
9 marriages. Legal marriage licenses. And
10 I'm wondering in my own way of looking at
11 it if a legal marriage license would be
12 the thing that would best suit gay
13 couples. Now, maybe in some cases it
14 would. I feel like they ought to have
15 legal rights as far as if there's a death
16 they ought to have some kind of legal
17 right in determining what is done with
18 the deceased. I have a cousin that went
19 through this, and for a whole day -- his
20 partner died, and for a whole day he was
21 there with the police because he couldn't
22 authorize removal of that body. And they
23 had been together as a couple for years
24 and they had to wait until a blood
25 relative came to release that body. I
26 think that's criminal.
27 So I think there ought to be
28 provisions made for them to have some
29 kind of legal decisions, visiting in the
30 hospital or insurance or whatever. But I
31 don't know -- and this is out of my
32 realm -- whether or not a legal marriage
33 licence would be the thing -- the answer
34 to that.
35 We do not want -- most of us do not
36 want to legalize plural marriage because
37 we only want one legal marriage licence,
38 which be would the first one, to conform
39 with the law. Any subsequent marriages
40 with plural wives are married by
41 priesthood. It's a religious sealing.
42 That's more important to us than any
43 licence by the government. We want to be
44 recognized by God because we're looking
45 at this as eternal principle. So the
46 important thing to us is to have it
47 decriminalized so we aren't looked as at
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1 felons or any kind of criminals. But

2 it's a religious sealing that's the most
3 important thing for us.
4 Q Just quickly, just to briefly revisit the
5 race question I asked you, when Joseph,
6 you know -- I learned in the past 10
7 years that apparently Joseph Smith
8 ordained some black men to the
9 priesthood.
10 A He didn't ordain them but somebody did.
11 Zebedee Coltrain asked him about that
12 and --
13 Q Elijah Able.
14 A Elijah Able. Yeah. But Zebedee asked
15 him about that, and that's another long
16 story. But Joseph Smith did say to the
17 Elijah Able apparently, according to one
18 account that I read, that it was not the
19 right time for him to receive the
20 priesthood, but when the time came he
21 would be the first in line or among the
22 first to receive it.
23 So I think Joseph Smith, just like
24 anyone else that is starting a religion
25 or a corporation or anything else, they
26 don't know everything at first. They
27 learn as they go along. And I think
28 Joseph Smith realized that it was done
29 without his knowledge apparently, with
30 Elijah Able and then when they came and
31 asked him about it then -- and that's
32 when the discussion came up. So I feel
33 like he was still learning a lot of these
34 things as he went along.
35 Q So maybe it was never God's will that
36 blacks receive the priesthood.
37 Potentially that might be one
38 interpretation of the history in those
39 early years -- in those early years
40 before Brigham Young made it really
41 clear.
42 A Yeah, I guess. Without going into it in
43 detail, I just feel like it was not the
44 right time.
45 Q Okay.
46 A But I do feel like they will get an
47 opportunity eventually.
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1 Q Okay. So you mentioned something about

2 Joseph Smith having to learn and maybe
3 making some mistakes. What's -- and
4 we've talked about how God definitely
5 made some changes between the Old
6 Testament and the New Testament, and
7 there's definitely been changes between
8 the New Testament and the LDS church in
9 its early years. How do you know what
10 needs to be embraced as a fundamental
11 concept and what latitude for progress
12 and improvement can be allowed in God's
13 church?
14 A Well, I think -- we touched on that
15 earlier. If it's eternal principle,
16 they're unchangeable. If it's a practice
17 or a tradition or a work -- like a lot of
18 times -- not a lot of times, but there is
19 a reference that says this work is no
20 longer required at your hands. Well,
21 work is not an eternal principle, and so
22 you -- it's a definition of terms. You
23 have to decide and that's up to the
24 individual, I guess, to decide what is
25 eternal principle -- I mean, some of them
26 are very clear -- and what is a work or a
27 practice or a custom.
28 For example, for a while we had
29 Sunday school in the morning on Sunday
30 and sacrament meeting in the afternoon or
31 evening, and then relief society on
32 another day of the week and primary --
33 well, pretty soon they came along and
34 said no, we want to have all the meetings
35 on Sunday. I don't see anything wrong
36 with that. That's a work or a practice
37 or whatever. That's fine. That's not
38 eternal principle.
39 I think eternal principle is to keep
40 the Sabbath day holy, and it doesn't mean
41 whether you -- doesn't designate whether
42 you do it on Saturday or Sunday, but I
43 think everybody, if you obey the
44 commandments, you keep a day of the week
45 holy as a Sabbath day.
46 So that's to me an eternal
47 principle. Whereas when you have your
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1 meetings, whether it's two or three days

