"'This problem is going to get worse and worse and worse,' predicts . Polygamy is outlawed in Utah, both by the states constitution, and in statute, where it is a third-degree felony, with a possible punishment of five years in prison. 'I know this off the top of my head," Wyler says. There lives Ross LeBaron Jr., a descendant of another polygamous sect (separate from the FLDS but quite similar in practice) called the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times. 'Her body tried to miscarry many, many times.'. . "I didn't touch her; I just used a turkey baster," she mimics, rolling her eyes. From an "Associated Press" news report, "Doctor: Birth Defects Increase in Polygamy Community": "A rare, severe birth defect is on the rise in an inbred polygamous community on the Arizona-Utah border, according to a doctor who has treated many of the children. 'In the meantime, the taxpayers have to pay the bills. Elden continued the tradition. . They steer clear of banks,. The Twelve Apostles of Mormonism then acted to increase this familial relationship by marrying other relatives until in 1877, at the end of Brigham Youngs reign as Mormon Prophet and King, the polygamous hierarchy became l00% interrelated. . "Finally exposed in the news, the facts of life inside [the Mormon offshoot Kingston clan's] religious/cult compound are stunning Mormons, Utahans, the nation, and the world. . "It is important that Mormons fight the tendency to discount history and the actions of their leaders in favor of a faith- promoting history while neglecting important facts. . Upon the creation of the LDCJC, most members of the DCCS . Supposedly, LaDonna had a dream wherein it was revealed that anyone who left The Order would be tainted by black blood. . In 2003, another clan member, Jeremy Kingston pleaded guilty to incest for taking 15-year-old Lu Ann Kingston as his fourth wife. "They've got this idea that their blood is pure and that they want to keep it pure.'. . "Today, six sons and two daughters of John Ortell and LaDonna have married at least 20 half-sisters, nieces and first cousins, giving birth to a family tree that twists and tangles, and, at times, withers with children born of genetic deficiencies. . 11, p. 128, ". my question is: How come MORmON god does not get on board with His own programs? . "'You don't want to jump to the conclusion and say all of these are the result of inbreeding,' he says. "My father and her grandmother were full brother and sister," she explains, recognizing the bloom of confusion on my face. The teacher added a drop of dye to the water, and the children watched as the blackness slowly spread. . " . Dont the infant deaths and tales of horrific deformities belie Ortells homespun eugenics? The Tuckers think this is all hogwash now, though they were programmed to believe it at the time. "It is Moore-Emmett's belief that the LDS Church who started polygamy in this country should take responsibility and provide financial aid and other resources for those polygamous families who have been abused. . This lack of information upset me as a child when to my fervent, 'Why?' Most populations outbreed and so these lethal genes rarely match to cause any serious diseases. Lesser known children hidden in families sympathetic to polygamists might remain ignorant of their genetic kinship. The defect might be caused by genetics, infection, radiation, or drug exposure, or there might be no known reason. "Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org", http://www.lds-mormon.com/quinn_polygamy.shtml, http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/polygamy_summary.htm. "Frequent and powerful seizures are among the most disturbing characteristics of the disease. . died of multiple sclerosis, also leaving a family of small children behind. . Initially, she tried to conceal her marital relationship. . Rather than take steps to avoid the problem, the FLDS loyalists may believe it is their duty to accept their fate. . If two descendants of hierarchical polygamy marry, the chances for genetic defects increase if the families were ever interrelated. Many children have had birth defects due to this inbreeding. 'Remember how Hitler was trying to breed a perfect race?' . . Boys began to show interest in Julie as she matured, but Paul, as the clans leader, warned them away, because of Julies black blood. [O]ver the first 50 years of Mormonism, a highly inbred hierarchy became even more inbred through their illegal marriage and childbirth practices. . And her ex-husband's parents, Merlin and Carolyn Kingston, were uncle and niece. Not one defect, but many. Structural birth defects are related to a problem with the structure of body parts. The parents said their daughter had cerebral palsy. "How do you keep track of that?" She knows that they're. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business. They can't do anything by themselves. . 'All of a sudden [with] this one little baby, everything tightened up and she arched her back so hard her head was almost touching her toes,' Wyler says. The FLDS split off from the mainline Mormon (LDS) church in 1890 after the church denounced the principal of plural marriage. Almost everyone here is some variation of cousin, and, until Warren was locked up and decided to put a hold on all marriages, most men and women were paired together in order to preserve certain esteemed bloodlines. Their brains, he says, 'are strangely shaped' and are frequently missing large areas of brain matter that has been replaced by water. "All of the fumarase deficiency children Wyler has seen remain dependent on the parents or caregivers. "Marriages among first and second cousins have been common for decades in the community, where religious doctrine requires men to have at least three wives to gain eternal salvation. If you find a grave up there that's not marked, that's the way Fred wanted it.". Spokesmen for both the U.S. State Department and for