Polygamy: the Bible condones it, the Ku’ran encourages it and Emirs and Sheiks throughout history have demanded it. Not a provincial sport, polygamy has flourished throughout the world and left its mark on almost every civilization.

The desperate desire to control, nay, to own women has been a fantasy of man since the first cave man whacked a local lady with a club and dragged her off to his cave to see his prehistoric etchings, whether she wanted to or not.

But of course, polite society frowned on this activity and even proposed that one wife was quite sufficient. But religion, over the centuries, has facilitated polygamy because religion is and has been a great place to hide many controversial activities. (Polygamy? Sure. Pederasty? Right. Theft? Oh, yeah. Subversion? To be sure.) Even the most favored of God, King David, possessed over a thousand concubines. Concubines, although sanctioned by custom and the temple, were a cut below actual wives but nonetheless prized by the powerful and rich.

Today, after experiencing our own close brushes with polygamy, America is at a crossroads. We vacillate between the free practice clause of the first Amendment and the obvious decadence of polygamy, animal sacrifice, sexist practices of some religious sects and some really outlandish practices such as the snake handler cult.

America is a forgiving country and our majority Christian population has managed to get our government to forgive a lot of seditious Christian activities.

Polygamy, however, has galled us to the bone, especially the involuntary kind we have witnessed of late in the Fundamentalist Mormon Church.

Warren Jeffs, polygamy cult leader was just sentenced to two life terms for rape and soliciting to rape in his polygamy trial. Polygamy is outlawed by American civil law. But it was also outlawed in the Mormon Church in the 1800’s. So why wasn’t Jeffs the end of the story?

Because nothing this attractive to determined rich men will pass that easily nor will its attachment to religion as a facilitator.

It seems other nests of polygamy have been constructed in northern Arizona and Texas. The most recent, as you have seen on your TV screens recently, is a sprawling 1700 acre tract in West Texas purchased by a Fundamentalist Mormon Cult member ostensibly as a “hunting reserve.” Hmmm.

However, we now know it was home to a slavery operation beyond that which we have ever witnessed, even in Mormon circles.

Following several telephone complaints of sexual and physical abuse, over 200 women and girls were rescued from the clutches of Mormon slave masters by Texas law enforcement officials. Better late than never, I guess.

The irony of this brave rescue is that a large portion of the rescued women and girls were placed in the custody of a nearby Evangelical Baptist church and were being fed by another fundamentalist group, the Church of Christ.

The Southern Baptist convention last year adopted the mission statement: “A woman must graciously submit to her husband in all things.” The Churches of Christ have similar, if not harsher, restrictions on women.

I am astounded that women and girls, having suffered the sexual dominance and abject slavery of a Mormon Cult, would be placed in the hands of groups with doctrines that vary little from theirs.