2 of the week or on a Monday, I don't think
3 that's that important.
4 Q Okay. If -- how do you feel about the
5 practice of polygamy disconnected with
6 Mormon beliefs? You talked about this a
7 bit but let's say that for some reason
8 your conviction about Mormonism just
9 withered away. Would you feel then like
10 all polygamy should be made illegal or
11 banned? Or -- in other words, do you
12 support polygamy only within the confines
13 of a believing Mormon?
14 Q Well, that's the only reason I live it is
15 because of religious belief. But like I
16 mentioned to you, there's many countries
17 in the world that live it as a secular
18 practice, as a tradition, just because
19 it's convenient. So if there were no
20 Mormonism, I probably wouldn't live it,
21 no, because I base that on my religious
22 convictions.
23 Q Okay. You know, one of the things I
24 struggle with is knowing that my
25 grandmother was the daughter of a
26 polygamous wife, that, you know, most of
27 the world associates Mormon with the LDS
28 church or polygamy with the LDS church.
29 It's our heritage, it's been taught from
30 the rooftops by prophets of old as a
31 requirement for salvation.
32 A Exultation, not salvation. Salvation is
33 universal, and people interchange those
34 and I'd just like to --
35 A Thank you. Thank you. But today when
36 Gordon B. Hinkley is asked by Larry King
37 what he believes about polygamy or his
38 view on polygamy, he says it's not
39 doctrinal, or it's in the past, why do we
40 have to talk about that. And when the
41 church puts out a press release it really
42 tries hard to, say, distance. And a lot
43 of Mormons probably -- a lot of LDS
44 people probably don't -- maybe show some
45 discrimination or some feelings of
46 inferiority. Do you have feelings about
47 all those things? Do you feel like --
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1 A No, I can understand why President

2 Hinkley says those things, because he's
3 speaking for the church and they are
4 trying to distance themselves from
5 polygamy in order to help the missionary
6 effort and the proselyzing, and polygamy
7 is a very unpopular thing in the United
8 States and people do have a tendency to
9 look down on those who live it as a
10 general rule. And that's why we're
11 trying to improve that image.
12 But -- so I can understand why he
13 would say that. I don't know quite how
14 he can say truthfully that it's not
15 doctrinal, because it's still in the
16 Doctrine and Covenants. I mean, it's a
17 doctrine and it's in section 132. It's a
18 doctrine. Now, whether or not it's a
19 doctrine they accept, or at least the
20 practice of that, that's another thing.
21 But I don't feel generally that
22 people have looked down on me. I think
23 if they have as a person it's because
24 they don't understand the lifestyle. A
25 lot of the people I associate with even
26 today -- well, not so much now since I've
27 become more public, but there were a lot
28 of people over six years ago that didn't
29 know I was a polygamist and they didn't
30 look down on me for any particular
31 reason. As people found out I think
32 they've had in some cases more respect
33 because I have been able to come out and
34 defend a lifestyle that I feel is very
35 dear to my heart and very important in my
36 life.
37 Q But do you ever feel like, instead of
38 distancing themselves from you, that
39 these of all people are the people that
40 should be showing support, that should be
41 you know, showing kindness, showing extra
42 love?
43 A At least understanding.
44 Q No, but --
45 A Because of their ancestors living it.
46 Q No, but do you ever kind of think that
47 they should be your friends and your
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1 supporters, even though they don't choose

2 to practice it. Do you ever wish that
3 they would actually be supportive?
4 A Well, sure you can wish that. But I can
5 understand why they don't because they
6 have been taught for the last how many
7 years that you follow the leader of the
8 church. You follow the brethren.
9 There's a whole book, Follow the
10 Brethren. They have been taught so
11 strongly that they should do that, that
12 they don't dare deviate from that.
13 So if the leader of the church says
14 we do not believe in, practice or adhere
15 to in any way polygamy, then they feel
16 duty bound in order to be a good member
17 of the church to follow that advice. So
18 in doing so they could get in trouble by
19 even associating with a polygamous
20 family, and some have.
21 So I can understand then why they
22 have to draw the line, because their own
23 church membership is at stake.
24 Q And the leaders, what about them?
25 A What about them?
26 Q You're just saying that they -- they're
27 trying to take care of the church and
28 make sure it's successful so you don't
29 expect them to be more supportive.
30 A Oh, no. It would be become -- I
31 anticipate that it will be decriminalized
32 politically by the government, at least
33 by the Federal Government, long before
34 the church would ever accept it. I don't
35 see the church ever accepting it as a
36 tenent of their faith the way things are
37 now. But, like the 85th section says,
38 when it is set in order then it will come
39 back. But the way it is now, with the
40 leaders we have now and the corner of the
41 12 working their way up, I don't see any
42 of them bringing it back.
43 Q Okay. So let's talk about the future.
44 A Okay.
45 Q What are your hopes or your dreams or
46 your vision for the situation for
47 polygamy in the United States as a
108
Video affidavit
1 citizen, and then how could you see

