» Continued from Part 1

=== Other News
17. Judgment upholds polygamist leaders' defense motion (FLDS)
18. Sikh officer wins record damages
19. No meeting of minds at telepathy trial
20. Seizure of Hallucinogenic Tea Causes a Stir
21. Talk of violence spreads after Bible incident
22. Appellate court rules Wenatchee man can sue state
23. Bell to stand in Tory seat riven by 'cult' claims (Peniel Pentecostal)

=== Death Penalty
24. President Clinton passes the buck on federal execution

=== Noted
25. Bountiful's troubling tradition (FLDS)

=== Books
26. New book explores homosexuality among Italian clergy
27. Serial for the millennium


=== Other News

17. Judgment upholds polygamist leaders' defense motion
AP, Dec. 8, 2000
08polygamy@Ogden.asp">http://www1.standard.net/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ST. GEORGE -- A Utah judge has granted summary judgment in favor of polygamist church leaders sued by a man who claimed they persuaded his wife and children to leave him.

''I'm not paid to be right, I'm paid to decide,'' said 5th District Judge James L. Shumate in dismissing the $10 million lawsuit in which Jason Williams alleged alienation of affection and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

''There are no factual findings, I'm just granting the (defense) motion (for summary judgment),'' Shumate said.

Williams and his attorney said they will appeal.

Williams claims he was forced out of his Colorado City, Ariz., home last December. He contends Rulon Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Jeffs' son Warren coerced Williams wife, Suzanne, to leave his family because ''she had no chance of salvation if she were to remain married'' to Williams.

Williams said the church leaders told his wife to marry Lester Johnson, a member of the FLDS church.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Sikh officer wins record damages
The Times (England), Dec. 8, 2000
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A police officer wrongly accused of sending racist hate mail to himself received record damages of £150,000, after it was found that he was discriminated against for being Asian.

The payout to Gurpal Virdi, a Sikh sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, was substantially more than expected. The previous record payment for injury to feelings at the London Central Employment Tribunal courts was £40,000.

Last week Mr Virdi, 41, was offered his job back at Scotland Yard after a full apology from the force.
(...)

But an employment tribunal in August concluded there was no evidence that he had sent the letters and that he was the actual victim of racial discrimination by the Met.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. No meeting of minds at telepathy trial
The Daily Telegraph (England), Dec. 8, 2000
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The world's biggest psychic experiment yesterday failed to come up with a shred of evidence for telepathy. But then, the true psychics would have known that anyway.

Over the course of 10 experiments, several hundred people failed to project a set of images to volunteers in a sealed room several hundred feet away. The volunteers should have got between two and three images right just by random chance. In fact they scored one out of 10.
(...)

Yesterday's research was the brainchild of Dr Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire who attempts to put paranormal claims under rigorous scientific scrutiny. The aim was to see whether a large number of people could boost the strength of any telepathic signals.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


20. Seizure of Hallucinogenic Tea Causes a Stir
Albuquerque Journal, Dec. 8, 2000
http://www.abqjournal.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A hallucinogenic tea called hoasca that is used by members of a Brazil-based religious group has become the focus of a legal battle in New Mexico.

Adherents of O Centro Espírita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, or UDV (Portuguese for ''union of the plants'') say the herbal brew of two plants is a central sacrament in their religious practice, which is a blend of Christian beliefs and traditions rooted in the Amazon basin.

Jeffrey Bronfman, whose family owns a substantial interest in Seagram Co. Ltd., is president of the church in the United States. He contends federal authorities are unconstitutionally denying UDV members the right to practice their religion.

Bronfman and other church members sued on Nov. 21 on behalf of UDV-USA in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, and this week said they will seek a preliminary injunction.
(...)

U.S. Customs agents seized a barrel of the tea shipped to Bronfman's Santa Fe home a year and a half ago.
(...)

Bronfman's directions to shipping companies say the tea, made from plants known as Mariri and Chacrona, is for use by the religious organization, which has been practicing in the United States for the past 10 years and now has about 8,000 members worldwide.

''The tea imported has no commercial value and will not be sold. It will be used only by members of the social religious organization as a health supplement,'' the search warrant quotes Bronfman's shipping letter as saying.
(...)

Federal officials have refused to return the hoasca.

Fearful that it would be destroyed, UDV members - through their lawyers Nancy Hollander and John Boyd - have sought return of the tea and said they can't practice their faith without it.

''It would be like asking Catholics to have communion without the Eucharist,'' Hollander said.