Picatinny Arsenal could neither verify nor deny Youngs claims. . . Black people supposedly suffered from multiple scriptural curses, from the mark of Cain and Noahs curse on Ham in the Old Testament to the racist tenets of early Mormonism that have since been renounced or abandoned by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS or Mormon church. From the article, "Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints Genealogy and Polygamy Problems": "The gene pool is . Ron Kingston says The Orders leadership has too much to lose for something like that to happen. . Wyler says he once saw a fumarase deficiency child suffer a seizure while she was sitting with her mother and two other children also suffering from the disorder. . "Her book . Fast-forward to 1990, a century after the LDS abandoned polygyny, and the upshot was only just beginning to emerge. . Control of The Order then passed to Ortells well-educated son Paul Kingston, one of several lawyers in a cult whose members dress normally and try not to draw attention to themselves. Fumarase deficiency (FD) is an autosomal metabolic recessive disorder, meaning it is necessary for an individual with the condition to receive the mutant allele from both parents. I am convinced they do. 'A lady comes in and helps her. . 'He wanted to control his children and grandchildren through genetics. "And my oldest daughter, she's 18 and she's dated a couple of my cousins, which makes them her second cousins, and we're like, Eww, that's gross.". Kollene's father, John Daniel Kingston has 14 wives, and she is the fifth of her mother Shirley Hansen's 12 children. Matt Browning seems less sure. Three of his wives are his half-sisters. "Intermarriage among close relatives is producing children who have two copies of a recessive gene for a debilitating condition called fumarase deficiency. Even the few highly educated people there . . . 'They are functioning way below their chronological age.'. . . "Outside, people don't die that often, and usually they're really old.". "Mormon Prophet Hebrew J. Some of you may not believe this, but I not only believe it but I also know it. The mere rumor of black blood could condemn someone in the eyes of Order members. According to many of the individuals interviewed for this story, these children are seen as special angels sent from God to the FLDS community. "Every person carries some lethal genes. "There was a guy out here who was married to a couple of young girls, and he was going to get in trouble because he was having children with these young girls, so he said, 'Well, I never had sex with themI used a turkey baster.'" . . sr. . 'But just on general principles, the offspring of uncle-niece, or half-siblings have an elevated level of genetic disease. Examples of birth defects include phenylketonuria, sickle cell anemia and Down syndrome. LGBT people fare little better in the Kingston clan. She is guiding me all around town, following my route, turn by turn, on Google maps. I could see that the leaders of The Order really did believe we had black ancestors, Ron explained, with Christy next to him, and his adult daughters Emily and Julie nearby. 'Maybe it will just self-destruct,' historian Bistline says of the fundamentalist church he quit 20 years ago because of a dispute over religious doctrine and property ownership. Some would say that is because it takes generations for certain inbred recessive genetic traits to manifest. . Some outside the church have referred to the group as "the Kingston Clan" or the "Kingston Cult," although leaders believe that these terms are "inaccurate and derogatory." . We cannot afford to neglect the possibility our ancestors practiced a form of marriage that was unhealthy and debilitating to our children, to us, and to society. Dawna's younger sister has a little boy with two clubfeet. Modern interpretations of this passage vary, but The Order apparently takes quite literally this idea of blackness being a sign of iniquity. . . Therefore, to keep the bloodline 'pure,' the Kingstons intermarry--half-brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and so forth. . . These men are living freely in the Cane Beds area. Brigham Young calling some one else a thief especially "women thieves" ABSOLUTE HILARITY ! . Or Aunt Martha did, or somebody did. . and cousins. One of her brothers married a woman whose grandmother is a sister to their father. There are also accounts of dead babies being buried at the Holy Spot, a tree-shrouded patch of land across the street from a grade school in Bountiful, just north of Salt Lake City. 'If you stop the sexual predation, you stop the genetic problem as well. "It's believed that more than half the residents carry the recessive gene. . "Nearly everyone in Colorado City, Arizona, and the adjacent town of Hildale, Utah, was a member of a fundamentalist Mormon sect that practices polygamy and had long encouraged multiple marriages between close relatives. So when you see all of these diseases occurring in the children, it's possible some are the result of inbreeding.'. The FLDS believe they are practicing the one true religion as Prophet Joseph Smith intended it to be. Chapter 2: The roots of a tortured clan By Western standards, Mohammad Shafia is not an educated man; born in middle-class Kabul in. . . Its ominous-sounding moniker, The Order, is a reference to the United Order, a quasi-utopian society proposed by LDS-founder Joseph Smith, and practiced in some Mormon communities under the leadership of early church president Brigham Young. Nobody, from the police to [the governor], cares that these children are abused from conception to marriage.'