2 things shaping up either with the LDS
3 church or just in your vision, your
4 doctrine and your view for the future in
5 terms of Christ coming again in the
6 millennium? Talk about the future of
7 polygamy as you see it and maybe would
8 like to see it temporally and then
9 spiritually.
10 A Okay. Well, first of all we would like
11 to see a case go before the Supreme Court
12 where they overturn the Reynolds decision
13 of 1879, which removes a lot of the
14 stigma of living it. Then by -- of
15 course I realize it's the states that
16 make laws about marriage for each state,
17 so we can't expect the Federal Government
18 to say, okay, it's decriminalized. That
19 is the job of the states the way the laws
20 are set up.
21 But by overturning Reynolds, that
22 opens the door for the states to
23 decriminalize it. So as far as the
24 political thing, that's what I would like
25 to see. And I would like people in the
26 United States to understand it better, to
27 remove the stigma from it, to understand
28 that this is a viable alternative
29 lifestyle, that we're about families.
30 We're not trying to cheat the government
31 basically out of welfare. If we're
32 recognized then and we don't have to
33 worry about losing jobs, I think we can
34 support our families better. But if --
35 you have to keep it quiet and don't tell
36 anybody at work that you're a polygamist
37 because you might lose your job, then
38 your financial income is in jeopardy.
39 So I think all in all, if the stigma
40 is removed from it federally, then that
41 would help a lot. I would like to see
42 that.
43 As far as the church goes, like I
44 say, I don't anticipate any changes that
45 way, but I would like to see the members
46 of the church at least understand it to
47 the degree that they don't look down
109
Video affidavit
1 their noses, keep their children from

2 playing with the polygamous children.
3 We're not out to convert anybody. Really
4 we aren't. We just want to be able to
5 live it quietly or at least be accepted
6 in our choice to live it.
7 So I don't care if the church
8 doesn't accept it as a tenet because most
9 of us are out of the church anyway and we
10 recognize the difference between the
11 Gospel and the church. The Gospel
12 principles, like I say, are eternal and
13 they can exist separate from the church.
14 The church can accept or reject those
15 principles.
16 So that's the important thing to me
17 is to realize that I can still live the
18 Gospel principles without the church,
19 even though I enjoyed it while I was
20 there, it can be done as long as you have
21 the priesthood to perform the ordinances
22 that are necessary.
23 So that's pretty much the way I see
24 it in the future.
25 Q But as precursor to the millennium do you
26 see God's raising up a new prophet and
27 starting a new church again?
28 A No, he said he would never do that. That
29 it would be set in order but it doesn't
30 mean you have to start all over from the
31 beginning. But I do feel like new
32 individuals will have to take the
33 leadership roles, because I don't see the
34 ones we have now changing.
35 So my understanding of the setting
36 in order is Joseph Smith coming back and
37 calling men that have been tried and
38 tested and will remain true to these
39 eternal principles, calling them to the
40 positions to go forth. I can't remember
41 where the saying came from that --
42 regarding the setting in order. First it
43 would be the church, then the state and
44 then the nation. So you have to have a
45 nucleus to work with, so the church or
46 the kingdom of God will be set in order
47 first and then it would spread from
110
Video affidavit
1 there.
2 Q And I sense that you're a modest woman
3 but I'll just ask you just because I'm
4 curious. Do you see when Christ is
5 coming maybe having a special place in
6 his heart for those who had the courage
7 to live the principle in spite of all the
8 adversity?
9 A No more than anybody else that lives the
10 principle as best as they can. For some
11 reason I feel like we are doing what the
12 Lord wants us to do right now, but
13 there's other women that would be just as
14 capable if not more so. It's just that
15 the risk was too great and the three of
16 us that wrote the book felt very strongly
17 impressed to do it and that kind of
18 opened the doors for what followed. But
19 I don't anticipate -- I just will be
20 lucky as anything if I can just have a
21 little niche somewhere in the celestial
22 kingdom.
23 I certainly hope for that because
24 I -- I don't want to spend eternity
25 without my husband, and in order for me
26 to be with him I feel like the only
27 marriages in heaven are plural marriages.
28 I don't think there's any monogamous
29 marriages. So in order for me to be with
30 him, we had to have a plural marriage.
31 Q And if you had a closing statement, you
32 can call it a testimony or a wish or an
33 aspiration, you've got at least 3,000
34 people listening and watching you at this
35 point, what would you like to leave us
36 with as your parting words or thoughts or
37 feeling in testimony?
38 A I just am very grateful to the Lord -- I
39 wasn't expecting this. Let's see.
40 I am very grateful that I live in a
41 time when I can live this principle and
42 only hope that I have done it honourably.
43 I'm grateful to be a voice in the defence
44 of it. But there's so much more to the
45 Gospel than just plural marriage, and
46 that's what I try to live as well and be
47 an example. And I'm grateful for the
111
Certification
1 wonderful friends I have made in the