The central argument of the civil suit is a claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government must have a ''compelling interest'' in interfering with religious practices and must do so by the least restrictive means when such an interest exists.
(...)

The UDV is not the only hoasca-using religion in Brazil, but it is considered to be the most strongly organized, according to researchers.

According to the civil complaint, the tea is ''non-addictive, is not harmful to human health and poses none of the risks commonly found with the use of certain controlled substances. Also, anthropological research has show that this tea has been used safely in religious contexts for more than 1,500 years.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


21. Talk of violence spreads after Bible incident
The Toledo Blade, Dec. 7, 2000
http://www.toledoblade.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Hundreds of students were absent from Bowsher High School yesterday, and about 100 others went home early after hearing rumors of threats of violence after an incident in which two girls defaced a Bible and ate some of its pages, authorities said.

Between 300 and 400 students were absent from school, twice the daily average absentee figure. The school has about 1,300 students.

No criminal charges have been filed against any students, and no disciplinary action has been taken. Three menacing reports related to the incident were filed with Toledo police.
(...)

''Our major problem is uncontrollable rumors. The school is safe,'' said Officer Phil Carroll, a community service officer who has worked at Bowsher for five years.

The situation started during lunch Tuesday when two girls in a group of seven students began defacing a Bible and tearing out the pages and eating them, authorities said.

The students were wearing ''Gothic'' styled clothes and were planning to attend the Marilyn Manson concert scheduled at the Sports Arena that night.

Goths usually wear black clothing, inspired by antique Gothic fashions, and often use black lipstick, black eye shadow, and black eyeliner, and dye their hair jet black.

Another group of teens confronted the students, who were wearing black clothing and lipstick and had ''Welcome, Marilyn'' balloons. Words were exchanged between the groups about their beliefs before a school official stopped the dispute.

In the afternoon, rumors of a ''hit list'' targeting athletes, cheerleaders, ''preppies,'' and blacks; assaults against groups of students, and other violent threats circulated through the building. The hit list allegedly belonged to the students wearing the Gothic-style clothing.

Students involved in the cafeteria incident were questioned, but authorities said they found nothing to substantiate the rumors. Authorities talked to about 25 students and plan to interview 10 to 15 more who were not in school yesterday.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


22. Appellate court rules Wenatchee man can sue state
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dec. 7, 2000
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A state appellate court said a Wenatchee man can sue the Department of Social and Health Services and four of its caseworkers for negligence in their investigation of child sex-abuse allegations made against him.

Robert Devereaux, a retired insurance executive and foster parent, was one of four dozen people swept up in 1994 and 1995 when police and state social workers undertook what was then called the nation's most extensive child sex-abuse investigation.

Since then, courts have thrown out many of the convictions and have awarded damages to the accused after finding the original allegations were based on coerced confessions or tainted evidence obtained by an overzealous police detective.

Devereaux, 64, was accused of 335 counts of child rape and child molestation involving two children, despite reports from two social workers who questioned the allegations.

The charges were later dropped after one of the children said she had been pressured to make the allegations by Wenatchee Detective Robert Perez, her foster father.

Devereaux eventually pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors, none involving improper sexual contact. He sued the state, DSHS, Wenatchee and Perez, claiming they knew that the allegations against him were suspect.

The city, its police chief and Perez settled out of court with Devereaux for $290,000. Devereaux's negligence suit against the state and the DSHS caseworkers was thrown out, in part because the trial judge said state workers enjoyed qualified immunity from civil suits.

In reinstating the negligence portion of the suit in an unpublished ruling Tuesday, the appellate court concluded that there were ''material issues of fact regarding whether the caseworkers acted reasonably.''
(...)

Sidebar:
The Aftermath
Developments continue in the wake of the P-I's February 1998 investigation into civil rights violations during the Wenatchee sex ring prosecutions.

See more followups.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Bell to stand in Tory seat riven by 'cult' claims
Daily Mail (England), Dec. 9, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Martin Bell plans to stand as an MP in a Tory constituency where a cult-style evangelical group is said to have infiltrated the local party.

The former BBC war correspondent, currently independent MP for Tatton, yesterday answered a call from hundreds of voters from all parties concerned over the Peniel Pentecostal Church.

Members are said to have flooded Brentwood and Ongar Conservative Association in Essex to influence the selection of officers and lobby MP Eric Pickles.

Mr Bell said 119 members had joined on a single day and he believed there was 'a problem of the democratic process in the links between the church and the association'.
(...)

Brentwood and Ongar has been a hotbed of claim and counterclaim since Peniel members began joining the party in 1998.

