"I've been reading about religious persecution in China, man," said Homeless Jack. "It seems that the Chinese government is persecuting Christians and making them practice their religion in ways that are acceptable to the state.

"While many people in the U.S. may cluck their tongues over this, the same thing appears to be happening right here in this nation.

"This week, the FBI put Warren Jeffs on its ten most wanted list. From that, most average Americans would probably figure that Jeffs is some bad hombre. Probably a demented killer. Well, they'd be wrong. The guy is actually just the leader of a religious group called The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The group has been around since 1890 when they split from the mainstream Mormons who the fundamentalists figure are apostates for changing revelations that were supposed to stand for all times.

"The fundamentalists follow the original teachings of Joseph Smith who founded the Mormons based on what he said were revelations.

"Among those revelations were two that were supposed to be in force and effect until the end of time. One of these was plural marriage--polygamy. Men could have as many wives as they could support. This revelation made perfect sense because it helped with God's command to go forth and multiply. Do I need to point out that once a woman is pregnant, she's out of service for nine months, as far as birthing more children, but that a man is not out of service. That's just nature. So, if a man is commanded to go forth and multiply he should be doing it as nature has allowed it to be done--all the time. And, if a woman can't multiply except once every nine months, well that's the way it is.

"Anyway, to make a long story short, after Smith was murdered in an earlier religious persecution, the Mormons moved west to the wilderness of Utah so they could be left alone and so they could practice their religion as they believed it should be practiced.

"That worked for a time, but then Utah wanted to become a state. The feds wouldn't allow this to happen so long as the Mormons practiced polygamy. Then, wouldn't you know it, the head of the church at that time suddenly had a new revelation that said the old revelation was wrong and that polygamy which was once good, was now bad. Utah then became a state.

"The other original revelation said that non-whites couldn't be members of the priesthood of the church. Since all Mormon men are members of the priesthood, this pretty much kept the church white. Then in 1978, the Mormon leader had another convenient revelation that said it was hunky dory to have non-whites as priests.

"Anyway, back to that business about polygamy. Jeffs is apparently being hunted because he is alleged to have married off some underage women to older men. Given the sex-is-dirty nature of our society, this claim conjures up mental pictures of old geezers hanging out in hot tubs with a bunch of young women. Such a demonization plays with those incapable of critical thinking. And, of course, that is probably the mental picture that those who won't let Jeffs and his group alone want people to believe. I don't buy it, man. I think those folks in Jeff's church aren't into sex that much except for procreation. They've been following their religion since 1890 and that was long before hot tubs, man.

"This whole Jeffs matter smells like the Branch Davidian or Randy Weaver thing all over again. You know, these folks in Jeffs' church mostly live in the two out of the way communities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. Those aren't vacation destination locations, man. They're out in the sticks. You have to go out of your way to get to them. Those people want to be left alone, but there are people who just keep wanting to persecute them.

"Back in the 1950's, the state took away all the children of the believers in these two towns. The kids were eventually returned, but they were traumatized.

"Look, man, if a religious group is out there killing people or something like that, then society should step in, but if any religious group just wants to be left alone and isn't hurting anyone and is following God's laws as they believe these laws have been laid down, where's the rub?

"It sure looks as though these Mormons are being hounded for their beliefs and practices because they aren't in conformity with what Judeo/Christian America now says is okay. My guess is that these Mormons also don't accept homosexuality or abortion. Must be a bunch of Hitlers. Can't have people like that around this nation. We all have to conform to the state religion.

"Live long and multiply right, man."