. "Researchers have identified a gene on the first chromosome that causes fumarase deficiency, but no test has been developed that could be used to identify individuals carrying the malady. . . Although the official stance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is against polygamy, several of the women's stories reveal that LDS leaders dismiss the deviant sects and blame the women who come to them for help. Readily accepted as a problem among mothers past the age of 35, it is rarely discussed as a problem when fathers are over 35, let alone 80. soon . . A loyal Order member for years, he lost his faith and ended up leaving the Order over a curse of sorts, leveled at his family by LaDonna. . The samples could be tested for the gene at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. . Carolyn. . As for its anti-government views, allegations of fraud against government entities have long dogged the Kingstons. . . . A rare neurological disorder characterized by water on the brain, muscular stiffness, adducted thumbs and aphasia, x-linked hydrocephalus is expressed only in men and carried by women. The teacher was like, You can never get that out, that is always there now, recalled Jessica, now 29. ", -The Prophet Brigham Young, "Journal of Discourses," vol. "15 years ago, a strange-looking child suffering from severe physical maladies and acute retardation was brought into the office of [pedatric neurologist] Dr. Theodore Tarby. "Genealogists and especially epidemiologists must be scrupulous in identifying all the wives and children of any polygamist man. Jeffs is following a long-established practice -- started by Smith 170 years ago -- of excommunicating those who do not strictly adhere to church leaders' commands. Re: Polygamy's Patriarchy-Poisoned Bloodline: The Genetic Catastrophe That Has Sprung from Joseph Smith's "Divine" Breeding Program of Mormon Mutation . There are baby graves year that date back as earlier as the 1950s, potentially even earlier: many are unmarked. . "Another of Rugg's full sisters, Andrea Johnson, died in 1992 of complications of pre-eclampsia, a condition of pregnancy that was not treated until after the young girl, swollen with toxic fluid, was rushed to the emergency unit at University Hospital. Those affected by the genetic disorder suffer grand mal seizures and often have facial feature deformities and severe mental retardation, with IQs as low as 25. Dawna says that, when people refer to what's going on over in the Cane Beds, they say it's probably another turkey baster situation. His seven sons and two daughters by LaDonna Peterson, the second of his 13 wives, are reputed to be the inner circle that runs the cult. They predict the scale of the problem will increase dramatically in the future. Well, my sister had a little baby with a cleft lip; it was her first child and it had a cleft lip and cleft palate, because they were both Jessops, and Jessops are carriers of that gene. Julie left the cult at age 19. . Women Who Escaped a Polygamist Mormon Cult Share Their Story, the corner of Canyon Street and Jessop Avenue, to express his support for the Bundy family in Oregon, an article published by the ABC news network, the fundamentalist church of jesus christ of latter day saints. . Bad harm. Her younger sister Emily thought it was a joke, too, until one day another Order kid told her, We cant play with you because the Tuckers are n------.. She directs me to the houses she lived in after that: her stepdad Jim Jessop's home; then the rotten, roach-infested house she and her mother shared with nearly two dozen cousins and friends after being removed from Jim's following the Judgment. . "'We don't have a dad,' the little boy said. ", -Apostle Heber C. Kimball, "Journal of Discourses," vol. . . Another significant group is the Kingston Clan, also known as "The Order" and officially the Latter Day Church of Christ, with about 2000 members scattered throughout Utah. Surely, there were too many deaths. . One outspoken Mormon matriarch who attended the same Sunday meeting for 50 years commented about the health of the polygamous descendants versus the monogamous descendants, 'You see it in the obituaries. "Including Utah, 37 states outlaw first-cousin marriage. The two groups split when Dawna was growing up. "These groups are white supremacists and inbreeding is an essential doctrine in keeping the bloodline pure. _____, --How "God's Genes" Do Ugly Things: The Biological Attack on "Modern"-day Followers of Mormonism's Originally-"Revealed" Doctrine of Polygamy. This is a rare disorder and medical descriptions of trisome infants are too dreadful to describe here. Pentecostal "Although it is a felony under Utah law for close relatives to have sex, only one Kingston--John and LaDonna's fifth son, David Ortell--has been criminally charged with incest. "Rather than polygamy being about religion, Moore-Emmett believes that many polygamous marriages are about sex and power. Mormons can now see why American citizens passed laws intended to stop polygamy, a relic of unwise prophecy, laws continuously disregarded in Utah, a state controlled by the Mormon Church, if they will only look. But [FLDS members] don't think of it as sexual predation. A 1999 Salt Lake Tribune article mapped the Kingstons incestuous family tree, quoting one of Ortells 65 kids, ex-Order member Connie Rugg as saying, My father experimented [with] inbreeding with his cattle and then he turned to his children.. ozpoof mating in a way that increases genetic diseases, that the public ends up supporting, it becomes a matter of public interest.'. Mormon Church presidents and "prophet"-leaders have blamed monogamy a host of terminal afflictions that have been delivered upon the world. . _____. The adoption of children among family members sometimes disguised sterility. '90% of the community is related to one side or the other,' said Bistline, a former member of the sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. An MRI of the brain of one fumarase deficiency child showed that more than half the brain was missing. There is no sign. Ortell is credited with expanding The Orders business empire and making the family immensely wealthy. 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