An investigation by Conservative Central Office into church links with the party found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Mr Bell said he did not believe it had been thorough enough.

The Peniel Church's leader, self-styled bishop Michael Reid, insisted yesterday he had no interest in politics.

Graham Baldwin, of the anti-cult group Catalyst, said it was 'most certainly a cult' and exmembers were suing the church over claims their children were beaten in a school run by it.
[...more...]


=== Death Penalty

24. President Clinton passes the buck on federal execution
Amnesty International, Dec. 8, 2000
http://www.web.amnesty.org/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
President Clinton's decision yesterday to only delay the first federal execution since 1963 represents a failure of leadership and the triumph of politics over human rights, Amnesty International said today.

''Of course, we welcome that Juan Raul Garza will not be executed as scheduled on 12 December'', Amnesty International said. ''Nevertheless, President Clinton has missed a key opportunity to live up to the human rights principles he has so often claimed to support during his term in office.''

The President effectively shunted the issue of federal executions to his successor.
(...)

In September, the Justice Department released the findings of its review into the federal death penalty which showed that, like its state-level counterpart, it is characterized by arbitrariness and possible racial discrimination.

''This year has seen unprecedented levels of national concern about the fairness and reliability of the US death penalty'', Amnesty International said. ''Juan Garza's case was an opportunity for President Clinton to send a message to his country that it should rethink its attachment to this fatally flawed punishment, and begin to take the first steps down a path taken by more than half the countries of the world.''

''Instead he has decided to let federal officialdom continue to tinker with the machinery of death.''

In issuing the stay, President Clinton reiterated his support for the death penalty, and stated that he is not imposing a moratorium on federal executions.

In November, Amnesty International sent President Clinton a 43-page memorandum on the federal death penalty, in which the organization called for commutation of all federal death sentences and a moratorium. The memorandum also detailed the US Government's consistent failure to confront the violations of international standards at state level, as US states continue to pursue a punishment marked by arbitrariness, discrimination, political expediency and error.

In August, President Clinton said that the USA was the leading force for human rights around the world, and had become a ''more decent, more humane'' country under his presidency. Just two days ago, the White House released a fact sheet trumpeting President Clinton's human rights record. There was no mention of the death penalty.

Amnesty International's memorandum pointed out that the years of his presidency have seen almost 500 executions in the USA. In contrast, the same period has seen 28 more countries abolish the death penalty.

The memorandum also recalled how in 1992, as Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton had broken off presidential campaigning in New Hampshire to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally disabled man with the mind of a young child. His execution violated international human rights standards, as have many of the executions carried out since.
[...more..]
» Amnesty International Report on US Human Rights Violations


=== Noted

25. Bountiful's troubling tradition
The Globe and Mail (Canada), Dec. 9, 2000
http://archives.theglobeandmail.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) The scene could be anywhere in Canada -- except that the women are all teenagers in 1940s hairdos and long, high-collar dresses.

What is more, they and the hockey players all belong to the only known openly polygamous community in the country.

Fuelled by a religious zeal to marry and procreate -- believed to be necessary steps on the road to heavenly salvation -- Bountiful has doubled in size to about 700 members in a decade.

Even more extraordinary is that they are largely the progeny of a handful of fundamentalist Mormons who settled in Creston Valley only half a century ago.

While a conjugal union with more than one person is an offence under the Criminal Code, carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison, no one in Bountiful is particularly worried about being prosecuted.

''We've got a great piece of legislation in this land of ours,'' said Winston Kaye Blackmore, ''and it's the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.''

Mr. Blackmore, 44, leads the Canadian branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that was established in 1946 and claims to remain true to the precepts of Joseph Smith, who founded the church in 1830.

Smith justified polygamy by citing Old Testament patriarchs such as Abraham, and Mr. Blackmore contends that ''there's plenty of evidence in our doctrine and covenants and revelations to our prophet that state the principle of plural marriage is an everlasting principle. And that's what we believe today. If it was then, it is today.''

He has reason to be confident that the Charter is a shield. In 1992, despite evidence gathered by the RCMP, the B.C. government decided against prosecuting him and a co-leader (now deceased) on polygamy charges.

Officials said they were concerned that the Criminal Code provisions violate religious-freedom guarantees contained in the Charter.
(...)

Polygamy may be a social problem, said Colin Gableman, the attorney-general of the day, but it is not a criminal one.

Yet Mr. Blackmore, a prominent and respected local businessman as well as the church's Canadian bishop, remains intensely frustrated.

After a lull, journalists and some ''apostates'' -- his term for people who have left his church or been kicked out -- are stirring up trouble again.