2 journey. I've met so many wonderful
3 women. I just am amazed at their courage
4 and valiancy and testimonies and feel
5 privileged to associate with them.
6 That's it.
7 Q Anne Wilde, it is a pleasure. Thank you
8 so much for coming on Mormon Stories.
9 It's a pleasure to meet you.
10 A Thank you. Sorry for the emotion.
11 Q No, no worries at all. Thank you very
12 much.
13
14 (VIDEO ENDS)
15
16 MR. DICKSON: That concludes the video, My Lord.
17 THE COURT: Monday then? What did we have on Monday?
18 Jensen?
19 MR. JONES: It is Jensen. A live witness of the AGBC,
20 My Lord.
21 THE COURT: And there won't be anybody on the 18th.
22 What happens then?
23 MR. JONES: Oh, no. I'm sorry, that's Truman Oler,
24 My Lord, not James Oler. So he will be here.
25 THE COURT: Okay. Good. Full week.
26 MR. JONES: Yes, My Lord.
27 THE CLERK: Order in court. Court is adjourned to
28 Monday, January 17th, 2011, at 10:00 a.m.
29
30 (PROCEEDINGS RECESSED AT 3:54 P.M.)
31
32 I, SPENCER J. CHAREST, OFFICIAL REPORTER
33 IN THE PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA,
34 DO HEREBY CERTIFY:
35 THAT THE PROCEEDINGS WERE TAKEN DOWN BY
36 ME IN SHORTHAND AT THE TIME AND PLACE HEREIN
37 SET FORTH AND THEREAFTER TRANSCRIBED, AND THE
38 SAME IS A TRUE AND CORRECT AND COMPLETE
39 TRANSCRIPT OF SAID PROCEEDINGS TO THE BEST OF
40 MY SKILL AND ABILITY.
41 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I HAVE HEREUNTO
42 SUBSCRIBED MY NAME THIS 7TH DAY OF FEBRUARY
43 2011.
44
45 ______________________
46 SPENCER J. CHAREST
47 OFFICIAL REPORTER

1-13-11 Transcript Day21 of The Reference Case On Polygamy - Dan Fischer & Anne Wilde

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1-13-11 Transcript Day21 of The Reference Case On Polygamy - Dan Fischer & Anne Wilde

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1

1 January 13, 2011

1 spanning about two and a half hours.

1 MR. WICKETT: Well, all right. I had heard from --

1 Your Lordship and me, and then the examinations

1 Mr. Wickett's discussions with Your Lordship, I'm

1 has been discussed among counsel and I think we're

1 can actually achieve a responsive argument to try

1 we be informed sooner rather than later and

1 let me say this. If Mr. Palmer testifies -- well,

1 rid -- started the private home schools

1 And so it's -- I don't know.

1 wouldn't let him hit any of my brothers

1 And he kind of -- that was a big issue

1 you were up in Canada?

1 A My mother was assigned to Allen Steed.

1 one of the reasons I was kicked out

1 talked to Warren and they decided that,

1 and you were supposed to be repenting and

1 we hugged our parents but we never hugged

1 choices and is there more ability to

1 the FLDS community?

1 I stopped and got out and walked over

1 Q What about the girls your age? What

1 Isaac and Jacob, Moses. A lot of the

1 the government with the idea that they

1 another house and visit another plural

1 Q Right. And so following along that lines

1 taking a really young additional wife?

1 A I think it was around 14, but I'm not

1 relevant the polygamy question was in his

1 Q Do you sort of agree that at least some

1 A Yeah, there's probably a lot of reasons

1 built on the foundation that polygamy was

1 time and there was all this persecution

1 was a requirement to become a general

1 polygamous marriages but apostles and

1 Smith brought him a manifesto of sorts

1 Q This revelation you talk about that John

1 themselves didn't want to live this, I

1 about that for a second.

1 obeying and adhering to priesthood laws

1 principle alive, from what I understand,

1 authority, in a priesthood authority.

1 the apostles and prophets of the LDS,

1 President McKay became president of the

1 A That's their free agency.

1 Q So let's try and transition just a tiny

1 the degree to which the attempts have

1 fundamentalist Mormons believe in the way

1 God will be set in order. And when that

1 important to know where the truth is and

1 But just by definition and my way of

1 Mary Magdalene. And we believe also that

1 possible. If CBC is arguing for the cameras and

1 A Then I went to BYU and graduated from

1 to the Y that it was the most wonderful

1 work, and then her second marriage was to

1 comparing about the teachings of the

1 A Well, I didn't know but what a lot of

1 Never once have I questioned those two

1 on weekends and go visit bookstores and

1 answer was I like things how they are.