Lindsay Hansen Park disputes anti-polygamist activist Angela Kelly’s contention that polygamy is like slavery. That the use of the term disparages black people and Park apparently feels its use by Kelly borders on racism.
State Sen. Deidre Henderson is pushing SB102 through the Utah Legislature to what she contends should be lowering the criminality of polygamy to some type of misdemeanor — possibly ranking just below a lesser traffic ticket.
If the word slavery is so offensive, perhaps a review of the accepted synonyms is in order: bondage, servitude or, better yet, enthrallment, domination or subjugation. Subservience is a good word, one that the Mormon doctrine has itself shown in its writings for years.
Regardless, when young women are forced into marriages with appreciably older men, many of whom have already engaged in “celestial” wedlock with other women, what should we call that?
I agree that the victims, the young girls and multitude of other women enjoined in this pseudo-religious covenant, should not be charged with an offense. Rather, the perpetrators, the husbands, the self-ordained “prophets,” “revelators” or whatever the ridiculous title they embolden their actions with, should be found guilty of felony duress, control or whatever identification to this horrendous violation of human rights would satisfy Park and Henderson.
James Oshust, Millcreek