In a rare interview, he said he is so incensed at some published accounts that he has considered laying a criminal complaint against a reporter for inciting hatred against his community.

But this unwelcome focus on Bountiful also has resulted in media calls to B.C. law-enforcement officials, who appear to take a different approach than their predecessors.

They say the polygamy section of the Criminal Code is valid until a court says otherwise and it is not up to a Crown lawyer to determine whether it will be enforced.

The recent spotlight on Bountiful stems in part from a complaint filed by Lenore Holm, a 37-year-old mother of 13 who says she was thrown out of the U.S. church after objecting to church-sanctioned preparations for her daughter, then 16, to become the second wife of a 39-year-old married man with 10 children.

She alleges that last May, as part of the prenuptial arrangements, her daughter, Nichole, was taken without her parents' consent across the border to Bountiful ''for lewd purposes,'' a charge being investigated by the RCMP in Creston.

Ms. Holm has filed the same complaint with the police in Colorado City, Ariz.

Mr. Blackmore denies the allegations. He said Nichole told him that she visited Bountiful to get away from her mother and ''to try to heal'' her mind.

The girl has since returned to the United States, he said, and is living -- unmarried -- in Colorado City, which along with Hildale just across the Utah border forms the backbone of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints.

Nichole could not be reached for comment, but Wynn Jessop in Colorado City, the man to whom she was allegedly given in marriage, vigorously denied Ms. Holm's charges. ''It's all lies. That's all I can say.''

Before cutting off the call, he said Nichole is not living with him.

Ms. Holm does not know for sure what is really going on because her daughter will not talk to her.

Her allegations have been widely reported in Utah, the base of the mainstream Mormon church, which officially abandoned polygamy a century ago in compliance with federal law.

Not only did the established Mormon church capitulate by renouncing polygamy, it went further by excommunicating those who persisted in the practice.

The controversy over polygamy continues to this day. In October, Utah's Attorney-General hired a special investigator to examine ''closed societies'' for evidence of tax evasion, welfare fraud, child sexual abuse and domestic abuse.

The move came after much pressure from people such as Utah Senator Ron Allen, who has said: ''We have thousands of women pulled out of school at any early age, forced into marriages with older men, kept isolated from society, constantly impregnated and often placed on public assistance with no financial means of their own. They are forgotten citizens facing abuse and fear. On top of it all, the victims are constantly taught that God is just pleased as punch about the whole deal. It has to stop.''

In Canada, Ms. Holm has the support of the Committee Concerned with Polygamous Issues, a group of women who have fled ''plural'' marriages and are intent on putting a spotlight on what they regard as polygamy's dysfunctional reality.

A more persistent thorn in Mr. Blackmore's side is a woman who -- in the interrelated world of Bountiful -- is, at the same time, his stepmother, his sister-in-law and his niece.

Deborah Palmer, 44, the chairwoman of the polygamy-issues committee, now lives in Prince Albert, Sask.
(...)

In her letter, she also reminded Ms. McLellan that Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The UN committee that monitors conformity to the convention has declared that ''polygamous marriage contravenes a woman's right to equality with men, and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependents that such marriages ought to be discouraged and prohibited.''
(...)

Contrary to assertions that the community has closed itself to the outside world, Mr. Blackmore said he encourages members to live and work off church property and about half of them do.

Wherever they live, they practise a form of communitarianism involving donated labour for community projects and they are tithed 10 per cent of their household's disposable income over and above living expenses.
(...)

Those living on church property are regarded by the leaders as tenants-at-will, meaning that they may be subject to eviction orders. This has led to nasty court battles in the United States, where some evicted members have complained that they were not compensated for upgrades they had made to church property.
(...)

The church members also have an understanding about dealing with outsiders. For one thing, there is a limit to how far they are willing to go in revealing aspects of their personal lives.
(...)

The community decided to refuse questions about personal matters after publicity in the early 1990s that focused on possible polygamy charges and on several sexual-assault convictions against male church members.

In one case, a 16-year-old boy was convicted of sexually molesting his half-sister. In another, a man was convicted of indecent assault against his wife's sister. In yet another, a man was convicted of sexual assault against one of his wives.

Mr. Blackmore said sexual abuse in his community is no more common than in monogamous societies. When it occurs, he said, it is not tolerated. ''No one needs to live with abuse.''

He said he has an agreement with both the RCMP and the B.C. Ministry of Family Services to report cases of abuse, but he offered no recent examples. The police said they were unaware of any.

