Texas town uneasy after polygamist sect moves in

Senator Rick Santorum, R, PA, tried to warn this would happen when the SCOTUS overturned the Texas Sodomy Law. When we tried to explain it, everyone scoffed. Well...it isn't so funny anymore.

By Joseph A. Reaves, The Arizona Republic ELDORADO, Texas — Folks around here couldn't be more dumbfounded if a flying saucer buzzed the county courthouse and spooked all the sheep this side of Abilene. Polygamists?

A high wall surrounds the compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Utah.

A colony of secretive Arizona and Utah men with two, three or more wives apiece wearing ankle-length, gingham pioneer dresses while working the fields under a scorching West Texas sun?

"When I first heard they were out there, I thought, 'You've got to be kidding,' " said Randy Mankin, city administrator, hospital board member and editor of the local weekly newspaper. "I mean, we're talking about polygamy and things that were supposed to be over and done a long time ago."

Over and done in most places, but just coming to the rolling hills of Schleicher County.

In November, a representative of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints quietly purchased 1,691 acres of rocky ranch land just north of Eldorado, population 1,951. The FLDS is believed to be the largest polygamist community in the nation. With headquarters in the twin communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, the church has about 10,000 to 12,000 members, whose ancestors have practiced plural marriage for more than a century.

A rift among church elders and mounting legal pressure from both states apparently persuaded Warren Jeffs, head of the sect, to build a refuge in this isolated swath of cotton and cattle country.

"It's kind of frightening," said Kelley Conn, 34, a stay-at-home mother of two preteen girls. "We're a small enough town that if they wanted to, they could just take us over."

The FLDS land is accessible only by a narrow dirt easement through neighboring property protected by a padlocked gate and a not-so-deftly disguised infrared camera. Such secrecy doesn't sit well in these parts of Texas, where passing drivers are expected to wave to one another and gentlemen always nod to women and strangers. Possibly the only person to develop any kind of relationship with the new neighbors is Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran, a polite, soft-spoken man who preaches patience and understanding.

Doran became the point man in an emerging community crisis in March when local pilots flying over the FLDS property photographed three giant dormitories under construction.

David Allred, a Colorado City business executive and confidant of Jeffs, purchased the land for $800 an acre, nearly twice the going rate for comparable land in the county. He told the sheriff he was building a corporate hunting retreat. Not until early May did he and three other church officials admit they fabricated the story to avoid publicity.

That turnaround, coupled with the fact that almost no one in West Texas knew anything about the FLDS, kindled fears of a replay of the kind of tragedy that took place near Waco in 1993. That's when about 80 members of David Koresh's Branch Davidian sect and four federal agents were killed in a fiery standoff.

"When they first came here, that's naturally the first thing that popped into my mind," Doran said. "That's why I did some diligent research. We got on the Internet. We talked to everybody we could in Arizona and Utah. We went up to Colorado City and met with officials."

Everybody he spoke with, Doran said, assured him the church has never had a history of violence. But church members do have a penchant for privacy and secrecy. Jeffs, 48, rarely is seen in public and never grants interviews. Earlier this year, while still living in a compound behind 8-foot walls in Hildale, Jeffs excommunicated 21 longtime elders of the tight-knit community and imposed assessments of $500 to $1,000 on church members.

Both moves came after months of increasing pressure by Attorneys General Mark Shurtleff of Utah and Terry Goddard of Arizona, who have spent months investigating a wide range of allegations against Jeffs and other church leaders. No senior church members have been charged.

Fundamentalists believe abandoning polygamy, as the mainstream Mormon Church did in 1890, was a mistake. But many in Schleicher County think the FLDS made a bigger mistake coming to West Texas.

"They don't know how to get along with people," said Juanice Orr, 64, a part-time librarian whose main job these days is figuring out who's next on the waiting list for the county library's two books about polygamy.

"Those folks just stay out there and avoid you, then lie about what they're doing," Orr said. "The more you hear about them, the more scared you get."

Now THAT'S in Texas. Leftward HO!!!

Texas has inherited Mormonents for Christmas. Say thank you to all the UN oriented SC judges who think THIS is sophistication. Blechhhhh!