When the interview turned to the issue of multiple marriages, Mr. Blackmore was not reticent to defend the practice, even in cases involving teenaged girls.

He maintained that the women and girls hold the upper hand because in his community, boys and men are not allowed to ''court,'' or date or make any advances.

Merrill Palmer, the school principal, put it this way: ''We feel that it is a woman's right to ask whether she can marry a certain individual.''

The final say, he added, rests with Mr. Jeffs, as God's representative on Earth.
(...)

Mr. Blackmore would not reveal numbers, but he said more community members are in monogamous relationships than in polygamous ones.

''Men can't just go out and 'court them up' another wife,'' he said. ''Our responsibility is to take care of the families we've got. The one thing that anyone has to have before he can have more than one wife is women who are willing to marry him. That takes a whole lifetime in lots of people.''

Whenever they are ready, there are enough bloodlines to avoid intermarriage, Mr. Blackmore said. Besides, Mr. Palmer said, there is a steady, yet slow, flow of people between Bountiful and its sister communities south of the border.

All this is deeply unsettling to a middle-aged woman who left the community but still lives in the area. She alleges that girls are being married as young as 15, but it is impossible to prove because the unions are sealed in secret church ceremonies and there is no paper trail.
(...)

She said the most difficult thing for the outside world to understand about Bountiful is its spiritual dimension, which she maintained is a form of mind control.

''It's not just men wanting more wives just for the sake of sex,'' she said. ''It's not for any of these purposes. This is what they believe, this is what they have to do to gain their salvation. And some of these young men and women are very sincere people.''

Some people think that government has a role in keeping an eye on what is going on in Bountiful.

Stephen Kent, a University of Alberta sociologist who has studied polygamy, said that while the state may not interfere with religious belief, it may interfere in some practices if they run contrary to law.

''The state has an obligation to protect citizens when they cannot protect themselves,'' he said, suggesting that offences other than polygamy, such as forcible confinement and sexual assault, could be investigated if complaints were lodged.

McGill University law professor Roderick Macdonald has studied the legal implications of complex personal relationships, such as homosexual marriages, and he said what is important is not whether someone is polygamous or monogamous, but what the nature of the relationship is.

''The most important concerns of the law historically have been with violence and exploitation and coercion in people in relationships that are relatively intimate,'' said Prof. Macdonald, a former president of the Law Commission of Canada.

If society is concerned about polygamy, Mr. Blackmore said, legal officials should look no further than themselves because the Criminal Code definition leaves a lot of room for possible prosecution.

Section 293 says it is a crime to agree, consent to or practise any form of conjugal union (a form of union under the guise of marriage) with more than one person at the same time.

Under the section, it is not necessary to prove at trial the method by which the relationship was entered into, agreed to or consented to, nor is it necessary to establish that the parties had or intended to have sexual intercourse.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Books

26. New book explores homosexuality among Italian clergy
CNN/AP, Dec. 8, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ROME, Italy (AP) -- Papal biographer Marco Politi has broken a taboo, exploring homosexuality within the ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy in Italy.

His newly published book ''La Confessione,'' (''The Confession'') presents the testimony of a priest struggling to balance his homosexuality with his commitment to a church that considers homosexual acts a sin.

The priest, who is never identified, discloses that a network of homosexual priests is active in the Italian church, described as a ''self-help group'' living in the ''catacombs'' but avoiding any formal link.
(...)

Although there is no direct link, the publication follows the intense public discussion of homosexuality in Italy generated by gay pride festivities in Rome in July which were denounced by the pope. People in public life began to talk about their homosexuality, something not seen before in Italy.

Politi, who covers the Vatican for the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, was co-author with American journalist Carl Bernstein of ''His Holiness,'' a biography of Pope John Paul II.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. Serial for the millennium
Palm Beach Daily News, Dec. 1, 2000 (Fiction)
http://www.gopbi.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Editor's note: As we look toward the Millennium, we at the Palm Beach Daily News wanted to give something special to our readers -- something that would cause us to reflect on our lives and times, on where we've been and where, we hope, we are going.

Ain't Done Yet is a 29-part newspaper serial that begins Dec. 1 and ends on the eve of the New Millennium. Ain't Done Yet is a suspense story with humor, tears and romance written especially for newspapers by Roy Peter Clark, director of the National Writers' Workshops and writing coach at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.

The novel follows a reporter whose investigation of a doomsday cult leads to revelation -- about ''courage, passion, redemption and the human spirit,'' according to The New York Times Syndicate, which commissioned the story as part of its Celebrate 2000 Project.
[...more..]